SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA NON-FICTION CROWN, THE ANDRÉ SIMON FOOD BOOK AWARDS AND THE FORTNUM & MASON BOOK AWARDS
‘Filled with hearty goodness and packed together with care, this will go down a treat’ Evening Standard | ‘Rich and compelling’ Spectator | ‘Extraordinary and very moving’ Julian Fellowes | ‘Beautifully written, carefully researched, wonderfully told’ Danny Wallace
The fascinating history of an iconic East End institution from the bestselling author of Silvertown, Melanie McGrath.
G Kelly’s Pie and Mash has been run by the same family in the Roman Road in Bow for nearly a hundred years; an East End institution and the still point of a turning world. Outside its windows the Roman Road has seen an extraordinary revolution – from women’s liberation and industrialisation to wars and immigration – and yet at its heart it remains one of the last traditional market roads of London.
Pie and Mash down the Roman Road is the biography of that shop and of the people – customers, suppliers, employees, owners – who passed through it, and continue to do so. Through vivid tales of ordinary lives the book tells the extraordinary story of the community living around the oldest trading route in Britain, and the true heart of the East End.
‘Draws you right into the heart of the vibrant East End community’ Rosie Hendry
‘Pacey and breath-taking . . . I loved every word’ Carol Rivers
‘Filled with hearty goodness and packed together with care, this will go down a treat’ Evening Standard | ‘Rich and compelling’ Spectator | ‘Extraordinary and very moving’ Julian Fellowes | ‘Beautifully written, carefully researched, wonderfully told’ Danny Wallace
The fascinating history of an iconic East End institution from the bestselling author of Silvertown, Melanie McGrath.
G Kelly’s Pie and Mash has been run by the same family in the Roman Road in Bow for nearly a hundred years; an East End institution and the still point of a turning world. Outside its windows the Roman Road has seen an extraordinary revolution – from women’s liberation and industrialisation to wars and immigration – and yet at its heart it remains one of the last traditional market roads of London.
Pie and Mash down the Roman Road is the biography of that shop and of the people – customers, suppliers, employees, owners – who passed through it, and continue to do so. Through vivid tales of ordinary lives the book tells the extraordinary story of the community living around the oldest trading route in Britain, and the true heart of the East End.
‘Draws you right into the heart of the vibrant East End community’ Rosie Hendry
‘Pacey and breath-taking . . . I loved every word’ Carol Rivers
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Reviews
Filled with hearty goodness and packed together with care, this book will go down a treat.
Her empathetic ability to inhabit vanished streets and catch authentic voices - at a point when you wonder how much longer they will be around - is rich and compelling
An emotional encounter with Bow's very tumultuous history
A still point in a turning world . . . a shop front onto the past
An accomplished social history ... lively and absorbing
Brilliant, funny, fascinating. Beautifully written, carefully researched, wonderfully told.
Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Pie and Mash down the Roman Road draws you right into the heart of the vibrant East End community
Pacy and breath-taking; Melanie tells it like it is and was. The Roman Road market life is a force to be reckoned with, and I loved every word.
Fascinating insight, a love letter to London. It's very well written, thoroughly researched and a perfect insight into a slice of history, as tasty as the best pie and mash.
Anybody nostalgic about their London roots will love this impressively researched, absorbing gem of a book
Extraordinary and very moving; yet more proof, if proof were needed, that there is no such thing as an ordinary person.