1 00:00:13,190 --> 00:00:15,310 Welcome to the London History Podcast. 2 00:00:15,750 --> 00:00:19,390 I am Hazel Baker from londonguidedwalks.co.uk. 3 00:00:20,470 --> 00:00:24,470 Step back in time with us as we journey into the heart of 4 00:00:24,470 --> 00:00:31,110 London's 7 Dials in the 1920s and 1930s, a neighborhood unlike 5 00:00:31,110 --> 00:00:35,800 any other, bursting with colour, diversity and drama. 6 00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:40,240 In this episode, we uncover the untold stories and simmering 7 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:44,360 tensions that define 7 Dials, as it became a crossroads for 8 00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:48,080 migrant communities, working class families and bohemian 9 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:51,840 nightlife. Here, vibrant cafes rubbed 10 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:55,680 shoulders with jazz clubs and market stalls, while the spectre 11 00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:00,640 of urban improvement threatened to reshape everything familiar. 12 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:05,239 I am thrilled to be joined by Professor Matt Holbrook, a 13 00:01:05,239 --> 00:01:08,520 leading authority in cultural history and professor at 14 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:13,520 University of Birmingham. Today, we're here to dive into 15 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:18,560 his latest work, Songs of Seven Dials, an intimate history of 16 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:24,400 1920s and 1930s London. Drawing on vibrant archival 17 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:28,240 research, the book explores the untold history of Seven dials 18 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:31,760 through the lens of remarkable residents and the turbulent 19 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:34,960 events that shape their lives. Professor Holbrook guides us 20 00:01:34,960 --> 00:01:39,440 through the struggles over race, class, identity, and the 21 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:42,520 contested making of modern London. 22 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:45,920 Welcome, Matt. Thank you very much for having 23 00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:47,000 me. It's a pleasure to be here. 24 00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:51,800 And this is one of the eras that we don't very often cover in 25 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:55,840 London History Podcast, mainly because I think it's one of 26 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,680 those areas that we don't really consider it history. 27 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:02,800 It was 100 years ago, but it still doesn't feel mentally that 28 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,520 long. Yeah, I think that's really 29 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:07,160 interesting. We've perhaps, it feels very 30 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:11,039 familiar to us that a lot of the things, a lot of the things that 31 00:02:11,039 --> 00:02:15,040 we take for granted today, from Britain's state to the mass 32 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:18,440 democracy through to different kinds of nightlife and mass 33 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:21,720 culture came into being in the 1920s and the 1930s. 34 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,920 And when we look at pictures, colour pictures, moving 35 00:02:26,920 --> 00:02:31,000 pictures, even of the period, it all just looks, It looks closer 36 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,160 than perhaps it is. In lots of ways that's what got 37 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:37,840 me interested in the period. I think it's been overlooked by 38 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:40,560 historians, like popular histories until very recently, 39 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:45,120 misunderstood as well, if it hasn't been overlooked. 40 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:47,720 And I think there's one of the things that I'm trying to, one 41 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:50,680 of the things that I've tried to do in my career in this book is 42 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:56,640 just another example of that is to try and think about how try 43 00:02:56,640 --> 00:02:59,360 and think about how so much of what we take for granted about 44 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:03,680 modern Britain actually came into being in the 20s and 30s. 45 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:07,680 That if it looks familiar, it doesn't really seem 100 years 46 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:09,600 ago. That's because it's the moment 47 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:12,320 at which our world started to come into being and be 48 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:14,440 recognisably modern in many ways. 49 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,320 And what drew you particular to the area of Seven Dials? 50 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,280 There are different ways that to answer that question. 51 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:27,600 I think the book songs of seven Dials is about it takes as its 52 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:32,760 starting point a libel trial in which Sierra Leonean Cafiona 53 00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:34,920 called Jim Kitten and his wife Amy Kitten. 54 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:37,680 He's born in the very very poor neighborhood in the East End of 55 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:41,400 London. Do a unemployment right wing 56 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:45,520 newspaper called John Bull for libel after the newspaper 57 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:49,440 published in a series of really horrible racist articles about 58 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:54,800 their cafe 1920s. And I think what struck me the 59 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:59,480 case is on the one hand, it's really the presence of a couple 60 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:02,560 like Jim and Emily Kitten in a place like 7 Dials is completely 61 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:04,880 normal. It's ordinary in the 1920s and 62 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,760 the 1930s. But there's an extraordinary 63 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:12,400 part story, which is that they, which is that they do take that 64 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:16,040 kind of unusual step pursuing a national newspaper for Libor. 