Showing results by author "Gilda O'Neill" in All Categories

Were things really better in the good old days? Gilda O'Neill's powerful exploration of the teeming underbelly that was to be found in the fog-bound streets, rat-infested slums, common lodging houses, boozers, penny gaffs, and brothels in the heart of the greatest empire that the world has ever seen brings to life the real working-class London of Victoria's reign.

Born into a traditional East End family in Bethnal Green, Gilda O'Neill grew up in a world most of us associate with chirpy cockneys, pub knees-ups, legendary criminals and the Dickensian underworld. Her nan had a pie and mash shop, her grandfather was a tug skipper on the Thames and her great-uncle was the minder for a gambling den.

Angie is 18 years old, and, with the help of a mini skirt, a pair of false eyelashes and a tube of pale pink lipstick, has made herself into a beauty. She's living in London in the Swinging Sixties, and knows she's in the best city in the world at the best possible time. She's got that world at her pretty, white-booted feet as she dances the night away with every handsome bloke on the booming, strobe-lit floor of the Canvas Club.

What's a nice girl like Lorna Wright doing with an East-End bad boy like Richie Clayton?The world is changing and London is swinging: it's the 1960s. But in the East End the docks are closing and life will never be the same for the families who have worked there for generations, among them the Wright family.Lorna Wright is a nice girl, but Richie Clayton is bad news: a violent thug who will stop at nothing to climb his way to the top of the East End underworld.