Books: Waterloo Sunrise - London From The Sixties To Thatcher

(Drivebycuriosity) - I love London. I visited the metropolis 5-times since the 1960s and observed a part of her evolution since then. This brought my attention to the book "Waterloo Sunrise - London from the Sixties to Thatcher" by John Davis (amazon ).

Obviously the title is a play on the famous song "Waterloos Sunset" by "The Kinks", released in 1967, even though London´s music scene (The Kinks, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc. etc) is ignored. Instead the author describes the social, economic, political & legal developments in the British Capital.

The book is very densely & dryly written and staffed with a huge amount of information. It is really impressing how many facts and anecdotes the author was able to pack into more than 500 pages - way too many I could digest. So I skimmed the text and picked just some of the gems. But there are a lot:

I learned for instance that Mary Quant declared that "the young must never on account like the old". The innovative fashion designer build a million Pound Sterling empire on that and made her Carnaby Street neighborhood famous. 

I learned how the owners of porno shops and strip clubs struggled with the law, turning Soho into "London`s erogenous zone". The lawmakers tried to restrict nudity and erotic performances in the public, the entrepreneurs, who dealt with a growing competition, sought ways to circumvent the law. Bars were declared as private clubs.  

I learned that the brand name "Swinging London" became a tourist magnet in the 1960s. I learned about the evolution of the restaurant scene and the invasion of ethnic eateries. I read how rising house prices & rents changed the environment and that London`s bureaucracies & administrations tried fruitless to deal with all the changes. 

I got introduced into the mind set of London cabbies, the Nottingham race riots of 1976 and how London adapted to Thatcher´s new economy - and much much more!

Anyway the book is a huge fountain of information and a valuable source for anyone who is really interested in the British capital and her development.