65 00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:22,880 And then the case, their cafe generates questions in the 66 00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:24,920 housing of the Parliament, questions to the Home Secretary, 67 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,840 Sir William Johnson Hicks, about the regulation of London's 68 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:31,680 nightlife, but also crucially about whether or not there is a 69 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:35,800 kind of a colour bar at work in Britain and the British Empire. 70 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:41,880 And so I suppose I came to 7 Dials from a roundabout route. 71 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:46,200 I wanted to understand the cafe. I wanted to understand how 72 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:50,520 something mundane ended up becoming so remarkable and 73 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:54,400 turned out after kind of many years of working and thinking 74 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:57,440 about the case. It turned out that understanding 75 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:00,840 the libel trial and understanding why this cafe and 76 00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:04,240 not others generate questions in Parliament actually takes you to 77 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:08,440 a very local history about urban improvement by gentrification, 78 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:12,160 about the clash between rich and poor and this sort of battle to 79 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:14,000 define what modern London will be. 80 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:19,600 How did 7 dials differ from other parts of London at the 81 00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:23,120 time then with in terms of diversity and community spirit? 82 00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:30,000 7 tiles is really interesting it's one of the running jokes 83 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,120 amongst authors of various sort of Agatha Christie and people 84 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:36,320 like that in the 20s is that no one really knows where 7 tiles 85 00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:40,360 is. They often there's a kind of a 86 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,520 line in Agatha Christie's novel The Seven Tiles Mystery, where a 87 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:47,560 character just assumes or thinks that 7 darted in the East End. 88 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:51,640 I think that's revealing. The Seven darts is clearly they 89 00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:54,480 in the heart, the West End sandwich between Covent Garden, 90 00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:59,280 Soho and Bloomsbury. But in many ways in the 1920s 91 00:05:59,280 --> 00:06:03,200 and the 1930s, its population, its kind of character is much 92 00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:06,800 more like Limehouse or somewhere like that. 93 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:13,000 It's mostly working class. Its population is exceptionally 94 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,320 diverse. It has residents and small 95 00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:19,280 business owners from across Britain and Ireland and France 96 00:06:19,280 --> 00:06:22,240 or Belgium or Eastern Europe across the British Empire. 97 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:28,200 It's a place of small workshop shops and ET houses and cafes 98 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:32,200 and actually quite big factories are making metal pipework or 99 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:38,240 boxes or bents or glues. I think in the context of London 100 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:40,920 as a whole isn't necessarily that distinctive. 101 00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:45,400 What makes it stand out and what in many ways makes it I think, 102 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:48,520 feel and appear like an island in the middle of the West End. 103 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:52,960 If all of these things are taking place so close to the 104 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:56,240 centre of kind of mass culture and consumerism in London. 105 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:00,760 And that I think is what makes it quite distinctive. 106 00:07:01,520 --> 00:07:05,240 Crime writers often talk about often talk about how they can 107 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:08,240 ace the change in the air as they cross into 7 Diles 108 00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:11,720 precincts. And that's that's OSD license, 109 00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:15,400 of course, and people and goods objects move in and out of seven 110 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:19,680 dials all the time. But I think it does does hint a 111 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:25,440 bigger truth that by the time of the 1910s and the 1920s, seven 112 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:30,120 Dials is it's almost the kind of an island in the heart of a 113 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:33,560 stand. It's the place where it's like 114 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:37,040 the backstage to the front stage of Theatre land. 115 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:41,160 It's the place where the porters who work at Covent Garden Market 116 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,200 live rather than work. I think that's what makes it 117 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:48,680 interesting. Now you mentioned this libel 118 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:52,520 trial in 1927 with the cafe owner. 119 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:55,440 Why was it such a turning point for the neighborhood? 120 00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:59,920 Yeah, I don't think it's a turning point in a good way. 121 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,440 It's a but I think the best way of thinking about the libel 122 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:08,080 trial is as a moment at which a lot of conflicts, simmering 123 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:10,680 conflicts and bubble over and come to a head. 124 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:17,040 So 7 dials at the start, at the end of the First World War, 7 125 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:21,600 dials poor, it's working class and it's declining. 