Not long ago, the East End of London was the last word in rough–and–readiness – and proud of it.
This was the home of the Kray twins and bruisers trained in the boxing gyms of Bethnal Green, serving as the inspiration for an almost endless plethora of gangster films – and, of course, a hugely successful BBC soap.
Despite its challenges of extreme poverty, crime and violence, the area’s old timers say it also had a strong sense of community: you knew the pub regulars as well as your neighbours, and could leave your door unlocked.
That sense of community is gone, says Lady May, better known as EastEnders legend Anita Dobson – and the area is no longer one she fully recognises.
Anita – who picked up an OBE this week for services to charity in a ‘magical’ ceremony watched by proud husband Sir Brian May – says the shops and even street names of the place she grew up have changed immutably.
‘Some of it is incredibly familiar, in a very emotional way: the flats I was brought up in as a youngster, the church was still there, there was lots of things,’ she told the Mail.
‘I wrote a book [1988’s My EastEnd] and for it I went back to my school and sat at one of the desks and it made you think, ‘Gosh, I sat here when I was younger’ and here I am now, a huge adult.
‘Some of it was a bit sad. Some things were missing, places had been pulled down, pubs that I remember that had changed radically.
‘Everything has changed. We’re living in a world that is changing so fast, every day. We’re much more cosmopolitan.
‘There’s more influences now, AI and things like that. People have different views. Politically, everyone’s at war.’
Anita Dobson, who this week was awarded an OBE for her charity work (pictured), says the East End of London has lost its sense of community
The Eastenders star has said that she does not recognise streets and shops in the area (pictured: people walking through Whitechapel in East London)
She appeared alongside fellow luminary Nigel Havers in the first of Channel 5’s revivals of the Play For Today strand this week
This week, she appeared in Channel 5 drama Never Too Late opposite fellow luminary Nigel Havers, reviving the BBC’s iconic Play For Today strand and – importantly, for her – its promise of supporting burgeoning new television talent.
Appropriately for the return of a nostalgic tagline, Anita plays a witty 70–something reluctantly corralled into a retirement village, where a chance meeting with a charismatic old flame (Havers) sparks a reckoning – and a chance at starting over.
The drama aired on Thursday and can be viewed on the 5 catch–up service.
‘I jumped at the chance,’ she says of working with Havers – whom, surprisingly, she has never acted alongside before.
‘I used to watch Play For Today as a youngster – they were always very good, very exciting, and the thing a young actress would cut her teeth on, and whereby lots of people getting into the business are getting their chance.
‘[Nigel and I] just clicked. He’s adorable, and we had such fun. It’s been a joy.’
A similarly rosy hue colours the actress’ recollections of growing up in Stepney Green, and her recent return.
She added: ‘There was a very. very strong sense of community, your neighbours were really your neighbours. That was the thing I remember. Everybody knew each other and that was rather nice.
‘Nowadays perhaps people don’t know their neighbours, which is a pity. Maybe there’s reasons why.’
In the years since EastEnders the actress has forged a prolific career on both stage and screen, recently endearing herself to younger audiences as the mysterious , later villainous, Mrs Flood opposite Ncuti Gatwa in Doctor Who.
Anita added: ‘The East End did have a reputation and I saw a lot of violent things happen. Whenever there was a scrap the women were marshalled out of the way.
‘There was a lot in the East End at that time that we didn’t touch women and children. It was between the boys.
‘There was a weird sense of honour. People would have a fight and beat each other black and blue and then one would take the other to the hospital to get patched up.
‘The East End was how you read about it in all these books, but I was very protected as a child – my father would say, ‘you have to be home by 10pm or I’ll be out in the street’. There was a feeling of being loved and taken care of.’
Anita Dobson collected her OBE this week – watched on by proud husband and Queen rockstar Brian May
Despite only appearing on the show for three years, Anita was beloved by millions as the Queen Vic’s troubled landlady Angie Watts, opposite Leslie Grantham’s ‘Dirty’ Den (pictured)
She later made a sensational surprise return to the show for its 40th anniversary, appearing as a ghost to on–screen daughter Sharon to encourage her to cry for help after an explosion
The actress told the Daily Mail that there was once a sense of ‘honour’ in the East End – when problems were sorted ‘between the boys’ (pictured: the Blind Beggar pub, where gangster Ronnie Kray murdered rival George Cornell in 1966)
Some locals agree – telling the Mail they feel the East End is now an ‘area of strangers’. ‘It’s always been rough’, one told us this week, adding: ‘But everyone was your uncle or auntie’.
