Photo de l'auteur

Gilda O'Neill (1951–2010)

Auteur de My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London

24 oeuvres 397 utilisateurs 14 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Gilda O'Neill is a founder member of Material Girls, a network of women writers across the whole spectrum of the industry.

Comprend les noms: ONeill Gilda, Gilda O'neil

Séries

Œuvres de Gilda O'Neill

East End Tales (Quick Reads) (2008) 21 exemplaires
Rough Justice (2007) 17 exemplaires
The Sins of Their Fathers (2002) 13 exemplaires
Make Us Traitors (2003) 11 exemplaires
Bells Of Bow (1994) 10 exemplaires
The Lights of London (1998) 8 exemplaires
Getting There (Windsor Selection) (2002) 7 exemplaires
Of Woman Born (2005) 7 exemplaires
Secrets of the Heart (2008) 6 exemplaires
Dream on (1997) 5 exemplaires
Just Around The Corner (1995) 5 exemplaires

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Date de naissance
1951-05-25
Date de décès
2010-09-24
Sexe
female
Nationalité
UK
Lieu de naissance
London, England, UK
Lieux de résidence
London, England, UK
Professions
novelist
social historian
oral historian
Courte biographie
Gilda Griffiths was raised in the East End of London, where her family experienced the terrors of the Blitz in World War II and the upheaval of the slum clearances after the war. After leaving school at 15, she took a variety of office and bar jobs. In 1971, she married John O'Neill, who became an actuary in the City, and had a son and a daughter. After her children were born, Gilda O'Neill went back to finish her education and began writing. Her first book was the oral history Pull No More Bines – Hop Picking: Memories of a Vanished Way of Life (1990), based in part on her childhood. Her first novel was The Cockney Girl (1992). Over 20 years, she published 15 more novels and five social histories. Her obituary in The Guardian said: "Underneath that cockney persona, she figured out how to use story-telling, lived experience and memory to draw political parallels. . . Like Studs Terkel, she used real experiences to show, as in A Night Out With the Girls (1993), how history is made in the asides on phone-in shows, through the snatched dialogues and shared raucous laughter. She cherished the vernacular, while painstakingly checking historical fact."

Membres

Critiques

Fascinating story of the East End, primarily from 1900-1960ish as told by the voices of many people who lived there, the vast majority the poorer working class. Some other people have said there's too much romanticism and I think there definitely is quite a bit but the author tries to be balanced and is at least talking about the loss of actual things (sense of community and just human contact, the general feeling of disconnection as you grow older, feeling of neglect by most of the political class etc) and doesn't pin it on ridiculous sources (she avoids even the more covert racism and generally I quite liked what political comment she made, which was a change).

The real treat here is just the very evocative descriptions from actual people of how they lived - the games they played, the houses they lived in, the people they talked to, how they got by, what the war was like. You can't point to any one thing and say "this is special" but taken together it creates an amazing portrait of a world that's now mostly gone. If you're interested in that sort of history of average people - not in the class sense, but just how average people lived - then you'll definitely enjoy this.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
tombomp | 6 autres critiques | Oct 31, 2023 |
Was the Victorian period really so good, was it so much better than the present day Britain. If you think so read about the East End of London in Victoria's day - the problems, the crime, the poverty.
I probably would have preferred that the information that was obtained from that era was actually incorporated into her text rather than as separate sections in the chapters.
But still an interesting read especially if you are interested in social history.
A NetGalley Book.
 
Signalé
Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
1880s London, and the story of Ettie Wilkins from Whitechapel and how meeting Professor Jacob Protsky changing her life; and the much abused Celia Tressing, daughter of a doctor. In the time of Jack the Ripper, though this part of story came much later in the book.
Unfortunately I didn't really find the story or the characters that interesting or entertaining.
A NetGalley Book
 
Signalé
Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
My upbringing was London - South-East at first, and then West, and then work started in the City - to where my ancestors were from. not quite the East End of the book. However, the authos is only 5/6 years younger than me, so there are so many parts which are so familiar about my early life
 
Signalé
corracreigh | 6 autres critiques | Mar 23, 2016 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
24
Membres
397
Popularité
#61,078
Évaluation
½ 3.6
Critiques
14
ISBN
137
Langues
2

Tableaux et graphiques