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Adopting from the foster care system takes an extraordinary blend of hope, strength, resilience and love.
British author Sally Donovan gives a rare glimpse into that journey in her book, "No Matter What: An Adoptive Family's Story of Hope, Love, and Healing."
The book tells her own story of facing infertility with her husband and adopting two young children who suffered abuse in their early life.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers describes No Matter What:
Writing with incisive wit and honesty, Sally Donovan movingly describes the difficulties of living with infertility when friends and family have no idea, and the emotional process of arriving at a decision to adopt. She recounts the bewildering logistics of adoption and, after finally Sally and Rob are joyfully matched with siblings Jaymee and Harlee, how their joy is followed by shock as they discover disturbing details of their children's past. Determined to heal their children, Sally and Rob realise they will need to go 'beyond parenting' to give them with the help they need.
By turns heart-rending, inspiring and hilarious, Sally and Rob's story offers a rare insight into the world of adoptive parents and just what it takes to bring love to the lives of traumatised children.
I found the book to be inspirational and riveting in its unflinching honesty.
My fifteen year-old daughter picked up the book after I finished it and became immersed herself in the story. I found myself recommending it to many others, from the massage therapist who mentioned she wanted to adopt from the foster care system someday to the friend interested in child behavior.
I also found myself wishing that everybody else, from teachers to neighbors, could somehow read this book and better understand the unique circumstances of these children and their families.
You can read reviews of the book at Amazon and Amazon UK, where the book currently has 5-star ratings with praise such as:
As an adoptive parent myself I found this book honest and brave in its account of family life. Adoption begins with a loss and its important for people to know that parenting traumatised children takes courage and humour which Sally and Rob have in bucketfuls.
For me this book has given real insight into the world of modern adopting that many of us know little about, whilst having plenty of familiar ups and downs of life that I could identify with too. I don't have adopted children, but I have loved reading this.
I wish I had read this book while my friends were going through the adoption process, as I feel it would have helped me to understand more and be a better friend. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone who is thinking about adopting or going through the process, and their family and friends.
I read the book in about two days, literally devouring it (and ignoring my family) in order to read it to the end. I also folded down at least 20 pages to refer back to at a later date. SO much of the experience was familiar it was hugely cathartic to read.
As an adoptive mum of 2, I can relate to this book absolutely. I felt that Sally had written 'our' story so many times during reading it, and couldn't put it down.
It is well written, clear and candid and touches on the merits and dark places of the adoption journey, and particularly attachment issues.
I think it offers a good insight to someone who is thinking of embarking on this journey, and for those already journeying. It could be especially helpful for family members to get a 'fly on the wall' view of life in such a family.
It is extremely helpful to have some idea of what we are about to start in our own adoption journey.
I can't recommend this book enough for anyone. In fact EVERYONE should read this, it gives an accurate window into the reality of the world and it's impact on children and their families whether they are foster carers, adopters or birth parents.
You can also read an excerpt here (PDF).
No Matter What is a rare blend in books -- an interesting and enjoyable read, yet also informative and full of wisdom. I highly recommend it for adoptive parents, those who are considering adoption, foster care providers and social workers, as well as for family and friends of families who adopt.
Note: I received a copy of this book for review purposes, which had no bearing on my review. I have no affiliation with the author or publisher, and links contained in this article are not affiliate links.
Want to stay in the loop? You can subscribe to my column to be updated when I post articles. You can also find me on Pinterest and on examiner.com on the topics of homeschooling, green living and my national attachment parenting column.


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Worn once, immediately cleaned and preserved following wedding. Taken in at bust and length slightly shortened. I wore 2in heels and am 5'4″ and the dress was to the floor. Chapel train, ivory lace over ivory silk. Please email and I will send picture of gown
- Alterations:
- Preservation Method:
- Terms of Sale: All Sales Final
- Original Owner: Yes
- Has Original Receipt:
- Location: , PA
- Will Ship to: Anywhere at Owner Expense
- Payment Methods Accepted: Other
Please read our BUYER'S GUIDE before purchasing a dress online.

subset: commoncrawl


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President His Excellency Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah welcomed parties to Doha with a frank assessment of how dependent Qatar was on a positive outcome:
"As a coastal dry land nation, Qatar understands the very real threat posed by the impacts of climate change. We are almost 100% dependent on the sea for our freshwater and nearly 95-percent dependent on technology and trade for our food.
Our entire population lives at sea level.
Climate change stands as one of our single largest long-term challenges and no amount of prosperity or social progress can get around this issue.
This is why environmental sustainability is one of the four key pillars of our 2030 National Vision, and hosting COP18/CMP8 is an opportunity to invest directly in helping to move things forward.
It is a challenge we must face together. Never before has there been a greater urgency to act collectively to meet this challenge. We come to this table to do just that."


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Joseph Walter Haden III (twitter: @joehaden23)
Position: DB
Height: 5-11 Weight: 190 lbs.
Born: April 14, 1989 in Fort Washington, MD
High School: Friendly
College: Florida (school history) (Haden college stats)
Drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 1st round (7th overall) of the 2010 NFL Draft.
Weighted Career AV (100-95-...): 37 (2560th overall since 1950)
2-time Pro Bowler (fine print)
Other SR Links: College Football at Sports-Reference.com
Let people know you like this site. Sponsor this page for $10. Your message will replace this ad.
Output includes all games from 1920 to 2015.


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Tech Today: Teaching Apple Culture
Teaching Apple Culture: Since at least 2004, Apple executives have built a plan to maintain Steve Job's management style according to The Wall Street Journal. The program has included annual retreats for the "top 100″ managers as well as an in-house "university."
The corporate culture that Jobs leaves behind encourages creativity within a formal structure. "Apple "is an army… everyone has a role," former Apple executive Andy Miller told The Journal. [WSJ]
Apple: The Challenges Ahead: Between Amazon's recent launch of its $199 tablet last week, Android's rising popularity and a strong mobile refresh from Microsoft, Apple is headed into battle with its most serious challengers yet, reports The Journal. The tepid response to its iPhone 4S, one day before the company lost Steve Jobs, has not helped.
We should know more soon. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S begin today. [WSJ]
Design Spotlight Is Thrown on Ive: Since taking charge of the company's design team in 1996, Jonathan Ive and his group have been responsible for coming up with the physical look and feel of products that have helped set Apple apart from competitors. [WSJ]
Disability and Steve Jobs' Legacy: A Wired reporter writes about how the iPod Touch has helped him communicate with his 4-year-old autistic son. [Wired]
Kindle Fire Orders Keep Climbing: Amazon has sold between 235,000 and 245,000 of its Kindle Fire tablets since announcing the device on September 28. [AllThingsD]
Oracle To Pay $199.5 Million to U.S. Government: Oracle will pay $199.5 million rest to settle a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department alleging the company overcharged the government for software and services. [Forbes]


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Woodies USA:
When it came time to sell my 1949 I knew there was only one place and two gentlemen that would fulfill all my expectations. Not only were John and Gary able to sell my vehicle expeditiously, they found a buyer that I would have never been able to locate had I chose to sell it on my own. I was/am so very pleased with their expertise and professionalism, that I have since entrusted them to handle a second sale of another Woodie. It it obvious to me that this is not just a business for these two guys but more of a love, passion and dedication for the "Woodie" and its preservation, and that I will not hesitate to use Woodies USA in any sale or purchase in the future. Thanks Gary (Pawed-ner) and John.
Robert Smith
Surf City, USA
Woodies USA:
I loved my 1946 Maroon Woodie, but once the decision was made to sell, the whole process from start to finish could not have gone smoother. Gary performed exactly as he said, with enthusiasm and integrity. In hindsight, the decision to sell my car through Woodies USA was the smartest thing I did!
Ted Conerly
Woodies USA:
Upon freeing a spot in my collection of classic cars, I started a search for a 1947 or 48 Chrysler Town and Country convertible. After many weeks of phone calls, visits to various websites, and a trip to Fall Hershey, all to no avail, I spoke to someone who directed me to Woodies USA and John and Geri and Gary...BINGO!!!
John told me of a car that they would have under agreement soon. Then he proceeded to send me more pictures of that car than I have of my grandkids. He assured me I would have the first opportunity to buy the car once they received the car and the paperwork. I offered John a deposit on the car but he assured me the car was mine and he would send me more pictures of any issues with the car when received.
After 31 years as a new car dealer, I have experienced everything that can possibly go wrong with a cross country transaction. They could not have been more honest about the condition of the car (better than described) or more professional.
The 1948 Town and Country now sits in my garage, absolutely beautiful! A great experience, thanks to John, Geri and Gary. NICE JOB!!!
For a year I was searching for that "just right" woodie. A woodie club member recommended I check out Woodies USA on the web. I did and saw one I liked. However, not being one to make quick decisions, by the time I called on it, it had been sold.
In the process I got to know them, liked the personable feel of the conversation and told them the kind of woodie I was looking for. They said they thought a '47 Ford woodie that was coming would be just the ticket.
I sent a deposit, flew out, we had lunch, checked the car out, and the deal was done.
They arranged for the transportation, and handled all the details.
