ABSTRACT
Mass Observation carried out its ethnographic fieldwork most famously in Bolton, or what it called "Worktown". Less known is its base in the East End of London. The East End, a million people without a park or a hotel, is the one place where anyone can look like almost anything on earth, yet go unnoticed and unwatched. Nevertheless, post-Second World War walking tours of the East End had deeper roots in heritage construction which can also be traced to Mass Observation. With Bill Fishman, this was heritage as lived experience where impromptu digressions from its residents, including the homeless, were encouraged. The "owner," in effect the squatter of the site, told the Southampton party that after the war the building had housed Holocaust survivors passing through Britain. In 1968, some Jewish Petticoat Lane market stall owners, Jo and Jack Joseph, created "Cockneyland" – an attempted rival to Disneyland in a "neglected area on the tourist map.".
