At a glance
• Anita Dobson said her childhood home of Stepney Green and Brick Lane has become ‘unrecognisable’ after a recent visit
• The EastEnders star reflected on how the East End has grown more cosmopolitan, with ‘many more races, accents and voices’
• She saying added that modern London feels ‘less social’ and is missing the ‘community spirit’ she grew up with
EastEnders actress Anita Dobson has said the part of London where she grew up has become “unrecognisable” after a recent visit.
The 76-year-old actress grew up in the Stepney Green area of the East End and spent many Saturdays wandering through the markets of Brick Lane with her father.
Since the 1950s, the area has been home to a Bangladeshi community, who emigrated to the East End after World War II.
Local families began growing restaurant businesses, contributing to Brick Lane being known as it is now: as one of the UK’s top curry capitals.
Tower Hamlets formally recognised the contribution of the Bangladeshi community in 1997 during a regeneration boost, establishing it as a cultural quarter.
Reflecting on the changes, Anita described the East End as an “extraordinary mixture” of its past as she remembers it and “the influx of what’s happened to England, to the world; that it’s much more cosmopolitan.”
On a recent visit, she said she noticed how much the area had changed and admitted she didn’t recognise it. She said: “It wasn’t as I remembered it. The shops were all different, and even the street names were different, so it was quite a shock.”
The 76-year-old described how the area had become more “cosmopolitan” and was now home to “many, many more different races and colours and accents and voices”
The star added: 'Now there are many, many more different races and colours and accents and voices, and many more religions.”
Reflecting on how London has changed, she commented on how divided modern society feels.
She said: “It has been good in a lot of ways but in some ways you lose something as well. (We've lost) community. We’re not a society anymore. We’re not social. People don’t talk to each other like they used to.”
Reminiscing about her childhood, she added: “Mum would leave a key on a piece of string through the letterbox and you’d come home, pull the string up and let yourself in. You wouldn’t dream of doing that now.”
Anita became a household name on Eastenders as the landlady of the Queen Vic, Angie Watts, who kept viewers rapt with her tumultuous relationship with manipulative husband Dirty Den, played by Leslie Grantham.
The actress learned her craft at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in South Kensington, and in 1985, was lucky enough to join the infamous soap.
She eventually left the show in 1988 and resisted pleas from producers to come back, saying, “Why tarnish the gorgeous creation that was Angie Watts?”
In 2000, she married Queen legend Brian May, and the pair lived in Kensington until 2021. She then relocated to Surrey, where she has been assisting him as he recovers from a minor stroke he had last year.
Brick Lane is known by locals as multicultural community home to vintage markets, nightclubs, bars, curry houses, and its famous 24-hour Jewish bagel shops, Beigel Shop and Beigel Bake.