No question in my mind. If you're in the marker for a woodie, WUSA is the place to go!
Phil Latomase
San Jose, Ca
Come Visit
Our Showroom
In Laguna Niguel, CA.
(Call For Appt.)


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All things Mother Earth Living
by Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Editor at Large
flood, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
It's odd, to step into a city in crisis. I went home to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, over the Fourth of July holiday to visit friends and family. The town had been devastated by flooding just weeks before, and everyone was still reeling. The newspapers were full of survivors' stories and information for people—many of whom had lost literally everything—who needed help. On TV, a local business leader urged Cedar Rapidians to buy local—saying that now, more than ever, this was crucial for the town to survive. That "we will survive" mentality was pervasive, even if it did hold a small note of desperation.
The epic flood had washed out most of the downtown and surrounding homes, leaving more than 24,000 people without shelter. My family members told of days spent helping families carry soaked and moldy possessions to the curb, where piles of debris sat waiting to be hauled away.
Weeks after the flood, I saw grim-faced homeowners still hauling out stoves and refrigerators, soggy boxes of memorabilia and clothing. The vast majority of these folks had no flood insurance; they'd been promised that the Cedar River would never flood, and we all had a faith in levees and human engineering that proved unfounded.
The miracle in Cedar Rapids is that not one single life was lost to this flood. I ache for the folks who have lost their homes, but I also have faith in the people who make up the true fabric of my hometown. And they still need our help. Donations can be made to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation Flood 2008 Fund.
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Natural running is running with biomechanically correct form, consistent with the way you ran as a child. The concept, of course, is not new, but the problem is that most have forgotten how to run naturally or have been trained to run in ways that are at odds with the way we are built. Running is one of the most natural things we do as human beings; however, it can look quite awkward with improper biomechanics, which can lead to a multitude of injuries. We are all built to run; we ran thousands of years ago when running was a necessity and an integral part of life. We were literally, born to run! I invite you to re-learn how to run consistent with the way you are built.
The basic principles of Natural Running:
- Correct body alignment and posture
- Landing with a midfoot/forefoot strike
- Using "gravity" instead of muscle strength for propulsion
- Developing a strong core for better balance and propulsion
- Relaxation for total mind and body connection
Runners of ALL levels can improve their efficiency and performance while running injury-free. During the month of March, Planet Granite will be hosting three 90 minute Natural Running clinics:
Saturday, March 23th 1:00-2:30pm
Wednesday, March 27th 6:00-7:30pm
Saturday, March 30th 9:30-11:00am
Please contact Melissa Vrbanac, Certified Newton Natural Running Coach to reserve your spot today! firstname.lastname@example.com
I work with runners, triathletes, and cyclists of all abilities not because it is my job, but because it is my passion. It is because of this passion that all of my clients can rely on my commitment and assurance that they will receive the most professional and highest quality running/triathlon coaching each and every time I train with them. Since, the mid-1990s I have competed in numerous triathlons, running, cycling and long course swimming events in California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. I also raced for the Cucina Fresca Cycling Team ending in 2011. I have remained a highly competitive age-group triathlete, and I have loved every minute of it!
I have also had the opportunity to work in the health and fitness industry for the past six years in a number of positions, such as Group Exercise Director for three AllStar Fitness Clubs: Seattle Municipal Towers Club, The Executive Club, and West Seattle Club. As well as, the Washington Athletic Club as a spin instructor, and triathlon coach.
Les Mills RPM Cycling Instructor
Le Mond M3 – Cycling Instructor
USACycling – Cycling Coach Level 3 (01/13)
Newton Natural Running Coach & Chi Running Instructor
USAT – Triathlon Coach (Level I)
AAFA – Group Exercise Instructor & CPR/AED (01/29/1214)
3 Responses to "Natural Running Clinics at PG Sunnyvale with Melissa Vrbanac"
Sadly, I won't be able to attend any of these workshops due to my schedule, BUT I just wanted to throw out an endorsement for chi running/natural running.
After hooking up with a running club in Long Beach a few years back, led by two Chi Running coaches, I went from someone who detested running to someone who loves multi-hour trail runs. The increased efficiency allows me to enjoy the feeling of exploring the outdoors instead of suffering through a long run. If you haven't tried anything like this, give it a shot! Also, maybe an unofficial PG'er trail running group could start up as follow-up to these clinics in order to reinforce the newly learned techniques?
I also love to run and climb and i enjoyed it with my Vibram. 🙂
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Area Roundup
Turner Ashby's Madelyn Lawrence blocks a shot by Harrisonburg's Jessica Denton during Tuesday's 3-0 win. (Photo by Jason Lenhart / DN-R)
HARRISONBURG — Senior libero Marissa Collier had 14 digs and 18 service points to lead Turner Ashby High School to a 25-20, 25-15, 25-12 victory over Harrisonburg in a volleyball…
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First Published Mon, 2011-04-04 01:27
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The trading vessels that set off for the New World, for Asia, and for the West and East Indies from the 16th century onward, brought back a number of goods, without which it's impossible to imagine the London of today. No morning tea or coffee? No sugar with which to sweeten it? And where would Londoners be without the potato… a London without chip shops is a baleful prospect. But none of the new crops that came into Wapping seemed to catch on quite so quickly as tobacco. The first bales are said to have been landed from Virginia in 1586, and the first pipe of the stuff is supposed to have been smoked at the Pied Bull pub in Islington (though presumably somebody must have stopped for a smoke en route from Wapping to north London). Less than 30 years later there were some 7000 tobacconists in London, and despite the attempts of the tobacco-hating James I to tax the stuff out of existence (he described it as "a custome loathesome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine" in his famed 1604 essay A Counterblaste To Tobacco), Londoners couldn't get enough. Literally. James had his ministers limit the Virginia planters to exports of no more than 100lb of the stuff a year. Just like modern governments, the monarch expressed a loathing of the drug while happily pocketing the excise duty. By the middle of the 1600s the health benefits of the weed were being proclaimed (a brilliant fiction that persisted into the middle of the 20th century), with Spitalfields apothecaries selling tobacco and prescribing it as a protection during the Great Plague that carried off around 100,000 of the estimated 460,000 Londoners in 1665. And despite the miserable failure of tobacco as a medicine, Londoners kept smoking, munching and sniffing the stuff (with chewing tobacco and snuff just as popular as pipe tobacco). Wapping, Whitechapel and Spitalfields tobacconists in the 1700s were identified by the large wooden figure of a black Indian (native American) with a crown and kilt of tobacco leaves. So lucrative was the trade that top artists were employed to produce cards and shop bills, with the young Hogarth turning his brush to tobacco adverts. As the centuries wore on the fashions changed. By the 19th century cigars and, increasingly cigarettes, were gaining popularity in London. The size of the trade is evidenced by the construction of Tobacco Dock at Wapping. And the great quantity of unrefined tobacco now being brought in to the Pool of London from Virginia and elsewhere was matched by the vigorous attempts of gangs such as the River Pirates and Heavy Horsemen (not to mention many working on the docks) to liberate the stuff. So a bonded warehouse, with tight security needed to be built. The warehouses were part of the massive London Docks, begun on the marshes of Wapping in 1801 by John Rennie and opened four years later. And alongside grew up the East End cigar and cigarette industry. The East End has a plethora of trades that have come and gone. Lace-making, brewing, tanning and a host of other stink industries are now (largely) history, but the tobacco industry is almost forgotten. Maurice Zeegen, writing in 2003 of his own family firm, charted a fascinating and largely forgotten group of East End incomers, who made the business their own. "After the Huguenots [who settled in numbers after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1598] and before the East European Jews [who arrived en masse from the late 19th century] the Spitalfields area was settled by significant numbers of poor Jews from, predominantly, Amsterdam. They were known as 'Chuts', thought to be a take on the sound of the immigrants' word for 'good' in Dutch." And while the Huguenots were renowned for their lace-making skills, and the 19th century arrivals would be (to a large degree) employed in the garment trades, the profession pursued by many of these people was cigar-making. Many small workshops and factories were established in Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and Spitalfields, among them was the cigar factory of Zeegen Brothers, situated in Chicksand Street, off Brick Lane. Maurice, great-grandson of one of the founders of the factory, writes of his family business surviving into the 1920s before being absorbed into the Godfrey Phillips cigarette company [itself also founded by a Dutch family], based in Jerome Street, Whitechapel. The 1911 History of the County of Middlesex (the area east of the City wall, in those days, belonging to the now defunct county) suggested that the tobacco industry was still a huge employer in what is now the East End. "The manufacture of tobacco is carried on very largely in East London and Hackney, which contain 76 factories for the production of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, and snuff. In all London there are about 180 factories in this trade, and in the whole of England, the metropolis included, there are about four hundred and thirty, so that in the number of its tobacco factories East London occupies a conspicuous position." The number of factories (some major operations such as the Carreras works in Camden, which would eventually relocate to Basildon in Essex, others small workshops with a handful of employees) was remarkable enough. But there were numerous small workshops too, employing pieceworkers to treat the tobacco, roll cigars and produce pipe and plug tobacco. The tobacco industry in the East End was thus very like its natural counterpart, the matchmaking industry, where for every giant Fairfield works (Bryant and May's factory in Bow's Fairfield Road, which is now the Bow Quarter, but was once the largest 'manufactory' in Europe) there were thousands making phosphorous matches in tiny workshops (even in their own homes), and suffering the horror of 'phossy jaw' as a result. The raw tobacco would be 'liquored' and 'stripped', then the leaf handed over to 'stovers,' who first placed it on a steam-pan to separate the fibres, and then on a fire-pan to make it fit for keeping and to improve its smoking quality. The final process was that of 'cooling,' where a current of cold air is passed through it to drive off the moisture. The cigars the East Enders made were known, reasonably enough, as 'British cigars' in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the quality — if variable — was often surprisingly good. Cuban cigars were the acme of smoking excellence of course, but were expensive. Reports of the time compare the best of the East End cigars as 'infinitely superior' to the fake Havanas flooding into the London Docks from Belgium and, by the early 1900s, Mexico. The huge cottage industry began to falter under the attack of cheap imports from the Americas and, in the early 20th century, from the new fashion for Egyptian cigarettes, as cigar smoking declined. Ironically it was the massive popularity of smoking in the 20th century that saw off the small East End firms. Adoption of the drug was driven by the big corporations who could afford to advertise their products and drive cigarettes from a minority pursuit to a habit pursued by most adults. Now it was all about the brand, and the East End cigarette factories died off one by one. Cigar makers of the East End/east end life/9sep13 pics: the Jerome St factory; Tobacco dock; victorian caricature;
Category: East End crafts and craftspeople
Escaped tigers and white elephants … the Tobacco Dock story
IT SEEMED such a great idea. A prime chunk of derelict real estate, right at the epicentre of the coming Docklands boom. Just like in the Long Good
Friday: what could go wrong? As the rubble of the demolished docks was swept away, vast acres of new land were exposed to view. To the west lay Rupert Murdoch's monstrous Fleet Street on Thames at Wapping. To the east, the glittering towers of Canary Wharf were just beginning to emerge from the Isle of Dogs clay – a bit like spring flowers after a particularly long and brutal economic winter.
