Everyone has a story to tell every day - you just need to find it.

Nervously she approached the builder. “Can you tell me please why you came to this bagel shop and not the one next door ?”, she asked. He turned his tanned and weather beaten face to the microphone and said, “Not now love, I’m busy”, and went back to the task of sticking the spoon into the large bowl of white sugar on the counter for the fourth time.

It took me two trips down Brick Lane to find this place but it was worth it. I’m not really sure why I chose this shop. Something about the door being on the left. Standing there and looking around I felt like I’d been here before. I recognised the odd two level shelves on the walls and the racks of bread. The last time I’d been here I was a child. I’m sure we had latkes and I remember being amazed at how busy the place was. Behind the counter people wore white coats, shouted at people with odd accents and tried to hustle people out as quickly as possible as more people crowded in to be served.

“She doesn’t want to talk to me, I’m Irish”, said the woman who served me. From the back of the shop a Nigerian man came out carrying bags of rubbish. I wondered where all the Jewish people had gone and decided to have salt beef and a piece of cheesecake.

By the time I was served the woman with the tape recorder was outside. “”No, no, no it’s not a bay-gal, it’s a bi-gale”, the man corrected her as he leaned against the wall in the sun and, at last, I heard the accent which I remembered being here forty years ago.