The Last Director of Shoreditch

It's Shoreditch, London, in the late 1950s, and Frank Pollock is fixer-in-chief for the Posties, a feared band of locals descended from paupers thrown out of the notorious Old Nichol slum at the turn of the last century. Ruthlessly led by their Director, they fought back to commandeer wharves and warehouses with illegal glee across the East End. Those who get in Frank's way risk disappearing in a puff of smoke. He is helped out by Elsie, who heads a team of international shoplifters by day, and pines for a husband by night.

Fast forward to the Shoreditch of today and semi-retired Nick Carter has been asked by his former colleague Julie to spy on Tom, her young, dapper husband. Trailing Tom among the elite siliconeastas from east London's tech start-ups, and the bars rammed with mass millennials – not all with beards – Nick discovers that Julie's other half is from the hidden world of Posties, with their ritual tattoos and suspect property deeds. Nick is forced to face up to some home truths just as the days of the Posties may be numbered.

In The Last Director of Shoreditch, the past and present are no further apart than two coats of varnish on a Chippendale cabinet.

Huw Jones is a journalist living in Shoreditch.