Tobacco Dock was and is a beautiful building too. When they constructed docks in the early 19th century they built them to last. And of course, being bonded warehouses for the holding of valuable imported Virginia tobacco, the structures had to be secure, to stop the fragrant cargoes from going over the wall. The fashion of the late eighties was to no longer demolish the massive Georgian buildings of the old docks, but to repurpose them for a yuppified 'Docklands', with modern interiors being created within the old shells. Frequently, of course, new 'faux' warehouses would be built to fill in the gaps.
So the owners of Tobacco Dock, Lawrie Cohen and Brian Jackson, (working with gifted architect Terry Farrell, who who artfully reconstructed Charing Cross station) and surfing a retail boom,
must have looked at their Grade One listed purchase, to be transformed from Napoleonic warehouse to 1990s' shopping centre and presumably thought: "What can go wrong?" And so they opened their doors, on 22 March 1989 … and nobody came.
If the building had had a colourful early life (we touch on Jamrach and his escaped tiger, as well as the Queen's Tobacco Pipe below) the years leading up to launch had been beset with snags. The owners had swallowed the expensive necessity of preserving the essential elements of Sir John Rennie's original design. The great architect of London Bridge, the London Docks and much more of the infrastructure of maritime and commercial London had rested his roofs on huge iron pillars, while the warehouse itself stood atop vast subterranean, arched brick vaults, built for the storing of the tobacco. Legend has it the elaborate brickwork was assembled by French prisoners taken during the Napoleonic Wars.
But planning permission seemed to go out of the window as the owners discovered that Rupert Murdoch had been given planning permission to knock down a section of the old dock, and use the land to expand the looming Fortress Wapping next door. The pair had just three months to match Murdoch's bid, and were bailed out at the eleventh hour by builder Harry Neal, who came up with £500,000.
The shops that took the units in the new centre were very much of the 1980s. There was a Body Shop, a Next, a Monsoon and a Filofax shop – all Tobacco Dock lacked was an outlet selling jumbo mobile builders' phones. But the traders who had counted on footfall from shoppers and tourists waited in vain. The Sunday Times nipped next door to get a story but that was about it. Amjal Chaudry, who took a unit to sell craftwork and jewellery told the paper in 1990 that he was seeing three or four people a day, taking £30 if he was lucky.
The problem? As property and retail experts will always say: it's about location, location … oh and location. You could say the mall was a short walk from Tower Hill, but who was going to take that walk along the traffic and fume congested highway. It was hard to get to, as well. There was Wapping station on the East London Line and Shadwell on the recently opened DLR, but both were poorly connected, unlike today, with the Ginger Line Overground and the ever-expanding DLR. The owners built a multi-storey carpark opposite, but even that set new records for a London car park with no cars in it.
The centre found occasional uses – as a location for pop video shoots (among them Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's Messages), for a commercial for the Ford Ka, and for filming of BBC time-slip drama Ashes to Ashes five years ago.
The remarkable fact was that the complex didn't close. The shops left, one by one, until by the late nineties there were only two businesses left: Frank & Stein's and Henry's Cafe Bar. In the mid-nineties a new plan was launched, to transform the Dock into a factory outlet complex. A bad omen perhaps was that this idea was floated by Gerald Ratner, the man who had destroyed his own jewellery company with a Russian Roulette approach to PR. And in 2000, Henry's Cafe closed, leaving Frank & Stein's as the only tenant. The owners were now forced to keep the complex open for another eight years, at which point the restaurant closed, and they could bar the gates for … the last time?
You can't get in there now, though you can see the replicas of sailing vessels the Three Sisters and Sea Lark, and the statues of animals commemorating the adventures of Charles Jamrach, who ran a zoo/petshop on the Highway in Victorian times. The story, perhaps embroidered over time, has a tiger escaping and seizing a local boy in its mouth, with Jamrach heroically prising the lad from the beast's jaws. Tiger and boy are here in statue form, gazing quizzically at each other. Perhaps they are wondering where everybody is? There is a bear too, another reminder of the eccentric menagerie. No expense was spared in making Tobacco Dock work – but to no avail.
With thanks to View From the Mirror' a Taxi Driver's London,
Dock deaths and the Poplar Hospital
THE NAME of the infirmary was tellingly blunt. The 'Poplar Hospital for Accidents' suggested that the East End of the 1800s was a dangerous place where bad things happened. And though it would become a refuge for East Enders suffering every kind of ailment, primarily it was created to cope with the constant stream of broken and shattered men carried from the East India Docks – the most dangerous place of all.
Dock work was inherently dangerous of course. The frequently half-cut dockers (cheap booze being one way to make a hellish job bearable) were manoeuvring large, heavy objects between moving ship and stable shore across narrow gangplanks, often slick with ice or other muck. They worked in a confusion of men and vehicles, alongside precipitous drops into the filthy Thames, with sharp grappling hooks being swung around with sometimes careless abandon. But a series of historical turns would make the job more dangerous still during the 1800s.
By the beginning of the 19th century, the Port of London was completely gridlocked, with ships taking days or weeks to be emptied, turned round and sent back to sea. The answer was to build a series of new, enclosed docks, increasing capacity while bringing down costs to the merchant companies, and thus of the goods they were importing. The West India Dock was built in 1802, the East India in 1803, London Docks in 1805 and half a dozen more would follow. The dock owners were now losing less stock through theft, with their well-protected docks, and so prices could come down further. It would lead to an economic boom for England and the beginnings of the great days of London retail. East End stores and market stalls were now selling imported fabrics, tea, coffee, rum, oranges and bananas, and East Enders could afford to buy them.
But with increased capacity came competition, as the dock owners cut prices to vie for business. That meant lower wages for the dockers, who were already on a daily rate or were being paid by the quantity they shifted throughout the day. And there was more competition for jobs, as new labour came in from the English countryside and from Ireland, forcing down wages further. Corners would be cut, and so accidents would happen.
The work itself was dangerous, dirty and tiring (and tired men had more accidents). Bags would burst, showering dockers with iodine, phosphate, asbestos, lead, cement or guano. A docker of more recent vintage, Bill Abbott, recalled the perils of working with inexperienced men, saying: "I've had chaps working with me down a ship's hold that never handled a hook or done a job down a ship's hold in their lives. On one occasion, put on sugar, and I gave him a hook…And said "now put your hook in there", and I'm saying that, as he did so he went literally – bashed his hook right through the middle of me hand. I've still got a little hole there now. Almost pinned me hand to the bag of sugar."
Bill got off lightly. Cargoes could fall from nets or slings as they were being winched to and fro. The busy river would roll ships around at the dock, casting men over the side, to be drowned or crushed between hull and dock. Within the holds of the ship, barrels and chests would be dislodged, crushing men beneath them. In the confused melee of river traffic, collisions occurred, despite the skills of the watermen and lightermen – even those experienced river pilots went over the side from time to time. On the dock itself, cranes, winches, tractors, locomotives and platform trucks all added to the accident count.
So in the early 1850s, a drive was launched. Money was raised by charitable donations and the former Custom House was purchased and transformed into the new Poplar Hospital in 1855. It was soon bursting at the seams and had to be expanded twice over the following years; at one point, it was estimated that a dozen new cases were being treated at the hospital every hour of the day and night, and the hospital bore a plaque "in grateful recognition of the splendid services rendered by the Hospital to the Staff of the London and India Dock Company, since the Hospital was established".
