“As long as I am alive, I will be a photographer. I will never retire”
– Dorothy Bohm
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Petticoat-Lane-Market-London-1960s-a-scaled.jpeg)
Petticoat Lane Market, London, 1960s by Dorothy Bohm
Dorothy Bohm (22 June 1924 – 15 March 2023) was born Dorothea Israelit in June 1924 in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), to a Jewish German-speaking family. In 1939 she was sent to England in 1939 to escape Nazism: first to a boarding school in Ditchling, Sussex, but soon to Manchester, where her brother was a student, and where she met Louis Bohm (whom she would marry in 1945).
As they were saying goodbye, Dorothy recalled, her gadget-mad father, Tobias, took off the Leica camera he was wearing around his neck and gave it to her, telling her: “It might be useful to you”.
She told the JC: “I arrived on the eve of my 15th birthday. A traumatic experience because I had watched what Nazis were doing and the whole family was under great threat. After all these years it is still traumatic for me to remember those days”.
![Petticoat Lane Market, London, 1960s d](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Petticoat-Lane-Market-London-1960s-d.jpeg)
Petticoat Lane Market, London, 1960s
![Butcher at Smithfield Market, London, 1970s St. Paul’s, Covent Garden Market, London, 1970s](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Butcher-at-Smithfield-Market-London-1970s-St.-Pauls-Covent-Garden-Market-London-1970s.jpeg)
Butcher at Smithfield Market, London, 1970s St. Paul’s, Covent Garden Market, London, 1970s
![Butcher at Smithfield Market, London, 1970s](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Butcher-at-Smithfield-Market-London-1970s.jpeg)
Butcher at Smithfield Market, London, 1970s
![Covent Garden Market, London, 1970s](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Covent-Garden-Market-London-1970s.jpeg)
Covent Garden Market, London, 1970s
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Billingsgate-Market-1960s-scaled.jpeg)
Billingsgate Market, 1960s
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Chapel-Market-Islington-London-1960s-scaled.jpeg)
Chapel Market, Islington, London, 1960s
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Camden-Town-Market-1960s.jpeg)
Camden Town Market, 1960s
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Charing-Cross-Road-Market-London-1972-.jpeg)
Charing Cross Road Market, London, 1972
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Butchers-at-Smithfield-Market-London-1970s.jpeg)
Butchers at Smithfield Market, London, 1970s
![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Petticoat-Lane-Market-London-1960s.jpeg)
Petticoat Lane Market, London, 1960s
![St Paul’s, Covent Garden Market, London, 1960s](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/St-Pauls-Covent-Garden-Market-London-1960s-scaled.jpeg)
St Paul’s, Covent Garden Market, London, 1960s
![1970s London market](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1970s-London-market-scaled.jpeg)
1970s London market
Dorothy Bohm: London Street Markets is at the Centre for British Photography until 17 December 2023. All photographs by Dorothy Bohm