Description: SimpleTitle Card: Eastside Voices, digitally produced white text on black background.

IT: From Canning Town and Custom House

Fades to footage shot from a Jubilee Line underground train at Canning Town Station with people waiting on the platform and moving in to catch the train.

V/O talking about the best improvement seen today in Canning Town is the station. Comparing it to the old station, seen in still photo.

Narration talks about the development of Canning Town with development from the 1840s. Backdrop of modern areas including the Excel centre and dockland cranes. Talks about the cosmopolitan nature of the area, due to the proximity of docks. Shops, dining houses, restaurants etc run by different communities.

Focus on Rathbone Market in the 1930s and the variety of goods available.

Narrator says that Canning Town and Custom House had the largest black population in the 1930s. Establishment of the Coloured Men's Institute in 1927.

V/O interview talking about population of black people born and living in the area, before there were docks.

Narrator talks about bombing during the Second World War and how people moved away never to return.

Post war development, people moving into the area looking for work at the docks, local factories and the Beckton Gas Works.

V/O interview talks about how many workers were in the area of the docks (up to 20,000) making everything happen. Also remembering as a child hanging about in the viaducts and seeing the lights on the docks and ships for Chinese New Year "It was like fairy land".

V/O interview talking about closure of the docks in the 1970s and 80s and how it affected the local community with the closure of shops.

Narrator talks about how plans for the community had been in placer since tjhe end of the war. Especially with the development of the ?Hardy Estate?

V/O interviewer talks about how bomb sites were still around in the 1960s.

Narrator talking about development of tower blocks and the collapse of Rowan? Point in 1968.

Leisure activities including the old Lido, speedway and football - West Ham winning the double with Bobby Moore. Watching the World Cup. Boxing. Teaching for parenthood.

V/O interviewer talking about how she would be turned away from jobs (presumably based on race) her friend Beryl (described as blonde) would get the job. Looking in the paper for jobs and seeing European only.

V/O Interviewer talking about coming to area as an asian.

Narrator talked about the decline in the area, but how the area has improved with influx of different cultures. SRB and founding of Canning Town Partnership.