Click to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . Sammy McCarthy (1932-2020) Let me tell you the story of “Smilin'” Sammy McCarthy, o… Read More

Click to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . “Have mercy, Heaven” – David Garrick as Richard III This modest Staffordshire… Read More

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . Favourite printmaker & illustrator Marion Elliot sent me these wonderful new designs for tea towels… Read More

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . . What better way could there be to enjoy a warm summer afternoon than taking a gentle spin in a 1939 Tiger Moth over… Read More

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . The churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, was once known as “Itchy Park,” a nickname that may deriv… Read More

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . Shall we take a walk around Brick Lane with Photographer Fran May on a Sunday in 1976? Photogr… Read More

Click here to book THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR for Saturday . These photographs are drawn from the Bengali Photo Archive, a new collection of personal and family images donated by local… Read More

Click here to book THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR for this Saturday . On the eve of the General Election, Historian Ruth Richardson uncovers a salutary tale from a century ago that eloquent… Read More

Click here to book THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR for Saturday . Today it is my pleasure to show this selection of old London trade cards discovered by searching down the back of a hypothet… Read More

Click to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . . Cordelia Tocqueville Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I made the  trip over to Leytons… Read More

Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . . I am giving an illustrated lecture about THE CRIES OF LONDON as a prologue to Berio… Read More

Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this Saturday . Langdale St leading to Cannon St Rd Like the princess in the tower, when I met her in the… Read More

Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . William Jones, Limeburner, Wapping High St American-born artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, was the… Read More

Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . I am giving an illustrated lecture about the CRIES OF LONDON as a prologue to Berio’s CRIES OF LOND… Read More

Tickets are available for my walking tour on Saturday 29th June. Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . This is Joan Naylor, photographed in the… Read More

Tickets are available for my walking tour this Saturday Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS . Tailor Chris Georgiou (1945-2024) died on 28th May… Read More

Next tickets for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS are available for Saturday 22nd June . Remembering photographer Moyra Peralta (1936-2024) who died on 8th May aged eighty-eig… Read More

Next tickets for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS are available for Saturday 22nd June . Photographer Moyra Peralta (1936-2024) died on 8th May aged eighty-eight Men sleeping… Read More

Next tickets for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS are available for Saturday 22nd June . You enter the park by the Thames and go through a gate in a high wall to find yoursel… Read More

Next tickets for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS are available for Saturday 22nd June . Taking advantage of the early summer sunshine, Lew Tassell and I enjoyed a recent strol… Read More

I am sorry to report that The Gallant sank after capsizing in a sudden violent storm early on Tuesday 21st May, twenty-two nautical miles north of the Bahamas island of Great Inagua with eig… Read More

Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields . . It is my delight to publish Doreen Fletcher‘s paintings of Spitalfields, Bethnal Green and beyond. These new pi… Read More

Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 1st June . The Brown Bear, Leman St ‘well known as being frequented almost exclusively by homos’… Read More

Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 1st June . . The central contribution of women in the East End to the Suffrage Movement is not always recogn… Read More

Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 1st June . . Rope makers of Stepney In Stepney, there has always been an answer to the question, “How… Read More

. Regular readers will know that it is not my custom to speak about myself too much, but I was persuaded to give an interview at some length to the estimable Albion Magazine which devotes i… Read More

Tickets are available for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 25th May . . Peter Riley . I was surprised and delighted when Peter Riley joined my tour last Saturday… Read More

Tickets are available for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 25th May The Fan Museum in Greenwich is the brainchild of Helene Alexander who has devoted her life with… Read More

Tickets are available for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 25th May The frontage at 493-495 Hackney Rd  The factory at the rear of the shop London’s o… Read More

Some tickets are available for The Gentle Author’s Tour this Saturday 18th May If you are seeking an afternoon’s excursion from the East End, you can do no better than visit Eas… Read More

On my tour we visit Norton Folgate where Christopher Marlowe lived SOME TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR SATURDAY 18th MAY . “What nourishes me destroys me” – Christopher Marlowe a… Read More

SOME TICKETS AVAILABLE SATURDAY 18th MAY . Philip Cunningham sent me his account of living in Mile End Place in the seventies when it was under the shadow of redevelopment In the sixties… Read More

NEXT TICKETS AVAILABLE SATURDAY 11th MAY . . Local historian Ray Newton died on 30th April aged eighty-four Ray Newton at the churchyard gate of St Paul’s Shadwell . You do not meet… Read More

NEXT TICKETS AVAILABLE SATURDAY 11th MAY . . ‘ Me, I’m a barber’ – Costakis Costa . All readers are invited to a free screening of a short film about Mario’s… Read More

Linda Carney is just one of the people you will meet on The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields. Click here to book for next Saturday . Looking through into the whispering gallery S… Read More

BOOKING NOW THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER . One of my favourite annual events in London is the Punch & Judy Festival which is always held on the second Sunday in May at the churchyard of St Pau… Read More

BOOKING NOW THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER . Peta Bridle introduces these splendid drawings from her most recent sketchbook “If you take a stroll around the City of London you might catch the… Read More