126 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:26,680 So it's an area which is still carrying the legacies of its 127 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:34,280 reputation as a Victorian slum. At the same time, in that kind 128 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:38,320 of giddy period after the First World War, the kind of the West 129 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:41,039 End is expanding. So property developers, 130 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:44,520 theatrical entrepreneurs are looking for places to build new 131 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,120 theatres, new office blocks, new department stores. 132 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:51,120 And at the same time also Covent Garden Market had run out of 133 00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:53,320 space. And so market traders looking 134 00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:56,640 for warehousing and wholesale space and they start to Look 135 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:01,640 North at 7 dials. So what begins to happen, and I 136 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:04,680 think the kind of the conflict around Jim and Emily Kitten's 137 00:09:04,680 --> 00:09:10,520 Cafe is, is as property developers and politicians start 138 00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:13,920 to get big ideas about what 7 tiles might become. 139 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:20,040 Property is cheap, it's close to the West End, it's close to 140 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:23,040 Covent Garden as it just looks like a really good opportunity 141 00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:27,280 to develop this working class area in ways that would 142 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,880 transform it, a kind of Plaza to rival Piccadilly Circus for 143 00:09:30,880 --> 00:09:34,640 example. So that's the kind of, I think 144 00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:37,760 the underlying conflict, the sort of desire of property 145 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:42,320 developers and politicians to turn a place of work and home 146 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:47,640 into a kind of space of upscale consumerism or office work. 147 00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:53,200 I think. What happens in the libel trial 148 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:56,600 is that these kind of tensions become bound up with kind of 149 00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:58,840 particular local conflicts within the neighborhood. 150 00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:03,720 And the series of articles published by the newspaper John 151 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:09,360 Bull are really part of a bigger campaign to push working class 152 00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:13,200 community, particularly black working class communities, out. 153 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:17,520 Seven dials. And I think one way of reading 154 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:20,160 the libel trial, partly Jim and Emily Kitten are trying to 155 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:23,120 protect their reputation than their business, though the 156 00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,240 articles in John Bull just destroyed their takings over the 157 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:31,040 course of 1926. But they're also in many ways 158 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:35,880 trying to stand up or or to protect a really important black 159 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,040 social, black and Asian social hub in the central London. 160 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:46,160 So how did issues of race and mention the colour bar shape 161 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,360 everyday life in seven dials during this period? 162 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:52,320 That's a really good question. I think there are two different 163 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:53,800 ways of answering that question about the colour. 164 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:59,680 Part 1 is when Jim and Emily couldn't set up the Cafe and 165 00:10:59,680 --> 00:11:03,320 begin to cater for a clientele, a really diverse clientele that 166 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:07,200 includes loads of people who live and work in $7.00 itself, 167 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:11,080 but also back an Asian sailors or students or jazz music 168 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:16,440 students from across London. What they're doing is trying to 169 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:21,840 create a sort of social space in the context of kind of a 170 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:25,120 commercial nightlife where things are increasingly 171 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:30,880 difficult for black and aging. There's a kind of moment during 172 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:35,600 the race World War where to fight the war, Britain summons 173 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:38,560 up the kind of the people and the resource of the empire, and 174 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:41,840 many thousands of black and Asian people respond to that 175 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:44,880 call, serving in the Merchant Navy, for example. 176 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:50,200 But there's also then really virulent post war reaction, a 177 00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:51,920 racist reaction against the black. 178 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:56,200 And as you present in Britain, the most obvious example of that 179 00:11:56,200 --> 00:11:57,880 are the kind of the violent race riots. 180 00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,400 What are called race riots in 1919, which take place in port 181 00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:06,480 towns and cities across Britain. Normally started by white 182 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,160 sailors, normally to do with sort of competition over over 183 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:13,840 jobs in the shipping industry. But in the aftermath of those 184 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:19,360 riots, there's a growing effort by the government and also a 185 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:24,000 whole range of media entrepreneurs to to define black 186 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,880 and Asian Britons as somehow alien or unwanted or other an 187 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:30,120 alien presence in a land where they don't belong. 