Seventy years on, its role hadn't changed. Poplar Borough Council published its Official Guide to the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar in 1927, and reported that: "Accidents in the Port of London, in the docks and shipping, amongst the factories and the engineering works, are of frequent occurrence, and often of the most terrible character … immediate attention to the injured is often a vital consideration."
The injuries were horrific of course. Crushed limbs, severe lacerations, arms or legs often amputated by falling machinery or whipping ropes. And the Poplar Hospital, while a boon, was still severely limited in what it could do for patients. By the mid-1800s, anasthaesia was becoming established at least. In the early 19th century surgery had been an horrific affair, with pain relief consisting of biting on a strap of leather and a strong will. Unsurprisingly, many died of shock during their operations. One estimate put the post-operative death rate in London hospitals at over 90 per cent in the early 1800s. And it was a common saw that you were safer outside hospital than in. Infection was rife, with no understanding of what caused disease, let alone antibiotics to combat it. A docker might go in with a serious wound only to die from infections picked up in hospital. By the late 1800s, antibiotics had joined anasthaesia, and surgical techniques had improved, but survival rates were still pitifully low.
Times would change of course. The hospital suffered bomb damage in 1941 but wouldn't close until 1975. In 1982 it was demolished to make way for new houses – the old Victorian buildings and limited space no longer suitable for the demands of modern medicine, though the people of Poplar would miss their local hospital. But by then of course, the docks were all but dead. Downriver, at Tilbury, the docks may still be dangerous places but the advent of health and safety awareness meant the carnage of the docks was history.
Strikes in the East End of London during World War 1
With the outbreak of war, East Enders buried many of their grievances beneath the patriotic fervour required to get through what would be the most terrible war yet for Europe. Regardless of the fact that most residents of Stepney or Shadwell had little idea and less interest in events in Sarajevo or Sinai, Londoners would pull together behind their boys … up to a point. In any case, strikes were officially banned: the TUC and the government had agreed on that. And with the Labour Party joining Lloyd George's coalition government in 1916, there was no true opposition. But there were stresses. Wars are always meant to be over 'by Christmas' of course, but the conflict limped interminably on, and by 1917 Londoners were heartily sick of the endless casualties and the privations at home.
The shortage of manpower also had an inevitable effect on industry. Though women couldn't do the heavy work on the East and West India Docks, they could replace men in the factories – munitions factories had mushroomed all over Bethnal Green, Stepney and Wapping – and it led to conflict on both sides. A series of unofficial strikes by men, protesting at the 'dilution' of the workforce by women), simply exaggerated the manpower shortage, and had the unexpected effect of forcing up piecework rates for the women. By the time the war ended in November 1918, London had even seen its first strike for equal pay by women working on the trams and buses – legislation wouldn't arrive until the Equal Pay Act in 1970.
But perhaps the most alarming signal to any government is when the officers of national security start turning. There had been isolated mutinies within the British army, with enlisted men turning on their officers, but they tended to be summarily dealt with on the battlefield. More worrying was a demonstration called by the National Union of Police and Prison Officers on Tower Hill in August 1918. East End copper Tommy Thiel had been sacked for this union activities, and the vast majority of London bobbies downed truncheons in sympathy. A squad of 600 flying pickets ensured the strike stayed solid.
And there were other ways of protesting. With wages held down, a depressed wartime economy and strict rationing, East Enders were feeling severely pinched by 1918. Rent strikes became common (and would bleed into the Poplarism rate strikes of the 1920s): Londoners couldn't avoid noticing that Russia's role in the War had ended with a workers' revolution, and many were sympathetic. For those female munitions workers, their reward at the close of hostilities in November 1918 was 'thankyou and goodbye'. Many women saw their jobs disappear, while many others were given back to returning soldiers. And numerous soldiers returned to no job, no home and broken families. Their option was the Poor Law and the workhouse or begging on the streets of Whitechapel. The British Government scented revolt in the air, and became distinctly uneasy.
With the Armistice, the dam was broken, and four years of frustration came flooding through. Historian Walter Kendall argues that "the crisis British society faced between 1918 and 1920 was probably the most serious since the time of the Chartists". The police union grew to 50,000 members, while mutinies in the army multiplied. Things came to a head in 1919, with Lloyd George's misguided plans in for a British expeditionary force to the Russian port of Archangel. Not content with four years of exhausting conflict, Britain now planned to invade Russia and put down the Revolution. The scheme had to be abandoned when British soldiers declared solidarity with Russia and simply refused to embark. The Government backed down and demobilised the angry soldiers – more men would return to Civvy Street and no jobs.
Again in 1920 Lloyd George proposed military action against Russia (Poland and France had already invaded her western territories) and again the East End stepped in. In May that year, men at the East India Docks refused to load a ship called the Jolly George which was bound for Russia with a load of munitions for the Polish army. East End railwayman then stepped in, refusing to carry cargoes of weapons bound for the docks. And union members began to withhold their labour in pursuit of closed shops, forcing every employee to join the union.
There were some ironies though, and the enemy wasn't always obvious. Black American writer Claude McKay was visiting London in these years, and spent time with Sylvia Pankhurst at the offices of her Women's Dreadnought newspaper. There were some 60 sawmills in London, most of them out in the East End and most out on strike, and right opposite the Dreadnought's 198 Bow Road office was one of London's biggest. The union men told McKay indignantly that some of their fellows were still working. The part-owner of this home for scabs? None other than "George Lansbury, Labour member of parliament and managing editor of the Daily Herald…the strikers thought it would make an excellent story for the Dreadnought. So did I!"
Lansbury, of course, would do more than most to champion the cause of East End workers in the years to come. The 1920s would see East End dissent on an unprecedented scale.
Fleet Street moves to the East End
The second half of the 19th century was a great age for the press, as taxes on publications and newsprint were removed, new printing techniques made big print runs possible, and pioneering editors such as the pacificist WT Stead reinvented their trade. And as the 20th century approached, a new breed of entrepreneurial owners would push the industry to new heights.
In 1896, Alfred Harmsworth launched the Daily Mail, costing a halfpenny against the penny cover price of its rivals. The Mail was fiercely imperialist, backing the Government in the Boer War (to the horror of Stead) and earning a reputation for putting patriotism above objectivity. The power of the press was such that many people blamed Harmsworth for Britain's entry into the First World War (he had been predicting war with 'The Hun' since the turn of the century). 'The most unscrupulous man in Britain,' railed Lloyd George – before inviting him into his cabinet. But, adding popular features and crisp, concise writing into the mix, the Mail was a huge success.
In 1900 Sir Arthur Pearson founded the Daily Express, which moved its sights from court, war and hard news reporting, bringing in gossip, sports and features for women. And in 1903, Harmsworth launched the Daily Mirror, which replaced illustrations with photographs. Popular mass journalism had been born.
Over the following years, many more papers followed: The Daily Sketch in 1909, the Daily Herald in 1911 (the first national paper of the Labour movement), the Sunday Pictorial (Sunday Mirror) in 1915, Sunday Express in 1918, the Daily Worker and News Chronicle in 1930.
Alongside them, London had three paid-for evening papers, each of them hitting the streets in several editions each day. Its unimaginable today, but in an age before radio and TV, let alone the instant information of the internet, the paper was your only source of information. People would wait on East End corners for the latest edition of The Star (born 1888), The Evening News (1881) or The Evening Standard (1827) to get the racing results from the courses around the country. And scandal was never far away. Journalists from The Star were accused of sensationalising the Whitechapel Murders in 1888 and even inventing the name of Jack the Ripper.
The 1950s and 60s were a peak for Fleet Street, with a dominant Daily Mirror (by now transformed into a Labour, working class title) battling the Mail and the Express for readers, and readerships for 'the qualities' steadily climbing. In the 60s, the Daily Express sold an astonishing 6m copies a day (against a tenth of that today) and had foreign correspondents dotted around the globe. The Daily Mirror, meanwhile, was selling 5m copies against 1.2m today.
But things were about to change dramatically. Along with huge readerships the papers had accrued huge staffs. Proprietors began to look at new print technologies as a way of cutting costs, particularly a move from the old, labour intensive hot metal style of typesetting and printing. In 1968, Rupert Murdoch bought the News of the World and added the Sun in 1969.
It was a baleful end for a paper that had started as the Daily Herald before being unsuccessfully reinvented by Mirror Group in the early Sixties. The remnant of a paper once edited by Hamilton Fyfe, Charles Lapworth and George Lansbury would now feature Page 3 girls and greet the sinking of the Belgrano with the headline 'Gotcha!'. Murdoch added the Times and Sunday Times to his News International portfolio in 1981. Long battles with the unions ensued, with lockouts, papers shut down for months at a time, and a state of simmering war between journalists and printers (who could stop the presses at any time).
Fleet Street needed to change but change was brutal when it came. Under the guise of launching a new Sunday paper, Murdoch moved his titles to Wapping over a dramatic weekend in 1986. The aim, with the complicit assistance of the Tory government was to break the unions and, in a violent replay of the Miners Strike of the two years before, that was exactly what they did.
