Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
chucker-out and, if I remember rightly, the Queen's was no exception. The official wore a
boiler suit and hairy cloth cap, and sold ice-cream as a sideline to cool the heads of the rest-
less gods. The Queen's and the Bryant and May Match Tax Testimonial fountain in Bow
Road were my chief pleasures in the district. Poplar was chosen as the site of a large re-
building scheme, Lansbury, which I have visited several times. I cannot think of anything
more bureaucratic and dismal. The market square, completed about 1951, has a depress-
ing air about it, quite unlike most London markets. The Trinity Congregational Church is
tear-stained with streaky dirt, and the Festival Inn belied its name, on my last visit, with
peeling stucco and a decaying sign. Still, life in Poplar has something of its old cockney
flavour about it. How little things alter in reality was proved by a boy's sailor suit I saw
for sale - a new version of those seen in late Victorian photographs and almost identical.
Where else could one buy one but in the Victorian East End?
