Newham is going through a period of rapid change, and there will be a lot more changes as we approach the Olympic Games. So sometimes it is refreshing to reflect on things in Newham which have stayed remarkably unchanged.

At the end of February I called on H M James and Sons, of Manor Park. Their bathroom showroom is on the Romford Road - on the corner with Fourth Avenue, next door to Upsdales, the estate agent. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think - except that H M James and Sons has been trading next door to Upsdales in Manor Park for well over 100 years.

Hezekiah Morris James was born in Ipswich in 1847 and became a blacksmith in Whitechapel. In 1880 he started his own business assembling cast iron kitchen ranges, and at the end of the 1890s he bought the site in Manor Park. The business thrived as new homes were built in Manor Park in the early years of the twentieth century. He advertised kitchen ranges for "1 shilling per inch".

Kitchen ranges were used to heat water, and H M James also sold kitchen sinks and baths in which the hot water was used. The baths were initially galvanised tin. The National Radiator Company - later Ideal Standard - started a plant in Hull in the 1930s. H M James has been selling Ideal Standard's vitreous china baths since the 1950s.

The business still occupies the whole site at Manor Park. The first house in Fourth Avenue is called "James Villa" and the house next door "Louisa Villa" - after Hezekiah's wife. Most of the site, however, is for storage - and carries a huge range, including some items up to 25 years old. These days, most of the business is in obsolete products - for example, a washbasin to match a bathroom suite in a colour which has long since been discontinued. And, when the Orient Express was fitted out, they came to H M James for their period wash basins.

Hezekiah's grandson, Ron James (82), joined the business in 1941. He and his younger brother, Douglas, still come into work every day, although the business is now led by younger members of Ron's family - son Ross and son-in-law John Wasiak. It has started trading online, and serves customers throughout the country. Trading conditions are tough, with low cost bathroom fittings being imported from Eastern Europe, but Ross expects the business still to be trading from its Manor Park base in ten years time, as it has done since the 1890s.

Many businesses in Newham have deep roots. Tate & Lyle has been refining sugar and Cribb & Son directing funerals in Newham since the 19th century. Alf Onnie has been selling household fabrics in East Ham since 1920. All of them are reminders that - while Newham continues to change fast - we still have strong links with those who lived and worked in our borough in the past.