Download or read book Bombsites and Lollipops My 1950s East End Childhood written by Jack Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-02 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War Two is finally over. Millions all over the country are starting to wonder if peacetime really is much of an improvement on the War. Food shortages, endless queues, power cuts, rationing and freezing winters make it extremely difficult to make ends meet as husbands return from battlefields to families they hardly know. Yet some East Enders are living large...in a bombed out damp and squalid Hackney slum, one family are leading a life of luxury, a loadsamoney world funded by illegal betting, where virtually everything is available, thanks to a thriving black market. The Hyams family has a retinue of unofficial servants: a chauffeur, a cleaner and an army of delivery men. They take seaside holidays in posh hotels and dine on the finest foods and delicacies money can buy...but at the core of their daily life, an ever-growing nightmare lurks, threatening to wreck their luxurious existence. In this honest and sincere memoir, Jacky Hyams revisits the 'live for today' world of her childhood, a world where money was no object, growing up in a household underpinned by betting, booze and bribes. From stories of her parents partying with the Krays in the East End of old, to the optimistic swinging sixties of London's West End, this is the intimate story of a unique childhood, set against the backdrop of squalid, post-War Hackney.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of London s East End written by Kevin A. Morrison and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2023-03-03 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The East End is an iconic area of London, from the transient street art of Banksy and Pablo Delgado to the exhibitions of Doreen Fletcher and Gilbert and George. Located east of the Tower of London and north of the River Thames, it has experienced a number of developmental stages in its four-hundred-year history. Originating as a series of scattered villages, the area has been home to Europe's worst slums and served as an affluent nodal point of the British Empire. Through its evolution, the East End has been the birthplace of radical political and social movements and the social center for a variety of diasporic communities. This reference work, with its alphabetically organized cross-referenced entries and its original and historical photography, serves as a comprehensive guide to the social and cultural history of this global hub.
Download or read book Frances Kray The Tragic Bride The True Story of Reggie Kray s First Wife written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full account of the beautiful, innocent young woman who married Reggie Kray - and became trapped in the violent and terrifying world of the Kray Twins.She was young, very beautiful and had everything to live for - but the life of Frances Shea, wife of Reggie Kray, remains one of the most tragic stories of the Sixties.Courted by Reggie as a schoolgirl, Frances was lured into an outwardly glamorous world of nightclubs, expensive clothes and showbiz parties. Yet she very soon discovered the real world of the Kray Twins, the hidden, twisted world where violence, drink, drugs and terror dominated everything.Frances broke away and briefly enjoyed other relationships, struggling to maintain her freedom. Yet Reggie would never let her go. Paranoid and obsessive, he monitored her every move, stalking her night and day.By the time she married Reggie in their ‘Wedding of the Year’ in 1965, Frances and her family had become inextricably linked with the Twins’ downward spiral from gangland extortion and brutality into senseless murder and mayhem.Trapped, desperate and unable to cope, just two years later Frances died from a drug overdose.Only now, 50 years later, in a revealing and shocking examination of the facts, the truth about the life of Frances Shea and her short marriage to Reggie Kray is finally revealed in this new, revised edition. With hitherto unseen photographs, documents and revelations, the book explodes the many myths surrounding the marriage. In doing so, it uncovers the sordid reality of the Kray world - and shows how the effect of this tragic, doomed relationship haunted the lives of Frances’s loved ones right to the end.
Download or read book Sixty Somethings written by Nicola Madge and published by Quadrant Books. This book was released on with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ‘Swinging Sixties’ are commonly depicted as hedonistic days, a point in history remembered for the generation of young people who shed the trappings of their parents and grandparents and, fuelled by sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, set out to put the world to rights. A time when individuality was heralded and convention widely challenged. A time without precedent. But what was it really like and what is this generation up to now? What did they expect from their lives, and were they so different from those of their parents and grandparents and, indeed, even their children?
