He turned up unannounced one day, during a break from a television appearance, with a minder who wanted to give him a taste of real working-class London.

Chaplin, who grew up in the music halls of working-class London, embodied both the humble cultural origins of the movies and their universal, democratic potential.

Eastenders' and 'Father Ted' were particularly well represented," he added, referring to two popular British shows: a soap opera about working-class London and a sitcom about three priests in Ireland.

For the socialist press, in any event, the burning issue in working-class London during the hot summer of 1898 was not the Hooligans, but the water shortage which was reaching crisis proportions.

Wright has also written a comic novel and an engaging memoir of growing up in working-class London, England.

The knitting factory "became a virtual settlement house in working-class London."

They are like the Forsytes of a multicultural, working-class London, whose families, fates and secrets intertwine over several generations.

Knopf has Raymond Briggs's "Ethel & Ernest," an affecting portrait of his parents' marriage in working-class London, which hardly seems to be the stuff of a comic book.

The town's name alone suggests sprawling decrepitude, and Mr. Archer's songs embody the pathos of the maligned, working-class London 'burbs.

He is best known for his humorous columns poking fun at various facets of life in Singapore, and revealing aspects of his childhood in working-class London.