‘Loved, forgotten and revived over and over’: Artist paints Bankside neighbourhood every day for two decades

Joe Mayhook has lived in the same street for the past 52 years.

The artist, of Upper Ground, Bankside, has watched scaffolding take over the skyline as buildings went up and then came back down.

He has seen taxi drivers refuse to enter the neighbourhood and then flock to the street as the area evolved into a vibrant tourist destination.

And for the past two decades, Mr Mayhook has painted Bankside every day, creating a body of work that reflects the spirit and resilience of his beloved home.

Now he will exhibit his collection at Southwark Cathedral. BANKSIDE 52 NOT OUT will be open to the public from November 27 and run until January 27.

Speaking to the South London Press, the 52-year-old said:  “It’s a neighborhood that’s been loved, forgotten and revived over and over.”

Born in 1972, Mr Mayhook grew up in Upper Ground when the area was associated with Cardboard City –  a makeshift homeless encampment made from hundreds of cardboard boxes in the underpasses between Waterloo railway station and the South Bank.

He said: “You couldn’t get a taxi home. I remember getting a black cab back from my aunt’s with my parents. The cabbie dropped us halfway across the bridge – he refused to take us further.”

As Mr Mayhook turned nine years old, Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister – a position she would hold for 11 years.

Mr Mayhook said: “Thatcher was in her heyday as I grew up, so all the docks were closed.

“There was a village atmosphere at the weekend. No tourists, only people working in low-rent offices – those who couldn’t afford to work on the other side of the river.

“Once they went home, that was it – the streets were empty. We loved it, it was bleak but lovely bleak.”

Throughout his childhood, Mr Mayhook saw a series of buildings demolished across his neighbourhood.

He said: “People hadn’t realised that the buildings were worth more standing up than knocking them down. 

“The building sites were like a playground, like those war pictures of kids playing on the bomb sites.”

Where buildings were not knocked down, many sat empty, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the acid house rave scene in the late 1980s.

Mr Mayhook said: “That was a glorious period.

“Derelict buildings and building sites with no security. It was party central.”

Deep within these empty warehouses, Mr Mayhook saw the likes of the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays perform.

Throwing parties in warehouses wasn’t illegal at the time, but permission wasn’t always asked for when equipped with a good set of bolt cutters and a powerful sound system.

Mr Mayhook said: “One night there were about 500 of us in a derelict power station.

“Police arrived and dragged all of us out. We all had to sign a letter to say we would never go back into the building.

“Funnily enough, that building is now a set of offices which I go to for meetings.”

A keen artist from childhood, Mr Mayhook said he began to draw as a way of holding onto the past.

He said: “I don’t like change. 

“Painting was a way of capturing things. The change happened so quick you could see it. We didn’t have smartphones to take pictures so I’d sketch things.” 

Despite extensive works, the skeleton of the Southbank remained with historic landmarks like Borough Market, The Royal Festival Hall, The Southbank Centre, The Old Vic and the Oxo Tower.

Mr Mayhook said: “I like drawing things that have a firmness to them, like the cathedral and cast iron Victorian structures like Borough Market.

“I practiced drawing as a child at the cathedral because it didn’t change. Whatever it was like, I could come back in a year and it would be the same.”

Mr Mayhook says exhibiting his work at Southwark Cathedral for his first solo exhibition is a “dream come true”.

He said: “When I left school I didn’t have the luxury of studying art. I finished class on a Friday and was in a job by Monday.

“This is where I want to go in my life. I’ve never been so passionate about anything apart from my family.

“I don’t want to feel like I didn’t try.”

Pictured top: Joe Mayhook and his mother in Stamford street, Bankside in the 1970s (Picture: Joe Mayhook)