Dr Peter Archard is a sociologist and author of Vagrancy, Alcoholism and Social Control (Macmillan Press, 1997). He has an MA in Economic and Social History. His dissertation was on London's Salvation Army common lodging houses (1895-1914). He was a lecturer in sociology and criminology at Middlesex Polytechnic, before becoming a full-time researcher for Amnesty International in 1989. He worked there for 15 years, taking early retirement in 2004. Since then he has been working as a house-husband and is currently doing research on Mexican labour history in the 19th century. He has lived in Stoke Newington with his wife and family since 1985.

Anny Ash is part-time project officer at Eastside Community Heritage in Ilford. Eastside records and archives the life histories of East London residents. She also works for a Hackney charity. She was born in Hackney in 1984 and has lived here ever since.

Dr Toby Butler is a lecturer in history at the University of East London and a fellow at the Raphael Samuel History Centre. His research interests include oral history, digital heritage, historical interpretation in museums and the social and the cultural history of London. Toby completed an MA in public history at Ruskin College, Oxford, from which he went on to study a PhD entitled Memoryscape and Sound Walks: Mapping Oral History on the River Thames in London. For more information about his audio walks visit www.memoryscape.org.uk.

Inge Clemente is a photographer whose work has been featured in the London Historical Atlas of Architecture (Anova Books, 2007) and Hackney – Modern, Restored, Forgotten, Ignored (The Hackney Society, 2009). She has lived in Hackney since 200X. For more information about her work visit www.ingeclemente.com.

Chris Dorley-Brown is a photographer and filmmaker. In 1987 he started to document all of Hackney’s tower blocks as the demolition programme began. In 2001 he re-shot the pictures from the same viewpoint as part of a project Revisits 1987-2001. This work has been shown internationally in the touring exhibition Potential: Ongoing Archive. A number of his photographs are held at Hackney Archives and the Museum of London. He has lived in Hackney since 1980. For more information about his work visit www.modrex.com.

Juliet Gardiner is a historian and author of 16 books, including The Thirties: An Intimate History (Harper Press, 2010). She was the editor of History Today magazine for five years and has written extensively on wartime Britain. She lives in Hackney. For more information about her work visit www.harpercollins.co.uk

Dianna Hunt was born in Hackney at the Mothers' Hospital.  She currently works for the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and lives in Tower Hamlets.

Claudia Jessop is a poet who has published her work in several magazines and was a runner-up in the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition 2007, and shortlisted in the Second Light Network Poetry Competition, 2008. Her first collection This is the woman who was published by Cinnamon Press in 2009. Her mother was born at the Mothers' Hospital in 1933. She has lived in Hackney since 1994.

Natasha Lewer worked in journalism in the Middle East before returning to London and training as a ceramicist. She makes large-scale abstract, tactile sculptures whose sources range from microbiology to children’s toys. She also works part-time as a writer and editor for international NGOs. Barring periods in Scotland, Egypt and Sri Lanka, she has lived in Hackney for most of her life. For more information about her work visit www.natashalewerceramics.co.uk.

Hannah Parham is an architectural historian and currently works as a Heritage Protection Advisor for Listing at English Heritage.

Elizabeth Robinson is editor the The Victorian, the magazine of the Victorian Society. She is fascinated by the historic fabric of Hackney and wrote Lost Hackney (1989) and Twentieth Century Buildings in Hackney (1999), both published by the Hackney Society. She has lived in Hackney since 1983.

Dr Virginia Smith is a medical historian and is an honorary fellow of the Centre for History in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was previously a Fellow of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. She is the author of Clean: a History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (OUP, 2007).

Professor Ken Worpole is the author of many books on social history, landscape and architecture, including Dockers and Detectives (2008) and Modern Hospice Design (Routledge, 2009). He is a professor at London Metropolitan University, and is married to the photographer Larraine Worpole. He has lived in Hackney since 1969. For more information about his work visit www.worpole.net.