Japanese Kimonos on sale at 221, Portobello Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987
It’s morning in West London in 1987, and we’re on a walk around Portobello Road with photographer Peter Marshall. This is where Mick Jagger took a dirty bath, Hawkwind resided under the Westway – where London burned for The Clash – and we hummed The Cocoa Song from Moon Over Water as the traffic thundered overhead and picked through the shmutters on sale in the market, looking for this, that and the other – and doing out best to avoid any agro in Mr Rachman’s seedy, pre-posho Notting Hill.
Peter shows us the things we saw but never thought to record, the everyday sights that formed the impression of what life was like then. His pictures are the threads that bind us to the past, each a part of what everyone who lived, worked and shopped around Portobello saw in 1987.
All Saints Rd, 1987
Alice’s, 86, Portobello Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987,
Young Blood, Records, 297, Portobello Rd
Woman, Rough Sleeper, Harrow Rd, Westway, Westbourne Park
Travellers under The Westway
T S Spencer, Portobello Rd
Snake Juice, 1987
Shops, Portobello Rd
Shops, Portobello Rd
Shops, Portobello Rd
Shop, Portobello Rd
Shop, 295, Portobello Rd
Westbourne Park, Westway
Portobello Studios, 101, Portobello Rd
Portobello Rd, Notting Hill
Planet Alice, Portobello Rd
Portobello Green
Mural, Harrow Rd, Westway
Ladbroke Grove
Joseph Kiss, Cabinet Maker
J H Smith, 208, Portobello Rd,
Honest Jon’s, Records, Portobello Rd
Ghost sign, Swan Ink, Cambrdige Gardens, Ladbroke Grove
G Portwine, 175, Portobello Rd,
Clifford Augusts Fullerton, Tailor, Talbot Rd
Beulah, Strict Baptist Chapel, 280, Westbourne Park Rd, Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea, 1987, 87c0603-62
Acklam Rd
A E & D A Thomson, Pawnbrokers, 158, Portobello Rd
All Photos courtesy of Peter Marshall.
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