TRIBUTES have been paid to East End writer Gilda O’Neill who has died after a short illness.
She was born in Bethnal Green in 1951 where her grandmother ran a pie and mash shop and wrote a series of books about growing up in the East End and how Londoners coped with the terrors of the Blitz.
Her books included My East End and Our Street and she carried out meticulous research and was a frequent visitor to Tower Hamlets local history library in Bancroft Road and supported the campaign to keep the archives intact in East London.
The Limehouse resident left school at 15 and started writing in 1990 and wrote a series of family history and novels.
Vivian Archer from Newham Bookshop who has opened a book of condolence said: “She was a great advocate of reading, writing and education throughout people’s lives, and encouraged many people to consider putting pen to paper to tell their own stories. She was also a great ambassador for east London.”
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