Down Burditt (sic) Road.

http://www.theinternationale.com/PATHgreetings/
A photographic exhibition that takes us from Pulp to ‘The Street Where You live.

Mile End
By: Pulp

We didn’t have nowhere to live
We didn’t have nowhere to go
’til someone said “I know this place off Burditt Road.”
It was on the fifteenth floor
It had a board across the door
It took an hour to pry it off and get inside
It smelt as if someone had died
The living-room was full of flies
The kitchen sink was blocked
The bathroom sink not there at all

Ooh, it’s a mess alright
yes it’s… Mile End

And now we’re living in the sky
I’d never thought I’d live so high
Just like Heaven
If it didn’t look like Hell
The lift is always full of piss
The fifth floor landing smells of fish
Not just on Friday, every single other day
Below the kids come out tonight
They kick a ball and have a fight
And maybe shoot somebody if they lose at pool

Ooh, it’s a mess alright
Yes it’s… Mile End

Oo-ooh
Nobody wants to be your friend
’cause you’re not from round here, ooh
As if that was something to be proud about
The pearly king of the Isle of Dogs
Feels up children in the bogs
Down by the playing fields
Someone sets a car on fire
I guess you have to go right down
Before you understand just how
How low, how low a human being can go

Ooh, it’s a mess alright
Yes it’s… Mile End.

When we started talking over how to approach the reverse on work on these Mile End Estates we felt very strongly that this community was going to have a tough time during the building process. Many many new dwellings were to be created in this ugly, ignored little corner of the borough. The original blocks of flats had been built forty years earlier. They had been lushly planted. There still remained a few of the glorious cherry trees. Some devoted hand had grafted White and pink trees together. When they were in bloom these streets and square must have been glorious. Lots of the resident here had lived with streets of the flats they now rented for generations.

My colleague had grown up on these streets. We both knew that this was the heart of the east end, thaws people. The buildings were being dwarfed and altered, the corner pubs and the shops and the markets had all gone. Like a species of wonderful creatures living in a rainforest, the environment of the people here was being decimated and they were feeling threatened with extinction.

A real cockney community.
I needed to meet people, and listen to them.

Bit by bit I got to know a few of the women and gradually they decided that although I was an outsider, (I have only lived in east london since the mid 80’s) I was ok, and they started talking.
They told me about their stories of the places they had seen changing. The memories of where they played, where they had parties to celebrate Royal events, who had lived where and who was related to whom. I heard about tragedies and laughed myself to tears at the dry wit of the women.

Over the last year I have got to know people better and better. It takes me ages to move through the area sometimes, so many people to stop and listen to, so many stories and so many lives unfolding .

Every door and window has a story cluster. There are possibilities we are sharing, plans we are making together to bring back the best bits of the habitat.

I am a little bit in love with all of this.
The pictures I started taking began to look very different as the landscape came to life through the stories or place I was being given. I felt as though I wanted to share this new way of seeing Mile End.
What better way to do this than a set of postcards. ‘Greetings from Mile End.’

And the song in my head had changed.

On the Street Where You Live.

I have often walked down this street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I Several stories high.
Knowing I’m on the street where you live.
Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour Out of ev’ry door?
No, it’s just on the street where you live!
And oh! The towering feeling
Just to know somehow you are near.
The overpowering feeling
That any second you may suddenly appear!
People stop and stare. They don’t bother me.
For there’s no where else on earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won’t care if I
Can be here on the street where you live.