Comments on: A Whitechapel Childhood

By: ANDY STROWMAN

ANDY STROWMAN — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:06:11 +0000

It looks like your two great grandparents escaped the Pogroms which was the ritual slaughter of many Jews caused by the influence of the Czar and influenced by endemic hatred of local people to Jews .
This unfortunately was the case even in Poland where the Cossacks specialist soldiers of the Czar wee known to be very cruel .
All this can be read and researched .
Please Mrs East tell your story and find out about your generic past . Others too do similar .
I leave it by telling that not all people with names and titles of cruelty are infinitely cruel as Byla who I mentioned in my story told me this herself :

“ One day I was washing clothes in the river as I normally did got my grandparents and myself when a man came by on a horse . He was beautifully dressed with a helmet and sword by his side . He got off the horse and was very kind to me and polite then he rode off . I finished the washing and hurried back to tell my grandmother about what had happened . I was just fourteen . When I returned and told her she started shouting at me ,” You must never ever speak to this man and others like him again. He is a Cossack . They are known to hurt Jews .”

By: Mrs A East

Mrs A East — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:40:45 +0000

How wonderful to read your reminiscences.
My paternal 2x great grandparents arrived in England before 1871 and settled in the East End as poor cigar makers, initially in Leman Street. They, then my great grandmother & my grandmother lived in various parts of Stepney. Mile End Old Town, Limehouse etc, moving at least once between each census and often even between registrations of each child’s birth.
I have heard a few sad stories of my nan’s childhood, and I definitely intend to make a record of everything I heard, as well as of my own life, for my own ‘children’ and my grandchildren. Good advice!
How I wished I had been able to ask my nan, and my late father (he died before I had any interest in my roots!) about their own memories!

By: ANDY STROWMAN

ANDY STROWMAN — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 11:31:42 +0000

I went through this day as if in a dream for it makes me realise and happy that this indeed was some of my life.

I never included the time my brother Paul and I met the famous boxer Mohammed Ali who was at the Cumberland Hotel where my uncle Jack worked. Mould brother Howard lent us a cine camera to film him via his kind manager at Burlington Cameras, Mr Caplan .

By: Andrew Strowman

Andrew Strowman — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:23:12 +0000

I woke up today feeling groggy and with a virus and this really cheered me up to see it in print.
May I ask one thing to any reader of this note. Please verbally or in writing or both tell some of your own story today to someone of your childhood even in the comments section here and to someone on a phone /in the street to someone/ phone call . Please don’t let this memory sink.

Thank you to the Gentle Author for being the ONLY PERSON to print this reminiscence and others like it of my family . Bless you wonderfully.

Andy