BOOKING NOW THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER . Two women with a cigarette, Cheshire St 1977. When photographer Markéta Luskačová came from Prague in the mid-seventies, it became he… Read More

Writer & horticultural historian, Margaret Willes, introduces her lecture on the horticultural history of the East End which takes place in the Hanbury Hall on Tuesday 7th May at 7pm. C… Read More

Click here to book for this Saturday’s tour of Spitalfields . Aldgate Stefan Dickers, Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, introduced me to these fine copper plate etchings by Ernest… Read More

Click here to book for next Saturday 27th April . It is my pleasure to publish these dignified and characterful portraits of Londoners, believed to be by photographer Donald McLeish (1879-1… Read More

Visit Postman’s Park with me on my next tour of the City of London this Sunday 21st April . Taking the opportunity afforded by the Spring sunshine yesterday, I enjoyed a stroll from… Read More

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London this Sunday 21st April . On the right of this photograph, taken in the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, is the concave wall of t… Read More

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London on Sunday 21st April . St Clement’s, Eastcheap “Oranges and lemons,” say the bells of St. Clement’s. . … Read More

Click here to book for my next tour of the City of London on Sunday 21st April . Petticoat Lane Photographer Charles Chusseau-Flaviens came to London from Paris and took these pictures, re… Read More

‘We want to celebrate the work that the women do’ . People often ask where they can find authentic Bengali food in Spitalfields and I have found the answer in Oitij-jo Kitchen… Read More

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKET . ‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote… Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages’ Taking to heart the observation by the celebrated poe… Read More

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKET . In 1835, George Cruikshank drew these illustrations of the notable seasons and festivals of the year in London for The Comic Almanack published by Charles T… Read More

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKET . Novelist Kate Griffin describes her first visit to The Monument If you lay The Monument on its side to the West, the flame hits the spot in Pudding Lane wh… Read More

Join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON on Easter Monday 1st April at 2pm CLICK HERE TO BOOK . It is my delight to publish this selection of local examples from Phi… Read More

If you are at a loose end over the forthcoming Easter holidays, why not join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on Easter Thursday 28th March at 2pm or THE GENTLE AUTHOR… Read More

If you are at a loose end over the forthcoming Easter holidays and looking for an excuse for a walk, why not join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on Easter Thursday 28… Read More

. Join me on Easter Monday, April 1st, for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON. Meet me on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral at 2pm. We will walk eastward together thr… Read More

. The shadow of the East India Company looms large over Spitalfields. For it was to bring goods from the East India Dock that Commercial St was cut through the neighbourhood in the nineteen… Read More

. Join me on Easter Monday, April 1st, for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON. Meet me on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral at 2pm. We will walk eastward together thr… Read More

On Sunday – when I was a child – my father always took me out for the morning. It was a routine. He led me by the hand down by the river or we took the car. Either way, we always… Read More

Click here to book your spring walk through Spitalfields Click here to book your walk through the City of London . Jonathon Green, the foremost lexicographer of slang, introduces his predec… Read More

Click here to book your spring walk through Spitalfields Click here to book your walk through the City of London . Taking advantage of recent spring sunshine to escape the city and seek som… Read More

Click here to book your spring walk through Spitalfields Click here to book your walk through the City of London . Rupert Cole tells how he uncovered the story of John Doyle and John Valloi… Read More

Click here to book your spring walk through Spitalfields Click here to book your walk through the City of London . On International Women’s Day, we remember the inspirational Helen Ta… Read More

Poet, playwright and novelist, Bernard Kops, died on 25th February aged ninety-seven years. Bernard Kops (1926-2024) . “It’s amazing I have lived so long, after all the drugs th… Read More

On Saturday, the East End Preservation Society sent this report to all those who contributed £100 or more to the legal fund for the successful campaign to Save the Bethnal Green Mulber… Read More

Michael Myers, Spitalfields’ oldest resident, died on 13th February just a few weeks short of his ninety-fifth birthday. Growing up in Petticoat Lane, Michael only moved a quarter of a… Read More

. Holy Trinity in Bow is one of those churches that I often passed by and wondered what it was like inside. The answer is that it is a wonder. You step through the unadorned entrance to dis… Read More

. JULIE BEGUM is giving an illustrated lecture outlining the long history of the presence of Bengali people on this side of London. IMAGES OF THE BENGALI EAST END is at 7pm on Tuesday 5th M… Read More

3-13 Vallance Rd Thanks to the objections from you – the readers of Spitalfields Life – Whitechapel’s Theatrical Terrace has been saved, again. Yesterday Transport for L… Read More

An occluded winter’s day when sunlight barely glimmered offered the ideal opportunity for a ramble through Charles Dickens’ London. Employing a set of cigarette cards from 1927 w… Read More

Stefan Dickers, Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, kindly sent me these wonderful advertisements from a History of Tower Hamlets produced by the council in 1967 and I could not resist showi… Read More

