Tag: 20th century

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Real Talk: Postcode gangs

The notion of so-called postcode wars may have slipped from the headlines recently but the territorial divisions continue to exert a powerful influence on the lives of thousands of young Londoners. 

This lady gives her thoughts on Knife Crime in the UK. We salute this woman for speaking out! The passion in her voice is intense.

Guns, Gangs and Postcode Wars 

The youth culture seems to be falling apart at the moment. We’ve seen a real sea change over the past few years, with a significant increase in the number of people who have been injured, in the number of injuries sustained per person, and the severity of those injuries.

The more deprived the area, the more they try to assert control over the one thing they can lay claim to: the streets. Concepts such as hood passes and stripes may seem alien to anyone over 21 but are considered normal by an entire generation. 

Politicians need to get their act together and pour money into this right now. Tomorrow is too late. Parents also need to take responsibility.

Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. With regards to street gangs the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having as many teenage gangs as London, which had six times the population, in 2008.

In the early part of the 20th century, the cities of Leeds, Bristol, Bradford (including Keighley) and Nottingham all commanded headlines pertaining to street gangs and suffered their share of high-profile firearms murders. Sheffield, which has a long history of gangs traced back to the 1920s in the book “The Sheffield Gang Wars”, along with Leicester is one of numerous urban centres seen to have an emerging or re-emerging gang problem.

On 28 November 2007, a major offensive against gun crime by gangs in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Manchester led to 118 arrests. More than 1,000 police officers were involved in the raids. Not all of the 118 arrests were gun related; others were linked to drugs, prostitution and other crimes. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said it showed the police could “fight back against gangs”.

THE WORDS ON OUR STREETS
Irrespective of who uses it and for what purpose, street slang is constantly evolving. Words in common parlance five years ago like “buff” (good-looking) are now deemed antediluvian, replaced by newer terms such as “chug”, “peak” and “wavey”. “Skadoosh”, a personal favourite, is a relative newcomer. 

Bang – punch
Bare – a lot
Bate – obvious
Blud – friend
Booky – suspicious
Butters – ugly
Chug – good-looking
Dutty – nasty
Fam – friends
Gallis – womaniser
Gased – talking nonsense
Gem – fool
Ghost – to be frequently absent
Greezy – bad
Junge – whore
Liccle – small
Marga – extremely skinny
Moist – no ratings, silly, naff
Murk – attack
Nang – good
Peak – used to highlight an eventful situation
Peng – good-looking
Shank – stab
Shower – cool, good
Skadoosh – goodbye
Skettel – loose woman
Slipping – to be caught off-guard
Swag – crap
Tekkers – technique
Wallad – idiot
Wavey – high or drunk

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Higdon Name Meaning & Higdon Family History

Delicate, rare and striking - forgotten photographs of black Britons in the late 19th and early 20th century have been unearthed from the depths of the Hulton Archive -- one of the world's oldest and largest archives holding over 80 million images.

Pictured is the Higdon family. This photograph was taken in the year 1898 in Britain. Who were the Black Victorians? Mainstream history has virtually erased them from our minds and history books. We have been filled with images of slavery in America and across the world, but why is it that this chapter in black history was skipped? Why isn’t it equally common knowledge that in the midst of all of that darkness there was Victorian Britain have been revealed to the public for the very first time.

Delicate, rare and striking – forgotten photographs of black Britons in the late 19th and early 20th century have been unearthed from the depths of the Hulton Archive — one of the world’s oldest and largest archives holding over 80 million images.

Black Chronicles II, a photographic exhibition at Rivington Place in East London is currently showcasing over 200 images that explore black presences in Victorian Britain, the majority of which have never been revealed to the public.

Part of “The Missing Chapter” — a three-year project devoted to researching and revealing the earliest imagery of black people in Britain — curators Renée Mussai and Mark Sealy of archive and research centre Autograph ABP have re-introduced a neglected part of history to the public consciousness.

“We have been doing this work around black representation through the prism of photography for 25 years,” says Mussa.

“What we wanted to do with this research project was to expand, if you like, the narrative back to the very early days – to the invention of photography in 1839.”

Going far back in time

The history of black people in Britain is most commonly traced back to 1948, when the “Empire Windrush” ship carried 492 Jamaican passengers to British shores, following an ad in a Jamaican newspaper promising affordable carriage on board for those seeking a new life and work in the UK.

Searching for images taken prior to this moment proved to be both exciting and overwhelming.

“We didn’t know what we would find in the archive.” Mussai exclaims.

