My uncle Ben Howard, my mothers' elder brother, kept meticulous records of his family history which I have used extensively along with the kind help of my cousins whilst writing this book.

I also thought it important to include the family history of my maternal grandmother, one of the loveliest people I have ever known, who never let her pain and discomfort stop her smile and who was devoted to my grandfather, the man she called 'Dodger.' This book covers a little history of the Howards and Haymes, two families with their own stories that were joined together when when my maternal grandfather Benjamin met my grandmother Lilian, a result of events that follow the path of English history to arrive at an ordinary council house in south London from as far away as Somerset, Hampshire, Warwickshire,

Essex and Yorkshire. This is a little insight into English cultural and social history over eight generations. It covers life in peaceful Seventeen Century rural Norfolk and Essex, to the brutality and squalor of Nineteenth Century Whitechapel Deptford and Bermondsey, before ending in one of the new council estates built to ease the housing crisis in a post-war London.