- Ridley Road itself as a market is somewhere that my mom used to take me when I was very young.
Well, all through my childhood, really.
So the East End of London, Hackney was somewhere I was very familiar with.
And Ridley Road Market was somewhere that held a lot of very fond memories for me.
- This is sort of my grandma's era.
She would've gone, like, dancing on Ridley Road and stuff.
And I'm wearing lots of things that she would've worn.
She had exactly the same watch and all of this.
And so walking around Soho, it does feel really special.
- The show and the book really captures what it was like to be in Soho in the '60s.
It looks really vibrant and buzzing and happening.
- What's so interesting about the '60s is you really do feel two generations meeting, and you do get this feeling of sort of incredible hope of the new generation that the world can be different.
- Now, after you overcame all those fears and you reached us, how did you feel?
- Blooming fantastic.
(all laughing) - Welcome to the 62 Group, Vivien.
- My father was raised on cable streets, and I come from the East End of London.
So I am very aware of the history.
These characters have uncles and aunts and parents who either died in the Holocaust or survived the Holocaust.
- You ever talk to your cousin Rose about what happened to her?
- No, she can't talk about it.
- How bad can it get?
That's what Dad used to say.
How bad can it really get?
- I had family members who talked about being a part of that 62 Group.
So I did know quite a bit about it.
But I hadn't realized how much antisemitism, and how the rise of Nazi hatred had risen in Britain in 1962.
It was frightening.
- I was really surprised to see fascism in the UK in the '60s.
And particularly surprising to see actual references to Heil Hitler and the swastika and all that stuff so close to the war.
- Well, it must have been a terrible shock seeing swastikas in Trafalgar Square in the middle of the day.
And you know they're free to do it, to hold those talks, under freedom of speech.
- It's a story that not that many people know about really.
I was young at the time that this was happening.
I'm still shocked when you hear people saying some of the lines.
There's an intake of breath.
You know, you can't imagine that people would talk like that.
- It's a bit of history that people have forgotten.
This story reminds us.
- They're coming for us, Daddy.
We have to act now.
