My Mum grew up in the slum housing of Southam Street, North Kensington. It was eventually deemed unfit for humanity and demolished.
Fortunately a photographer Roger Mayne did an exhibition on the area, and so we can still see what it was like there today:
The photos are here.
Its interesting to see West Indians, English and Irish all together on the street in the 50's, especially bearing in mind the race riots there.
Its also interesting to see the Teddy boys, and people hanging out on the street - it seems history repeats itself. Its interesting that the photographer was afraid of this bunch of youths, just like many people today are.
Unfortunately there aren't any photos of inside the houses. When I was a kid, my mum used to draw pictures for me, explaining what life was like - very interesting, clearly poverty means different things today to back then.
