History in the Pub IV: Eastenders
Just a quicky to share some pictures of last night’s proceedings (so you can skip this if you’ve already seen them on our Facebook group). The fourth in our series of these events since late last year, this took a little while to arrange because we needed to get all the “acts” we wanted on a night that the pub was available (the Bell in Spitalfields is becoming increasingly in demand from small theatre groups and the like). So worth the wait, I think, for the full-house audience. The line-up was:
Neil Fraser, whose brand-new book Over the Border: The Other East End is about the East End beyond the Lea River, where Essex begins, told us some wonderful stories about Plaistow from when it was still a village. *
Fiona-Jane Weston, singer and actress, sang four historical London songs from her show Loving London, finishing with a beautiful rendition of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.
Duncan Barrett and Nuela Calvi then spoke after the interval about their best-selling book The Sugar Girls **, the story of Tate & Lyle, based on first-hand accounts of ladies who worked there during World War II and the austerity years immediately afterwards. Fascinating stories, a lovely book.
The evening, as per, was run by our good friend Matt Brown of Londonist who also conducted the speed quiz, won by a team called – I think – the Hackney Tubeadors, something like that! Congratulations to them.
We wrapped it up with a very lively and interesting Q&A and open-mic, then repaired downstairs for drinks and chats. Every one of our speakers/singers stayed right till the end, we’re grateful to them all for a brilliant evening.
* I’ve just noticed that Duncan and Nuala have done a very nice precis of Neil’s presentation. (with much better pictures than mine). It’s times like this when I get a special tingle from the whole London Historians idea!
** The Sugar Girls. Our Review. Londonist Review.
Anyway, here are a few pictures from last night. Please keep an eye on our Events page for the next History in the Pub.
HI Mike, I wrote a review of last night:
http://londoncitynights.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/history-in-pub-iv-eastenders-at-bell.html
Thanks for a great evening.
Last night?! Wow, you must go to bed very late. But thanks, very comprehensive. I notice you also wrote up the Rodriguez movie. I own both Cold Fact and After the Fact and used to have the vinyl back in the day (1970s). Saw him live at Shepherd’s Bush Empire and Barbican in recent years. We all thought his name was Jesus and that he was dead, turns out his name’s Sixto and he’s very much alive – amazing story. So look forward to the movie, big time.
The documentary is great – I’ve been listening to Cold Fact all week, I can’t believe I’d never heard of Rodriguez before! What a great story, and what a nice guy.