Woodbines for the Wounded, 1941

Ask any soldier who has known the desperation and depravation of a combat situation and they will tell you that it is often the so-called 'small things' that have the biggest effect on their morale. The dry pair of socks, the warming cup of tea or the humble cigarette.

Mindful of this, during the Second World War, the British government encouraged smokers to donate spare cigarettes to be sent onto hospitals treating wounded soldiers.

What the woman in this photograph, taken at a tobacconist shop in London, doesn't know is that her donated cigarettes were detined to be enjoyed by injured members of Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht.

The owner of this particular shop, Arnold Green, was a notorious Nazi sympathiser who spent the war years supplying German troops with tobacco and confectionery.

At the end of the war, Green was hung for treason.

Make love not war, 1968

Britain in 1968. A strange and troubled place and time. The 'summer of love' was a distant, patchouli-scented memory. Beads and beauty were about to give way to menace and malevolence. There were violent student riots, demonstrations about the Vietnam conflict and the powderkeg across the Irish Sea was about to explode leaving Britain scarred for decades.

One young man, Dave Dawson, decided to articulate his feelings and leave his mark on the urban landscape with a cry from the heart daubed on an average London street.

Unfortunately for Dave, he was observed painting his message for peace by a vanload of off-duty policemen who cornered him in a nearby street and kicked him to death. 

Powell for PM, 2012

London. 2012. Olympic fever is at a peak.

On a residential street, barely two miles from the Olympic Park, graffiti has appeared calling for the elevation of Hope Powell, the Head Coach of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland women's football team, to high office.

After an impressive start to the tournament, only time will tell whether Powell's successful stewardship of the national team will ignite her political career.

A nation waits - and hopes.

Supporting London's sex workers, 1971

Working in the sex industry is a dangerous and frightening business.

Sex workers all over the world ply their trade under threat of constant violence: from their clients, their pimps and, on occasion, from other girls. Many prostitutes are addicted to hard drugs and a high proportion of them will die young and, often, in violent circumstances.

Lord Morriston of Lambeth (1901-79), a Conservative member of the House of Lords, was a friend to and tireless campaigner on behalf of the rights of prostitutes working in London.

Morrison (seen here in his car) was a familiar figure in London's red light districts driving his car very slowly and stopping frequently to talk the girls. Such was his concern for their welfare, he would often invite them into his car for a chat and offer them money. So concerned was he to ensure that he did insult them by his offer of money, he would often engage in sexual intercourse with the girls.

Royal Wedding celebration, 2011

 

Britons through the ages enjoy nothing more than an excuse to join together in a communal celebration. Food, drink (preferably alcoholic), music and the company of family and loved ones are the essential ingredients. Any excuse will do: victory on the battlefield, a rare sporting triumph or a Royal Celebration.

April 2011 saw the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. A nation rejoiced and this photograph, taken in somewhere in the north of England, shows Britons young and old alike toasting the happy couple.

Feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square, 1956

For many years, one of the most popular tourist sights in London was the feeding of the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

This woman, Mabel Barnes, was employed by Westminster Council to distribute poisoned bird seed to keep numbers down. The bird seed used by the Council was designed to cause the pigeons a slow and agonising death.

During her career, Mabel was personally responsible for the deaths of many thousands of these unwelcome and disease-ridden pests. Her service to Westminster saw her awarded the freedom of the borough.

Sadly, shortly after this picture was taken, Mabel was pecked to death by these birds.

A campaign to erect a statue of Mabel on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square was recently announced by the Council.

No Irish. No Blacks. No Donkeys 1968

It was common in London pubs until relatively recently to see signs proclaiming ‘No blacks. No Irish. No donkeys’.

In years gone by, London pubs could be less than welcoming to strangers and these signs were designed to warn off the casual drinker from entering these pubs lest they incur the wrath of the locals.

It took a brave publican in those less-enlightened times to open the doors of his establishment to all who were thirsty and in need of refreshment.

In 1968, Charlie Perkins, the landlord of the Queen Mary in Plaistow, East London (seen here on the left), caused controversy when he was the first publican in London to allow donkeys to drink freely in his pub.

The Queen Mary continued to ban Irish drinkers until 1985 and the ban on black people still operates to this day.

Up for the Cup, 1946

The visit of these Derby County fans to a war-ravaged London in 1946 ended in jubilation after their triumph against Charlton Athletic in that year's FA Cup final.

A trip to London was the perfect excuse for wanton behaviour: an excess of hard liquor was consumed, hard-earned money was frittered away in illegal gambling dens and ill-advised romantic liaisons were furtively conducted. And that was just the wives they had left behind for the weekend.

British Union of Fascists meeting, 1939

This gathering of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), held at Earls Court in 1939 was attended by over 20,000 supporters drawn from all over the United Kingdom.

The BUF, led by Oswald Mosley, was outlawed by the British government shortly after the outbreak of the second world war.

This meeting, the last to take place before the ban took place, was interrupted when a local resident, Mrs Irene Smallpiece, wandered onto the stage during Mosley's oration to complain about the noise.

Ziggy, Derek and Clive, 1973

It should have been a match made in showbiz heaven. A coming together of the glam rocker from outer space with the foul-mouthed Oxbridge-educated comedians.

