Culture is memory; memory is collective; and elders are a creative resource for cultural history. These concepts were at the centre of EastLife – the pilot phase of our project, unearthing the cultural richness of East London that is embedded in personal experience. Partners: Canning Town Library, LinkUp/Great British Community, Stroke Association Tower Hamlets, and University of East London.
From the life of Jane Boyle By Emerald Wild — Jane Boyle was born in East London, and has always felt a strong tie to the place. Her parents already had a son, and would go on to have three more daughters after her. By the age of nine, Jane was filling the maternal role… continue reading »
From the life of Irene Pasquini By Megan Slade — Irene enters the Age UK courtyard, a large patio garden with tables and chairs, on her new mobilised wheelchair in a bright yellow summer dress and leopard-print coat. She greets various friends, support workers, and nurses in the facility. “Check out my new Harley Davidson,”… continue reading »
From the life of Joan Barham By Suzie Champion — It has been said that when our environment changes, when the familiar buildings and the outline disappear, and people move or are moved away, our memories, those unique histories, gradually diminish along with those reminders and nowhere is that eradication truer than in the East… continue reading »
From the life of Crispin Janolo By Naomi Duffree — I had the honour of meeting Crispin, a Filipino East London resident who is recovering from a stroke that has brought on aphasia – a communication disorder that limits a person’s ability to express themselves when speaking, understand speech, and causes difficulty with both reading… continue reading »
From the life of Adrian By Martin Clarke — Saturday morning, a little after eleven. Late October. Warnings of sub-zero temperatures and snow, as other parts of the country have already seen. Adrian, a man in his early fifties, lies naked in bed inside his Bethnal Green house, one hand holding his iPhone directly out… continue reading »
From the life of Ellen Shrimpton By Sam Dodd — I met with Ellen with the intention of talking to her about her grandmother, Vesta Fay. I’d heard tales about the old-time East End wartime music hall performer, a woman who dressed as a man and smoked on stage, entertained the locals and gave the… continue reading »
From the life of Eileen Wade By Naomi Duffree — There is a strong resilient spirit running through the East End. Where does it originate from and in this era when the phrase, “They don’t make ’em like that any more” is often heard, do we have a need to worry that this East End… continue reading »
From the life of Nessa By Nacima Khan — Her eyes flickered over my bump and she asked me how many months I was. Eight. She nodded. My first? Yes. ‘She’ was Nessa, a sixty-year-old Bangladeshi woman who I had met sitting behind me one day at the local mosque. She, like many of her… continue reading »
From the life of Angur Miah By Michael Pudney — The New Life and Wilson’s Equal Opportunities Everybody should have an equal chance – but they shouldn’t have a flying start. – Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister 1964–1970, 1974–1976 In the small town of Syllet, around 200 miles north of Dhaka, Fate was catching some… continue reading »
From the life of John Besagni By Erica Masserano (Special thanks to Clerkenwell community historian Olive Besagni) — His first memory is the wail of the sirens; his second of everyone running for cover down to what he didn’t know, couldn’t have known, was Chancery Lane. Sometimes the bombs never came; they missed and they… continue reading »
From the life of Irenee Lowe By Jo Berouche — Back before glass and steel, stood brick and mortar. Thin terraces, chimneys pluming, the midday clouds long and white. Lean, bright and beautiful. Tiny feet in little shoes. Fidgeting on the kitchen floor. Polish. Clock-ticking. The smell of the carpet at home. Irenee plucked Maria’s… continue reading »
From the life of Betty By Sandra Wilson — I remember, I was six years old and we got driven to the train station. I don’t recall which one it was. Me and me sister had little brown parcels. Mum had packed them a few weeks before going to the station and told us not to… continue reading »
From the life of Kevin Flannagan By Lydia Morris — “…and you’re not expecting it, some people you only meet once and it has that instant effect on you, you know?” – Flan. Hand on the steering wheel, he takes a left turn. The sleeve of his coat is still wet from the rain that… continue reading »
From the life of Charlie Burke By Jo Lazar — “What’s the matter, Charlie?” “I need help, my head’s bursting.” In Barking, in 1946, Charlie’s head was the youngest in his family and it would always be. He got away with everything. To add to his numerous siblings, the community was tightly knit. There were… continue reading »
From the life of John Wiggett By Sam Dodd — I had the pleasure of talking to John, a lifelong East Londoner, and a mine of information on what this amazing community used to look and feel like. He paints a vivid picture of life in the last half of the twentieth century. He led… continue reading »
