It’s a bright Saturday morning and I’m standing on Hardinge Street, London E1, where my great-grandfather John Riboldi was born.
The railway line overhead splits the street in two. To the south, the existing part of Hardinge Street crosses Cable Street (yes, the Cable Street, scene of the Blackshirts’ marches in 1936 – there is so much history here!) and leads down to the Thames at Wapping. Handsome brick buildings and a convent lie on one side, but the plaque says 1904, by which time the Riboldis were long gone.
To the north, on the other side of the railway arches, a second sign says Hardinge Lane. The alleyway winds a short way right, then left, past some allotments, and joins Commercial Road, a busy
