On this first day of the year let us contemplate those places of going out and coming in, specifically the old gates of the City of London.

New Year’s Eve is always the busiest night of the year at the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery, so a few years ago I chose to spend the night of 30th December accompanying Sammy Minzly, the celebrated manager ...

Favourite clothing company, OLD TOWN, run by Marie Willey and Will Brown is closing after twenty-two years of supplying clothes by mail order from their shop in Holt, Norfolk.

Our dearly beloved Viscountess Boudica was evicted from her flat in Bethnal Green in 2016 and moved to Uttoxeter, be we still remember her fondly every Christmas.

I do not know when my grandmother bought this glass decoration and I cannot ask her because she died more than twenty years ago. All I can do is hang it on my tree and admire it gleaming amongst the ...

This extract is from ‘Aunt Louisa’s Keepsake’ published by Frederick Warne which was given to me by Libby Hall. The copy is inscribed ‘Christmas 1896’ inside the front cover.

It has become a tradition to publish this story at Christmas each year. Over successive Christmases, as I was growing up in Devon, I witnessed the disintegration of my family until today I am the lone ...