188 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:34,200 Now that's true. The black and Asian British 189 00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:36,880 citizen, the vampire, have the right to live and work in 190 00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:39,000 Britain. But there's a growing effort 191 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:42,880 here in the 1920s to push them out, to exclude them from 192 00:12:43,160 --> 00:12:46,320 Britain, both legally and also through the kind of newspaper 193 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:51,000 articles that's sort of really virulent newspaper rhetoric that 194 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:52,600 you see in the newspaper John Ball. 195 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:58,600 So I think the cafe in a way is the kind of commercial, cultural 196 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:03,960 response to political change and legislative change in a period 197 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:07,640 when it's increasingly difficult for black and Asian Britain is 198 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:11,200 to find somewhere to socialize, to gather, to stay or to drink 199 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:14,480 or to eat. This is a kind of home from 200 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:18,200 home. And it's quite clear from, it's 201 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:21,160 quite clear from reading the testimony of the cafe's 202 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:23,080 customers. That's how they experience it. 203 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:26,760 There's nowhere else that will let them relax in quite the same 204 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:29,360 way, and that's why you become so popular. 205 00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:33,920 But the cafe itself is a response to the colour bar. 206 00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:38,080 At the same time. I think the way that the cafe is 207 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,520 greeted, it very quickly becomes the focus of why intrusive 208 00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:45,640 patrolling from police officers based the Bay Street police 209 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:50,320 station a few minutes away. It attracts hostile attention of 210 00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:53,840 newspapers like John Ball who see it as a den of vice and an 211 00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:57,160 iniquity that should be removed from the heart of London. 212 00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:01,400 So the kind of the focus on the cafe is a problem as a centre of 213 00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:05,600 crime and vice reflects the kind of wider rhetoric, the wider 214 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:08,880 moral panic around race nationality in Britain in the 215 00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:12,040 1920s. Continuing on from what you were 216 00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:17,840 saying about the cafe creating cultural hub, how did the clubs, 217 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:22,240 cafes or the nightlife influence the culture and reputation of 218 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:27,280 Seven Dials? Yeah, 7 dials in the context of 219 00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:29,720 seven dials. The cafe, it's one of the few 220 00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:34,440 venues that run by a black business owner, but it's it's 221 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:39,840 alongside cafes, restaurants, ET houses, butchers and other shops 222 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,000 run by Eastern European Jewish migrants, by recent migrants 223 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:49,560 from across Italy, increasingly from people who have left Greece 224 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:55,000 and Cyprus in the 1930s. But it's a neighborhood cafe. 225 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:57,040 These are all neighborhood eating places. 226 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:00,600 They never really make it into the pages of urban guidebooks or 227 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:03,160 by Decker. You don't get restaurant critics 228 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:07,080 or even intrepid urban slummers going to the cafes and eating 229 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:09,800 houses of $7.00 in the way that they do to Soho. 230 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,240 But these are all places that that cater for their local 231 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,520 community. Be that people from the Italian 232 00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:19,560 community coming to gather and exchange news and gossip with 233 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:23,120 their compatriots, be they black or Asian sailors and students 234 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:25,840 passing through Britain, coming for Jim and Emily kittens, rice 235 00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:29,800 and Curry and afternoon tea. This is just this is part of the 236 00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:33,960 hustle and bustle of everyday life in the working class area. 237 00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:37,880 They do have an effect on how the neighborhood is understood. 238 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:42,560 I think the important thing about $7.00 in the 20s and 30s 239 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:46,880 is that the way that people talk about it and think about it, 240 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:51,080 from newspaper proprietors, journalists to police and 241 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:57,400 politicians, is defined by $7.00 of history of the Victorian 242 00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:02,960 slum, one of the poorest parts of London, associated with crime 243 00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,360 and vice and poverty and depravity from the 18th century 244 00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:08,640 through the end of the 19th century. 245 00:16:09,640 --> 00:16:12,320 Now 7 Darts isn't quite like that. 246 00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,800 By the 1910s and the 1920s, it's becoming increasingly 247 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:20,680 respectable, even the same time as all the buildings begin to 248 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:24,840 decay and fall apart. But the way that people look at 249 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:28,440 it is still shaped by this, the idea that it's somehow, it's 250 00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:30,760 somehow a dark spot at the centre of London. 