Ridley Road, Dalston, 1981

Martinson grew up in Hackney in the 1970s and began taking photos while still at school. His earliest photographs were taken around Brick Lane, Ridley Road and the Dalston Waste marketsHackney Archive: Work and Life 1971-1985 is published by Hoxton Mini Press on 6 February. All photographs: Neil Martinson

Ridley Road Market, 1981

Brick Lane Market represented everyday poverty. Ridley Road Market was different, full of life and energy

Hackney Marsh Fun Festival, 1974

‘It was common to see children playing on the streets in the 1970s,’ says Martinson. ‘The lack of traffic, and very different attitudes, gave children a freedom that seems quite remote now. My own memory was of ‘going out to play’ all day long and my parents having no idea of where I was or what I was doing’

Rachel Point, Nightingale Estate, 1974

Martinson lived with his parents in Rachel Point in 1970. Nightingale Estate was the planners’ dream of the future. ‘It was so modern. Except that within weeks of moving in, the heating and lifts kept breaking down. Even with its drawbacks it was, for many people, an improvement on their previous homes but what was missing was any sense of community.’ The first demolitions of the blocks started in 1998

Simpson’s Building, 1981

‘As a local photographer I was approached by the Hackney Trades Council to put together an exhibition about the role of women in the workforce. The women on the Trades Council were not impressed that the theme was to be that of brotherhood. In the 1970s Hackney still had a manufacturing base. Most of the supervisors were men and women were still getting paid less than men for doing equal work. Remarkably, we had complete access to workplaces without any restrictions on what we could photograph’

Finsbury Park, 1981

‘Even though the population was declining and there were empty houses everywhere, in the late 70s Hackney had a housing crisis. To deal with it, families were put into very expensive, run-down bed and breakfast hotels in Finsbury Park. Behind the fading façade of Victorian grandeur, families were packed into rooms with few facilities and no childcare provision. To take photographs I hid my cameras and sneaked in without the owner spotting me. There were more than 200 families in these hotels at the time’

The Telsner family, Stamford Hill, 1981

‘Tasked with photographing Hasidic families in Stamford Hill, the rabbi, who was advising me, suggested I photograph a particularly rare event to celebrate Birkat Hachama, which refers to a rare Jewish blessing recited when the sun returns to the position that it was in when the universe was first created. Jewish tradition says that the sun has a 28-year solar cycle’

Brian Simons, William Patten School, 1977

‘As part of a series documenting the working lives in Hackney, I took pictures of a postman, a teacher, a vicar and a barber. I had to get up at 5am for the postman, dodge playing kids for the teacher and endure a church service for the vicar’

Lew Lessen, barber shop, 1977

‘The barber was Lew Lessen, a gentle and modest man who was proud of his trade. When I took these photographs he’d been plying his trade from the same shop for almost 45 years’

Hackney riots, Dalston, 1981

‘Politics in Hackney started to change in the 70s and 80s. Tensions grew between the black community and the police, with several high profile cases adding to the fiction. In 1981, riots broke out and I managed to snatch a few photographs, evading the police as they baton-charged everyone in sight’

Nurses’ pay dispute protest, Bethnal Green Hospital, 1984

‘Nurses took to the streets, residents blocked the streets to protest about traffic, and there were constant protests as one hospital after another closed down’

Garment factory, Shacklewell Lane, 1981

‘Hackney was a major manufacturing centre. By far the largest single industry was the clothing industry that, even in 1981, employed 12,000 people. Workers were paid on a piecework basis: the more you made, the more you got paid’

Slum clearance, Dalston, 1971

‘Even in the 1970s it seemed Hackney was still recovering from the devastation of the war and the slum clearance programmes. Hackney was a place to leave, with its crumbling council estates and high unemployment. There was vitality among local people, and less inequality than there is today. Few owned their own homes, there were no gastro-pubs. Students, radicals and artists started to move into Hackney. Immigrants continued to bring a new energy and initiative. Nothing, though, could stop the decline of manufacturing and creeping gentrification’