Looking Back

LOOKING BACK - A Century of Life in Bethnal Green 
This is an unusual and delightful book, informative and moving. Looking Back is Joyce Hampton's first book.
Initially she set out to write a history of her extended family but during her research she found so much of general interest on the history of the London Borough of Bethnal Green that she set out on the tough path of writing a local history book with the unusual weave of a family history reflecting great events.

Among incidents such as Zeppelin raids in World War One, and the Blitz of World War Two she touches on family tragedy in both wars. Not the least is some original and new research into the terrible disaster of 3 March 1943 when 173 local inhabitants were crushed to death or suffocated in a panic rush down the stairs of the local Underground Station when an air raid was, they thought, taking place.