251 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:37,120 And that's really important. I think what the raids on the 252 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:41,720 Kittens Cafe do, what the raids on clubs run by Russian or 253 00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:48,000 Italian entrepreneurs do, is slowly reinforce the sense that 254 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:53,720 7 tiles is a dodgy, disreputable neighborhood on the edges of the 255 00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:57,120 West End. So every time there's a raid on 256 00:16:57,480 --> 00:17:01,280 a nightclub on Great Saint Andrews St., every time there's 257 00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:04,319 a prosecution that relates to somebody, one of Jim and Emily 258 00:17:04,319 --> 00:17:06,880 Kitten's customers, it's reported in the news. 259 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:10,680 And they kind of the effect of these of this drip RIP of 260 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,440 newspaper reporting is to cement a particular image of Seven 261 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:15,680 Dials. There's a problem that needs to 262 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:18,319 be fixed. And in lots of ways that 263 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:22,880 reporting and the prosecution of the night life sort of it, it 264 00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:25,480 plays into the hands of property developers and politicians. 265 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:29,960 Like they see an opportunity in Seven Dials, an opportunity for 266 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,320 gentrification, opportunity for to make money in Seven Dials. 267 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:37,640 And the more that it's defined as a problem by newspaper 268 00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:40,720 reporting and court cases, the stronger the case they can make 269 00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:43,640 for either redeveloping the whole area or demolishing the 270 00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:45,480 whole thing and rebuilding it from scratch. 271 00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:49,120 Yeah, when you were mentioning about that drip, drip, it's 272 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:54,520 about the history of Seven Dials and how it reveals about what it 273 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:57,480 reveals about the early forms of gentrification in London. 274 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,240 Everything seemed to be pointing in one particular direction. 275 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,400 By 1910 it was tidying itself up, Communities were being 276 00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:11,080 created and yet there's a big clash now from existing and then 277 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,360 this gentrification that's going to be forced upon them by 278 00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:18,080 eradicating certain problems. Yeah, exactly. 279 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:22,960 The big moment, I think one of the defining moments is around 280 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:28,200 19191920 when politicians and planners from Holborn Borough 281 00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:33,920 Council put forward these grand plans to demolish 7 dials and 282 00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:38,320 build it again. And the idea is that out of this 283 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:41,600 sort of tangle of courts and yards and streets that it will 284 00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:45,920 create a grand Plaza that will rival Piccadilly Circus and 285 00:18:46,080 --> 00:18:48,280 there will be 5 dials. There will be these big 286 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:51,040 thoroughfares where cars can speed through. 287 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:54,480 There will be these monumental island blocks where there will 288 00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:58,320 be offices, department stores. That $7.00 will become what 289 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:01,840 Kingsway became a decade or so earlier. 290 00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,240 And these are these clans are launched a great fanfare in 291 00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:09,960 1920. Now, of course, they come to 292 00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,720 nothing. They quickly run up against the 293 00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:16,440 problem that there's very little money local government in London 294 00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:20,840 at the start of the 1920s. There's not enough funding to 295 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:23,160 make the plants happen. They get bogged down in the sort 296 00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:25,720 of the Byzantine conflicts between the London County 297 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,280 Council, Westminster Borough Council to the South and Hobart, 298 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:33,200 and then they fizzle away. But there's a period between 299 00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:37,520 1920 and still in the late 1920s when everyone just assumes that 300 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:39,880 Seven Dots is going to be demolished and go completely. 301 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:44,320 And I think that's the really important context for for what 302 00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:47,440 happens around the cafe. That's a sort of signal for 303 00:19:47,840 --> 00:19:50,400 theatrical entrepreneurs or property developers or hotel 304 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:54,280 owners to look at $7.00 as a place where they can make money, 305 00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:56,720 that they know it's going to be redeveloped. 306 00:19:56,720 --> 00:19:59,000 There are these grand plans that do something with it. 307 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,160 So that is a place where it makes sense for them to invest. 308 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,080 And you can see that playing out for a period of several years 309 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,440 when estate agents advert every time they advertise one of the 310 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:14,080 corner blocks on the $7.00 itself for sale. 311 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:17,160 They will talk quite explicitly about how this is a big 312 00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,240 development opportunity, particularly because of the 313 00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:22,320 grand plans for changing the area. 314 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,840 When those are, those plans collapse by the late 1920s and 315 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:30,680 Holborn Council becomes more interested in Bloomsbury, the 316 00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:33,360 area around the founding hospital, as a kind of a site 317 00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:35,160 for preservation and redevelopment. 