With the help of AI and a bit of PhotoShop, one Croydon creative has made an entire online library of fake “histories”, all about Croydon – from the glory days of the Whitgift Centre, to circus elephants on George Street, to live facial recognition.
And it is all delivered with sharp-witted scripts, convincing, old-school newsreel-style voiceovers, and even dusting off some long-forgotten Grandstand theme music.
It’s the brilliant work of Tim Longhurst, the founder of Croydon Radio, and a regular contributor to this website – as producer of our Under The Flyover podcasts and including our 2025 April Fools published last week.
Longhurst says that his Croydon’s Fake History page on YouTube, now with eight videos to choose from, “affectionately pokes fun at Croydon, while slipping in sly nods to some of the modern-day quirks and challenges we all recognise”.
Longhurst told Inside Croydon: “The tone is silly, yes, but it all comes from a place of fondness for the town I grew up in and know so well.”
And be fair, given the state of the place, if you don’t have a laugh, well…
With a background in media design and a passion for storytelling, Longhurst specialises in blending humour, creativity, and visual flair to produce distinctive work. He is the author of 30 Days Nextdoor – A Month Spent Trolling My Neighbours, a hilarious and offbeat book documenting a month-long experiment posting spoof messages on the NextDoor app.
Presented in the unmistakable style of 1930s Pathé or Movietone news, each video in Croydon’s Fake History is its own little time-warped tale.
If you can still remember the Whitgift Centre as the pinnacle of retail joy, then you’ll enjoy Longhurst’s video with the shopping centre offering a “far superior” experience to online shopping.
Unreal newsreel: most of Longhurst’s history videos have a basis in reality
There’s also a sweeping aerial tour using real photographs from the Britain From Above archive, with nostalgic references to places now long gone — and, with Longhurst’s keen eye for the absurdities of everyday life, a few cheeky jabs at what’s replaced them.
“My most surreal production might be the one featuring elephants calmly roaming Croydon’s streets, stopping traffic and offering a gentle spectacle to baffled locals,” Longhurst said. “The video was inspired by a genuine 1930s photo of an elephant being led along North End.”
Most of the visuals are based on genuine archival images — gently retouched in Photoshop or animated using AI — and paired with deadpan narration that balances absurdity with affection.
The clips have already racked up thousands of views and shares. While many enjoy the tongue-in-cheek humour, a surprising number of viewers respond with heartfelt nostalgia— fondly reminiscing about “the good old days”, as if the spoof newsreels were genuine.
“Earnest comments about long-lost shops, trams and elephants are delivered through the warm haze of black-and-white-tinted spectacles,” Longhurst said. The combination of straight-faced narration and authentic-looking archive footage seems to blur the line just enough for some to take the fiction at face value—adding an almost poignant layer to the whole project.
“I plan to expand the series over time, as more long-forgotten newsreel clips are mysteriously unearthed — or as Croydon life takes yet another unexpected twist that simply begs to be lampooned,” the movie master said.
“After all, here in Croydon, it’s often hard to tell where the joke ends and real life begins.”
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The eight YouTube videos are seriously funny and get better and you run through them. We all need something to make us smile in these troubled times – worth a few minutes of your time!