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But where one door shuts another seems to open and I now follow Cricket and Rugby Union where there is still a semblance of what sport should be. Ironically sport has destroyed the land of my childhood. Magnificent as the Olympic site may be, with it disappeared all the icons of my childhood, no longer can I pay a visit and reflect on the good and not so good times of my childhood. So when everyone is cheering the athletes home next year, I will be wincing as they stamp their feet on what was once hallowed ground.
The Pub was a main focal point in the old East End. When you were introduced to that environment, invariably before you reached the legal drinking age, you found that your family was already well known to the locals. It was a bit like a restraining strap and stopped you getting ‘too big for your boots’ This was a central core to the fabric of East End life. Generations of your family had passed through the same doors of ‘the Local', and it came to serve as a social, entertainment and indeed welfare centre. I wonder now that all that has been swept away on a wave of modernity, what becomes of the network of friendship and help that was an integral part of east end life. So when we are watching the gold medal ceremonies, spare a thought for those who had to make way for them and find a new life. Good luck to all of you