Vaccine stories: Injecting hope at the Mile End Art Pavilion
Mile End Park’s stunning Art Pavilion has been turned into a vaccination centre to play its part in the fight
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Culture & communities
Your guide to the communities, cultures, creative endeavours and personal stories of the people who live in the neighbourhoods around Roman Road
Rachel Blake, Cllr for Bow East, on Matchgirls and markets
Growing up in North London, Rachel Blake never anticipated that she would spend much of her adult life in Bow, as Councillor for Bow East and now Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets.
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Captain Dave: All aboard the Floating Church!
Moored up in Hackney Wick is the Floating Church. This barge-come-chapel is run by Reverend Dave Pilkington, a man who
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George Lansbury Labour MP for Bow and Bromley: ‘a great, servant to the people’
George Lansbury, former MP of Bow and Bromley, is remembered by all for his immense devotion to the people of the East End. Unlike many politicians who were born into the life of education and power, George Lansbury was truly a man of the people. Hardships from his early years shaped him to be a compassionate and fervent ally to women and the working class of the East End.
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Sporting Bengal: the FC tackling racism in football
Sporting Bengal United F.C play their football in Mile End Stadium, after being established in 1996 to ‘challenge the underrepresentation of Asians in football’. Team captain Rokib Choudhury and their manager Imrul Gazi speak out about what needs to be done to tackle racism in the game.
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Reformed criminal Gary Hutton on being a product of a postcode
Gary Hutton, reformed East End criminal from Stepney whose book Product of a Postcode talks of the environmental pressures that can lead to a life of crime, a message he now takes to local schools to help prevent young people from making the same mistakes he did.
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At least the weather’s good: a lockdown poem from Iftikhar Latif
Ifti Latif is a local poet, who wrote a poem inspired by lockdown last summer. As the winter months take hold and people look for some positivity in the current climate, he has chosen to share his work which he hopes will ‘be something nice to think about, especially as we enter January’.
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Messages from our spiritual leaders as they reflect on the last year
The light of faith has been so important this year, but that light has shown through in so many ways in our country; acts of kindness to strangers, reconnecting with neighbours, those on the frontline of fighting Covid-19.
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Mohammed Huq on the highs and lows of running his corner shop
Running a corner shop is not easy work, Huq’s usual day starts with a very early morning, to get the shop open for business by 7am, and finishes around midnight. He juggles unpacking deliveries and trips to the cash and carry between managing his team of staff and being a present, friendly face behind the counter.’
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Swadhinata Trust’s Julie Begum: ‘If I’m not challenging the injustice I see, I’m part of the problem.’
‘If I’m not challenging the injustices that I see then I’m part of the problem,’ says Begum. ‘I am not a passive person and I don’t want to be a passive person.’
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Local women breaking the taboo around menopause
‘My mother didn’t ever speak to me about it periods and found the whole subject matter of periods, and sex or anything like that very, very difficult to talk about. My first period was a very lonely sort of experience’.
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The surprisingly cosy comforts of boat life on the Regent’s Canal
Seeing a houseboat from the inside, being able to jump on board to feel the gentle, floating sway, and to be able to move your house whenever you want (quite literally) are things that many of us dream of.
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