Who’s to blame for the change? Ask some locals and they’ll tell you it’s ‘hipsters from Camden’ diluting its soul with an onslaught of gentrification, as decade–old curry houses make way for vintage shops, coffee shops and hip nightclubs.
Paul and Mary Tabner have spent most of their lives living in the East End but recently moved out after becoming ‘totally fed up’ with the place. The couple now live outside of London but visit to see friends occasionally.
Mary said: ‘I just fell out of love with it. We knew everyone growing up, it was brilliant. Everyone knew everyone. There was a huge community spirit. It was where we met.
‘But it’s lost. I could walk down most areas and know somebody, that’s gone.’
Paul added: ‘It’s a great shame but it’s the reality. Life isn’t what it was.’
Carole Middleton, 54, said the sense of community had been ‘destroyed’, lost with the gaggle of home–from–home pubs that have long since closed their doors.
‘The proper East End really has gone and I don’t think it’s coming back. It’s very sad. The pubs have gone, the characters have gone. It’s just lost,’ the lifelong Plaistow resident said.
‘I used to know everyone in my street by full name and I knew most of their families. We’d spend hours talking. Now I don’t know anyone. So many of my friends have moved into Essex or Kent.
‘I don’t feel safe. There was violence but it stayed in the pubs. Now most of those pubs have closed. The violence was between men and it stayed in the pubs. There were no muggings or pickpocketing. Now the crime is out of control.’
An average of 126 crimes were reported per thousand people across the inner East London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham in the last year. according to Met Police figures.
Bengali women walking through Brick Lane in 1978. The area has been home to a huge Bangladeshi population for decades
Paul and Mary Tabner lived in the East End for years – but have since decamped to outside of London after growing ‘fed up’
Brick Lane has been home to a large Bangladeshi population for decades – eventually earning the area the official nickname of ‘Banglatown’
Carole Middleton and Lawrance Fairweather, who say the ‘proper East End’ as they once knew it is gone
The east end of London – specifically Brick Lane – has been famed for decades for its collection of curry houses (pictured: signs for some restaurants on the street)
However, some of these have closed and made way for vintage clothing shops and trendy nightclubs (pictured: people on Brick Lane)
It’s a lower rate than West End hotspots Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea, but higher than in other inner boroughs Wandsworth, Lambeth and Lewisham.
A new kind of ‘multiculturalism’ is brewing in the area, Mrs Middleton suggested – where people are not mixing as they once did.
The East End has long been a haven for all people: early Flemish settlers who arrived with the kilns that gave Brick Lane its name; silk weavers fleeing religious persecution in France; Yiddish–speaking refugees who came from Europe in the 1800s.
And then there are the swathes of Bangladeshi migrants who arrived after World War II, opening textile businesses and the restaurants that made Brick Lane the curry capital of Britain.
The area became known as Banglatown and the nickname was formalised by the Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1997 amid a regeneration boost; the council ward in which it sits was renamed Spitalfields and Banglatown in 2002.
Twenty years later, signs at Whitechapel Underground station were made dual–language in recognition of the contributions made by the Bangladeshi community. As of the 2021 census, more than a third of the population of Tower Hamlets is Bangladeshi.
A weekly market is still held on Sundays and the street is also home to nightclubs, bars and its famous 24 hour Jewish bagel shops, Beigel Shop and Beigel Bake, though the Jewish population has largely moved to other parts of the city.
East London’s identity as a salad bowl – distinct, but mixed – is well established. Less so is the new wave of gentrification that threatens to turn it into a satellite of nearby trendy Shoreditch, robbing the area, Mrs Middleton said, of its ‘characters’.
‘We all felt part of it,’ she says of the East End. ‘Now there’s so many cultures people are not mixing. People stay isolated. That’s not good at all for anybody.’