318 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:39,880 I think what happens is 7 Doors is quietly forgotten, but 319 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,000 there's no sense, no vision for what it should be. 320 00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:46,880 It just becomes a problem to manage through public health 321 00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:50,800 intervention by looking at the state of buildings by police, so 322 00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:53,600 on. And so it just continues to 323 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:57,960 decline gradually all the way through to the 1960s and the 324 00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:01,520 1970s, where there's another grand plan to redevelop Covent 325 00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,760 Garden and Severn Dials, another moment when politicians want to 326 00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:08,320 demolish the whole area and start again, but at that point, 327 00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:11,280 a successful campaign to preserve this sort of historic 328 00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:16,600 quarter of central London. So what were some of the biggest 329 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:21,240 myths about 7 dials in popular imagination and and also how 330 00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:23,560 does your research challenge them? 331 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:27,760 When historians think about 7 Dials, they might think about 332 00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:32,840 two things. Either that moment between its 333 00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:38,040 17th century foundation and the late 19th century where a ground 334 00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,200 land development turns into a notorious slum. 335 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:48,920 Or they might skip forward to the period since the 1970s when 336 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:53,000 housing activists, preservationists, local 337 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,160 communities fought a successful campaign to preserve 7 dials 338 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,200 from the attention of the Greater London Council. 339 00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:04,040 And then seven dials became the kind of gentrified, upscale 340 00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,320 consumerist paradise that it is today. 341 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:12,360 And what I wanted to do? Guess in the book was to look at 342 00:22:12,360 --> 00:22:16,320 the bit in between those two moments and think about what's 343 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:20,480 going on in seven dials in the 1920s and the 1930s, because 344 00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:24,000 it's not really something that's a part of popular history, the 345 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:28,920 area. But I think if we start to look 346 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:33,320 closely at 7 dials in the 20s and 30s, it gives us a way of 347 00:22:33,360 --> 00:22:37,000 understanding dangers that are taking place across London in 348 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:39,160 this period. And I think that was the main 349 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:46,600 thing for me writing this book about 7 dials, not so much the 350 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:50,240 challenge myths about the area itself, but to challenge some of 351 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,640 the pervasive myths that still govern how we think about the 352 00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:58,040 1920s and 30s and their place in modern British history. 353 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,000 How did the local and national newspapers shape the perception 354 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,720 of Seven dials, both within London and beyond? 355 00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:11,000 Because I know whenever I look at history, I always jump on to 356 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,440 what the newspapers were saying, but that doesn't necessarily 357 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:17,600 give me an overall viewpoint. Yeah, if you look at newspaper 358 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,440 reports of seven dials in the period that I've looked at it, 359 00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,480 you would very much get the the sense that it was a declining 360 00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:28,880 slum. A lot of reports of court cases, 361 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:33,160 some attention to the grand plans to redevelop the era in 362 00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:38,760 the early 1920s, but then not very much actually after that. 363 00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:42,240 I suppose one of the interesting things I talked before about how 364 00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:47,800 often 7 dials was disappeared from view in 1920s and 30s. 365 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,840 And that happens in newspapers to quite a striking degree. 366 00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,800 It's often the kind of shorthand labels that people used to do 367 00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:57,280 that journalists used to describe it. 368 00:23:57,360 --> 00:24:01,760 They often treat it as part of Soho, part of Covent Garden, as 369 00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:03,640 sort of part of the fringes of Blues Gray. 370 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:08,040 And I think one of the things that I wanted to do in the book 371 00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:13,440 is to show how it is a very distinctive area that that it 372 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:17,560 seeps into all of these better known neighborhoods around it. 373 00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,760 But there's something very distinctive about 7 Dials in 374 00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:24,080 terms of its population, in terms of the balance between 375 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,960 residential community and the kind of the businesses, the 376 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,120 manufacturing business that are taking place there. 