At our Monthly Meeting on Wednesday 27 May 2026, our speaker – Nick Dobson – returned to show us London in the 1960s. Many of our audience had experienced London in that decade, and those that had not found the talk illustrative and interesting.
With an extensive range of images and videos, Nick took us through the decade year by year. Given his background as a librarian in Redbridge, he clearly knew where to find his source material! The decade was full of events including Flower Power, the First Moon Landing, the World Cup Final which England won, and the Mini-Skirt!
Nick started with the arrival of Traffic Wardens in 1960. The dismantling of The Arch at Euston Station and the last Trolleybus journey in 1962 were covered in detail, the same year when The Beatles recorded their first session in the Abbey Road studios, It was one year before The Rolling Stones got their first residency. 1962 also saw a week of Smog in December, leading to more than 700 deaths.
1963 saw the production of “Oh What a Lovely War” at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, and also the first No 1 for The Beatles. The same year saw the National Theatre’s first production – Hamlet starring Peter O’Toole – and the arrival of Doctor Who on television. Radio London launched the following year with many famous names starting their careers on the offshore pirate radio ship.
A significant event in 1965 was the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, the first commoner to have a lying in state since Gladstone. The same year, Ronnie Biggs escaped from prison, and started his international exile, whilst in London we saw the opening of the Post Office Tower, now called the BT Tower. In 1966. the World Cup Jules Remy Trophy was stolen and found by a dog called Pickles in time for the big day when the English team was successful. In the same year, Centre Point opened outside Tottenham Court Road tube station, and Twiggy (Lesley Hornby) started her modelling career.
1967 saw the last steam locomotive hauling a regular passenger express on Southern Region, but the following year saw the Hither Green rail crash. London Bridge was reconstructed in Arizona in 1968, and 1969 saw Neil Armstrong take the one giant leap for mankind.
This was an excellent talk, and we are sure that Nick will be coming back to give another talk from his extensive range of more than one hundred subjects. Our next Monthly Meeting will see our Annual General Meeting and our Summer Social, taking place on Wednesday 24 June 2026.