Although these books are fictional, many of the people and events mentioned in them are real. Without our ancestors, all the people who went before us, there would be no such stories to tell. This tale begins in the late 1800's and continues through to 1984. " His family had lived and worked in Southwark for generations. The cobbled streets, old lanes and alleyways, and the River Thames, had been his world - the only world he had ever desired. " " Although she had grown up in Peabody Buildings, maybe she didn't have to spend her whole life there after all. Her Eustace had been brave enough to see the world, maybe it was time she pulled up her socks and did something brave too. " " The Roaring Twenties were in full swing. Now, all the young women - and many of the older ones - had shortened their skirts, chopped off their long hair, and thrown away their horrible constricting laced corsets. Marcel waves, short bobs, flapper dresses, and the Charleston, quickly became the order of the day. "