I first came across Ian in the mid 2000s as editor of Home Ground a community magazine I set up for residents of Hyde Housing. Our first conversations were about his disappearing toilet campaign which led to an article in the magazine and coincidentally as a photographer I had previously done an exhibition on toilets! This was not all we had in common he knew Villa RD where I had lived in the 70s. He used to hang out at the Peoples News Service office so also knew my ex. I now live in Morat Street where Ian's family had lived from the turn of the 20th century with my interest in local history I was given access to Ian's family history. Over the years we did many things together and as a fellow community activist Ian was involved in some of the events I organised. For now I will stick with his family history - which I have edited somewhat :)

A short history of one Morat Street family 
"My mother EILY SHAW was born in Newcastle in 1909 died 8 September 1994. My fathers name was James Joseph Cameron - James was the name he used my father was born 8 May 1899 - died 23 May 1982.
My mother was soon after brought to London by her mother (also named Eily).  Her mother’s mother was Sophia Shaw who eventually came to live at number 26 Morat Street and after being bombed out lived at number 51.  
Sophia Shaw had been in service. She brought my mother up – not my mother’s mother Eily Gertrude.  My mother’s mother was an award winning singer and dancer in the Arcadians.  My mother was Arcadian Eily’s first child.  There is a mystery about who was my mother’s father.  My mother’s mother was not Jewish and it seems likely that the chap who fathered my mother was one of the Berstein’s and she was made a Ward of Court and Sophia received a small amount of money weekly by post to help bring her up.  The story goes that Eily senior being on the stage, and sought after, and not being Jewish was not welcomed, in the sense that Bernstein was not into getting married to someone not of the faith.  
My mother was brought up by Morat Street Sophia because Eily senior was touring for years with the Arcadians.  She was also socialising a lot. Eily senior married the South London artist Austen Osman Spare – there were no childen from this marriage.
‘One day, in a pub in Mayfair, Spare met a middle-aged woman named Mrs Shaw; she was eager to marry off her daughter, Eily Gertrude Shaw, who already had one child from an earlier relationship. Soon, Mrs Shaw introduced them to each other. Spare fell in love with her, creating a number of portraits of Eily.


Austin Spare and Eily Gertrude Shaw married on September 4, 1911. At the wedding, Spare choked on his wedding cake, something his bride found hilarious.


However, a few years later, the relationship between Spare and his wife became strained. Austin Spare's wife was "unintellectual and materialistic", and distasted many of his friends, especially the younger males, asking Spare to cease his association with them.


Starting from 1919, Spare lived alone. Although the two never gained a divorce, Austin Spare separated from his wife Eily, who had begun a relationship with another man.


This is from Wikipedia on AOS >> The Book of Pleasure was said to have been inspired by Spare's marriage to the actress Eily Gertrude Shaw. It is the most complete exposition of his esoteric ideas produced by the artist himself, and is considered by many to be his most important book. 


My mother met AOS maybe once or so – he referred to her as “her bastard” child in my mothers presence and and seemed resentful – and Sophia was very angry about it.  My mother was born (1909) before the AOS 1911 marriage.  Eily senior attracted a lot of admirers – which was also a factor re the Bernstein brush off.  


My mother says she rarely saw her mother in her early years – very rarely. When she was older say early teens onwards she saw more of her mother and used to go with her to dances etc., at the Horns Tavern at the Oval area Kennington. 


Sophia was determined to bring up my mother and make sure she wasn’t neglected partly because, in the wider family history, youngsters had been put up for adoption or somehow side-lined and she adamant that that was not going to happen to my mother. 


Sophia Shaw died in 1950.  Some time before then – I don’t think very long – she had moved out of Morat Street.  In Morat Street Sophia lived with a man named Sam. He did not for whatever reason – not for any bad reason – get called up for the First World War and suffered abuse ‘cos of that but I don’t know if Morat Streeters were among the latter – I have the memory from my mother that Sam was sociable and was liked by local people who knew him.  


