Afbeelding auteur

Gilda O'Neill (1951–2010)

Auteur van My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London

24 Werken 398 Leden 14 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Gilda O'Neill is a founder member of Material Girls, a network of women writers across the whole spectrum of the industry.

Bevat de namen: ONeill Gilda, Gilda O'neil

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Werken van Gilda O'Neill

East End Tales (Quick Reads) (2008) 21 exemplaren
Rough Justice (2007) 17 exemplaren
The Sins of Their Fathers (2002) 13 exemplaren
Make Us Traitors (2003) 11 exemplaren
Bells Of Bow (1994) 10 exemplaren
The Lights of London (1998) 8 exemplaren
Of Woman Born (2005) 7 exemplaren
Secrets of the Heart (2008) 6 exemplaren
Dream on (1997) 5 exemplaren
Just Around The Corner (1995) 5 exemplaren

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geboortedatum
1951-05-25
Overlijdensdatum
2010-09-24
Geslacht
female
Nationaliteit
UK
Geboorteplaats
London, England, UK
Woonplaatsen
London, England, UK
Beroepen
novelist
social historian
oral historian
Korte biografie
Gilda Griffiths was raised in the East End of London, where her family experienced the terrors of the Blitz in World War II and the upheaval of the slum clearances after the war. After leaving school at 15, she took a variety of office and bar jobs. In 1971, she married John O'Neill, who became an actuary in the City, and had a son and a daughter. After her children were born, Gilda O'Neill went back to finish her education and began writing. Her first book was the oral history Pull No More Bines – Hop Picking: Memories of a Vanished Way of Life (1990), based in part on her childhood. Her first novel was The Cockney Girl (1992). Over 20 years, she published 15 more novels and five social histories. Her obituary in The Guardian said: "Underneath that cockney persona, she figured out how to use story-telling, lived experience and memory to draw political parallels. . . Like Studs Terkel, she used real experiences to show, as in A Night Out With the Girls (1993), how history is made in the asides on phone-in shows, through the snatched dialogues and shared raucous laughter. She cherished the vernacular, while painstakingly checking historical fact."

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Besprekingen

Fascinating story of the East End, primarily from 1900-1960ish as told by the voices of many people who lived there, the vast majority the poorer working class. Some other people have said there's too much romanticism and I think there definitely is quite a bit but the author tries to be balanced and is at least talking about the loss of actual things (sense of community and just human contact, the general feeling of disconnection as you grow older, feeling of neglect by most of the political class etc) and doesn't pin it on ridiculous sources (she avoids even the more covert racism and generally I quite liked what political comment she made, which was a change).

The real treat here is just the very evocative descriptions from actual people of how they lived - the games they played, the houses they lived in, the people they talked to, how they got by, what the war was like. You can't point to any one thing and say "this is special" but taken together it creates an amazing portrait of a world that's now mostly gone. If you're interested in that sort of history of average people - not in the class sense, but just how average people lived - then you'll definitely enjoy this.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
tombomp | 6 andere besprekingen | Oct 31, 2023 |
Was the Victorian period really so good, was it so much better than the present day Britain. If you think so read about the East End of London in Victoria's day - the problems, the crime, the poverty.
I probably would have preferred that the information that was obtained from that era was actually incorporated into her text rather than as separate sections in the chapters.
But still an interesting read especially if you are interested in social history.
A NetGalley Book.
 
Gemarkeerd
Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
1880s London, and the story of Ettie Wilkins from Whitechapel and how meeting Professor Jacob Protsky changing her life; and the much abused Celia Tressing, daughter of a doctor. In the time of Jack the Ripper, though this part of story came much later in the book.
Unfortunately I didn't really find the story or the characters that interesting or entertaining.
A NetGalley Book
 
Gemarkeerd
Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
My upbringing was London - South-East at first, and then West, and then work started in the City - to where my ancestors were from. not quite the East End of the book. However, the authos is only 5/6 years younger than me, so there are so many parts which are so familiar about my early life
 
Gemarkeerd
corracreigh | 6 andere besprekingen | Mar 23, 2016 |

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Statistieken

Werken
24
Leden
398
Populariteit
#60,946
Waardering
½ 3.6
Besprekingen
14
ISBNs
137
Talen
2

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