Bermondsey tanners employed thousands of people; my uncle worked in a tannery, and the chemicals got into his skin and had a particular fragrance. He died from skin cancer a few years ago at age ninety.
We lived across the street from a tannery, a very narrow road. The smell and flies were horrendous. I was 10 years old in 1977, eating my beans on toast at home before returning to school again. Occasionally flatback lorries would arrive, and then, I would see stacks of cowhide or whatever hide it was carrying dripping off the back of a truck. By 1981 it had all been swept away, leaving a large piece of overgrown wasteland behind Sarson's Vinegar untouched for at least fifteen years. Now nothing remains of Sarson's or the tannery.
It's so sad to see what they have done to the area. I was around 10 when I moved to Bermondsey Street. The area around it was a time capsule from after WW2 until 1990.
Bermondsey was at the heart of Wine, Leather and Antiques. Hartley Jam, Crosse and Blackwell, and Guy's Hospital, all within 10 mins walk. Now it has been swept away.
If you visit LIDL by the flyover, in Old Kent Road, beyond that was The Bricklayers Arms, which was flattened for the flyover. Shops and homes were destroyed. It should never have happened. It was vandalism.
Over the past decade, the vandalism at the hands of developers was the destruction of London Bridge Station and the surrounding areas of Tooley Street, Borough Market, Borough High Street and Bermondsey Street and all roads leading off it.
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