E7 Now & Then: September 2017

Four Forest Gate authors have published books with a local history theme over the last two years, and a fifth, with Forest Gate origins, has recently seen his book on a notorious financial adviser become a best seller. Below are details of the four non-children’s workhouse books.

Unruly and predatory cattle – the cows of Wanstead Flats - Peter Williams and Mark Gorman

The latest in Peter and Mark’s series of half a dozen books on the history of Wanstead Flats, and tells the story of cattle grazing locally, and the colourful characters involved.

Many of you will remember cows wandering round the area in the 1980-90s or may have seen the longhorn cows recently in Wanstead Park. What you may not know that cattle grazing in the area goes back hundreds of years. In fact, the area was one of the most important grazing grounds in southern England and was at the terminus of vast cattle drives from the English regions, Wales and even Scotland. The cattle were destined for Smithfield meat market, and walked all the way here!

Booklet available from Newham Bookshop and The Emporium on Sebert Road, priced £5.00

Saving the People’s Forest – Mark Gorman

150 years ago, in July 1871, thousands gathered on Wanstead Flats, at the southern edge of Epping Forest, to mount a protest. A campaign was beginning – one that renowned ecologist Oliver Rackham has dubbed “the origin of the modern British environmental movement.”

The struggle to preserve Epping Forest and other commons from unchecked housing development across London had its watershed moment that day. The demonstration started a popular struggle which contributed to a change in the law - the 1878 Epping Forest Act – the first legal declaration of the public’s right to use an open space in Britain for leisure.

This story, set within a wider narrative of the campaign to preserve the London commons, is told in Mark Gorman’s new book Saving the People’s Forest: Open spaces, enclosure and popular protest in mid-Victorian London. The focus here is not on the metropolitan upper middle-class campaigners, but instead on the grass roots movement whose popular protests would steer the campaign towards its successful conclusion. This campaign and other contests described in the book contributed significantly to the birth of what has become the modern-day “right to roam”.

Saving the People’s Forest (ISBN: 978-1-912260-41-6) is available from the Newham Bookshop, price £16.99.

Between Heaven and Earth: A Journey With My Grandfather - Robert Nurden

Stanley James was an 1890s hippie in the Canadian West - cowboy, shepherd, navvy, hobo and newspaper reporter, soldier in the Spanish-American war, poet and actor. On his return to England, he married and became a Nonconformist minister, who charmed and alienated his congregation with his socialism, pacifism and support for women’s emancipation.

In 1923 he converted and reinvented himself as one of the most celebrated Catholic writers in the English-speaking world, with nine books to his name. Widely respected for his knowledge, passion and insight, he worked alongside Bertrand Russell and counted G.K. Chesterton among his friends.

Yet the chance discovery of hundreds of secret letters and diaries of three women – many quoted in this account – shattered the image. These amazing documents show in intriguing and often explicit detail that, as a husband and father of seven, he had an affair and liaisons with members of his congregation. Just how much did his family and friends know?

Robert Nurden was born seven months before his grandfather died. He was determined to find out what drove this complex and contradictory man, trapped Between Heaven and Earth.

"Grabs the reader forcefully" - The London Magazine

"Easily one of the best biographies I have ever read" - Patrick Quigley, author of Sisters Against the Empire

Between Heaven and Earth: A Journey With My Grandfather (ISBN: 978-1-8384477-0-0) is available from Newham Bookshop, price £10

Built on a Lie – The Rise and Fall of Neil Woodford and the Fate of Middle England’s Money – Owen Walker

Neil Woodford, Britain’s most successful British asset manager, spent years beating the market and making middle England rich. But in 2019, after a series of poorly judged investments, his investment company collapsed. In the process he trapped hundreds of thousands of rainy-day savers in his £3.7billion fund.

In Built on a Lie, the Financial Times reporter who broke and followed the story, Owen Walker reveals the disastrous failings of Woodford, the greed at the heart of his operation, the flaws of an industry in thrall to its star performers and the dangers of limited regulation. With exclusive access to Woodford’s inner circle, the author reveals the full, jaw-dropping story of Europe’s biggest investment scandal in a decade.

Owen was born and educated in Forest Gate. He is now a Financial Times journalist, living in Walthamstow with his wife and two young sons.

Built on a Lie (ISBN978-0-241-46619-7) is published by Penguin Books and is available from Newham Bookshop, and all good book retailers, priced £20.