'The Dirty Digger', as Private Eye gleefully dubbed him, declared that Fleet Street had 'three times the number of jobs at five times the level of wages' as other countries. He also knew the new Atex typesetting technology could remove typesetters at a stroke, and neuter their powerful unions. Murdoch, who as a student at Oxford was so left wing he was dubbed 'Red Rupe', devised a military style plan to smash the print unions and make printing profitable.
Police officers would hold back the pickets each night, and Wapping residents (who often couldn't get to their own front doors) would find themselves in a warzone. Just over a year later the pickets admitted defeat – News International hadn't lost a single night of printing, and the industury was changed forever.
Many of the other papers may not have liked Murdoch's approach, but they quickly followed his lead. The papers left their old Fleet Street homes, with editorial office upstairs and presses below, for the East End.
1 Canada Square, previously derided as the most obvious landmark of a white elephant Docklands, became home to the Telegraph, the Mirror, the People and the Independent. The Mail, along with its Evening Standard, would head in the opposite direction, to Kensington, and the Express to the south side of Blackfriars Bridge. The Telegraph and Express papers, meanwhile, would be printed at Westferry on the Isle of Dogs.
Fleet Street had moved to the East End. Meanwhile the printers and compositors, many of them East Enders themselves, found themselves out of jobs – most would never work in newspapers again. 301 years after the Daily Courant first hit the London streets, we stand at the other end of the newspaper revolution, with dwindling sales and the reputation of newspapers and their proprietors (and their friends in police and Parliament) lower than ever. As the owners of News International lurch through their daily crises, East Enders may be wondering how much longer they'll have the Murdochs as neighbours.
William Addis, inventor of the toothbrush
They are called Eureka moments, as chance and inspiration combine to create something great. Archimedes, the man whose overflowing bath led to his principle for discerning the volume of objects must top the list of course. And Einstein has to be right up there. Observing the clock tower in Bern, the German genius suddenly realised that time could move at different speeds in different places, and thus relativity was born.
But, with no disrespect to the scientists, East Ender William Addis's invention probably tops them all. For the simple device he developed is not only used by every one of us, twice a day, it has prevented pain, illness, misery and early death. Addis was the father of modern oral hygiene and the company he founded is in business to this day. But it came from an unlikely source.
In 1780, the unfortunate Addis was arrested on the streets of Spitalfields and charged with causing a riot. At 46, William was already a successful businessman, a stationer and rag merchant, supplying finished paper to the book trade. The rags he harvested would be pulped down and remade into new sheets of paper – nothing went to waste.
William's clients, the London booksellers of the 18th century, also sold patent medicines and supplies for pharmacists. It seems curious today, but is maybe no odder than barbers also being surgeons or American pharmacies also being 'soda fountains'. Or, for that matter, modern London bookstores also doubling as coffee shops.
As he languished in his Newgate gaol cell, William struggled to clean his teeth with the traditional combination of a rag with salt and soot. If only he could get in between the teeth, he could do a much better job. Spying a broom, Addis got an idea. He picked a small animal bone from his plate and drilled small holes in it, pestered a guard to get him some bristles and – eureka – the toothbrush was born.
Timing is all of course, and this was an idea happening at just the right moment. Refined sugar, unknown in London in medieval times, was now being consumed in industrial quantities as supplies came back from the West Indies. Georgian Londoners had rotten teeth but effective dental repairs were a century away, with the only option painful extraction (by those barber surgeons again). Addis, however, added prevention to the mix.
Back at liberty, the entrepreneurial William realised that his new 'tooth brush' could be a winner. He produced a small number of the products, fashioned from animal bone and horsehair and offered them to his contacts in the book trade. They quickly sold and soon a toothbrush became a fashionable thing to have in Georgian London.
It was a hard thing to patent, and other manufacturers soon copied William's bright idea, but it didn't stop the company growing, and William growing rich. By 1840, the company was run by his son (also called William). Rather than a central 'manufactory', the Addis company used a system that was widespread in the East End of the time, piecework, with the women of Spitalfields and Whitechapel producing the brushes in their own homes. The system was also the basis for the matchmaking business, weaving, laundry and many more trades. The women would be paid by how much they produced, invariably having to buy their own tools and materials up front. And if the goods weren't up to scratch – the company wouldn't pay.
A brutal system in the days before unions and the legal protection they afforded workers – but the Addises grew very wealthy. By 1840, William Jr was employing 60 workers in an increasingly sophisticated production involving 53 separate processes, and producing four different models: Gents, Ladies, Child's and Tom Thumb. William would use badger hair for the poshest brushes, but imported hog, pig or boar hair for the rest, mostly from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and France.
Most of us wouldn't fancy brushing our teeth with a mixture of bone and hair, but an American invention was to change everything. On 28 February 1935, and after dozens of failed experiments, Wallace Hume Carothers, the head of organic chemistry at DuPont in Delaware, came up with the molten polymer the company would market as Nylon. Carothers, tragically, would kill himself a couple of years later, wracked by depression and convinced his work was useless.
But the Addis company, now marketing its wares as Wisdom Toothbrushes, was quick to see the potential of nylon. Agreeing a deal with the UK licensee, ICI, they produced the first synthetic brushes and launched a huge newspaper campaign. The new brush was more expensive than the competition at 2 shillings (10p) but the timing was perfect. It was 1940 and British housewives were being told to waste nothing – animal bones were going into soups and stews or simply being boiled off by butchers and slaughterhouses, their marrow making nutritious stock. A shortage of bone thus worked in the favour of the Addises and their new nylon brushes.
By the 1960s, Wisdom had moved out to Suffolk and a new factory, and the last Addis left the firm in 1996, bringing more than 200 years of history to a close. But the legacy is clear – a product as ubiquitous and essential as any, the toothbrush is repeatedly voted the one object Britons could not live without. For William Addis, his unfortunate incarceration in a London prison was not just the happy accident that made his fortune, it was one that changed the world.
Lee Cooper in Petticoat Lane
It's an iconic brand that started out in the early 1900s cladding the working man in denim, and then took jeans off the farm and out of the factory and onto the high street. Through canny marketing, this great survivor of the fashion business made jeans the uniform of choice for teenagers in the 1950s and ever since.
But the name of this company isn't Levi Strauss and the base of operations is a long way from San Francisco. Lee Cooper jeans were born in the very heart of the old East End rag trade in Petticoat Lane. Here, in 1908, Morris Cooper and Louis Maister took on the lease of a rundown factory at 94-96 Middlesex Street, with a very distinct business plan in mind.
Morris and Louis had already been around, having left their hometown in Lithuania to set up business in South Africa. Morris was a gifted tailor, both the men worked hard, but the elaborate waistcoats they were producing would only ever sell so many. The pair realised that there was more business and a greater availability of skilled and affordable labour in London. With the huge influx of Jews and their tailoring skills from Eastern Europe, Whitechapel was clothing half the world in the early 1900s. Their plan was to make workwear in the East End and export it back to South Africa, where they knew there was big demand going begging.
By the outbreak of World War I, Morris and Louis had 600 employees, but exports and long sea journeys were looking less appealing with the threat of U-boats, so the resourceful pair pursued contracts to make uniforms for the army. A combination of Morris's tailoring skills and Louis' business nous saw the company thriving. Wars end of course and so do lucrative contracts, and as the 1920s dawned times were tough for M Cooper (Overalls) Ltd. Louis decided to leave and Morris focused his product lines on rugged workwear (products that even the General Strike couldn't kill off) and a bold experiment in high-quality denim jackets and trousers. Over in California, Levi Strauss had recently moved from their denim overalls to producing the first modern 'jeans'. Morris Cooper always kept an eye on what the Americans were doing and he wouldn't be far behind.
War would again change the direction of the company, with Morris dividing the business into two in 1939. Workwear and denimwear would continue, but alongside the company went back into battle dress and flying overalls for the RAF. The owner's brilliant pattern making won military contracts and made the company rich, as it became one of the military's biggest suppliers.
But just as the company soared, tragedy struck. Morris was killed in a car crash and with his son Harold away on active service with the RAF, it was left up to other members of the family to keep the business afloat. In fact, mismanagement would almost sink it, and when Harold returned to Whitechapel he was horrified to find the family firm on the brink of collapse.
The new boss swiftly cleared out the people who had driven the family firm to the edge and determined to save the company. He remembered years later that it was "pride and wanting to save my father's name" that drove him, as much as any desire to enter the rag trade. But he swiftly showed his father's canniness in propelling the company in a new direction. Rationing was killing traditional tailoring, with a man's suit costing 26 ration coupons. You needed just one to buy a pair of jeans, and the downmarket workwear quickly became not just a pragmatic choice but a fashionable one.
By now, Harold had opened a factory in the huge new housing development at Harold Hill – his workers would be the thousands moving out from East End slums to a greener life in Essex. By now, Cooper's was Britain's biggest denim brand but it needed a label. Harold, looking across the Atlantic to Levi's and its association with rock 'n' roll, cowboys and stars such as Marlon Brando and James Dean, decided to modernise his brand. From now on, the jeans would be labelled 'Lee Cooper' with his wife Daphne's maiden name of 'Leigh' suitably Americanised.