Download or read book Hoop Skirts and Ponytails A Fifties Memoir written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elvis is waiting outside in a big pink Caddy. Or rather, he would be if the dreams and fantasies of millions of teenage girls could only come true... And like so many other thirteen-year-olds, East End schoolgirl Jacky Hyams has fallen under the spell of the man with the swivel hips and sexy voice, an unforgettable moment in time amidst a tidal wave of social change in Britain: the era of the Fifties teenager. All around her, people are shaking off the memory of the drab austerity years after the Second World War. Ration books are now history. The good times have finally arrived. Families like Jacky’s are starting to be tempted by the incredible new household goods in high-street shop windows: TVs, fridges, washing machines, electric heaters, now widely available on credit. Wimpy bars and frozen fish fingers are changing the culinary landscape. Even the Prime Minister is telling the country: ‘You Never Had it So Good.’ Now, for the first time ever, teenagers are being wooed as never before, consumers in their own right, rather than mere mini versions of their elders. It is a dramatic cultural shift that sparks a huge rift between the generations. As bewildered parents struggle to cope with her teenage rebellion against old-fashioned attitudes, for Jacky all these tempting changes can only lead her in one direction – an all embracing desire for freedom – and a growing determination to break free of the traditional East End way of life.
Download or read book The Day War Broke Out written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sunday, 3 September 1939: the dawn of a new conflict that would engulf the world, following the words of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: 'This country is at war with Germany'. By the time World War II ended in 1945, nearly half a million people from Britain and its empire had lost their lives, and the world had changed forever. Eighty years on, a look back at the lives of British people in September 1939 reveals a very different world from the one we know today. Unprecedented hardship lay ahead for a country where free healthcare for all was unknown: strict rationing of food and petrol, conscription for both sexes, and personal tragedy year after year amidst the chaos of Britain's bombed out cities and ports. What was it really like to be living in Britain in September 1939? The Day the War Broke Out is a fresh insight into the hearts and minds of a nation on that fateful day. With exclusive personal interviews, untold stories, wartime diaries and newspaper reports, it reveals the innermost fears and hopes of a society on the brink of war: through the eyes of young mothers fearful for their families, bewildered children painfully cut adrift from loved ones, and men of all ages, many now facing combat for the second time in their lives. These are personal, intimate snapshots from eighty years ago - when the entire world, virtually overnight, seemed to have been turned upside down - and of how a nation faced this new world with courage, humour and stoicism.
Download or read book The Day The War Ended written by Jacky Hyams and published by John Blake. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tuesday, 8 May 1945: Victory in Europe Day. A day of joyous celebration, as the end of a conflict which had engulfed the world came within touching distance. Millions of people celebrated in the streets throughout Britain. Yet not all was right in the world. Struggles remained ahead - war still raged on between the Allies and Japan. Agreements and treaties were yet to be forged. Lives continued to be lost around the world. Meanwhile in Britain, although the pressure of supporting active military campaigns was reduced, lives were irrevocably changed in other ways. Bonds forged by the momentum of struggle, by hardship, unity and common purpose would begin to fade, and give way to the wounds of sorrow, upheaval and trauma that six years of conflict had riven. What was it really like to be living in Britain as the war drew to a close, giving way to a new era of hope, but also of deep uncertainty? In The Day the War Ended, bestselling author Jacky Hyams delivers a sweeping story, weaving together illuminating untold stories with contemporary records and photographs. The result is a moving, personal insight into hearts and minds across the home front right through the momentous year of 1945, as war ended and 'everything after' took root, shaping the world we know today.
Download or read book White Boots Miniskirts A True Story of Life in the Swinging Sixties written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London, 1966, was a time when anything seemed possible, especially for a young, free-spirited girl in search of adventure. With pop music, fashion and youth culture at its height London was the most 'swinging' city on earth and the outlook was optimistic. In the follow-up to her bestselling memoir Bombsites and Lollipops, Jacky Hyams takes a look back to the years that changed Britain forever. A time of miniskirts, sexual-freedom, and spies from behind the Iron Curtain. But the excitement of the Swinging Sixties was to only last a decade and by 1970 things had turned bleaker. With wry humor and honesty, Jacky tells how the revolutionary fervor became the cash-strapped Seventies and how her search for love and success bridged the two.
