"My father came from Ballymoney, County Antrim in Ireland and my mother was a local Silvertown girl. My dad's family they were in farming in Northern Ireland they came over here due to the economic difficulties on the farm, around the time of the potato famine. He came over with his brother and they worked for a while in Greenock, Scotland. Then when Abraham Lyle decided to move to London. They both came to Plaistow to find work. My father stayed, but his brother Wilson decided to go back to Greenock where he married, and settled. My family stayed in Silvertown."
- BD
"My mother lost her arm, and her eight year old brother died in the Silvertown explosion. The blast killed him. She was only 12 - and was never able to work after that, even though she did everything herself. She never talked about it, the only thing she could not do herself was change a light bulb and do her windows. At that time there was no insurance or compensation claims so the Catholic Nuns would take her round all the factories in the area to ask for money."
- IB
"My Dad was Irish, he started working in the Sheffield mines then he came to London on the big unemployment march and he met my mum, she was from West Silvertown, she worked in Tates until she got married. The house I was born in is still there. Fifteen Lord Street it is hard to believe after all that bombing."
- MG
