My Promise
Over the coming days, weeks, months and years, I am going to write every single day and tell you about life here in Spitalfields at the heart of London. How can I ever describe the exuberant richness and multiplicity of culture in this place to you? This is both my task and my delight.
Let me disclose to you the hare-brained ambition I am pursuing, which is to write at least ten thousand stories about Spitalfields life. At the rate of one a day, this will take approximately twenty-seven years and four months. Who knows what kind of life we shall be living in 2037 when I write my ten thousandth post?
I do not think there will be any shortage of material, though it may be difficult to choose what to write of because the possibilities are infinite. Truly all of human life is here in Spitalfields.
If you wish to direct me to write about someone in particular, please let me know, because the days go by quickly and I am always eager to discover more stories. And it is through meeting people and learning more that my understanding will grow, and this project can evolve. I am open to all approaches.
It is my custom to walk everywhere in London and I discover things on my walks, so you will also find stories here from places that are within walking distance of Spitalfields.
Like Good Deeds and Everyman in the old play, let us travel together. I promise to keep writing to you every day and it will be an eventful journey we shall have together.
Your loyal servant
The Gentle Author
26th August 2009
Umbra Sumus – We are shadows. These are the words on the sundial here in Fournier Street.
I love you gentle author. I read Spitalfields Life when my heart is worn. It makes me think of you and how remarkable the beauty. 2037 indeed. Hope I’m here.
I have just stumbled across your blog whilst checking out an email sent me by Spitalfields music – I am entralled! … love your posts and hope to follow them now I have found them….
Gentle author, I have paused awhile to read what you have written, it seems only polite to do so. i don’t live in London but I was browsing around looking at Spitalfields history. I think it must be a wonderful place to live and so interesting as i love buildings of the 18th C. I suppose i got interested in the area knowing that Dan Cruikshank lives there in a house that is unchanged. I imagine the silk weavers going about their business and how different life must have been then, very hard i imagine.
I shall look in again soon.
Gentle author…
Your blog has become a daily joy I look forward to savouring. It’s a bit like a grown-up (and sometimes not-so grown-up) advent calendar. I open it with the same anticipation, and delight in all you share with us (whoever we all are)… You have brightened up my winter no end.
Long may you continue feeding our souls with Spitalfields life.
I wonder if I am your only Seattle reader? I was introduced to your work by my daughter, an LSE grad student. Now, even at this great distance, I feel I have a London home in the sense that I know something of the soul of one wonderful neighborhood. I hope to visit sometime this year. Your daily observations are a pleasure for me to read. More interestingly, it has made me observe my own city in a different way. I am going to start a series of architecture tours to learn more about my own locale’s individual quirks. Best wishes to you and Mr. Pussy.
I have only just come across your blog, but like most of these other people find it heartwarming and very eloquently written. I look forward to many a future read!
I think Spitalfields has in you a worthy chronicler. When I first moved to London in the 1970s I might have taken up residence there but instead I have ended up in the Smithfield area! The scale of the recent redevelopment of Spitalfields is at first blush overpowering, but I find in your pen portraits you describe a place with deeper historic and human roots.
Sam Ignarski
I am completely enchanted by your writing, it’s beautiful, poetic, honest and so completely different to anything I have seen out there in “blog land” Wow. I just don’t know where you find the time to write so much on a daily basis… I will keep reading and add you to my list of blogs. Thanks for all the wonderful stories so far.
What a delight to open up the computer to something of such quality as Spitalfields Life. I’m a new reader and your beautiful blogs are giving me great pleasure. Please go on and on….
Ros
I have been following for a few weeks, and am delighting in all your posts. Having lived in London for over 30 years after arriving there as a student, I moved to Salisbury, a few years ago. I love your tales of Spitalfields which I have only visited a couple of times and both before the refurbishment of the market. Thank you!
I would like to add my heartfelt appreciation to those above for your eloquent words and glorious descriptions of life around you. Having found your site, it is a pleasure for me to escape to your world and read of the wonderful characters who inhabit it. Thank you
I’m sitting here in hot and dusty Qatar, thoroughly enjoying the read. I am also a walker and, on my trips home to London, exploring old haunts for changes and the changeless is my greatest pleasure. Thank you for creating this site!
Thank you for the reminder that it is we, ourselves, who choose the lens through which we see life. You have introduced me to a London that is gentle, intrigueing and civilised rather than the less desirable option, that is often portrayed.
