Newham Recorder (27/Nov/2013) - Alfred Hitchcock shortlisted for a plaque
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- article: Alfred Hitchcock shortlisted for a plaque
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- newspaper: Newham Recorder (27/Nov/2013)
- keywords: 130 Salmon Lane, Limehouse, London, Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho (1960), The 39 Steps (1935), The Birds (1963)
Article
Alfred Hitchcock shortlisted for a plaque
The master of film suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, could soon be commemorated with a plaque where he grew up in the East End before he left for Hollywood.
The creator of Psycho, The Birds and The 39 Steps, among other silver screen blockbusters of the 20th century, is on a list of 17 historic figures, places and events being voted on for the East End's commemorative People's Plaques.
The public is being asked by Tower Hamlets Archive library to select their favourite for the final seven to have plaques.
Hitchcock, who died aged 81 in 1980, after a career directing 50 films and being widely regarded as the greatest British film-maker, grew up at Salmon Lane in Limehouse where his father ran a greengrocer's shop.
His first experience of the movies was at Stepney's Ben Hur Cinema in White Horse Lane.
There are 12 other names shortlisted, including social reformers like Clara Grant, who founded the Fern Street Settlement in Bromley-by-Bow in 1907.
She started the popular "farthing bundle" ceremony on Saturday mornings when children small enough to pass through an arch got a parcel of toys for a farthing (quarter of an old penny).
Other figures include the bricklayer's son from Poplar who invented the world's first programmable electronic computer during the Second World War, which helped solve encrypted German messages, and the minister of Whitechapel's St George's German Lutheran Church who helped Jews escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
The shortlist also includes a leader of the Great Dock Strike of 1889 who became the first Labour mayor in London and campaigned for the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel; a school nursery nurse in Brick Lane who inspired generations of children; a 17th century herbalist and father of holistic medicine who gave free advice to the poor and an atheist freethinker who challenged the grip religion had in Victorian society
But the suspense will continue before we find out which of the 17 gets a plaque - as it won't be revealed until public voting closes on December 8. Alfred Hitchcock would approve.