In the fifties and sixties, 80 per cent of British workwear was made by Lee Cooper, but the counter-culture was far more interesting. Levi's, Lee and Wrangler still hadn't arrived in Britain, so the teddy boys ripped their cinema seats clad in Lee Cooper, and when the mods and rockers battled on Brighton seafront, both were clad in the same brand of jeans. It was a trend that would continue through the hippies and punk to the present day – when youth cults no longer exist, but just about everyone, of every age, owns at least one pair of jeans.
Jeans weren't Harold Cooper's only innovation. He was the first to introduce front-zipped slacks for British women. Many were outraged at this 'tasteless' style. He personally oversaw bold publicity campaigns, with big, full-colour ads in the press. He even dreamt up the fictional designer Alfredo Angelous, appealing to the Mods' snobbish love of all things Italian.
By the 1980s the company was making around 40,000 garments a week and its annual turnover exceeded £100 million. Harold sold his majority share in the company in 1989. By that time he had been caring for Daphne for nearly 25 years; she had been wheelchair bound since the mid-sixties. The tireless Cooper built his wife a single-storey home in North London and the two enjoyed regular trips to the opera, the theatre and out to dinner. Six months after the couple's 60th wedding anniversary in 2005, Harold suffered a stroke and Daphne died the year after. Despite everything Harold was still working at Lee Cooper until his death in 2008, at the age of 90. Lee Cooper is still going strong, and a stroll down any high street in the world confirms that denim isn't going away. It's a story that owes as much to austerity and ration books as rock 'n' roll and the American West.
The glassmakers of Ratcliff
As you sip from your glass, read by the light of your window or crunch your way across a pavement carpeted with former car windows, you might reflect that glass is cheap, glass is everywhere. But it wasn't always so. The unlikely alchemy which transforms sand into crystal, opacity to transparency, was once a secret closely guarded.
Travel back a few centuries and even amid the protectionist guilds of the City London – those who sought to exclude outsiders from becoming fishmongers, tallow-makers, chandlers and the rest – glass was special, an almost magical process guarded jealously by the aristocracy. The secret had travelled down the centuries and across Europe from the glass makers of Murano and Burano, in the Venice Lagoon to London where – amid its finest exponents – were the glassmakers of Ratcliff.
'Bowles's Manufactory' and its 'Glass Houses' first appear on maps of the East End in the 1790s, as part of a detailed plan of the area drawn by William Fraser of the Shadwell Waterworks. Ratcliff had, in 1794, been almost totally destroyed by fire – the worst conflagration in London since the Great Fire in 1666 and not matched again until the bombs of the Blitz a century and a half later. Fraser, the sort of man to whom historians say prayers of thanks, was an assiduous type who set to carefully describing Ratcliff in painstaking detail.
John Bowles had started his glassworks at the Bear Garden Bankside in Southwark in the 1670s after splitting with his partner the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham was a sharp business brain as well as a toff, though his claim that he had discovered the art of making looking-glass plates (mirrors in other words) and previously a secret only of the Venetians was questionable. Glassmaking was tricky certainly. It was hard to get heat and process consistently right, with medieval glass generally knobbly and translucent rather than transparent, but there were already a select few who had the art. Certainly though, anybody who could make glass good enough for mirrors could make a lot of money, and Buckingham managed to obtain a patent, or monopoly, in 1663, from Charles II.
In 1768 though, Buckingham's double dealings saw him proclaimed traitor, lodged in the Tower of London and stripped of his patent. But the secret was (at least partially) out. The Duke gave the whole business to his apprentice John Dawson, with the money behind a six-acre factory coming from John Bowles. Within a year or two Dawson had mysteriously disappeared from the business, and Bowles relocated from cramped Bankside to the expanding hamlet of Ratcliff. It gave good access to the Thames, where the silica, sodium carbonate and limestone arrived on barges, and from whose wharves the finished glass was despatched to Europe, and it gave room to build. Equally important, Ratcliff already had a tradition of glassmaking, stretching back decades. Perhaps here Bowles found the skilled men he needed to make his Crown Ratcliff pieces.
Back in 1621 in Broad Street, Ratcliff, Abraham Bigoe had won his own patent from James I to produce glass. In 1680, the Bigoe family sold up and left for Stourbridge. Bowles appears to have taken over the works and, razing them to the ground, started from scratch. He leased the stretch of Ratcliff between Love Lane (then called Cut Throat Lane), the eastern boundary of Sun Tavern Fields and Schoolhouse Lane. It was a huge operation, with new brick workshops and storehouses, a house, stables, gardens and orchards. Nearly a century later the works was going strong, producing its 'crown glass' – window-glass which bettered the former supply from Normandy. Bowles was making glass for the windows of coaches for portraits and for the new fashion of sash windows, which were replacing the old lattice casements with their diamond-shaped panes. For decades, the glass was made with a crown embossed in the centre of each plate. Some say there are windows in some old houses in Ratcliff in which the figure can still be faintly traced.
The secret was jealously guarded. Of course we have our secret formulas today. The makers of Coca Cola and KFC earnestly talk of secret recipes containing dozens of ingredients, of only a handful of the cognoscenti knowing the whole truth, and those few always choosing, Royal Family style, to travel separately, lest the whole crew be lost at once. The Bowles family, meanwhile, bought all their raw ingredients from the Continent. Sodium carbonate of the quality they needed could only be obtained (so they believed or claimed) from the burnt ashes of a Spanish weed called "barilla". It may have been hocus pocus and hype – but it certainly made their process hard to copy. It also made them rich.
But every family business runs out of steam in the end it seems. The Bowleses managed to keep the business for five generations. The story ends in 1794, the year of the Ratcliff Fire. Family firms, like the Royal Family, always need an heir and a spare, but that year the company was inherited by a minor, far too young to run the business and certainly too young to rebuild after the fire. The Bowleses were now extraordinarily wealthy but they seem to have simply decided enough was enough at this point – and simply shut the family firm.
William Caslon, typesetter
When William Caslon set up shop in the Minories in 1716, he had his work, and his future, cut out. The young Caslon, who had been born in Cradley, Worcestershire in 1692, was a skilled engraver and toolmaker. He made a living engraving Government marks on the locks of guns, and also turned his cutting skills to punch-cutting, making the hard metal punches used to make the moulds for type founding. The type-makers would then flow molten lead into Caslon's moulds, to produce a single piece of type, ready for typesetting.
But London typesetters were held in low regard. English printing was behind its Continental counterparts, and most of the typefaces used in London presses came from Dutch typefounders. All this was to change in 1719, when a group of London printers and booksellers asked the young engraver to cut a font of 'Arabic' type, for a new Psalter and New Testament. Copies of this were to accompany the missionaries aboard the vessels flooding out of Wapping, on the trade routes to the Far East. The evangelistic bookmen hoped that they would be able to export Christianity about the merchant ships.
Dissatisfied with the dull Dutch typefaces on offer, Caslon soon took to cutting his own font designs. He began with the Dutch faces as his model, but refined them, making them more delicate and inventive. An excited Caslon went on to create a large number of 'exotic' typefaces.
Having added design to his punch-cutting skills, the enterprising Caslon soon realised that there was a business in the making. Craftsman, artist and businessman in one, he became the first great English type-founder. He set up his foundry in Chiswell Street, in the City, in 1720, and built a substantial country home in rural Bethnal Green.
The taste for Caslon spread to the United States, and Caslon was the typeface used for the Declaration of Independence in 1776, joining that other great export from the East End – the Liberty Bell. The family business, meanwhile, had passed from father to son, through four generations, all called, with a remarkable lack of imagination, William Caslon.
But typefaces, like any other design, go in and out of fashion, and by the early 1800s, the taste for Caslon had dropped off, in favour of newer typefaces, and in 1819, William Caslon IV sold the Chiswell Street business to Sheffield typefounders Stephenson Blake and Co. But around 1840, there was a revival of interest in the fonts. This was a burgeoning time for English print – with presses becoming more plentiful, printing cheaper, and an explosion in the number of pamphlets, newspapers, and cheap popular novels. Printers found that the Caslon faces, elegant, clear and easy on the eye, worked as well as they ever had, and better than most. George Bernard Shaw, went so far as to insist that Caslon be the only typeface used in his books.
Daniel Berkeley Updike was a Bostonian printer, typographer and typographic
historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He explained the popularity of Caslon's types in the US. 'While he modelled his letters on Dutch types, they were much better; for he introduced into his fonts a quality of interest, a variety of design, and a delicacy of modelling, which few Dutch types possessed. Dutch fonts were monotonous, but Caslon's fonts were not so. His letters when analyzed, especially in the smaller sizes, are not perfect individually; but in their mass their effect is agreeable. That is, I think, their secret: a perfection of the whole, derived from harmonious but not necessarily perfect individual letterforms.'
The Caslon connection with typefounding disappeared for good when the other family foundry, HW Caslon & Co, having passed down through various members of the family until 1937, was itself sold to Stephenson Blake.
