Sister, self and dog Sweep in front of our house, 98 Hawksley Road, c1961 As those who have perused the rest of this site will know, I started life in Stoke Newington. Well, actually that's not strictly true, as I was born in Islington in a maternity section of the Royal Free Hospital (the listed building is now a swish housing development) right behind the Royal Agricultural Hall, now the Business Design Centre. Those of us who were born in that area are doomed to having to explain that everything is now something else! What I did not expect, however, was having to explain to the new upwardly mobile influx that they were under a misconception as to the alleged nickname of Stoke Newington.
It started as far back as 1980. I was told by an earnest young work colleague and his gushing and very aspirational wife that the then up-and-coming Stoke Newington was known by it's older inhabitants as 'Old Stokey'. They knew because an estate agent had told them. This puzzled me somewhat as, having been born and bred in the area, I had never heard the term. Les, my old friend and Stoke Newington native, had never heard it before either. I was to hear this several times in the coming years, and I asked my father, who had been born in 1910, if he had ever heard it either, and an aunt who had also lived in the borough all her life (both she and my father would have been well over 100 by now if they had lived). I drew a blank in both cases. Old Stokey? Never heard of it.
Far more recently at a literary society luncheon I found myself sitting next to a young lady who was most intrigued when I said I had been brought up in Stoke Newington, as she and her new husband had been looking at houses there. 'Older inhabitants refer to it as Old Stokey', she told me confidently.
That's not to say I'm totally against people referring to it as Stokey, which suggests a certain fondness. Several historical and local websites now use the term, and those involved are clearly keen and dedicated Stoke Newington enthusiasts who do not deserve to have cold water poured on their enthusiasm by miserable old gits like me. But the term 'Old Stokey' really doesn't go back to much before the eighties, late seventies at the earliest. If I am wrong, and there is evidence that it was used before then, I would be happy to be corrected...
It started as far back as 1980. I was told by an earnest young work colleague and his gushing and very aspirational wife that the then up-and-coming Stoke Newington was known by it's older inhabitants as 'Old Stokey'. They knew because an estate agent had told them. This puzzled me somewhat as, having been born and bred in the area, I had never heard the term. Les, my old friend and Stoke Newington native, had never heard it before either. I was to hear this several times in the coming years, and I asked my father, who had been born in 1910, if he had ever heard it either, and an aunt who had also lived in the borough all her life (both she and my father would have been well over 100 by now if they had lived). I drew a blank in both cases. Old Stokey? Never heard of it.
Far more recently at a literary society luncheon I found myself sitting next to a young lady who was most intrigued when I said I had been brought up in Stoke Newington, as she and her new husband had been looking at houses there. 'Older inhabitants refer to it as Old Stokey', she told me confidently.
That's not to say I'm totally against people referring to it as Stokey, which suggests a certain fondness. Several historical and local websites now use the term, and those involved are clearly keen and dedicated Stoke Newington enthusiasts who do not deserve to have cold water poured on their enthusiasm by miserable old gits like me. But the term 'Old Stokey' really doesn't go back to much before the eighties, late seventies at the earliest. If I am wrong, and there is evidence that it was used before then, I would be happy to be corrected...
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