ON THIS WEEK IN EAST END HISTORY SOME STUFF HAPPENED… July 28th 1968. A body is found on the foreshore at Wapping Pier Head. It is John Lennon. He’s not really dead (that was Paul) but the Beatles soon will be, and a gloomy doomy atmosphere seems to pervade almost all of the images from their last official photo shoot, much of which took place in Wapping. Many were taken by the war photograph Don McCullin, who at the same times was snapping classic images of wide eyed Spitalfields tramps. For pics of the fab four in Docklands search ‘Beatles – Mad Day Out.’ July 29th 1662 Farmers have been casually coming to the fields by St Mary’s Hospital, near the Bishops gate to the City of London, to sell their produce for many years. But now John Belch has been granted a royal charter to hold regular markets on Thursday and on Saturdays, creating London’s first official wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Five hundred and fifty years later Saturday trading begins again in Old Spitalfields Market, despite regular assurances made to local residents by its developers they would never ever do so. July 30th 1987 The DLR is opened by the Queen. Now, generally, a pretty efficient service, the early Docklands Light Railway was once infamous for breaking down between stations, as the Queen discovered on its maiden voyage. August 1st 1820 The Regents Canal opens, linking the Grand Union with Limehouse Basin. One hundred and ninety years later the Dockmasters House there becomes a pub owned by Gordon Ramsey. There is an outcry when it is revealed that the Chef turned sweary celebrity is serving boil in the bag meals. This later turns out to be a trendy cooking method I once saw him denounce in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. August 3rd 1937 Steven Berkoff is born in Stepney Green. Long before he becomes world famous as that creepy guy acting in a different style to everyone else in major Hollywood movies, Steven writes ’East.’ Les; Donate me a snout, Mike? Mike; OK, I’ll donate thee a snout Les. They both turn to the audience. Les and Mike; Now you know our names. These are the best opening lines of any play ever.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 08:53:26 +0000
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