Following on from my research of the people who lived in my house and my visit to Dennis Severs I have started to create fictional people who could have lived in my house after 1911, when the census is no longer available. I decided to create people for the years 1931, 51 and 71 as I think this will give a good overview of the life of the house. I will use the history of the area to help create and support a narrative, elaborating on the people I already know of, giving them some sort of personality and interests, turning them into people rather than just statistics and developing whole knew people for the later years.
1931 – In pre World War Two times there was a big fascist movement in Britain, and in Newham, with West Ham having its own district fascist group, using this information I have decided to have a fascist man living in the house at this time along with his mother and a boarder, which a lot of the previous families had. The boarder will be a factory worker at the Tate and Lyle sugar factory in Plaistow which was a massive employer for the area.
http://www.e7-nowandthen.org/2014/04/fascists-in-1930s-forest-gate.html
1951 – In 1951 the Forest Gate Maternity Hospital had just recently opened so the occupants of the house will be a doctor who had moved to work at the hospital, along with his family. Most women did not work after they were married so his wife would have been a “housewife”.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/f7c310f2-8214-45d6-94e8-be0f2ba1bdca
1971 – In the 70s a lot of asian and black people moved into London and with this came a lot of racism. It was also a time when married women were more able to have jobs and independence.
Freya's Blog 