So if you don’t mind, I will adopt a similar approach, as I say farewell to my beloved Africa, and start a new love affair with London.
How many weeks are there until 2037? How big is your garden?
I am saddened that I am unlikely to be here to find that final post in which you are revealed. But you never know.
In the meantime I am thoroughly enjoying the daily introduction and tour.
Thank you.
Dearest gentle author,
I live in beautiful North Carolina, US, and have always dreamed of traveling and living in the UK. I stumbled upon your blog last fall and committed myself to reading it every day-it’s like I live there, just outside London, too. Thanks for opening the window to a simple, yet rich, life.
I have an ancestor who lived close to you and left almost twenty diaries. The article on the mudlark struck a chord because my ancestor was an antiquarian and collector. When he worked at the East India Docks Company he was always being brought interesting finds to buy and identify.
Brilliant blog (the only one that I think is worth subscribing to). You’ll never have the time to go out and get a proper job.
what an enchanting blog….thank you for this delightful bit of living history.
It might be possible for someone nearly anywhere to write the ongoing story of their neighborhood, but they don’t. I stumbled across your blog a while ago and it has become a part of my morning routine. Surely we all crave a sense of belonging somewhere, and having neighbors whom we would actually choose, for all their delightful variety? I am endlessly fascinated with your little corner of the world.
Gentle Author…
I had the pleasure of meeting with you briefly when you attended the “Thames and Field” evening for your mudlarking piece. I’m now hooked on this wonderful blog and often find myself in a spare 15 mins picking my way through the archive pieces..such a pleasure. Long may you continue to shine a gentle light on Spitalfields and London life.
Dear Gentle Author
I have recently discovered your blog and love reading it. Long may it continue, and thank you for making it so interesting. I’m learning photography on a City and Guilds course, and thought about concentrating on Spitalfields and markets as my theme for my end of course assessment. You make it all seem so interesting, maybe I will do it.
Best wishes
Martina x
Gentle Author,
I have just discovered your blog and enjoying reading some of your archives – very interesting and so well written with great photos!
I am from the Midlands but now live in the London borough of Hackney and I often get the bus to Spitalfields for a walk around so I know quite a few of the places you write about. I look forward to reading future articles – thanks so much!
Bravo! It’s bloody brilliant what you’re creating here. Thank you and greetings from Melbourne, Australia.
Gentle Author
Lovely to stumble across your blog and refresh the memories of the East End. Moved down to Brisbane from London a few years ago – nice to feel the heart and soul again. Please keep writing.
Je me régale chaque jour en vous lisant.
Un autre monde s’ouvre à moi, plein de détails croustillants et de personnes chaleureuses. C’est un défi pour mon anglais mais j’ai un bon dico.
Grâce à vous, je commence à voir d’un autre oeil les Anglais qui parfois, nous semblent si étranges. Humour et amour à toutes les pages. Comment faites-vous cela ? quelle créativité.
Du fond de ma campagne au pied du Luberon.
Gentle Author,
It was a great pleasure and lovely surprise to see what you have been doing these days. Knowing you, I can recognise the talent behind the writing. The photos are brilliant as well.
With all best wishes,
Daphna
Gentle author,
For one year now I have been receiving your daily Spitalfields newsletter and I love it. It is always an interesting start of the day. It is very moving to read the portraits of the London inhabitants and their way of life, or to see the plants and flowers on Columbia Road. My husband and me even made a trip from Belgium to Spitalfields to learn more about that interesting and vivid part of the city. By reading all those articles, one can imagine what is going on behind closed doors and windows. Places I visited for the first time looked strangly familiar. You write with much love for people and places. I am sure your positive way of looking at life influences others more than you can imagine. When I look back on this past year with all it’s ups and downs, I come to the conclusion that many of those ups began with reading your morning pages. I want to thank you for that and congratulate you with your work. You make this world a better place.
Best wishes for 2011.
Ingrid
You should check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7hOO9e_dXo
It’s an old Renegade Soundwave track about the Krays. It captures the dread I think. But your interviews/profiles of Criminal Life also catch the dread about the dread.
This is brilliant stuff. My dad used to play snooker in South London and hang out with hard men in Battersea, though like you (and me) he found violence abhorrent.
Your writing reminds me of things from my life in London, but also of a past that came before me. Thank you.
