When they unpacked the 76h Christmas tree sent to the people of London from the City of Oslo as a token of gratitude for British support to Norway during the Second World War, it looked bedraggled. So before it went up on Trafalgar Square, the decorators nailed some of the branches back on. The bare bits patched up and the whole thing festooned in lights, the 20-metre high tree looks good now. In the London suburbs in the 1980s, they might not have bothered. Back then, as Peter Marshall’s snapshots tell us, Christmas meant sticking some tinsel in a shop window. As ever, Peter’s photographs show us the things we saw all the time but never bothered to record.
Shop Window, Christmas, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989
J F Ayre, Baker, Evelina Rd, Nunhead, Southwark, 1980
Café, Christmas, Harlesden, Brent
Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989
Christmas, Shop window, Shepherds Bush, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1988,
Christmas, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster, 1986
Christmas, Car Sales, High St, Norwood, Croydon, 1991
See lots more of Peter Marshall’s photos from his walks around London here.
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