Bucket List: A day in East London, then and now

What I’ve so liked about my bucket list is that many of the items are achievable if I put my mind to it, rather than continually returning to favourite places. It was a day about heading further afield once again, incorporating the new while reflecting on how places shift, evolve over time and, comfortingly, sometimes stay the same.

I began on the 123 bus towards Ilford, a route that once felt routine from North London round to the east, a regular journey in the 1970s and 80s when visiting my grandma in Gants Hill. By the time I moved there myself in the 1990s, I had a car. Leaping off the bus by the church where my parents were married in 1964, I crossed over to Shalom’s Hot Beigels, a regular stop between home and the tube for the decade I lived there. The bagels are still just as tasty.

Another regular haunt was the Gants Hill Odeon, where I saw many a film, but that was sadly demolished in 2003, shortly after I moved, hopefully not a coincidence. On the site are now flats, a familiar landmark gone. Continuing onwards to Ilford, I was pleased to see another entertainment venue still standing, the Kenneth More Theatre, currently closed for refurbishment, which feels like a promising sign. And just around the corner, a sparkling new Cineworld multiplex has opened, showing not only the latest UK and US releases but also films from India, a reflection of how the area has evolved over the past 25 years. Cinema hasn’t disappeared, it has simply changed with its audience.

Ilford itself no longer feels quite the same. Bodgers department store is shuttered up and the old indoor market has given way to a more generic shopping centre. The biggest shift, of course, is the Elizabeth Line, which has transformed the journey from Zones 4 to 6 into the heart of London into something smoother and faster, and one I was keen to experience. The first bucket list tick of the day.

Getting off at Stratford, I headed towards my second: the V&A East Storehouse. Before that, though, a small detour in search of Philip Jackson’s statue of Joan Littlewood outside Theatre Royal Stratford East, unveiled in 2015 in tribute to her contribution to theatre and her advocacy for working class representation in the arts. One of my mother’s early jobs was in the theatre’s coffee bar in the late 1950s, which made the stop feel quietly personal. Nearby, I also found another, more melancholy marker of change, the remains of the old Stratford Picturehouse I used to visit, now abandoned.

From there, the 241 bus took me through Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to the Storehouse. The park itself is one of the most significant regeneration projects in London, created for the 2012 Olympic Games and now transformed into a mixed landscape of parkland, sports venues, housing and cultural institutions. It felt open and spacious, deliberately so, in contrast to the density of the rest of the city. I did not entirely connect with it on this visit, but it is clearly a place still evolving. I will return when the new V&A East Museum opens, and to see a performance at Sadler’s Wells East.

I did, however, connect with the V&A East Storehouse. This felt less like a traditional museum and more like stepping behind the curtain. Objects were not only displayed but also visibly stored, waiting for their moment in the limelight. With minimal interpretation, they felt like objects first and artefacts second, inviting a slower, more curious way of looking. The range was wonderfully eclectic, and it rewarded wandering without a fixed plan.

The journey onwards, this time on the 388 bus, took me to the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, a shift in tone. I had visited it in its former life as the Museum of Childhood, and remember rows of cabinets filled with toys. After closing in 2020 and reopening in 2023 following a major redevelopment, it has been reimagined. Where the Storehouse was about preservation and archive, this is about imagination. Play, design and storytelling take centre stage. It is easy to forget how powerful that kind of space can be until you are in it. A third bucket list item checked.

And then, to end the day, a visit that ticked off one of the entries from my cinema bucket list, a project to visit 137 highly regarded independent cinemas across the country. Geographically, the closest was Genesis Cinema on the Mile End Road. Housed in a building that began life in 1912 as a music hall and later became a cinema, it has evolved into a much-loved independent venue with multiple screens. It was Screen 1 I wanted to experience. The film, The Drama, proved to be a good choice, not only for what was on screen but for what followed. It sparked an easy, unexpected conversation with two other cinemagoers who, like me, had come alone.

Four more items quietly ticked off on Monday 14 April 2026: the Elizabeth line, V&A East Storehouse, Young V&A and Genesis Cinema.

Not a day of big set pieces, but one of connections, between past and present, between places I knew and places I didn’t.

Exactly the kind of day this list was meant to make space for.