Let me tell you a story (or two)

Hitler attacks a baby, dad looks after the opium, and hundreds of ship horns are booming ... and that's just for starters!  Good grief where am I taking you today?

It all began a couple of months ago when I took you on a journey to the old Millennium Mills in Silvertown, that trip was all about the building and the plans for its future.


I have been back on another adventure. This time it was all about the local people and their histories.

I took a trip in a wee boat called the Silver Queen, and like everything on this day it has a story.  She is one of the many small boats that crossed the channel to Dunkirk in WWII to ferry the soldiers back to the homeland.  Over 8 days at the end of May 1940, 800 small boats ferried more than 300,000 men across the channel back to England.



Today's trip was not so hazardous, neither was it in the dark of night.  A lovely day and a chance to get a view of the old mills from the river side.

Prior to our boat trip we met many of the older locals who grew up during the time when the Docklands was a busy working area.  Their stories of working on the docks and dodging the bombs during the war were fascinating, funny, and scary all at the same time.

The forgotten stories of the locals are being recorded as part of a heritage project instigated by the developers of Silvertown.

Although my natural instinct is to be sceptical about anything developers do, so far everything the Silvertown developers have told and shown us is different, and that they really do seem to want to put their ethical ideal34 into practice.  However, I won't be the only one holding them to their promises - would you mess with this lot!!

Most importantly do listen to their forgotten stories and hear how it really was as experienced by those who lived it.