Another London, Tate Britain: 'The absence of colour seems to give greater subtlety to the photographs – that and poignancy'

I have a young friend, who, until a few years ago, assumed there was no colour in the world because his main links with the past were black and white photographs and films. If only. Looking at the photographs of Another London at Tate Britain*, you think how much better it might have been if the world were only black and white (a  few  shades of grey are quite adequate.)

The absence of colour seems to give greater subtlety to the photographs – that and poignancy. There’s a rake-thin woman with her pinafore scrubbing the two street- steps of her house in a photograph by Bill Brandt. Behind her the house interior is darkly glimpsed, but we can infer the cracked linoleum and a washing tub and wringer. Her face is pinched and conveys a story of poor food, bad air and hungry kids. But the steps have to be cleaned and then whitened otherwise the neighbours will think you’re a slut. A whitestone was “threpence” I seem to remember, and you could buy Woodbines one at a time at a penny each. Lucky, working women didn’t smoke then.

In the morning the steps will be blotchy and speckled with soot.

Upper and middle class women smoked; Suschitzky’s Lyons Corner House shows one, elbows daintily on the table, eyebrows raised, looking at her male companion with bored disbelief. His hands are concealed beneath the table. The body language says “liar”.  He was just saying “Look there’s a perfectly innocent explanation...” when the camera shutter opened and closed. Explanation over. A twenty-fifth of a second was standard exposure in those days.

Just slightly of focus behind them is a massive pillar, large enough to support London Bridge, but excessive size equals wealth. (Why else did my mother constantly urge me to go out with fat girls?) It probably encloses a slim cast iron stanchion, more than adequate to support the roof that  in its unadulterated form, would not have reassured the customers that they were in a fashionable tea house.

Will this exhibition convey to 20 and 30-year olds, the same sweet sadness and air of lost times as it does to the venerable shufflers of my age? To them it must be another country, strange and bizarre, but not much else. To us, it is our country. Black and white, and a few shades of grey.

Another London, Tate Britain until September 16. Photo by Bruce Davidson.