Steve Cornish spent the first half of his life on the Dickens Estate; it was where his deep love for Bermondsey flourished.
The second half was spent Downtown when he moved there after Surrey Docks closed; it was there he became a campaigner against developers with big money who wouldn’t be seen dead in SE16 years ago.
Mum, Margaret, done many jobs: ‘Shuttleworths for a long time, then dinner lady in St Michael’s School’. Harry, his father, was a self-employed roofer.
At Riverside, Steve’s first school, he remembers liking ‘English, sport and History’.
Playing out meant ‘Tin Tan Tommy and those sort of games, but to be honest it was all about being daredevils – The river was hundred yards away so we’d get into the warehouses and onto the roof and swing on the cranes and get on the barges.’
The wharves featured a lot in Steve’s growing up. ‘I always made sure I didn’t go home with Thames mud on me shoes cos the old man would know I’d been on the river…’
His Uncle Tommy also lived on the Dickens Estate with wife Flo. They were on the new part and it wasn’t long before Steve’s family moved into Tupman House. His mum cried when she see her brand new ‘proper kitchen’ and indoor bathroom.
At 11, Steve went to Paragon School. ‘We had a good PE teacher, Mr Roper… There was always competitions and I love competition – It brings the best out in me.’
Steve was an ‘average’ schoolboy but excelled at metalwork. The teacher would allow him to do his own thing and still has the cannon he designed and made there. This skill would serve him well.
Sport has been a ‘massive’ part of Steve’s life; ‘Most of my friends are through football and playing for some of the best local teams: ‘The Dickens Estate team were fantastic! We went unbeaten for two years!’
On leaving school, Steve found work at Christians Wharf where his mate was the boss and paid him £10 a week. ‘I’d never had so much money; a tenner! I didn’t know what to do with it, and this was when beer was one and ninepence a pint!’
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But Steve had signed up for a Pipe Fitter/Welder apprenticeship, which was about to start soon but meant a drop in wages to almost half of what he had grown used to.
‘I’ll never forget what my dad said: “Do this apprenticeship and you’ll have a job for life, but your mates will always be on a tenner.”’
Steve took that advice. With money in his pocket Steve would use local pubs like the Becket, The Fort, The Fleece, The Fellmongers.
It was when out with mates that he met Christine, his future wife. They got married in St James’s Church and a flat in Pickwick House – just four doors away from the flat he was born in.
By the early 80s The Cornishes were happy with life but Christine would say, ‘We don’t even own the door knobs in this flat’.
One day she heard new houses were up sale in the old docks and sent Steve down there. All he could see was a Portakabin on a muddy wasteland, which he made his way to and found that house plots would be sold in the morning.
He slept there in the car and was 6th in the queue to put down his £100 deposit and wait for the house to be built. They moved in a few months later.
The late ‘80s recession killed off his industry and after 24 years at the same company Steve had to find his own work – ‘I had a mortgage to pay!’ The next job came by chance when he went to the Jobcentre. That very day a vacancy had come up that required someone with all the skills Steve had – Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf needed a Maintenance Engineer.
Steve got an interview and was pleased to find the interviewer was ‘one of us’. He noticed a West Ham badge on the man’s coat so when the work questions were done, Steve let on he was a West Ham fan. He wasn’t, but he got a second interview and got the job. Steve stayed there 22 years until he retired and it wasn’t the only time he has used cunning to get what he wants.
As Bermondsey became trendy the developers hovered. The area changed fast and not always for the better. As Chairman of Friends of Russia Dock Woodlands for 25 years, he is ‘very proud of keeping developers away from our 35 acres of woods’.
But it hasn’t been easy. He didn’t like it when they wanted to build a 15-storey block on the duck pond. The Downtown Defence Campaign was formed to fight developers who told Steve ‘they’d crush him like a beetle’.
The group took them to the Royal Courts of Justice where Steve spoke in front of four Law Lords… The duck pond now has kingfishers enjoying it and the 15-storey building became just four floors. ‘We pulled all the local campaign groups together to form Green Connections. It’s to ensure developers fulfil their own green ambitions and not just put a few plants in a pot!’
For the past seven years he has been secretary of the Surrey Docks Angling Club. The club has just negotiated with developers for: new decking for the angling pontoon, access for disabled anglers, the dock restocked with fish, and Decathlon will sponsor matches for the younger anglers.
And just as he pretended to support West Ham to get a job, Steve twice impersonated a Health & Safety Office in order to get on to building works where he suspected foul play was taking place. Once in he would ask where the workers’ hard hats were, why there were trip hazards and rubbish in doorways as fire hazards. In the panic created he would take photos of the suspected destruction of listed buildings’ features and fittings to use as evidence against developers trying to turn Bermondsey pubs into flats. Two pubs were saved.
The Albert McKenzie VC Statue in Tower Bridge Road was also very special to Steve. Stansfeld Oxford and Bermondsey Club members began raising funds, which brought all of Bermondsey together to raise enough to have the statue built by Kevin Boys the Rotherhithe blacksmith..
Steve’s metalwork and welding background meant he was recruited into creating the rifle part of the sculpture. ‘Albert McKenzie was a Bermondsey boxing champion who became a war hero,’ he says proudly.
In retirement, Steve fills his day caring for his father-in-law and forever campaigning to keep Bermondsey from over-development.
He loves Bermondsey people: ‘The banter can be wicked, but funny,’ he laughs with a wry smile.
His favourite place is the Dickens Estate and visits for nostalgic reasons regularly.
Sadly, Christine died in 2024 and now there is just daughter Victoria, a dentist whom he is very proud of. ‘She has been fantastic with what we’re going through.’
Victoria lives close by in a flat overlooking the Woodlands. Steve still lives in the house built on a muddy Docklands wasteland and has no plans to move.