Sophia liked a drink and used the Russell Hotel hence she met my father when he was in London in temporary digs in Hackford Road – he was with a travelling circus and travelled widely in Europe and the USA and came to Brixton in passing for the Empress Theatre Brixton etc.  After a tipple at the Russell he used to go back to Sophia’s to socialise and obviously while there met my mum. My mum from what I gather did not go to the Russell – she was never a boozer.  Also she was 10 years younger that my father who was born in 1899.  She and my dad married in the early1930’s my dad being in his early 30’s and my mother in her early 20’s. 




I (Ian Cameron -Eily Shaw’s son) was born not in Morat Street but Hetherington Road off Bedford Road (1938) but my mother’s grandmother, Sophia Shaw, had continued to live in Morat Street. I went to live nearby in Liberty Street very late in the war for about ten years (until 1954) after being bombed out by the mid-1940’s Solon Road summer Saturday afternoon doodle bug. 


I lived in Liberty Street when it was somewhat Almond Tree lined. Behind Freemans - backing onto Liberty Street - there was a large Freemans field accessible in the daytimes to us kids to build longish rambling encampments from large wooden Freemans packing cases. In those days Hackford Road school play ground wasn't even built over with a gym and there wasn't an inch of barbed wire in sight.
 
I have the early 1920s Hackford Road School children’s group foto - maybe 300 of ‘em - have never counted.  Although it’s a bit damaged generally folk can get a good impression of the youngsters. The Reay school was the Reay in my youthful days and the other was Hackford and it was the Hackford - I don't approve the school being called Durand(now Van Gogh Primary) I am deeply prejudiced about its re-naming - and indeed it’s gymnification.
 
Re Morat St parties - great shame my old ma is departed cos she would've known plenty.  I know for sure that in the latter period on guy fawkes night there were bonfires at the junction which Morat Street forms with Hackford Road school wall, but at around 10pm or so the fire brigade would roll up and extinguish. We used to get bonfire wood from Freemans - packing cases and from a bombed out church that stood on the corner opposite Hackford Road School. There were also bonfires on post war bombed sites along Caldwell Street, between Hackford Road and the Russell Hotel.  
 


Ah The Doughnut Factory - I always still label it as that when I pass by - they were those ring doughnuts, absolutely fresh, piping hot and sugar dipped, we kids use to steam in there and buy them in bagfulls - they were very cheap - well they would have to have been - maybe a penny or halfpenny each. 
 
There were night-time street women around and not only in Morat Street - they were characters who used to drink in the Russell (pub on corner Caldwell Street/Brixton Rd) - I remember some of them - they used to haunt the corners of Caldwell Street ex Holland Street as my mother knew it and of course her grand mother - also Cranworth Gardens was a haunt, where they were inside tapping on the windows at men passing by - my mum used to joke, including at my dad. They were a mixed bunch character wise (no surprises there). "Lil Craig" was one, and another woman called "aint it a shame" an expression she always apparently used. I have a poem based on conversations with my mother about the women, her grandmother and the Russell and Sweetings, the then nearby undertaker.
 
There were also race track razor gangsters – there were “incidents” but my mother always stressed that the street folk were supportive and not hasslers - she grew up there (in Morat Street) from very young until she married at 23 - her old grandmother used to take the bets. On balance front doors were able to be left open - just like now - COUGH COUGH. She met my dad via his socialising with her mother after Russell Hotel drinking sessions etceetra - but when they married they'd decamped to Croydon - for many reasons hard times, the depression, no proper bedding / sleeping on the floor, means tests etcetera - my dad and mother both attracted to free thinking discovered Quakers in Croydon and always remembered that they'd helped them - in the end they came back to this part of south London.
 
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re the Solon Road doodle bug there are pics of it in Minet Library wartime publications - it was quite a hit - our home got blasted not hit directly.