Leytonstone High Road, featuring Alfred Hitchcock;

Alfred Hitchcock reportedly said of his early life in East London: “The sky was always grey, the rain was grey, the mud was grey, and I was grey”.

Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone in 1899, the youngest of three sons in a working-class Anglo-Irish family. He was born at 517 High Road Leytonstone in the house above his father’s grocery shop, now a petrol station.

A defining moment in young Hitchcock’s life took place at Harrow Road police station. When he was five years old, Hitchcock’s father sent his son to the station with a note requesting that he be locked up for five minutes because of his bad behaviour. In his own words: “I’m not against the police, I’m just afraid of them.”