A giant construction hole was to have been built in Hanbury Street, with hundreds of lorry movements and a giant spoil heap nearby – but the No To Crossrail Hole campaign put a stop to that, thanks to Kay Jordan from the Spitalfields Small Business Association and Muhammad Haque, organiser of the Khoodeelaar campaign. Khoodeelaar cannot be exactly translated but conveys in Sylheti ‘a hostile force is digging!’ This motivated a large local protest, leading the Council to about-turn and lobby against the Hanbury Street hole, which was stopped in 2006.

Those works would have devastated the Brick Lane area and things would have looked very different now.

GA, I enjoyed reading your piece about “Crossrail Drillers” as they began this massive project in 2009. Obviously, the undertaking took longer to complete, but that is usually the way these things go.

Also in my morning email was a message by London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan – “This is a landmark moment for our capital and the whole country, particularly in this special Platinum Jubilee year.”

I then had to study the route of the Elizabeth Line. Wow, what a difference it will make!

God save the Queen. Missing London today …