Unfortunately, the union between Ziggy Stardust and Derek and Clive was a brief one.

Sadly, no recordings survive, only a short written note - the extract of a work in progress - of a re-working of 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' with new lyrics:

"Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly. He got his cock caught in a mangle. The fucking stupid cunt."

This tantalising glimpse of the coming together of these oustanding talents leaves fans the world over mourning what might have been.

A London Docker, 1958

The river Thames lies at the heart of the story of London. It is one of the great working and trading rivers of the world.

For over 2000 years, Londoners have lived on it, worked on it, feared it and loved it.

Central to the story of this great river were the many dockers, like Bill Brewster pictured here in 1958, who dedicated their working lives to stealing cargo from ships, going on strike for no reason and protesting about coloured immigration.

London owes them a huge debt.

The Nesbit Brothers, music hall entertainers

The Nesbit Brothers earned a modest living on the British music hall circuit at the beginning of the twentieth century. As this picture suggests their act involved pulling faces in a broken mirror and laughing at the results.

Their act ended in 1914 amid widespread audience indifference after the mirror they had used in their act was broken backstage. Shortly afterwards, the First World War began. To this day, music hall historians remain convinced that the two events were completely unrelated.

The execution of John Haigh

The last execution in the United Kingdom took place in 1964.

Up until that time, public executions were a popular form of live entertainment, second only to association football and ballroom dancing.

This snap, from 1949, at the hanging of the 'acid bath murderer', John Haigh, shows regular spectators, Elsie and Bert Nesbit enjoying the spectacle.

Elsie and Bert rarely missed an execution, until Elsie's death in 1957.

Bert was hung for Elsie's murder in 1960.

Lord Arbuthnot Nesbit

Lord Arbuthnot Nesbit was a leading Conservative party thinker in the 1970's whose policies did much to inform the work of Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Lord Nesbit is perhaps best remembered for his policy of burying the children of working class parents

Five Bad Apples

The talentless and unattractive Theakston brothers, from Newcastle, launched a short-lived attempt at pop superstardom in the wake of the success of early 1970's family singing groups like the Osmonds and the Jacksons.

Taking enormous pride in their almost complete lack of musical ability, dress sense or sex appeal the Theakstons boasted that while the Osmonds had the teeth and the Jacksons had the dance moves, they had the previous convictions for burglary and affray.

Their short-lived and largely unmourned showbusiness career ended amid acrimony following an underwhelming performance on the TV talent show 'New Faces' where the one of the judges, the band leader, Jack Parnell, was particularly scathing about their act.

Rupert St John Nesbit, radio producer

Rupert St John Nesbit (1919 - 1976) was an under-achieving radio producer responsible for some of the BBC's most baffling programming in the immediate post-war period.

Rupert, who pioneered the coverage of backgammon on the radio was perhaps best known for the series, 'An uncomfortable silence with...'. This long-running Radio Four series brought together two prominent personalities of the time with absolutely nothing in common to sit in silence in front of an invited audience.

This photograph from the 1971 Christmas edition of the programme features Jimmy Saville, a prominent Radio One disc jockey and Enoch Powell, the maverick anti-immigration right-wing politician.

Cromwell Nesbit

Overcrowding in London's flats has long been a problem for flat dwellers.


One of the worst landlords in Britain was Cromwell Nesbit (1890 - 1980) came to prominence as a slum landlord in the 1950's. Jacob graduated from renting a small condemned propoerty to an immigant family to owning huge swatches of cnetral London and contributing to the housing crisis.



Nesbit was also proud of running a prostitute ring and a number of illegal gamblings dens. Nesbit finally outstayed his welcome as a junior minister in Mrs Thatcher's goverment

Colin Nesbit, Michael Jackson impersonator

The passing resemblance of a London policeman, Colin Nesbit, to the self-proclaimed 'King of Pop', Michael Jackson, ensured a healthy living on the British celebrity lookalike circuit for a number of years.

Colin (seen in the foreground of this 1987 picture wearing a sash and with a gloved hand aloft) was mobbed by fans on his way to collecting some dry cleaning.

Sadly, 33 people were hospitalised when fans broke through the police cordon. To add to Colin's disappointment, the dry cleaners were unable to remove the troublesome stain in the pair of slacks which he had taken in.

Clifford 'Bobo' Nesbit, film director

Clifford 'Bobo' Nesbit (1901 - 1950) was a film director whose career was cut short by a lack of any discernable talent.

Clifford cut his his teeth on a series of documentary newsreels for British Movietone News before graduating to directing a series of cheaply-made and unmemorable movie farces in the early 1940's. These films, including 'Monkeying Around', 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' and 'More Monkeying Around' did nothing to raise the morale of the British public in the early days of World War Two.

Clifford's movie career, whose movie career was convinced that his fall from grace was due t0 prejudice, faded from the public eye following his affair with Cynthia Berryman, a gorilla married star of one of his films

Arthur Nesbit, film publicist

Film publicist Arthur Nesbit (1931 - 1999) proudly displayed his mediocrity during a long and utterly nondescript career in the British film industry.


Here is one of the few surviving shots of Arthur's largely forgotten work - Woody Allen seen here looking underwhelmed as he advertises his new film, 'Take The Money and Run'.