I have just finished "Spitalfields Life" by someone known only as The Gentle Author.
It's a hefty 400+ pages but is a series of short easily-digestible chunks, each of which is a pen-portrait or vignette of a person or place in or near Spitalfields.
From the old guy who spends half of every day sitting in the passenger seat of his daughter's car parked on Brick Lane watching the world go by and reminiscing about when he ran the foremost boxing club in the area ... to the man who still runs the family business of selling paper bags to the traders of the area, sometimes tens of thousands but, these days, sometimes only ten ... also shopkeepers, stallholders, waiters, hairdressers and even a jewel thief who nearly had his eyes burned out by the Krays.
It's a fascinating read, you'll learn about the church warden whose great, great, great, great grandfather was a Huguenot silk weaver and who got to go (accompanied by The Gentle Author) to see patterns of silken cloth, now held in the V & A, woven by his ancestor.
You'll find out who Tubby Isaacs really was ... and about Bell-founding and banister spindle-making and the man who sweeps-out the Beigel Bake in return for being allowed to sleep there.
I might just start at the beginning and read it again.
its cheaper to buy books online from england and post to oz than it is to buy then over here
