It used to be that you had to do something  truly great or terrible to be remembered.

Not so now and everyone with an iPhone can become famous or make a living from being talentless or financially well supported. Because of the technological world we now live in everything is saved and stored for ‘prosperity’. Before this pub closed in 2001 and Tayyabs moved here it was run by George the Pole.

Rumour has it George was a successful gambler and won enough cash in 1953 to buy the pub off his in-laws and move his family in from their social housing flat around the corner. Apparently a stout no-nonsense type he was an ex-wrestler and someone never to take any verbal or backchat. He was much loved, lent money to punters, created a community atmosphere, never saw any trouble in his boozer and apparently was even known to turn the Krays away, without reprisal. By all accounts he ran a hell of a quality pub.

What saddens me is that this man and his family provided a vital public service to their community for decades yet if you look online there is nothing about them. In an age where you can find out what a Kardashian had for breakfast these people have become ghosts. It’s as if they never existed and when two generations have died out their stories will be gone along with all that priceless social history, lost.

I appreciate things can’t stay the same but I mourn the dozens of once thriving pubs like this in the teeming backstreets of the East End that have vanished. Either through closure or demolition this cockney way of life is almost over and another window into the past closes.

Their voices are silent now.