I have to say that I love this blog. I have always loved London and the East End especially. I will confess my first interest involved that famous crimewave from yesteryear. I had a chance a few years ago to visit London and spent a very limited time in the East End. Your blog makes me see the living history and only increases my desire to get back to London and explore more and your blog will certainly help me when I do.
Thanks for your effort and I LOVE your photographs
Peace:Robert
In 2037 I will be a very old lady! but now I have found you, I will follow you as long as my life allows me.
I arrived at your website from a Twitter post…..the wonders of modern technology! I have been completely captivated all weekend by your stories and photographs. So charming and eloquently written. My teenage daughter loves photographing old buildings and unusal features in architecture so she has loved some of the photographs you have taken. She particularly liked the manhole covers!
I am working my way through the archives and enjoying every step through time. Just beautiful. Well Done and long may it continue.
Thank you! as a passionate seeker of stories, adventures, history and sights of east london & spitalfields life I am glad that we share the same interest. avid reader x
This is one of the best sites on the net…….keep it up!
Dear Gentle Author,
Thank you for such a nice blog. I recently started my own “blog”, but I am not a writer, so I just have pictures. You are a writer and you have very nice photos.
Jean
i want to tell you something
)).congratulations and prosperous health to you.
cordialment
I came across your site by chance.Wonderful in every way the manner you describe the characters and their businesses is truly as is.
Being in fashion design I am so PLEASED that you found the two greatest characters left in clothing fabrics.I mean Philip and Martin at CRESCENT TRADING in Quaker Street.Martin an eccentric 79 going on 50 year old whose experience of the textile industry is unreal and he is so happy to share it with you.Philip whose humour matches any comedian sells fabric in a way that you must purchase and I do.
Textiles being a dying trade these two OLD CODGERS need to be made known to anyone in the clothing trade.
Please silent author give them some credits,and to you, keep on finding more hidden gems.
Dear Gentle Author
Because of you and your most excellent bloggage, I have found myself wandering the streets when I need to clear my mind from the toil and burden of the grindstone, in search of the places and people you describe.
Thank you.
Your wonderful stories have hijacked my day, gentle author and I am very excited about your work which is utterly moreish. I know the thrill of storygathering as I’ve been doing that in Hackney, Newham and Waltham Forest while working as Writer in Residence with Immediate Theatre – some of the material is on the company’s website. Now I’m about to work with writers at Cardboard Citizens and maybe you could meet some of them…although you seem to already know the extraordinary Terry O’Leary. Despite my deep envy of your lucid, vivid and personable writing I am unable to stay away from your blog. Good hunting!
Lovely, gentle, insightful historical fragments, oddities and tales. Thank-you!
I was brought to the blog via Twitter and am sharing the gift by passing the link on to my friends, my uni students and ex-students.
Dear Gentle Author,
Thank you for the plenitude and warmth. Wintry Minnesota is London for a few minutes every day.
Thank you so much for your commitment to this beautiful blog. It lights up my day!
In direct contrast to many of your neighbours, I grew up in England but have spent over half my life in Asia. However, after “discovering” your blog today, I have a sudden urge to move back to London. Wonderful stuff!
Discovered your site by the little/long blue flyer on a visit to the market last year and have dropped in sporadically ever since. I have to commend your diligence and fortitude in this great endeavour, keep at it so I can live vicariously through these until I return. Really well written, lots of great human stories and photos, I think you are taking John Berger to the next level.
Love your site. My son Ben [Photographer] lives nearby. Always wonder whether other Stockleys are related in some way.
What an amazing collection! I expect to spend some long hours reading these stories.
Oh, good. Insight into a far different and probably better culture than Alaska, (we have culture?), written by an articulate, observant person. What better way to live in a city without having to give up my magnificent mountains and large mammals? Thank you.
I am so pleased to have found your blog, every word rings true.
Gentle author,
I live on the other side of the world, I might never make it to London (but it is, and always has been a dream of mine to do) reading this blog has made me intensely happy. Every time I read a new post it makes me want to travel more than ever, and in doing so encourages me to work towards my dream.
beautiful writing. thanks for sharing your big and small thoughts and walks.
From the bottom of my heart – Thank You for this wonderful site and your passion for a story well told.
What a wonderful writer our Gentle Author is! I’m new to this blog but am catching up fast; I could read this all day and get nothing else done. A poet, a lyricist, a wordsmith. A delighter of man. We lucky readers are the privileged few. I’ll be there to the end.
