Apart from your blog, fleeting visits, TV programmes,and the paintings of the East End group, I have no connection or direct knowledge of East London yet I often feel it has a deeper connection to the industrial North West, places like Wigan, Manchester, Salford and Bolton than it does with suburbs like Ealing or even Putney and Fulham or wealthy inner London ‘villages’ such as Chelsea and Knightsbridge. The sense of community, idealised perhaps, and probably long gone, is still potent, if only as an idea.