Local History

Make sure your volume is on: "The water above Bow Lock"

Show transcript

Oh, it was absolutely vile! Old gas cookers... Actually, the ones up to the sixties, the one where it comes through Bow Locks, if you go through the Gas Board … I think the bus goes through there now… it’s got ‘BOW LOCKS’ on it and that used to be absolutely vile. Old rubbish floating in it, used to be old bits of boat in it.

And as you got further up, it got even worse! It was disgusting! And the best thing they’ve ever done is to clean the whole thing out … it was just, like, horrible paint, dirt, burnt rubber, smell. And that’s why nobody wanted to live there. You could have bought properties down there for, like, a thousand pounds. Nobody would ever want to live there. Who’d want to live in Stratford!?

And now there was a guy on television going around London trying to catch trout in the rivers. Where did he catch one? The back of Stratford! The only place in London…he went from Richmond, all over! I don’t like trout, anyway, it’s like eels – they’re earthy, I don’t like them. Too earthy for me.