The War on Our Doorstep is a history of the East End of London covering life there from the start of the 20th century to the late 1950s.

The author writes “the question that fascinated me was not what happened but who did it happen to”. She has transcribed narratives from the Museum of London's archive to create a vivid account of those indomitable people.

The book records their stories of growing up, working and living in the East End. They saw and experienced poverty, discrimination, exploitative working practices, aerial bombardments in two World Wars, fragmentation of neighbourhoods, the birth of trades' unions and the death of industries and, ultimately, of the East End that they knew.

There is much of interest to health care practitioners in chapters covering home life …