A PLAQUE has been unveiled at the house where author Lena Kennedy lived for nearly half a century.

Her novels of East End life and her historical stories are still popular 15 years after her death.

The plaque was placed by the council on the house in Wellington Road, Leyton, where her proud daughter, Angela Kennedy-Smith, still lives.

Lena, born in Hoxton, moved to Wellington Road in the early days of the Second World War.

As in her youth, she continued to work in local shops and factories while bringing up her two children, Angela and Keith.

But all the time, she nurtured another life reading her favourite classic novels by Flaubert, Jane Austen and Dickens, and dreaming of seeing her own work published.

At the age of 64, she achieved her ambition.

Her novel, Maggie, initially rejected by seven publishers, became a best-seller both in hardback and paperback.

Its raw, unsentimental style and descriptions of East End life grabbed readers' imaginations.

And it was followed by numerous other books, including Autumn Alley and Nelly Kelly. Even after her death, her finished work continued to be published.

According to Angela, the first part of Nelly Kelly is based on Lena's own life story, with a generous helping of fiction to move it along. She used to tell her daughter: "I never tell the whole truth, darling."

In Nelly Kelly, we meet the writer's charming Irish father, Cornelius, and her husband Fred in the guise of Nelly's quiet dependable husband, Bill.

The loss of Nelly's first baby in a Leyton air raid shelter during the Blitz was Lena's loss too.

Her success, which came late in life, never spoiled her, and neighbours recall how much fun she was to be around.

Her books have been reproduced in several languages and are also in tape form.

Two years after her death, Lena Kennedy Close in Highams Park was named after her.

This latest honour has delighted her daughter, who told the Guardian: "Mum wrote much about the times she lived through in London as well as her historical novels.

"I am grateful to the borough for honouring my mother with this commemoration of a plaque at the house she lived in."Angela Kennedy-Smith outside her home with a poster of Lena Kennedy in the background