The Speaker at our Monthly Meeting on 23 April 2025, St George’s Day. was Howard Slater who spoke on the East End of London which has been home to a series of immigrants from different parts of the world. Howard was very much into celebrating the cultures and customs that the different groups have brought to the community.

We started with a series of street views, courtesy of Google Maps and also from his own photographs, defining the area that is the East End, and where it borders on to the City of London. We were shown a number of churches including ‘The Jewish Church’ and its stained glass window dedicated to Sir Marcus Samuels. We also had an explanation of the rule as to which churches can have a spire and which cannot.

We were then into a taxi cab – electric of course – to see how transport had changed in the East End over the years, and to visit some of the theatres in the East End including those where Charlie Chaplin had performed. Howard also explained how industry had developed in the East End and then changed with each new wave of immigrant arrivals. We saw the demise of silk weaving, the arrival of calico, the markets and much much more. The occupations carried out in a house were often signified by a sign hanging outside the house, and Howard showed us bobbins for weavers, keys for locksmiths, and barrels for brewers.

In deference to our Chair, we had a quick visit to Dirty Dicks – a famous pub in Bishopsgate – which was followed by a short lesson in Cockney Rhyming Slang. We then took a tour of some of the street art to be seen in the East End including the black and white stork to be found in Hanbury Street, and the Village Underground (shown above).

We finished with a sing-song of traditional East End songs including ‘The Old Kent Road’, ‘Any Old Iron’, ‘My Old Dutch’ and many more. This was a most enjoyable talk and much appreciated by our members.

Our next Monthly Meeting will be on Wednesday 28 May 2025 at 10:00am where Elaine Samuels, the musician and songwriter, will be our speaker.