Walk straight up Mackintosh Lane toward Homerton High Street. We’re going back in time, to 1911, before the NHS and Mr. Bevan.

‘Imagine it before. What deals were done? What poverty stung? What hunger clung? What sickness sprung? Imagine the potions and poisons and choices. What prescriptions were written? What remedies were dealt? And who, who is that peddling backdoor cures? With a mixture of history and myth on his breath…’

The collage of testimonies and anecdotes comes from The Threepenny Doctor: Doctor Jelley of Hackney published by Centerprise in 1974.