377 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:32,040 And also it's cosmopolitan of them. 378 00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,720 I think that isn't necessarily something you get a sense of 379 00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,080 from really contemporary newspapers. 380 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,320 Are they any personal stories or characters from your research 381 00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,080 that really particularly struck you or stayed with you? 382 00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:54,600 Yeah, there's one place actually, and the people who 383 00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,360 inhabit it that really stick with mate. 384 00:24:57,360 --> 00:25:03,440 So the place is Small Tenement 5, Lumber Court, which is just 385 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,480 tucked away behind the main streets in Seven Dials. 386 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:11,720 And Lumber Court is probably one of the poorest areas of Seven 387 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:13,480 Dials from the 19th century onwards. 388 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,040 When Child's Booth session investigated passed through 389 00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,560 there in the 1890s, they're struck by the presence of what 390 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,080 they describe as prostitutes and bullies and thieves. 391 00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:29,440 And it's poor. It's rundown and it's a sort of 392 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,880 tiny alleyway in lots of ways. And I think in the book I've 393 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:39,760 got, I got really interested in, like I said #5 lumber court in 394 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,440 the 1920s. It's rented by a woman called 395 00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:49,720 Nellie Reggiani, who's born in South London and then is married 396 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,920 and then remarries, remarries Victor Reggiani, who's from the 397 00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,000 Italian speaking part of Switzerland. 398 00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,320 And they lived together in this house for maybe, perhaps 2 399 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:04,600 decades. And in the 1921 census, which 400 00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,760 Nellie Reggiani completes the return, it's clear that she's 401 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:10,280 running this as a boarding house. 402 00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:15,480 And it's a boarding house where almost all of the people living 403 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,120 there on the sort of three or four floors are young women. 404 00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,560 They're young women who have either up to 7 dials from each 405 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,760 suburban London or Ireland or the north thing in the beyond. 406 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:31,120 And they've come to do the kind of low paying service industry 407 00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:35,000 or manufacturing jobs that sort of that keep London going, that 408 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:39,480 actually that in many ways make the mass culture of the 1920s. 409 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,640 They there are a couple of young women who work in the Lambert 410 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,800 and Butler cigarette factory just to the southeast of Seven 411 00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,800 Dials. There's the dancing structures. 412 00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,720 Connie A2 in her early 20s, who works at Brett Dancing Club on 413 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:57,240 Shaftesbury Avenue. There are millionaires and 414 00:26:57,720 --> 00:26:59,880 seamstresses and all of these kind of jobs. 415 00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:05,880 The unseen work of the 1920s is in this house at 5 Lumber Court. 416 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:12,960 I think it's really interesting because it gives us another way 417 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,600 of thinking about the modern woman or the flapper of the 418 00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:21,120 1920s, that when we think of this period, our temptation is 419 00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:23,640 to think straight away of the kind of brittle glamour and 420 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,760 hedonism of the scantily dressed jazzy flapper. 421 00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,920 It has silk stockings and short dresses and Clash hats and all 422 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:35,120 the rest of it. And in some ways you can find 423 00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:39,440 that version of the modern woman of the 1920s in five Lumber 424 00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,440 courts. 2018 is a nightclub Hostess. 425 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,840 She's employed at one point in the venue run by Mrs. Kate 426 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,640 Merrick, one of the most famous nightclub Hostess, nightclub 427 00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,320 owners of the 1920s and the inspiration. 428 00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,480 For the BBC. OK, yes, yeah, yes. 429 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,360 So the inspiration for the BBCTV show Dope Girls. 430 00:27:58,360 --> 00:28:01,120 So Connie 18, she fits with that story, right? 431 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:08,080 Her job is to look glamorous, to charm look glamorous, to teach 432 00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,120 men to dance and to charm them out of their hard earned income. 433 00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,280 And there are other, there are other some of our other friends 434 00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,400 who live in the audience and limbo are clearly part of that 435 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,280 world as well. But I think when you look at the 436 00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,680 census records, you get a sense of how the 1920s isn't just 437 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,720 about glamour and fashion and nightlife. 438 00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,760 It's also about new economic opportunities for young working 439 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:39,080 class women, new industries. And crucially, it's about work. 440 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,920 So the story of the 20s, if you start from lumber court, it's 441 00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,920 not about hedonism or glamorism, glamour. 