Download or read book Bomb Girls Britain s Secret Army The Munitions Women of World War II written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-05 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were the unsung heroines of World War II; the wives, mums and teenage girls, all 'doing their bit' for the war effort, clocking in daily to work in cast munitions factories, helping make the explosives, bullets and war machines that would ensure victory for Britain.It was dangerous, dirty and exhaustive work. They worked round the clock, often exposed to toxic, lethal chemicals. A factory accident could mean blindness, loss of limbs - or worse. Many went home with acid burns, yellow skin or discoloured hair. Others were forced to leave their loved ones and move to live with total strangers in unfamiliar surroundings. Frequently, their male bosses were coarse and unsympathetic.Yet this hidden army of nearly two million women toiled on regardless through the worst years of the war, cheerfully ignoring the dangers and the exhaustion, as bombing, rationing and the heartbreak of loss or separation took their toll on everyone in the country.Only now, all these years later, have they chosen to tell their remarkable stories. Here, in their own words, are the vivid wartime memories of the 'secret army' of female munitions workers, whose resilience and sheer grit in the face of danger has only now started to emerge.These are the intimate and personal stories of an unforgettable group of women, whose hard work and quiet courage made a significant contribution to Britain's war effort. They didn't fire the bullets, but they filled them up with explosives. And in doing so, they helped Britain win the war.
Download or read book Bomb Girls written by Jacky Hyams and published by Blake Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These are the intimate and personal stories of an unforgettable group of women, whose hard work and quiet courage made a significant contribution to Britain's war effort. They didn't fire bullets but they filled them up with explosives and helped Britain to win the war.
Download or read book My East End written by Gilda O'Neill and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2000-09-28 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Every page is a delight. Every chapter made vivid by a writer who has poured heart and soul into her book' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail The East End of London - cockneys, criminals, street markets, pub singalongs, dog racing, jellied eels . . . It is a place at once appealing and unruly, comforting and incomprehensible. Gilda O'Neill, an East Ender herself, shows there is more to this fascinating area than a collection of clichéd images. Using oral history and more traditional sources, she builds up a powerful image of this community - bringing to us, with wit and honesty, the real story of London's East End WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT MY EAST END: 'A true and detailed account of a community that has been sadly lost' Amazon Reader Review 'Excellent reading for anyone interested in the early life of London, one can't help being mesmerised by the hardships they endured!' Amazon Reader Review 'An extremely interesting and well-researched book' Amazon Reader Review
Download or read book The Real Life Downton Abbey written by Jacky Hyams and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Step back a hundred years to the world of the pampered, privileged upper classes and look inside Downton Abbey to find out exactly what goes on behind the magisterial doors of TV's favourite stately home. They were the super rich of their times, pampered beyond belief - the early 20th century Edwardian gentry, who lived like superstars, their every desire or need catered to by an army of butlers, servants, footmen, housekeepers and grooms. Class, money, inheritance, luxury and snobbery dominated every aspect of the lives of the upper crust Edwardian family, led by Robert Crawley, The Earl of Grantham - played in the hit show by Hugh Bonneville. While below stairs the staff, including Carson the Butler (Jim Carter), Bates the Valet (Brendan Coyle), O'Brien the Ladies' Maid (Siobhan Finneran), and Daisy the Kitchen Maid (Sophie McSherra), inhabited a completely different world, their very lives dependent on servicing the rich, pandering to their masters' every whim, rubbing shoulders with wealth and privilege, privy to their most intimate and darkest secrets - yet faced ruin and shame if they ventured to make the smallest step outside the boundaries of their class ridden world. From manners and morals to etiquette and style, The Real Life Downton Abbey opens the doors to TV's favourite stately home.