Her partner Lawrance Fairweather, 59, added: ‘I knew everyone in my area and now there’s nobody I really know. It’s really sad.
‘I could walk into my local and know everyone. Now there’s barely any pubs. They’re not East End pubs. They try to be – but they try too hard.’
Zia Butt, who has run his father’s textile firm for 40 years in Brick Lane, considers himself an East End Cockney and believes there is still a community feel
Syrian–born Azzam Harastini told the Mail: ‘The younger crowd is the new East End and we need to get used to that’
Some street signs in the Banglatown area are rendered in both English and Bengali script
The number of Bangladeshi restaurants in and around Brick Lane has fallen in recent years
Plumber Robin Aldred, 62, said the turn of the millennium sparked a huge change – when regeneration efforts wrapped up. At the same time, nearby Spitalfields Market was redeveloped with new food stalls, creating competition for the curry houses.
Mr Aldred, of Stepney Green, said: ‘It’s heartbreaking in a way. I was brought up in a real community of people. Some were from Bangladesh and India. We all knew each other. But now I don’t know anyone.
‘That community has been destroyed. I couldn’t tell you the name of my next–door neighbours. I’ve had four new neighbours in two years.
‘When I grew up around here, my next door neighbour was my dad’s mate and he was Uncle Jack [in an honorary sense]. There’s also much more graffiti and just a general untidy nature about the area. It’s gone downhill.’
Among the East End’s migrant population, however, the sense of community is still there – suggesting it really depends on who you ask.
For the last 40 years, Zia Butt has run his father’s textiles firm on Brick Lane, which was first opened in 1957.
The 65–year–old said: ‘I love it here. Things have changed but I do think there is a community. We need to do better but it’s still there. I have been made to feel so welcome and so have my family before me.
‘I’d say I am an East End Cockney. We’re originally from Pakistan. The area is broader, it feels bigger. East London has got bigger. Everyone and everything has changed but I still think there is a community.’
Syrian–born Azzam Harastini, who runs a restaurant on Brick Lane, also feels there is a strong community spirit – despite the encroaching presence of hipsters from further out west.
Mr Harastini, 47, said: ‘The people are younger but there’s still a community. I enjoy it. Brick Lane is thriving.
‘The younger crowd is the new East End and I think we need to get used to that.’
Hassan Javed told the Mail he thought the East End was ‘brilliant’ for young people
Some feel the East End has been degraded by an onslaught of graffiti and street art
In 2022, signage at Whitechapel Underground station was made dual language in recognition of the contributions made by the Bengali community
The East End of London is still home to a number of markets selling fresh produce (pictured: Whitechapel market)
‘I think things always change. But we all spend a lot of time here. It’s brilliant,’ adds Hassan Javed, 21, who works at a shop on the lane and socialises locally.
The East End’s diversity was reflected from the get–go in EastEnders, which had Jewish, Bangladeshi, black and white characters among its first cast members – and Anita, as brash landlady Angie Watts, at the heart of the community in the Queen Vic.
She made a sensational return to the soap earlier this year to mark its 40th anniversary, appearing as a ghost to on–screen daughter Sharon (Letitia Wright) as she struggled to call for help after being trapped by an explosion in the pub.
It was one of many secrets she had to keep this year, alongside her OBE and that the moment would later win a British Soap Award.
‘I didn’t see a reason to go back because I was doing alright and I felt like it should keep pushing forward,’ she says of resisting calls to return to Albert Square.
‘This time, when they said they want to bring her back because of Sharon possibly dying, I thought it could be the right time.’
These days, Anita doesn’t come out to the East End. She and her Queen rock star husband – who suffered a minor stroke last year, from which he is recovering well – moved to Surrey in 2021 after their Kensington flat was flooded with sewage.
The born–and–bred city girl lives on a 100–acre country estate in Surrey with her rockstar husband, able to pick and choose roles like Doctor Who – for which she has not ruled out a return – and a Play For Today as she pleases.
‘Life has moved on in a very huge way,’ she says.
‘In a strange way it’s rather a nice place to be. I’m very lucky I don’t have to work for a living now.
‘Everything in life is like a double–edged sword – good things bring bad things, and bad things bring good.’
