At the heart of Stratford Broadway, the Two Puddings was an iconic pub which over many decades attracted a wide range of customers from Stratford, West Ham, Canning Town, the East End and beyond. It was known for rowdy camaraderie, its loud live music, its disco upstairs, and the wide mix of its clientele.
In the 1940s and 50s, it had a reputation for violence, and was known as The Butcher’s Shop. Eddie Johnson took over as landlord and manager of the pub in 1963, and remained landlord until the Two Puddings closed in 2000.
During his time managing the pub in the 1960s, the Two Puddings gained a reputation for its live music. Many bands passed through its doors, including The Small Faces, Screaming Lord Sutch and David Essex, in his first public performance. Upstairs, the Devil’s Kitchen was one of the first discos in the country. Eddie’s son, Matt Johnson, was brought up above the pub and became a highly successful musician himself, in TheThe in the 1980s.
Many footballers drank there, including Bobby Charlton, allegedly on the night of England’s World Cup victory; and Harry Redknapp, who met his wife on the dancefloor. Famous East End boxers like Terry Spinks and Sammy McCarthy used to frequent the pub, as did artists, journalists, photographers and TV presenters. Other less savoury characters drank there, including on occasion the Krays. Barrie Keeffe, who wrote The Long Good Friday, says that many of the characters in that film had their roots in his time drinking at the Two Puddings.
The documentary is a celebration of the heyday of the pub in the 1960s. Based on the landlord Eddie Johnson’s recent memoirs, Tales from the Two Puddings, the documentary looks at what the pub meant to its customers and how the pub shaped their lives. We tell some of the many stories of the life of the pub through the eyes of those who r an it. And we meet some of the characters who made it special. The documentary is an exploration of the half-buried world of an iconic east London pub. This was Stratford before it was taken over by the Olympics – a world of rough, boozy nights, larger-than-life characters and a rapidly-changing social landscape.
Interested in learning more about Newham Bookshop and some of the people connected with it? We have four lessons for classroom or family use developed from On the Record’s oral history project centered around Newham Bookshop, Writing and Reading Newham. Click here for full details.
We are proud that Newham Bookshop is LoveReading’s Bookshop of the Month. The article features a Q&A with Vivian Archer, which you can read here.
