Last Train From Berlin

There was no warning…

Oberbaum Bridge, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg,Berlin, Germany

…just a pounding on the door and then a few fleeting minutes to settle the affairs of a lifetime.

From Howard K Smith’s The Last Train From Berlin (1943)

Between the Decks

Your Molly has never been false, she declares,
Since the last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs;

Shadwell Basin, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, E1W

When I said that I would continue the same,
And I gave you the ‘bacco-box marked with my name.

Garnet Street, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, E1W

When I passed a whole fortnight between decks with you,
Did I e’er give a kiss, Tom, to one of your crew?

Wapping Project, Wapping, Tower Hamlets, E1W

To be useful and kind to my Thomas I stay’d,
For his trousers I washed, and his grog too I made.

From William Makepeace Thackeray’s Old Wapping Stairs

Pedley Street

Hell’s hinges…

Pedley Street, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets, E1

Whitechapel’s henges.

From Iain Sinclair’s White Chappel, Scarlet Tracings (1987)