Sowerbutt's Plot

The long-retired writer for the East London Pioneer, who still has the notebook from his interview in the early 1960s with Jimmy Sowerbutt, said: "Jimmy was determined to get local families re-housed as quickly as possible after the war. He used to say they had suffered enough.

"The trouble was the Reds were taking control of the building unions and were calling the shots on the reconstruction sites. Jimmy found out that many contracts had a timeline. The contract was void if the flats and houses were not completed within a certain time.
"The bricks came from the London Brick Company in Bedfordshire where Jimmy had a lot of contacts. Italian workers there who had sympathy for the pre-war English Blackshirts. Jimmy spread cash around and some charm and the supply of bricks to Poplar slowed to a snail's pace. The sites, controlled by the Reds, lost their contracts and Jimmy took them over. A few months later, the building work was completed and the local families were rehoused."
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-Surrender-1940-ebook/dp/B008USR7FA