From the life of George Lowe, as told by Irenee Lowe By Craig Britton — Born in East London in 1914, George Lowe was a shipwright almost all his life. He lived in Plaistow with his wife and son, also named George, and worked primarily for ship-building giant Harland and Wolff, most famous for building… continue reading »
Skin Basal cells form in the prickle cell layer between the dermis and epidermis. They contain fibrils within the cellular cytoplasm that helps strengthen the skin. These cells actively divide and ascend through the granular layer replacing those at the cornified layer. When damaged, the regeneration process breaks down at the site of injury. The… continue reading »
Sheffield, 12 February 2015 The sheet has left the duvet and seemingly spent most of the afternoon trying to see how many things it can swallow without the two of them noticing. “Babe, where are the scissors?” Her eyes, as wide as her smile, glance up from the bed. Pricking her shoulders up she lets… continue reading »
Yesterday “I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.” ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra I woke up to a beautiful spring afternoon. Birds chirped in the distance and the house felt still and empty. Memories… continue reading »
#1 Dear Scarlet, My mother is incredible. I can only hope to be as phenomenal a mother, and if I am halfway there I will count it a personal victory. She is the oldest of four, and since her parents worked full time for most of her young life, she also had to care for… continue reading »
There is an ash cloud in the sky, says the paper. The man hands it to me in Stratford Station. It informs me in letters taking up the best part of the front page: VOLCANIC ASH FROM ICELAND SHUTS ALL AIRPORTS LEAVING ONE MILLION AFFECTED. Beside it is a picture of the Eyjafjallajökull, or maybe… continue reading »
2012 The police arrived within two hours of me making the phone call. “When did you discover you had been broken into?” the young officer asked as his two colleagues stood outside the house, dusting our bay window for fingerprints and footprints. “I went downstairs at 7am this morning and the top window was open…. continue reading »
“Home sweet home, hey sis?” My brother had, for the first time in twenty-four hours, regained his usual cockiness and beamed at me whilst flicking his overgrown hair, nearly walking backwards into a petite woman pushing a pram with one hand and dragging a child with the other. I pulled him away as we stepped… continue reading »
1. “Seventh floor.” How did I get here? You can see the Thames, the London Eye, The Houses of Parliament. I’m sitting in meetings. They’re talking about million dollar deals. I’m getting paid to read Tolstoy; I’m getting paid to judge submitted work. I don’t deserve this, not at all, I’m not like these Oxbridge… continue reading »
Tick by tock, by tick-tock, with me she wanders still. Born inside each other, past and future lives colliding, I am she who is me myself and I, the sum total of all the things I did and did not do. The echo of a small young voice asks me: What did you want to… continue reading »
They took to the bed, bred, three weeks: never bled. It doesn’t look good on you the stepfathers said. They wanted me dead. After the birth the medical notes read: Promote good mothering Promote good mothering … continue reading »
1989. I wasn’t even a plan then. I was all the ovules a woman aged thirty-four had bled along with her uterus lining month after month. I was a shadow of a thought of an idea of an impossibility. I was my father’s greatest wish and hardest achievement. He-Who-Was-Executed-On-Christmas-Day, Nicolae Ceausescu, the half illiterate dictator,… continue reading »
I had black feet, and blacker eyes, when I was six years old. I shuffled towards my friend Moisree one day in the searing heat of summer and spotted my foothold in her trunk; the shape of my toes slowly becoming worn into her rough bark smoothly, from the countless times I’d climbed her. I… continue reading »
One Daniel “You know, I read today that it’s common for children to have imaginary friends,” were the words my mother echoed to my father when I introduced them to my best friend Daniel; the red dragon from the Ready Brek adverts, which, now that I think of it, was peculiar, as to this day… continue reading »
My mother is eighty-eight. Daytime television and a weekly trip to the hairdresser sums up her week. Confused phone calls. She is not the same person I knew twenty years ago; nor the same person who helped me through my first loss of her dear friend, Bobby, my godmother. And I’m acutely aware she won’t… continue reading »
I thought it’d just be one of those Sundays where I’d go round Joe’s house, kick a ball around, play some computer games and eat some junk food. Standard. However, little did I know that this particular Sunday would teach me more than my class teacher or parents ever would. We were at our regular… continue reading »
Question One: This is a test. Complete the below examples using all that you have learned this module, demonstrating your understanding of the above. I am fragments. The foil breaks, blisters crumple. The lips open and press on mine. A hand comes out and folds over my shoulder. I am written in a language I… continue reading »