Memories of Wapping 1900-1960Wapping, once a vital part of the Port of London, has undergone many changes since the Second World War. Slum clearance, the closure of the docks and redevelopment have irrevocably altered the landscape of the area.
This volume, combining the memories of over thirty people of Wapping during the earlier part of the twentieth century with a painstakingly researched historical narrative of the area, provides an important legacy of an age which has now vanished and a community which has changed forever. You had brilliant people and you had what you call friendship. You knew everybody—everybody was your friend. You were in trouble: ‘What’s the trouble?’ and always if you wanted any help, it was there. You know what I mean, if they had a fag, they give you half. That’s how it was. You’ll never believe it, it was a wonderful life… Illustrated with around sixty archive images and covering a wide variety of topics from work to leisure, school, church, Jews, health, women’s lives, housing and Wapping at war, this book contains many lively characters and heart-warming stories. It will amuse and sadden in equal measure, remembering the hard times as well as the good, and is a must-have for anyone interested in British social history in the period before the Second World War. |
This book can be purchased from most reputable book stores and online.
Please quote: ISBN: 978-0-7524-4709-4 Published by: The History Press www.the history press.co.uk |
How the book came to be written.
The idea for writing this book came to me when I heard that one of my elderly patients in Wapping, where I was working as a GP, had died and had donated some photographs to the Tower Hamlets Local History library. She had been widowed many years previously when her young husband was killed in an accident in the docks. I realised that she, and many other patients would have had many fascinating stories to tell about a way of life that was disappearing from under our noses, and that I had an opportunity to collect and preserve the memories of this community. During 2002-2003, I conducted in-depth interviews with about thirty people mostly aged in their eighties and nineties who had lived in Wapping, and many of them lent me their family photographs for the book. The title ‘Couldn’t Afford the Eels’ is a quotation from one of my interviewees whose treat was to buy a penn’orth of jelly from Tubby Isaac’s eel stall to put on a slice of bread.
The idea for writing this book came to me when I heard that one of my elderly patients in Wapping, where I was working as a GP, had died and had donated some photographs to the Tower Hamlets Local History library. She had been widowed many years previously when her young husband was killed in an accident in the docks. I realised that she, and many other patients would have had many fascinating stories to tell about a way of life that was disappearing from under our noses, and that I had an opportunity to collect and preserve the memories of this community. During 2002-2003, I conducted in-depth interviews with about thirty people mostly aged in their eighties and nineties who had lived in Wapping, and many of them lent me their family photographs for the book. The title ‘Couldn’t Afford the Eels’ is a quotation from one of my interviewees whose treat was to buy a penn’orth of jelly from Tubby Isaac’s eel stall to put on a slice of bread.