Trevor in Havering is 41-50 and is Foreman.
In the summer time, Trevor puts up marquees, but in the autumn he is up a cherry picker all across the West End, installing the Christmas lights above the streets. After dark, when the road can be closed, he works late to bring Christmas cheer to ordinary Londoners. A salt of the earth man who enjoys the banter and camaraderie on the sites where he works, but also a family man grafting in order to provide a good education for his two daughters. “People don’t realise how much work goes into Christmas!”
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Film Maker: Nick Shaw
Questions & Answers
- What's your first memory of London? My grandad taking me on the Woolwich ferry, I felt like I was at the seaside. I was only 2 or 3 years old. That and the Imperial War Museum, great memories of my grandad. Those are my favourite memories of my grandad.
- What do you miss when you're away from London? My family. London is just people, in a way. Those are the people closest to me.
- What's your favourite neighbourhood? It's got to be Plaistow or Canning Town. I feel at home there. It is home.
- What's your favourite building? It's not a building it's a place. My aunt's hairdresser in Plaistow, everything happened there. It was a meeting point, all the locals went there. there was always something happening.
- What's your ideal day out in London? Go to Oxford street and go shopping. Christmas on Oxford street is great, i can enjoy the hard work I do there.
- What's your ideal night out in London? I like going to restaurants in the west end. I went to Claridge's, I work hard for it! Otherwise I'd go for fish and chips at Poppies near Brick Lane. It's like the 1940s in there.
- What's your most hated building? That fucking pickle. The gherkin. It looks like someone stubbed a cigar out into the city.
- What's the best view in London? In my basket looking out over the city.
- What's your favourite open space? I'm always in parks with work, so Hyde park. I build there a lot but I like it.
- What's the most interesting shop? My tailor in Saville Row. It's an old East End thing. I like the attention to detail.
- What's your favourite place to hang out? Brick Lane, Camden or Portobello Road. I like vintage clothes. Petticoat Lane isn't the same any more.
- What's been your most memorable night out in London? I was 19, I went to a work do and ended up with a traffic cone on my head. Then I got the tube with it still on me head. We stopped at a station and on the platform was a copper. He tried to grab me but only took the cone off my head. I got off the train before he could grab me. So I watched the train leave with just a copper inside holding a traffic cone in his hand.
- How would you like to spend your ideal day off in London? There's so much to do but you just take it for granted. I like just trotting around near the river.
- Where would you take someone visiting from out of town? You'd have to do all the sights, Trafalgar Square, Embankment, Houses of Parliament. I've worked at all these places. You don't really realise what's there until you work there. The Hard Rock Cafe is good too, good ribs. I've got membership so I can jump the queue.
- What's the worst journey you've had to make in London? Any time you're trying to get out of London in the Summer time. Once I was 4 and a half hours in the car trying to get out of Clapham. Anything after 2 o'clock and you're banjaxed.
- What's your personal London landmark? St Paul's. It's just there and always has been. It's clean. I can't put it into words. You can see it wherever you are.
- Who's your favourite fictional Londoner? Jack Regan from the Sweeney.
- What's your favourite London film, book or documentary? A book about Canning Town. "Memories of Canning Town", it's a local history.
- If you could travel to any time period in London, past or future, where would you go? Oh mate, the 1940s. People were people then. Everything was black and white, wrong or right. That was the East End way. Everyone stuck together, they made the best of it. Also, I like the clothes.
- For you, who is the ultimate Londoner? My grandad. He was kind, straight and you couldn't take liberties. He was a good family man, staunch.