The Stepney Doorstep Society
The unsung and remarkable stories of the women who held London’s East End together during not one, but two world wars.
While the men were away at war it was strong women like Joan, Marie, Babs, Beatty and Minksy who ruled the streets of the East End. Kate tells the real stories of the war experienced by these matriarchs, a tribe of working-class women in the stinking streets, teeming tenements and sweatshops of East London.
Forget church halls and jam making, these powerfully authentic stories will have you questioning what you thought you knew about wartime women. From standing up to the Kray twins, taking over the London Underground, and crawling out of bomb sights, these women fought to survive and protect their community in some of our country’s darkest hours.
Kate's 2018 narrative non-fiction, The Stepney Doorstep Society – about the secret matriarchal societies of wartime East London published by Penguin (Michael Joseph) – was critically acclaimed and led Kate to be invited to deliver a lecture to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.
Over the course of five years, Kate interviewed over 100 working-class wartime women from East London, whose valuable contributions to the social, economic and political history of wartime London had previously been overlooked.
Purchase The Stepney Doorstep Society on Amazon here.
On Amazon The Stepney Doorstep Society reached:
#1 in Politics & Social Sciences >Poverty
#1 in Biography & True Accounts >Historical >Europe > Ireland
#2 in Books > History > Europe > Great Britain > 20th Century
#1 in Books > History > Military History > Military Intelligence & Espionage
Number #38 in the overall books chart.
