HMS Thunderer was the last ship to be built by the Thames Iron Works Shipbuilding & Engineering Company of Victoria Dock Road, Canning Town.

‘Thunderer' was launched on 1st February 1911 and at 22,500 tons was the largest ‘dreadnought' afloat, she went down river to the specially built Thunderer Jetty at Dagenham Dock to be fitted out as she was to big for the Royal Docks,

She went on to fight at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and was armed with ten 13.5-inch guns in pairs and sixteen 4-inch guns. ‘Thunderer' remained in service after the end of the Great War and was decommissioned in 1921. She was used as a cadet training ship from 1921 until being sold for scrap on 27 December 1926.

My grandparents, Bill and Emma Taylor with baby William, their first child. 

Nan was born in Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in 1886 and granddad in Greenwich in 1883. They met in the Greenwich foot tunnel and were married by special licence a few weeks later, that was in 1904 and Nan was just 17 years old.

They came to live in Hermit Road, Canning Town in 1905 where baby William was born and sadly died 15 weeks later. They had another fifteen children, one of whom also  died in infancy. My mum who was the youngest was born in 1928.

Photo: Private family collection

Here's my uncle Jack Taylor standing in the doorway of the family's rag shop in Ordnance Road, Canning Town in 1936. The shop, which was originally a bakers was bought by my grandfather in 1916. He ran a very successful business from here and another property and warehouse in Trinity Street.

There were 14 children in the family, not including the two babies who died in infancy.  My mum was born in the room above the shop in 1928 and I lived there for the first six years of my life. We finally moved out in 1957 when the shop was compulsory purchased by the council in the slum clearance.

Photo: Private family collection

This photo shows three of my aunts, Violet aged 11, Winnie aged 14 and Doris Taylor aged 17 of No.2 Trinity Street and Mrs Abbott a neighbour and family friend.   It was the 12th May 1937 and Trinity Street in Canning Town held a large street party for the coronation of King George VI.  The front of every house was decorated and bunting and flags were stretched across the road all the way down the street.

John Charles, a Canning Town football hero, was the first black player to represent England as an Under 18 and became the first black player to turn out for a first division West Ham United side in the 1962/63 season.

John was born in Ordnance Road, Canning Town. The family later moved to Ronald Avenue and he attended Pretoria School (now renamed Eastlea). He was the second youngest of nine children. His younger brother Clive also played for West Ham and went on to coach the US National Soccer Team. His mother, who was white, came from Silvertown and his father was a merchant seaman from Grenada.

Clive Charles became part of Football League history on 1 April 1972 whilst playing for West Ham. They were the first club to field three black players together: Clive Charles, Clyde Best and Ade Coker. He later went on to become one of the top football coaches in America. He is the younger brother to John Charles.

When ever the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Intuition) is mentioned, most peoples memories go back to the seaside and the sight of a large orange Lifeboat racing down a slipway, her brave crew off to face the perils of the sea, the danger captured in Phil Coulter famous song “Home from the Sea”, but not many would think of Canning Town and the River Thames!

The Church of the Holy Trinity, Barking Road, Canning Town was built in 1867 at the corner of Hermit Road, and formed in 1868 a new parish taken from St Mary and All Saints.

It was built opposite the National School in Barking Road, (now the site of a McDonalds drive through Burger Bar), which was built by Sir Antonio Brady and had been used for worship since 1861.

My Dad and Operation Overlord (D-Day) 

The “Settlement of the Poor” Act of 1722 (The Poor Law) empowered parishes to Build `Workhouse’s`. A workhouse was built at Abbey road, West Ham. By the end of the 18th century, 125 out of a population of just under 6000 were housed in this workhouse.   The influx of causal labour and the poorer residents, plus the general economics caused and alarming increase in the Poor Law expenditure for West Ham.