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Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir - Reviews - Book Review
Contemporary Review, Nov, 2002
Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir. Melanie McGrath. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]16.99. 235 pages. ISBN 1-84115-142-4. This story of East End life begins with the author's grandparents in the early years of the twentieth century. It is set mainly in Poplar, East Ham and Silvertown but its survey covers a life that was common to the whole East End of London with its narrow allies, overcrowded housing, docks and factories.
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By early twenty-first century standards it was an almost incomprehensively hard life with little education, long hours, unhealthy environments and low pay. The author's real heroine is her grandmother, born in 1903, a woman who was 'tiny, sour and righteously defensive ... who had been born in London but had never visited the Tower or St Paul's ... but a woman whose strong sense of place it is hard for me to imagine'. Through her grandmother the author reconstructs not just a family narrative but a picture of an entire episode in British history that is now almost nothing but history. She has written a fascinating story and made in her way a contribution to our understanding of twentieth century social history. (J.M.)
COPYRIGHT 2002 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
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