Contributing Photographer Chris Kelly sent me this glorious collection of  her pictures of older women from the East End and elsewhere, entitled In Praise Of Older Women after the book… Read More

On Valentine’s Day, I cannot help thinking back to the days when we had Viscountess Boudica of Bethnal Green to make the East End a more colourful place, before she was ‘socially… Read More

Joe Lawrence There is a legend that Dick Turpin started out as a Butcher’s apprentice in Whitechapel before graduating to the role of Highwayman. Yet only now that I have read Joe Law… Read More

Only a couple of tickets left for the VALENTINE’S CARD WORKSHOP next Saturday 10th February 2:30pm – 4:30pm at Townhouse, Spitalfields. Introduced by Rupert Thomas, Director of D… Read More

I am thrilled to announce that Rupert Thomas, new director of Dennis Severs’ House and formerly editor of ‘The World of Interiors,’ has asked me to become an Associate Crea… Read More

This month’s talk in the Spitalfields Series at the Hanbury Hall will be local resident Dame Siân Phillips interviewed by Basil Comely about her life and career, next Tuesday 6th… Read More

This month’s talk in the Spitalfields Series at the Hanbury Hall will be local resident Dame Siân Phillips interviewed by Basil Comely about her life and career, next Tuesday 6th… Read More

. A few years ago when the city was shut down and empty, I used to take long lone cycle rides in parts of London that were unknown to me, seeking an escape. One day at January’s end… Read More

Guest writer Julia Harrison celebrates Beppe’s Cafe in Smithfield, accompanied with photographs by Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie Daniella Papini . One of my favourite mornin… Read More

3-13 Vallance Rd It was an early success for the nascent East End Preservation Society in 2014 when this old terrace in Whitechapel, comprising the last fragment of the nineteenth century… Read More

Guest Writer Jonathan Moules describes his visit to a much-loved Shadwell institution, accompanied with pictures by Contributing Photographer Rachel Ferriman . It is Friday night on a… Read More

Trinity Almshouses, Mile End Rd, 1935 Elwin Hawthorne (1905–54) was the nephew of the artist Henry Silk, with whom the family of six shared a small house in Rounton Road, Bow. When El… Read More

First Snowdrops in Wapping Even now, in the depths of Winter, there is plant life stirring. As I travelled around the East End over the past week in the wet and cold, I kept my eyes open fo… Read More

Despite the patronising pseudo-ethnographic tile, Thomas Lord Busby’s ‘Costumes of the Lower Orders of the Metropolis’  offer an evocative glimpse of London street lif… Read More

It is my pleasure to publish the Matchbox 1966 Collector’s Guide & International Catalogue by Lesney Products & Co Ltd of Hackney Wick, courtesy of the late Libby Hall. The com… Read More

In the seventies, while living in Mile End Place and employed as a Youth Worker at Oxford House in Bethnal Green and then as a Probationary Teacher at Brooke House School in Clapton, Photogr… Read More

William Anthony 1789-1863 Behold the face of history! Photographed in 1863, the year of his death, but born in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, seventy-four-year-old William Anthony… Read More

This is the season for oranges and lemons, so I was more than delighted when Keren McConnell kindly sent me her glorious fruit wrapper collection from the seventies to share with you. If any… Read More

. Archivist Stefan Dickers will be giving a lecture at the Hanbury Hall in Spitalfields next Tuesday 9th January at 7pm entitled THE TREASURES OF THE BISHOPSGATE INSTITUTE. As well as its c… Read More

Arnold Circus The Boundary Estate is one of the commonplace wonders of the East End. Hundreds live there and thousands pass through, so that over-familiarity may have rendered it invisible… Read More

There is still time to join THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS this afternoon at 2pm . For a while, I have been seeking a set of prints of the City gates to show you and, over th… Read More

Tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS tomorrow . Each Sunday, if I can afford it and have the time, I visit Columbia Rd Market to buy a bunch of flowers, s… Read More

Join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day . New Year’s Eve is always the busiest night of the year at the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery, so a few y… Read More

Join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day . Click here to buy GIFT VOUCHERS for The Gentle Author’s Tours – the ideal present for friends… Read More

If you need an excuse to escape, why not join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day? . Click here to buy GIFT VOUCHERS for The Gentle Author’s T… Read More

If you fancy a bracing walk as a respite from the forthcoming festivities, tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day. . Click here to… Read More

If you fancy a bracing walk as a respite from the forthcoming festivities, tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day. . Click here to b… Read More

Many years ago, when my last relative died, for the first time in my life I had no longer any obligations at Christmas so, in recognition of this, I decided to walk all night through London… Read More

If you fancy a bracing walk as a respite from the forthcoming festivities, tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day. . Click here to o… Read More

If you fancy a bracing walk as a respite from the forthcoming festivities, tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day. . Click here to o… Read More

If you fancy a bracing walk as a respite from the festivities, tickets are available for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on New Year’s Day. . Click here to buy GIFT VOUC… Read More

If you are seeking Christmas presents for family and friends, you need look no further because Spitalfields Life books make ideal gifts which you can have personally inscribed… . CLI… Read More