The Other Side of Notting Hill : From Wartime to the Westway

Notting Hill has inspired a large number of books and has often made national news – though not always for the right reasons. It has forever been an area of contrast between rich and poor, and has undergone almost constant change since it was developed from farmland in the mid-nineteenth century to today’s urban landscape. Roger Rogowski’s book records the memories of people who lived in working-class Notting Hill in their own words, before the substantial changes of the 1960s, including the mass demolition of slums, the construction of the Westway, the growth of the Notting Hill Carnival and the area’s enthusiastic embrace of the swinging sixties. The Other Side of Notting Hill delves into everyday urban, working-class life as it was, which in many respects is almost unrecognisable today, and how people began to be affected by the changes taking place around them.