Pie and Mash down the Roman Road: 100 years of love and life in one East End market

I purchased a copy of this after I saw it had been short-listed for the Andre Simon Award. It sounded right up my street - social history and food history. But what a disappointment it turned out to be. The author does not engage the reader, she really lacks any fluency of style; facts are just plonked on the page and in the earlier parts we jump back and forth in history, with names and streets being listed endlessly. She's obviously trawled the census reports for her subjects and their families as she lists the number of the house in almost every instance until it just becomes so tiresome. What's the point? She does not flesh out her characters so we cannot relate to them or indeed in many cases can't remember them because they are just names on a page. And there is so much repetition. You realise how lacking in style her writing is when you read the wonderful quotation from Sylvia Pankhurts's description of the east end in The Woman's Dreadnought.Other unforgiveable faults with the book which are not necessarily the fault of the author, it does not have an Index. Who publishes a book such as this without an index? Also no bibliography. There are few references to other sources dotted throughout but any respectable work of non-fiction will attribute all research sources. Finally the book could certainly have used a map of the area she is describing. For those of us not intimately acquainted with the east end getting a sense of the location of places, buildings and streets that a map would have afforded would have helped enormously. This book could have been such an interesting and engaging read but it just a huge chore I'm afraid. The author would do well to read Erik Larson's Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania for a model of how to write exhilirating, engrossing social history full of characters who leap off the page.

Being someone who was born on Fish Island in the early 50's I absolutely loved this book and was very disappointed when I finished it. I have read other books on the East End in the past but found them a little boring as they are more like history reference books. The difference in this book is that it surrounds the lives of actual people living in and around Roman Road. If I did have a criticism I would say that it was a shame there are no photos and the print is a little small for us of a senior age.

I loved this true story of life through the ages of Roman Road Pie and Mash shops, so dear to my heart a lovely market always a joy to visit there. Lots of amazing stories in this book, loved it.

If you lived and went down the Roman an had pie an mash then have a read of this book you’ll remember it all

My mum loved this she found it very interesting it brought back lots of memories