William Caslon has his local memorials – William Caslon House in Patriot Square and Caslon Place in Cudworth Street. But his true legacy is in his enduring typefaces. If you read books, magazines and newspapers, you will encounter a Caslon cut sooner rather than later.
Bow Pottery
Wedgewood, Meissen, Delft – all are world famous names in the world of pottery.
But 250 years ago it was Bow pottery that was drawing the eyes of the world, and all thanks to a young Irish painter who settled in the East End.
Thomas Frye had been born in Dublin in 1710 and, having won acclaim in his native Ireland as a painter,came to London in 1734.
One of his first coups as a portraitist was his commission to paint the Prince of Wales, for the Saddlers' Company. Among the other specialities of the multi-talented artist were miniature painting, mezzotint, engraving and enamel work.
But Frye was also a keen inventor and his love of art and love of discovery came together when he devised a method of producing porcelain, the beautiful translucent china pottery as popular in the eighteenth century as it is today.
Porcelain may have been popular at the time but there were two big problems. First it was very fragile and second, with all the pieces coming from abroad, it was very expensive.
Frye had a solution. As a result of his experiments with china clay he discovered a method of making porcelain out of bone ash. This not only produced a porcelain of brilliant whiteness and luminescence but one of extraordinary durability.
The second solution was obvious – he would set up a factory in London to manufacture his new china.
In 1744, Frye and his partner, Edward Heylen took out a patent for the production of artificial soft-paste porcelain. The inventors and manufacturers of porcelain in England called their product "New Canton", a nod to the pottery from the Far East with which they hoped to compete.
The next step was to set up a factory. Frye had attracted the interest of the rich and powerful Peers family. They owned huge tracts of land across Bromley, Bow and Stratford. They were also directors of the all-powerful East India Company, mainstay of Britain's overseas trade at the time, and whose great ships unloaded their imported wares on the Isle of Dogs, near the mouth of Bow Creek.
The Court Book of 1744 shows that Edward Heylen acquired a property on the London side of the River Lea, at Bow. On 7 July 1749, an insurance policy was taken out for the new works.
And, with the backing of the Peers family, the china factory was set up near Bow Bridge in 1749, with Fry running the operation. The Bow Porcelain Manufactory of New Canton was ready to start work.
Business was good. By 1750, Frye and Heylen were in partnership with John Wetherby and John Crowther, who owned a wholesale pottery business at St Katherine by the Tower.
Frye's work was down to earth from the word go, concentrating on "the more ordinary sorts of ware for common use". That didn't please the purists. One expert has described Bow porcelain as "a peasant art which appeals to an unacademic sense of beauty rather than taste."
Still, what do experts know. Very soon the demand was so great that another factory was opened, this time on the Stratford side of the River Lea.
But despite his success Frye was still toiling long hours in the factory furnaces as well as designing new lines. Eventually the long hours and gruelling work took their toll. Frye died in 1762, at the age of just 52, and is buried in Hornsey Churchyard.
The work went on, but without his driving force and energy, quality slipped. Their was another 13 years of production at Bow, but towards the end products were underfired and lacked their earlier translucence and in 1776 the works closed.
Frye's legacy remains. His processes changed pottery forever and one of his daughters went on to work for Wedgewood.
And the fact you will still find Bow porcelain today – tough enough to last 250 years – is testament to Frye's vision.
Further reading: Bow Porcelain, Adams and Redstone (Faber and Faber.)


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In my research lately I've found story after story of Medicare or health insurance fraud. After a while, day after day, story after story, it all tends to run together. Except for the doozey I'm about to inform you all about. This one stands out and/or up. Gary Winner, an Illinois resident and owner of Planned Eldercare, has agreed to ... Read More »
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5. Denise Huxtable
There was something about Denise that… no man really can put his finger on except she had her own style. I can't even really remember any of the guys that she dated when on the Cosby Show or Different World. All I can remember is thinking, damn she it.
6. Whitley Gilbert
That episode when Whitley wakes up in the middle of the night to freshen up should go down in history as one of the most hilarious, yet necessary episodes ever. I let her stay on the list even though she tried to marry that noodle instead of my man Dwayne Wayne.


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A Missouri witness reports that she saw a huge UFO on 16 May 2012 according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness reports when the incident occurred.
"I saw the UFO after I had dropped my husband off at work about 3 miles outside of town."
The UFO incident occurred as the witness returned home.
"As I got to the end of the driveway, I saw four blue and white lights on the ground in the yard across the street."
As soon at the witness looked at the alien-like object or entity while she was still in her car, the lights of the object or entity began to frenetically change.
"As I looked at the object or entity that was hovering about three to four feet above the ground, a separate blue-green light began to pulsate, as if that light was under rippling water; and then one of the object's or entity's lights started to change colour."
The witness then noticed a new coloured light on the object or entity.
More information? Go to: http://www.examiner.com/article/ufo-missouri-witness-reports-alien-like-entity-chased-car?cid=db_articles


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Rated 2 out of 5 by 1 reviewer.
Rated 2 out of 5 by jornitod Color in picture does not match color in reality I don't have any insights on the thermal performance of the curtains. I never put them up. I decided to return them because the actual color is not even close to that of the picture on the website. December 3, 2013
1-1 of 1


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Waterpik Cordless Water Flosser Wp-360w
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Model WP-360W. Cordless design. No. 1 dentists' choice. Rechargeable! No batteries needed. 2 Gentle Clean Jet Tips; 2 Deep Clean Jet Tips. Simplify and enhance your oral care routine. Convenient, hand held design. Clinically proven to fight gingivitis. Promotes healthy gums & healthy smile. Tips rotate 360 degrees to reach all areas of the mouth. Convenient, recharging power supply. No batteries needed. Stays charged for approximately 1 week (depending on use). Easy to fill flip top reservoir. 2 Low Pressure Tips for gentle cleaning. 2 High Pressure Tips for deep cleaning. Lightweight easy to hold design. Takes up less space on the countertop. Effectively washes away food debris for greater freshness and cleanliness. Use with water, mouthwash or antibacterial rinses as recommended by your dentist or hygienist. Waterpik dental system delivers a unique combination of water pressure and pulsation at the level clinically proven to enhance gum health. 3x Deeper cleaning than brushing & flossing alone. Clinically proven to reverse gingivitis & reduce gum disease. 50% Greater reduction in gum inflammation compared to brushing alone. Proven safe & effective on braces & other dental work. Recommended 10 to 1 by dental professionals. Waterpik's trusted performance now in a convenient, hand-held design for easy use. Use anywhere - at home, at work, at school! Cleans and massages gums for an invigorating fresh feeling. Completes your oral care routine! UL/CE Listed. Limited Two Year Warranty.
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Contains a nickel-cadmium battery. Battery must be recycled or disposed of properly.


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Effective Supervision : Supporting the Art and Science of Teaching
ISBN13:by Marzano, Robert J.
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In Effective Supervision, Robert J. Marzano, Tony Frontier, and David Livingston show school and district-level administrators how to set the priorities and support the practices that will help all teachers become expert teachers. Their five-part framework is based on what research tells us about how expertise develops. When these five conditions are attended to in a systematic way, teachers do improve their skills: * A well-articulated knowledge base for teaching * Opportunities for teachers to practice specific strategies or behaviors and to receive feedback * Opportunities for teachers to observe and discuss expertise * Clear criteria for success and help constructing professional growth and development plans * Recognition of the different stages of development progressing toward expertise. The focus is on developing a collegial atmosphere in which teachers can freely share effective practices with each other, observe one another¿s classrooms, and receive focused feedback on their teaching strategies. The constructive dynamics of this approach always keep in sight the aim of enhancing students¿ well-being and achievement. As the authors note, ¿The ultimate criterion for expert performance in the classroom is student achievement. Anything else misses the point.¿


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#6597 Dec 30, 2012
I bet the Brits and the Irish really love one another too?
I'll buy you some F and Chips for P. MOrgan to eat whne he is kicked out of the USA.
That cold little iceberg of and island called england.
Wrexham, UK
#6598 Dec 30, 2012
Yet you not only got your ass kicked by the iraqis, but also shot your own tanks too.
#6599 Dec 30, 2012
Back to an Island for you P. Morgon.
I'll help you pack and I'm sure more would be happy to help you pack, also I'm sure we could fund your transportation and all moving expenses.
Wrexham, UK
#6600 Dec 30, 2012
At least us republicans are in charge of the house.
#6601 Dec 30, 2012
Republicans and Tea Party member's are sucking water from the brown eye today, Sunday December 30, 2012..
Since: Jul 10
Location hidden
#6602 Dec 30, 2012
Caution, Liberal at work>
Dianne Feinstein Ms Gun control extraordinaire the phony that wants to un-arm every American that wants to be able to protect their property and family, and admits she was trained and carries a concealed weapon, so do as I say, not as I do.
Listen to this:
How about every person that was ever mugged being allowed to carry a concealed weapon because they were victims before? Oh no she doesn't want that.
A real phony
Why California is sinking fast. Idiots like Feinstein Liberals. I can carry a gun and own a rifle but not you......:):)
#6603 Dec 30, 2012
It's been said they are all lazy and worthless and just good for nothing, yes once again we are refering to Republicans and Tea Party Member's.
