People over the years have moved into the area and made Silvertown their home. It has changed over the last twenty years. One resident recalls her first impression of Silvertown:
"There was loads of people around here, it was bustling with life because the docks were going strong and there were factories all the way along the road. I think somebody once told me that 50,000 men used to converge on this area every day to work which you can well believe. Of course, it was a very run-down, dull looking place. I think my first sight of it was on the 5th February 1978, I imagine the weather was not very nice, and that turned me off even more. Most of the children of the older generation have now moved out, the price of property now is too high, they can't afford to live here. I think some of them would have stayed because Silvertown is like a village and it's a place where people cling to. I'm sure they would have stayed here because they did for generations, it seems that only the younger generations have moved out but their parents and even grandparents are still here but they are now a dying generation."
- RG
"It was depressing when the docks closed. Where we have the airport now we used to have huge liners, big boats and you could see them. And Christmas and New Year it was really nice they were all lit up. I'd rather have the boats here, than the airplanes. We have always had something down the bottom of our street - but it was different. It was poorer, but it wasn't rough like it is now. But this is not a bad area, not as bad as a lot of areas - I like living here, and I would not move, we were saying the other day if we won the lottery we would only move down the road to those nice flats overlooking the Thames.
- IB
"Change, It's just one of those things that creeps up on you, as you drive along you notice docks beginning to look derelict, cranes at a standstill more than they were twelve months before, they weren't loading or unloading ships, it was just something that gradually crept upon us. Before we moved down here, I used to work for a ship repair firm on the Isle of Dogs and all their ship repairs were moving towards Tilbury, so even before we moved into this area, I had a feeling that the docks were in decline, because repairs were taken down river to Tibury and Gravesend. Ships coming in with cargo were being transferred onto container ships, and container ships were moving down to Tilbury and up the coast to Felixstowe, where there were purpose built container handling areas. So I had a feeling that things were moving away from the docks in London. It will never be the same."
- SK
"Silvertown now is very worrying. I have seen the increase of vandalism, increase of poverty. Very worrying symptoms. Cundy's, The Railway pub opposite my flat, which was flourishing when I came, is really just getting by. Two pubs I used to go to regularly have closed down. And of course now horror upon horror we shall have the Yuppie Community moving in at North Woolwich and I am told that is going to double our numbers from five thousand to ten thousand. Then we have got the millennium site at the other end of the town - West Silvertown. I think we are besieged and I am not the only one who is worried that we are going the same way as the Isle of Dogs.
"Ten years ago, I don't think we'd realised what had hit us. Everything was beginning. We were constantly deprived of necessary things. I have only been involved with the Tenants Residents Association (TRA) for four years. I've been with the Area Team (now the Community Forum) for about two years. I could see things happening but I did not know what they were."
- JG
"The place has got much quieter.When the docks were open you could not have sat here like this, all you would have heard is, bang, bang, crash, crash, clang, ship's hooters going.Tremendously noisy place and lots of people around.
"They see that as the good old days and they forget the bad part of the good old days, we all look back and say "Oh, that was wonderful", but of course it wasn't wonderful. When you look back on your childhood, you think " that was marvellous" but really we lived in appalling conditions in those days, but you can't stop people thinking like that. I think people round here do have a narrow point of view, but it's not their fault, it's from always living here."
- RG
The place has got much quieter
"It was very interesting when I first came back here, as I did have some family that lived in this area, I hadn't been here for thirty years. And my first reaction was somebody has moved all the roads! I actually came down the North Circular to get here and I couldn't find my way at all. I thought I know my way there I used to go there in my twenties. When you don't come to somewhere for a long time then you appreciate the change. But the whole infrastructure, the whole skyline had changed. The last time I came here the docks were still operating and there were big ships and now they weren't there and there were huge gas works, huge industrial sites which were all gone, where the dome is now was a thumping great gas works when I last came to the area.
"And so I noticed all this, this dramatic change straight away. I still didn't feel the people had changed very much, what surrounded them had changed dramatically, now I think that's moved on. I think the population has now radically changed as well, as perhaps five, six years ago that wasn't the case. Some people have moved out, lots of people have moved in, from a wide variety of backgrounds not just ethnic backgrounds but nationality backgrounds its become a very cosmopolitan part of the world, in a way that it probably always was going back fifty or a hundred years. And it's interesting to ask the people that regard themselves as long term local people where they originally come from, and it's quite fascinating you find in this local community people from Scotland people from Ireland people from the west country and from Wales, and it's been this cosmopolitan, sort of melting pot forever. In a way what's happening now is that it is just continuing."
- AM
