Jun 2014 - my london diary

	Mile End Mile End, London. Sat 14 June 2014
	I'd hoped to meet some people at Mile End, but it didn't happen But it was a pleasant enough place to eat my sandwiches
	There was a Gypsy Roma and Traveller festival but it hadn't really got started, though a band was playing and a smith from Surrey was demonstrating his trade. My father sometimes worked as a smith and as a boy I sometimes pumped a giant bellows for a fire like this for him, but this was blown by an electric pump. Sometimes my father would work in a foundry owned by his brother which had a much larger hearth and belt-driven machines as well as a steam hammer but they still often worked first with sledge hammer on red hot iron held in large tongs on an anvil. Surrey is home to the 4th largest Gypsy and Traveller community in Britain. .
			June main page