Afraid of doing a honest days work for hoest pay, they would rather steal it from others who are honest and hard working 97% of America.
When the game buzzer goes off at MidNight December 31, 2012 and those SMUG, IDIOTS calling themselves Republicans and ea Party Member's might want to burn their "National Socialist Party" Member cards.
Wrexham, UK
#6604 Dec 31, 2012
It is your idiot Obama who attempts to go down the fiscal cliff, and crash that is.
#6605 Dec 31, 2012
L. Graham that little Republican perp from one of those Southern states has done nothing but stir up trouble, must be his flapping big mouth again.
#6606 Dec 31, 2012
Aw shuddup you silly jackass!
Wrexham, UK
#6607 Dec 31, 2012
Whats wrong? He was only spreading the truth lad.
#6608 Dec 31, 2012
This will be the first time in the USA history that Republicans and Tea Party member's comspired to undedrmine the Federal govt to deliberately triggered a recession.
Nice math.
Wrexham, UK
#6610 Dec 31, 2012
Poor math? I doubt you can spell anythin beyond 2 + 2, and I'm sure at first you guess it wrong and assume it equals 5.
#6611 Dec 31, 2012
The season is open, failure to buy your tags will only annoye the warden.
Besure to check the tagged politican for any filthy left over.
Wrexham, UK
#6612 Dec 31, 2012
Liberals lose a lot.
#6613 Dec 31, 2012
Looks like the fool's would let 97% of real americans faulter, rather than read the fine print and take responseability for thier own filures in the past years to handle the financial crises.
Deep-pocketed Tea Party influenced groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity opposed Boehners Plan B and would likely oppose any future plan that does not include spending cuts.
Speaking for the 97% to the 3% Republican and Tea Party member's SkU and the horse you rode in on.
Wrexham, UK
#6614 Dec 31, 2012
John Boenher was proposing a too low a limit for taxes.
#6615 Dec 31, 2012
In 1978, then-Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences but withheld a pardon.
Two years later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the convictions, saying perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the verdicts.
Since: Nov 12
#6617 Jan 3, 2013
Look at the Hollywood stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, the big "global-warming-ist. "
So over the weekend we see pictures of him on a mega-yacht in Sydney Harbor with a bunch of topless sluts.
He's smoking cigarettes and drinking booze.
How'd he get there? He probably flew in on a private jet, partied with that fatso Jonah Hill, and then flew back to Las Vegas on a Gulfstream.
How much carbon did he emit to go there and give a speech on Wednesday on global warming?
Do you believe one word these liars say, these tools of the Democrat machine, the Tammany Hall of today?
Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor and a big liar.
#6618 Jan 4, 2013
GOP candidate caught slashing rivals motor vehicles tires.
A GOP Congressional candidate in New Mexico was arrested after he was caught on camera slashing the tires of his primary rival and several other campaign workers.
Shades of John Boehner of Ohio.
Reminds me of stories connected to the current Glendora, Califonia city council members.
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SPX and SPY Capture Upside Targets -- Now What?
Jason Haver
The stock market easily captured its first upside target zone; here are the next things to watch.
On Friday, the
(INDEXSP:.INX) 1798-1804 target zone was captured with minimum pain for bulls. I had something of a highly unusual weekend, and was unable to draft the lengthy Pulitzer Prize-winning article I had planned. I'd be happy to share it (my weekend story, not the Pulitzer Prize), but it has little to do with the stock market, and more to do with wives who take "shortcuts" though sugarcane fields and end up stuck in the mud with no clue where they are, which requires you to find them before they're eaten by Cane Spiders, even though you drive a vehicle which is about as well-suited to off-roading as a pair of roller skates would be, and which ultimately bottoms out on a rock and rips the oil pan off in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere and you can't get anyone to come flat tow you because of the mud (of course!). But, by some miracle, shortly before losing your oil pan, you did locate your wife
she was uneaten by spiders
you got your wife's vehicle unstuck from the mud! Even though
car is still out in the cane fields as of this writing, patiently waiting for the mud to dry up enough that a tow company will be willing to get within 100 yards of it. That's the very short version of my weekend...
So let's start off with the SPX, which, as noted, captured its upside target with ease. This is the zone where blue 3 would commonly be expected to stall. If the next wave is indeed a fourth wave, it would be fairly common for it to take the form of sideways chop. I've also noted the next potential upside target.
Click to enlarge
(NYSEARCA:SPY), the S&P 500 SPDR (no known relation to Cane Spiders) ETF, also captured its breakout target, and with no drawdown. This chart is a bit wider view than the last, and as things develop, it will be interesting to see if this is indeed an extended fifth wave rally. I've detailed the broader implications of an extended fifth (using SPX again) on the chart which follows this one.
Click to enlarge
On the SPX long-term chart, we're now past February's "bear count" target. Please note that any talk of turns is well ahead of the actual price action at the moment -- nevertheless, I have detailed the expected outcome (in broad strokes) if we are currently within an extended fifth.
Click to enlarge
In conclusion, as noted in the last update, bulls have claimed the prior inflection point, and thus seem to have retained control of the stock market for foreseeable future. As the near-term waves unfold, we'll be able to begin to assign higher or lower probability to the intermediate extended fifth wave count. Trade safe.
Follow me on Twitter while I try to figure out exactly how to make practical use of Twitter:
No positions in stocks mentioned.
The information on this website solely reflects the analysis of or opinion about the performance of securities and financial markets by the writers whose articles appear on the site. The views expressed by the writers are not necessarily the views of Minyanville Media, Inc. or members of its management. Nothing contained on the website is intended to constitute a recommendation or advice addressed to an individual investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security, or to take any action with respect to the prospective movement of the securities markets or to solicit the purchase or sale of any security. Any investment decisions must be made by the reader either individually or in consultation with his or her investment professional. Minyanville writers and staff may trade or hold positions in securities that are discussed in articles appearing on the website. Writers of articles are required to disclose whether they have a position in any stock or fund discussed in an article, but are not permitted to disclose the size or direction of the position. Nothing on this website is intended to solicit business of any kind for a writer's business or fund. Minyanville management and staff as well as contributing writers will not respond to emails or other communications requesting investment advice.
Copyright 2011 Minyanville Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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LORAIN — Working with longtime Street Department employee Danny Wyatt, new workers Tim Shinsky and Joseph Taylor patched a pothole on Hickory Hill Avenue on Thursday within 10 minutes of arriving.
On Lorain's notoriously bumpy roads, the department's pothole-patching crew has its work cut out for it. Or rutted out.
But voters have made the task a little easier. The passage of Issue 13 in November means Shinsky, Taylor and Wyatt have more time for patching. Issue 13 was a permanent 0.5 percent income tax hike raising $5.3 million annually and costs a worker earning $50,000 annually an additional $250 yearly.
Click any image to view larger.
Much of the money will go for road repairs as well as about $250,000 to hire five workers and resurrect the Parks and Recreation Department. Lorain — which slashed its workforce from about 600 workers to approximately 450 over the last decade due to shrinking revenue — had to merge the Parks and Recreation Department with the Street Department several years ago.
Street Department workers were responsible for the maintenance of Lorain's 56 parks in addition to other duties. But with the tax increase, Street Department workers can primarily focus on infrastructure improvements and maintenance. And by hiring workers at lower starting salaries — laborers like Shinsky and Taylor earn about $35,000 annually — Lorain was able to hire more workers to fill vacant positions of higher paid workers who recently retired.
The Street Department has increased from 14 workers to 21 workers in the last six months. Three workers were responsible for all pothole repairs last year in addition to other responsibilities. Hal Kendrick, public property manager, said six to eight workers now patch potholes in addition to other responsibilities, which include concrete repairs, street sweeping, trash removal and tree cutting.
While the crew was patching the pothole, Kendrick tried to smooth things over with Hickory Hill resident Chuck Manzo. Manzo said the street, on the west side off Tower Boulevard, needs to be completely resurfaced. A "hot mix" patch, which consists of asphalt, usually lasts about a year.
Manzo, a 71-year-old retired concrete contractor and cement finisher, said patching won't work on Hickory Hill because the street is too decayed.
"It needs to be torn out and redone," Manzo said. "It's always a temporary fix. Two days from now when the traffic comes through and beats out these patches they're putting in now, you're back to the same thing."
Kendrick said which streets get resurfaced first depends on their condition and traffic volume. Workers use about six tons of asphalt per day per truck and use two trucks. They are dependent on the availability of asphalt, which Kendrick said isn't always available. He said Lorain is considering buying a
DuraPatcher, a machine that sprays an emulsion/aggregate mix rather than asphalt, to make repairs last longer.
Kendrick said pothole repairs are primarily done in response to resident complaints. Most are done between April and November.
"Prime time for potholes is right now," Kendrick said. "We're getting to them the best we can."
Despite getting an earful from Manzo, Shinsky and Taylor said they were enthusiastic about their jobs. Shinsky said he likes making a positive difference in residents' lives.
"It might not be a big difference, but boy, when you're coming home from work or after school and you don't have to dodge those potholes, it's a little bit better day," Shinksky said.
Contact Evan Goodenow at 329-7129 or firstname.lastname@example.com.