Eastenders - How did it all start?

EastEnders consists of seven main families, and is set in a cul-de-sac fictional borough in East London. The series mainly centres around the residents of Albert Square and Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, such as Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street, which comprises of a pub, street market, night club, community centre, café and various small businesses, as well as a park and allotments.

Here is the EastEnders family tree, including casts that currently are in the show, and also those that are not:

Tony Holland created and developed EastEnders. He wanted a large extended family to be a primary focus of EastEnders, a representative of the type primarily found in the East End of London. Holland grew up in London with a large family himself, and he was able to use his own experiences to inspire EastEnders central clan the Beales and the Fowlers in creating some of the shows characters. Holland used family stories of his past and present when creating stories and characters. His aunt Lou Beale produced the EastEnders character of the same name, as well as her two children Peter (Pete) and Pauline. Also, to create the dynamic pairing of Den and Angie Watts, the owners of the Queen Victoria, Holland used some of his experience as a barman in London’s pubs and clubs. 

As we can see, Tony Holland used his own experience to actually come up with the idea of creating a soap. The location, family stories, community, ect, was all something he brought into the soap from his own life. Similarly, I think that when creating my group soap, it would be best to base the soap around our everyday environment, which is in the North of London. As I am a student, and so are my group members, we spend majority of our time in school (sixth form), therefore from this research, I feel that it would be more easier to establish social realism if we base our soap in the school environment of North London.