Our East End

This oral history of London's East End spans the period after the First World War to the upsurge of prosperity at the beginning of the 60s - a time which saw fresh waves of immigrants in the area, the Fascist marches of the 30s and its spirited recovery after virtual obliteration during the Blitz. Piers Dudgeon has listened to dozens of people who remember this fiercely proud quarter to record their real-life experiences of what it was like before it was fashionable to buy a home in the Docklands. They talk of childhood and education, of work and entertainment, of family, community values, health, politics, religion and music. Their stories will make you laugh and cry. It is people's own memories that make history real and this engrossing book captures them vividly.

Piers Dudgeon is a writer, editor and photographer. Born in 1949, he worked for ten years as a publisher in London and then started his own company, publishing a number of bestsellers with authors as diverse as Daphne du Maurier, John Fowles, Edward de Bono, Shirley Conran and Susan Hill. Since 1989 he has worked as a journalist and written nine works of non-fiction. In 1993 he moved with his wife and three children to a village on the North Yorkshire moors, where he is setting up a residential school for writers and artists.

This oral history of London's East End spans the period after the First World War to the upsurge of prosperity at the beginning of the 60s - a time which saw fresh waves of immigrants in the area, the Fascist marches of the 30s and its spirited recovery after virtual obliteration during the Blitz. Piers Dudgeon has listened to dozens of people who remember this fiercely proud quarter to record their real-life experiences of what it was like before it was fashionable to buy a home in the Docklands. They talk of childhood and education, of work and entertainment, of family, community values, health, politics, religion and music. Their stories will make you laugh and cry. It is people's own memories that make history real and this engrossing book captures them vividly.

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