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1965 to 1979
the history of Leyton and Leytonstone
from . dot to … dots – with plenty of spaces
Employment continued
Vacancies were mainly in the public sector, with the National Health Service and Waltham Forest Borough Council as the largest employers. >>
These changes, disasters for many who lost their jobs and often their pensions too, would provide opportunities for those in the ‘post-modern economy’ such as financial services and mass entertainment, but not for many people in Leyton at the time of change. Unemployment in 1990 east London was very high. Leyton and Leytonstone had always been places from which men would travel to work elsewhere. Closure of most factories, in Leyton, Walthamstow and up the Lea Valley, reduced the availability of skilled and semi-skilled manual jobs. Leyton was however the place to which the Spitalfield fruit and vegetable market relocated in 1991, on the site of the Great Eastern Railway Company’s wagon works.
Caribonum carbon paper at Leyton was taken over and the operation transferred elsewhere. In 1972 Caribonum had operations in Canada, South Africa, Barbados and India, reflecting a hopelessly outdated nostalgia for the British Empire. The London Electric Wire Company (Lewco) closed.
Before it closed buses had been taking workers from the ‘Thatched House’ junction to the Lesney Matchbox toy car factory in Hackney, and to the Tate & Lyle refinery at Silvertown 2.