Poplar, East London, 1940. Two sisters push a pram crammed with small children and hastily rescued bundles of clothing through the bombed and battered streets of East London. Trekkers they were known as, convoys of exhausted, filthy refugees stumbling through the streets in search of safety. It’s an iconic photograph that has been used… Read More
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Dolly Jacks – an everyday heroine
‘Growing up, I knew I was different to other kids,’ says 85-year-old Doreen Jacks of her childhood in Canning Town. ‘I was born in 1933 and had a very happy life. My mum Hannah, who went by the nickname Dolly, was a full-time mum, who cared for me and my younger brother Billy. My dad… Read More
Daisy’s beano…
Ok so the weather has turned and normal service has resumed, but it doesn’t mean we can’t dream of syrupy sunshine and seamless skies. Grab your Kiss Me Quick hat, whose up for beano down to Southend, via memory lane? 91-year-old Daisy Woodard, or as she prefers to be known, Daisy Bailey, has opened up… Read More
Exclusive content. Preface of The Stepney Doorstep Society
An unnerving silence fell over the courtyard as a woman in her late fifties stepped out onto her balcony. Dressed in a starched white apron she cut a formidable figure against the gloom of the Bethnal Green tenement block. In her left hand was a placard; in her right, a scalding hot potato. The turban… Read More
The East End Girl Who Helped Hillary Scale Everest
With the exception of a fortnight in Clapton, Daisy Woodard has rarely left her Isle of Dogs home. Yet she has lived a life ripe with adventure. The softly spoken 91-year-old with a laugh as dirty as a drain has been machine-gunned, blown-up and bombed. She can also proudly claim to have helped one of… Read More