An introduction…

This blog came about as an offshoot from the weekly history pages I write for a paper called East End Life. I’ve been collecting these for the last few years on a dedicated website, www.eastlondonhistory.com and there are now several hundred of the things, everything from Helen Shapiro to Oswald Mosley, from Tower Bridge to the Blackwall Tunnel. Increasingly, there’s little bits of news, history, notices of shows and exhibitions, and just observations about London that don’t fit into the history pages. Increasingly too, my beat of Tower Hamlets and the East End becomes slightly frustrating, as interesting stuff happens elsewhere in London too. This then is to be the continuing blog of London history, oddments and stories … we’ll even go south of the river!
Some advice on finding your way around. Entries are either classified as ‘posts’ or ‘pages’. Posts tend to be snippets, referring to stories in the news. You’ll find links to them in the panels on the right there, filed by date under month, and also by category (should you be especially interested in London Museums, Murders, Pubs, the 1950s or whatever). Then there are the Pages (menu also on the right there), which are longer pieces, written by me. There’s also a list of recent pages along the top of this page. Finally there are Links, which are to other websites I like, have found useful, or owe a debt of gratitude for their sterling researches. I hope you enjoy them too.