I didn’t start England Then and Now as a neutral observer. I started it as an East Ham boy whose family lived the graft, the docks, the factories and the working men’s clubs that built this country. Before we get into charts, laws and “then vs now” data, I want you to know where I’m coming from – and why I care.

So before we get into stats, history and politics, here’s where I come from.

“East Ham Boy – I’m an Englishman” 

I’m an Englishman.
I’m from East Ham, E6.
My roots run down Barking Road, out through Silvertown and Poplar,
back to when you could taste the river and the graft in the air.

My grandad was a docker.
So were his brothers.
My great‑grandad too – men who shifted the wealth of an empire
with their hands, their backs, and a cigarette hanging off their lip.

My nan clocked in at Tate & Lyle – “Tatesy” to everyone round our way –
sugar on your tongue, sugar dust in your lungs,
a factory that fed the country and wore people out doing it.

When she finished her time at Tatesy, she didn’t slow down.
She went on to run a working men’s club,
the PTA in Parr Road, East Ham.
A proper club – fag smoke, clinking glasses,
West Ham on the telly, and envelopes passed round
when someone was short on the rent.

My mum?
My mum’s on YouTube because she was at the first Beatles gig in East Ham.
Before the legends and the documentaries,
just a bunch of lads with guitars in a hall,
and a crowd of local kids who never thought the world
would end up watching them back sixty years later.

That’s my England.
Dockers on the docks.
Women on the factory lines.
Working men’s clubs where nobody was rich,
but nobody went without on their own.

East London then wasn’t pretty,
but it was ours.
You knew the faces in the shops, the voices in the pubs,
the families in the terraces.
We weren’t “diverse communities” in a press release.
We were neighbours, cousins, mates from school.

Now they tell me England’s just a “region”.
East Ham’s just part of “Greater London”.
The docks are heritage, the factories are “mixed‑use developments”,
and working‑class English stories like mine
are something to be quietly brushed under the carpet.

But I remember what we were.
I remember what my lot built and what they carried.
I remember a nan in a hairnet at Tatesy,
grandads coming home stinking of the river,
and a club in Parr Road that did more real community
than ten glossy charity campaigns ever will.

So when I say I’m an Englishman, from East Ham,
I’m not quoting a form or ticking a box.
I’m speaking for dockers and factory girls,
for working men and women who never had a blue tick
but kept this country running anyway.

I’m an Englishman.
From East Ham, E6.
And I won’t let them write us out of our own story.

This is just one English story from East Ham, E6 – and there are millions more like it.
EnglandThenAndNow.co.uk exists to put those stories, and the hard numbers behind them, in one place. They say “the good old days” were better. But were they? And what about today? England Then and Now is your no‑nonsense guide to separating fact from fiction about the state of England.

Start here: If you’re new, begin with the core articles in History & Identity and Everyday England Then & Now – they’ll give you the facts and context behind everything I talk about.