Big cities can be a mixed bag. They can be centres of pollution, deprivation, and conflict. However they can also be centres of vibrancy, diversity, and opportunity. London is no exception and has examples of all of the above. Most visitors to London probably think of Oxford Street, Covent Garden or perhaps the Tate modern as symbols of London and the prosperity and creativity it has nurtured over the centuries. For me through the gritty heart of London lies in the east. Away from the well trodden tourist tracks East London just gets on with it. Areas like Mile End or Whitechapel in the east are busy hubs swarming with ordinary people working hard to make a crust.

Petticoat Lane Market today

The east was where the industrial revolution first took hold, and where millions endured poverty and ill health for the sake of a dangerous and tedious factory job, often in the ‘rag trade’. While the new rich lived opulent lives in the west, their workers endured exploitation in the east. The rich chose the west because that’s where the sun sets; the sun could not  blotted out by the smoke from a thousand East End chimney stacks. The river Thames flows from the west, so the rich got the clean water, while the east got the polluted poisonous mire the river had become once all the sewage and industrial waste has been liberally added along its meanderings. Outbreaks of water born diseases like Cholera were common in East London, regularly killing umpteen thousands. In 1853 for example 12,000 people apparently died of the disease.

Roast Chestnuts – get 'em ere!

The struggle and poverty endured by those in the east end for generations though has shaped it today into a different place to West London. The East also felt the wrath of the Luftwaffe during the war and much of it was reduced to rubble. Nowadays the old, and the not so old, compete for space on the narrow streets. Ubiquitous factory and warehouse units, street markets, and traditional pubs all add up to really vibrant and interesting place. Far less pretentious than the West (except perhaps parts of Shoreditch!), and far more affordable and traversable to boot. It is place of enormous contrasts.

The Ten Bells pub – always features in stories about Jack the Ripper.

The financial capital of Europe, the City of London looms large over the East End. For example the landmark ‘Gherkin’, a 180m office block was sold for £630 million in 2007.  Yet, in the shadow of it, and other slices of the worlds most expensive real estate, sit some of the poorest boroughs in the whole country. All this means that  City banker from Surrey, with the million pound salary, can rush past the Big Issue vendor, as he goes to off to his long lunch, paid for on expenses. While the local Big Issue vendor aspires to a job filling sandwiches or washing up, at said lunch establishment – if he ever gets that lucky break he dreams about.

The sprouting Gherkin

So much for that great promise of Capitalism – a slow trickle down of wealth from the rich that will empower everyone.

Toynbee Street – the new skyline encroaches from the city

The diversity in the east though is to me it’s key strength. Waves of migration from around the world have added their distinct flavour, today you can hear a dozen different languages spoken as you walk the streets and nobody gives it a thought. Nothing reflects this more than the food on offer, it’s all here and it’s all authentic and all affordable to most. The epitome of this is the Brick Lane indoor Sunday market, it has a food stall area with everything from Brazilian to Sri Lankan to Vietnamese to Moroccan. The restaurants of Brick Lane itself need no introduction.

Anyway the point of all this? Just a nod to an unsung part of London. A part of the city with a gritty, practical take on life, brought about through necessity. It may often be tarnished with the brush of being an ‘inner city area’ which it is, but it’s also a lot more. Once you try your first Salt fish and Ackee, or Dhal Sambar you’ll be back for more. But keep the secret to yourself!

Sri Lankan food from the Sunday market.

Jamaican Curry at the market

The old contrasts the new.

Finally, the gherkin slides into view from Petticoat Lane, the market is about 150 years old.

Petticoat Lane and the Gherkin