Hey Elephant.

My mother was born in a cold water tenement on 10th Avenue.

So watch your mouth.

To my 8 year old self, it seemed like the longest bus trip in the world.

At the time, our bars tended not to have such exotic names.

There would have been one very close by, thought.

Well, that show was absolutley superb. I really hope yer man Isaacs watched it.

]

The Secret History of our Streets which Lucy Mangan so positively reviews (7 June), while gripping viewing, distorted the facts. My dad, Nicholas Taylor, who Lucy thought should apologise for the demolitions shown in the programme, only agreed to be interviewed as an early and successful champion of saving London's inner-city streets from the bulldozers, which had been unleashed by the LCC development plan of 1952. Instead the programme cut and pasted snippets of conversation taken from hours of interviews and made it look like he was in fact a supporter of this appallingly misconceived urban planning. The demolitions were approved between 1961-64 and had nothing whatsoever to do with my dad. When he became chairman of the planning committee in 1972 he stopped numerous projects, preserving large areas of Deptford. He also wrote a prominent architectual book in 1973 calling for an end to the building of high-rise estates.
Martin Taylor
London