Download or read book Pie and Mash down the Roman Road written by Melanie McGrath and published by Two Roads. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN, THE ANDRÉ SIMON FOOD BOOK AWARDS AND THE FORTNUM & MASON BOOK AWARDS 'Filled with hearty goodness and packed together with care, this will go down a treat' Evening Standard | 'Rich and compelling' Spectator | 'Extraordinary and very moving' Julian Fellowes | 'Beautifully written, carefully researched, wonderfully told' Danny Wallace The fascinating history of an iconic East End institution from the bestselling author of Silvertown, Melanie McGrath. G Kelly's Pie and Mash has been run by the same family in the Roman Road in Bow for nearly a hundred years; an East End institution and the still point of a turning world. Outside its windows the Roman Road has seen an extraordinary revolution - from women's liberation and industrialisation to wars and immigration - and yet at its heart it remains one of the last traditional market roads of London. Pie and Mash down the Roman Road is the biography of that shop and of the people - customers, suppliers, employees, owners - who passed through it, and continue to do so. Through vivid tales of ordinary lives the book tells the extraordinary story of the community living around the oldest trading route in Britain, and the true heart of the East End. 'Draws you right into the heart of the vibrant East End community' Rosie Hendry 'Pacey and breath-taking . . . I loved every word' Carol Rivers
Download or read book Jennifer Saunders The Unauthorised Biography of the Absolutely Fabulous Star written by Jacky Hyams and published by Metro Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-11 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jennifer Saunders is Britain's best-loved comedienne, screenwriter and actress. For the first time, author Jacky Hyams reveals the story behind Jennifer's rise to fame, her successful career as the Queen of Comedy and the highs and lows of her remarkable life. Born in 1958 in Sleaford, Jennifer's mother was a biology teacher and her father was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. In 1977 she attended the Central School of Speech and Drama where she met her comedy partner Dawn French. After graduating, Jennifer began her career at The Comedy Store in London, and it was during this time she was to meet comedian, actor and writer Adrian Edmondson, who she would later marry. In July 2010 Jennifer was to face her toughest challenge, after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Since her diagnosis she has made a full recovery. This is Jennifer's full, unauthorised story.
Download or read book The Female Few written by Jacky Hyams and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the darkest days of the Second World War, an elite group of courageous civilian women risked their lives as aerial courier pilots, flying Lancaster bombers, Spitfires and many other powerful war machines in thousands of perilous missions. The dangers these women faced were many: they flew unarmed, without radio and in some cases without instruments, in conditions where even unexpected cloud could mean disaster. In The Female Few, five of these astonishingly brave women tell their awe-inspiring tales of incredible risk, tenacity and sacrifice. Their spirit and fearlessness in the face of death still resonates down the years, and their accounts reveal a forgotten chapter in the history of the Second World War.
Download or read book We All Fall Down written by Eric Walters and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2010-05-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel from one of the country’s most prolific and popular YA authors, this book, set in New York City on September 11th, shows us how the experiences of that day profoundly changed one teen’s life and relationships. Today is September 10, 2001, and Will, a grade nine student, is spending the day at his father’s workplace tomorrow. As part of a school assignment, all the students in his class will be going to their parents tomorrow, but Will isn’t excited about it–he’d rather sleep in and do nothing with his friends. His father doesn’t even have an exciting job like his best friend James’s father who is a fireman. Will’s dad works for an international trading company and has to wake up early every morning to commute to his office on the eighty-fifth floor in the south building of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Will doesn’t see his father very often because of the hours he puts in at the office. He doubts that his dad will bother making time for him tomorrow even when they are supposed to be spending the day together. In this fast-paced and dramatic new novel by bestselling author Eric Walters, Will discovers a new side of his father during an event that continues to affect the world. As Will’s new teacher says, tomorrow “might be an experience that changes your entire life.”
Download or read book The Sounds and Smells of My Childhood written by Mike McCarthy and published by . This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a short, lovely memoir of the author's childhood, based on the song/poem written by David Mallett, "I Knew This Place." A place that was unique, very historic, and very loving, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, was a hustling and bustling community in the 1950s. All predictions were it would become the next Chicago. The Sounds and Smells of My Childhood is a nostalgic journey. It brings the reader back in time to that place of their own youth, of fond memories, of laughter and tears.
