The Earl of Petticoat Lane

Breath story and the book is really well put together

Henry Freedman made an extraordinary journey from East End barrow boy, born of Jewish parents, into the heart of London society. It is a wonderful story, lovingly and skilfully chronciled by his grandson, Andrew Miller. But this book is far more than homage to a remarkable, gutsy grandfather; and it is more than a love story which began on Petticoat Lane, when Henry, who was then 22, met the 18 year old Miriam Claret; and it is certainly more than an evocation of an East End long gone - though well worth reading for any of these features. What makes The Earl of Pettcoat Lane (which needs an index before I give it five stars)not just an entertaining account of a long-gone social world are the tough questions which the author gently and implicitly poses about contemporary immigrants who have made their homes in the East End and elsewhere in Britain. Just what does it mean to be 'British' today? What are the aspirations of immigrants from Somalia or Bangladesh or Pakistan for whom the United Kingdom is now home? Henry Freedman succeeded in becoming as 'British as the British' - but this ambition today seems as old fashioned and remote as the East End of century ago, which his grandson has brought so vividly to life.