442 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,400 It's about expropriation and exploitation of young women's 443 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:54,200 labour. And I think that story is much 444 00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,200 more challenging in lots of ways. 445 00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,320 The two, two women who worked in lumber and bought a cigarette 446 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:04,080 factory that I talked about when the 1921 census is taken that 447 00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:07,320 June, they're both out of work. And they're out of work because 448 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:14,200 of the National economic slump that has rippled across mostly 449 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,000 northern England and Wales and Scotland. 450 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,520 But it's also rippled across central London and leaves a huge 451 00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,400 number of men and women working in precarious roles in the 452 00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,920 service industry or manufacturing out at work in 453 00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,360 that time. So there's a story there about 454 00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,840 economic hardship, a story about making ends meet and finding 455 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,120 somewhere to live as an independent woman in a strange 456 00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,000 city. There's also a story in five 457 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,840 Lumber Corps about the dangers or the tragedy of the nightlife 458 00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,040 of central London. A year after the 1921 census was 459 00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:50,960 taken one of Nelly Ruggiani's borders, a young woman called 460 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,400 called Lilian Mae Davis is found dead in her room by by one of by 461 00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,360 her roommate after taking an overdose of cocaine. 462 00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,360 And the story becomes one of these sort of moral panics. 463 00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,800 He's called Celebra about the dangers of seven dials, the 464 00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,920 dangers of black men selling drugs to young white women, of 465 00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,920 moral corruption and contagion. But it's a reminder, I think, of 466 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,920 the darker side of the nightlife of the 1920s. 467 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:21,400 So I think that's probably that. It's that sort of example. 468 00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:26,280 It's the really droving maybe interested in #5 number court. 469 00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,280 I think I could talk about this for ages if you let me go on. 470 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,760 I think the other interesting thing about this address and 471 00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,880 about Nelly Reggiani is that she appears in the autobiography of 472 00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,320 a remarkable woman called Mabel Lethbridge, written in the 473 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:44,160 1930s. Mabel Lethbridge goes on to be a 474 00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,680 fairly well known writer, Britain's first female estate 475 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:54,120 agent. But she's also born in 1900. 476 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,240 In 19, at the end of the Great War, she's involved in a 477 00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,800 horrific accident, explosion in a munitions factory that leaves 478 00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,800 her. And that means that she loses 479 00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,480 the leg and her hearing and is in just excruciating pain, 480 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,600 chronic pain for the rest of her life. 481 00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:17,320 But in the early 1920s, after this accident, Mabel Lethbridge 482 00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:22,280 finds her way to 7 Dials and finds her way at one point to 483 00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:28,240 Nelly Reggiani's boarding house. So you can see through 484 00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:32,360 Lethbridge's autobiography that she's aware of Seven Dials 485 00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,120 reputation, that it's supposed to be this sort of den of vice 486 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:37,920 and iniquity and a terrible slum. 487 00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:41,960 But for her, the way that she experiences it is a kind of 488 00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:47,520 place of warmth, of community, of a kind of an authentic 489 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,400 welcome that she doesn't find anywhere else in her life in 490 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,000 this period. And so she's got these amazing 491 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:57,120 accounts of sitting in Nellie Ruggiani's kitchen looking out 492 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,400 for the rate collector, but also of just the kind of the welcome 493 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:03,760 that she finds in $7.00 in this period. 494 00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:06,920 I think that too, if you put these different things together, 495 00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:11,600 1921 census, this remarkable autobiographical account, you 496 00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,920 just really start to get a different sense of what $7.00 497 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,960 was like, also what the 1920s and 1930s were like. 498 00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,800 Fantastic. So listeners, if that has 499 00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,840 whetted your appetite to learn more about 7 dials in the 1920s 500 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:33,000 and 30s, then Matt Holbrooke's book Songs of Seven Dials, An 501 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,840 Intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London, is out now. 502 00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,040 Thank you very much, Matt. It's been brilliant. 503 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:41,480 Oh, thank you for having me.