“The Hulton Archive didn’t know what they had because they didn’t look at it with this particular remit in mind, and with 80 million records, you can imagine things get lost!”

After extensive rummaging, a wealth of hitherto unknown photographs, carte-de-visites (thin paper photograph mounted on thick paper card), cabinet cards and albumen prints resurfaced.

At one point in history, people of color were included in high society and walked the cobbled streets of Britain. The women wore intricate, voluminous gowns and wore their hair in curls and chignons. The men in suits and fair business. This may not have been the case for all black people in Britain, but for some it was. 

The Victorian Era was ruled under Queen Victoria, an era that is described as an opulent culture, although there were underlying bouts of poverty and child labor. History would like you to believe that black people didn’t arrive in Britain until 1948 during “The Empire Windrush”, when many Jamaican descendants entered the country, but that is not so. There has been proof to suggest otherwise. There is documentation that proves that it wasn’t uncommon to see black faces at a Shakespeare show. We’ve been there all along, humming softly in the background.These images prove that you can’t take mainstream history at face value. Take the time to look behind the curtain and uncover OUR history. It’s as if our ancestors are just waiting for us to seek them out.

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Bridge House, Croydon, Is Prefab Really Prefabulous?

Prefabricated homes have been available for years and date back at least a century. The Sears Roebuck index made and offered prefab homes to the public as early as 1908, and Prefab was later explored by famous twentieth-century architects, such as, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Frank Lloyd Wright, who saw the method as a likely solution to the dilemma of housing in modern society.   Interest in Prefab grew in the first half of the twentieth-century, with the outburst of manufacturing expertise and the creation of the assembly line.

Historically the mention of prefabricated houses invokes memories of housing built to cover in the temporary a deficiency of housing in the UK following the World Wars.

The Government promised ‘homes fit for heroes’, however, negative public attitudes surfaced towards prefabricated housing because of substandard building materials used and poor workmanship.

A staggering 1 million of these homes were built during the 20th century and more than half a century on, many are still standing despite no foundations.   A few are listed while others have been demolished.

Today people remember the shabby mobile classrooms as in, bitter cold in winter and like an oven in summer.   Therefore, memories have rendered the concept of prefabricated houses an unattractive idea.   Talk about the term prefabricated housing to an architect, and their eyes will beam with visions of fascinating contemporary homes.   However, talk to the ordinary person on the street and people immediately think that we are going down the same path, a pretty hard image to shake off.   The very factors that are presented as positive advantages of prefabricated homes became liabilities in the eyes of homeowners who wanted a durable appreciating asset.

Prefab

An example can be found by looking at the prefabricated houses on Catford estate built by German and Italian prisoners of war in 1946.

Catford prefab estate. Robin Bell: 2008
Catford prefab estate. Robin Bell: 2008

‘They were not built to last and need regular maintenance.   They are just large sheds really and taking up a lot of space.   They should really be demolished.’   (Drake 2008)

Over the ten years, Lewisham Council has tried to develop the site many times and a review    found none of the dwellings met Decent Homes Standard.

So why do more and more developers  choose prefabricated construction?

First and foremost – Speed. “It may  take a bit longer in terms of design,  preparation and planning but site based  activities are taking up to 30%  less time and allowing homes to  reach the market sooner. Other  reasons cited include, in order of  preference:

  • Design Quality
  • Cost
  • Previous Experience
  • Funding

Source: Design and Modern Methods of  Construction. The Housing Corporation  and CABE 2004″

Bridge House (Example)

Croydon Vision 2020  is a regeneration programme by the  London Borough of Croydon  for the centre of  Croydon  in  South London.  The Old Town Masterplan focused on the area between the High Street and Roman Way, one of the oldest areas of Croydon.

Formerly the site of a telephone exchange, Bridge House is  a £20 million  development that has provided 27 private  and 48 affordable apartments, above  ground and mezzanine retail spaces.

The block wraps around an existing  multi-storey car park and offers the  opportunity for cafs and shops to  open onto the new square. A mix of  green and brown roofs, to support  biodiversity, form part of a series of  environmental measures and the  scheme is to be of modular  construction.

The Croydon  chose the modular  approach principally because of the  speed of construction offered. The  project began on site in the spring  of 2006 and the  75 flats were  stated to have been erected in  approximately 26 days, vastly  outperforming the time taken by  traditional construction.

Client: Howard Holdings plc

Architect: AWW

Structures: Walsh Associates

Principal Supplier: MC First

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