An incredible website. You clearly put a lot of effort into your articles and it really makes a difference to read something so well written and researched. Whenever I see my mum she often says excitedly, “have you seen Spitalfields Life today?!!” and tells me all about it if I haven’t had time to check my rss reader – she looks forward to her daily emails. Excellent job, keep up the fantastic work.
Dear Gentle Author, it is always such a delight to receive your e-mail every day. I don`t always read your blogs straight away but often leave them to savour later…..a little bit of East London in the Tirolean Alps.
Just a quick note to say that the Latin for ‘we are shadows’ would be ‘umbrae sumus‘. Umbra sumus‘ is actually part of a quotation from Horace: Pulvis et umbra sumus – ‘we are [but] dust and shadow’ (Diffugere Nives, ['The Snows Have Fled'] Odes: Book IV.vii, line 16). Having said all that, it’s only fair to mention that A E Housman, who thought this the most beautiful poem in classical literature, renders Pulvis et umbra sumus as: ‘We are dust and dreams.’
Fabulous blog, always fascinating. A daily treat when I get up to see what you’ve written about this time. Won’t you publish a book? There’s a publishing company in Fournier St, Elephant Books.
What a miraculous find!
I’m starting at the beginning and catching up.
I’ll be 100 years old in February 2037; I wonder if I’ll miss any final chapters?
Thank you for this gift to the world.
Belfast, Maine, USA
Loving this concept. It reminds me to open my eyes to the world around me and that everyone and everything has a unique story. Its too easy to journey through life not noticing what is happening around us and your stories have inspired me to slow down and wonder more about the life around me. I look forward to the coming years.
What a wonderful blog, Gentle Author, it’s been a delight to find you.
I wonder, do you know Thomas Hawk? he is doing something similar taking the most wonderful pictures around his home town of San Francisco. You two should meet!
Thank you for breathing such depth of feeling into this blog. Your artistry becomes both you and the special place you live in.
O de li altri poeti onore e lume,
vagliami ’l lungo studio e ’l grande amore
che m’ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume
Thanks for the effort, creative and energy that goes into each blog entry. I’ve been enjoying discovering Spitalfields and the East End through your eyes and words enormously, despite having lived here for over 15 years and being fond of going on my own wanderings and discoveries. Thanks for Spitalfields Life!
Thank you for the continued daily pleasure that you give me.
Dear Gentle Author,
you are my find of the year. I love your generosity and curiosity. What a project you have there. I can understand your infatuation with London. When my parents first moved to London in the early 1960′s, my father customised his bicycle by adding a child seat on the front of his bike. At weekends he would take us children in turn to explore London, all it’s nooks and crannies. As bored teenagers on a Sunday, when everything used to be shut, my brother and myself used to get on any bus and go to the end of the route. We would then find our way home without a map, winding our way through London, across the river and back to Brixton. This is how we found that the only cafe open for miles was The Dunkin’ Donut on Blackfriars Bridge, where we would invariably stop for refreshments.
This looks like it’s going to be a continual fun read with “Spitalfields Life”…Glad I found it today…Look forward to reading all the old posts and the future posts to come…I am SOOOOO jealous of those who get to live in MY LONDON…I’ve visited several times and look forward to more visits…Until I win the lottery and move to London to stay…Thank you Gentle Author…
Dear Gentle Author,
Thank you for taking the train to forgotten Walton. Only ninety minutes as you say from London and yet worlds apart. Only a stones throw from the renowned Frinton on Sea and its well publicised “gates.” You have sypathetically touched on some of the many attributes of our little town.
Many travel from London to the beautiful and famous Brighton, but forgotten Walton has some of the most beautiful and clean sandy beaches in the country.
We are so glad that you found us and enjoyed your day.
Come back again soon.
I have just stumbled on this blog, it is just wonderful! I lived yards from Columbia Rd from 1985 to 2005. I moved there not knowing the flower market was so near, until I got up on my first morning in my new home and went foraging for milk and papers and thought ‘what’s that noise?’ and there it was. I still live nearby. Many of the places mentioned I know, I even know some of the people featured. This blog is a work of love and simply wonderful, keep up the good work. Wish I could take photographs that are nearly as good.
I love Spitalfields having lived around the corner off Bethnal Green Road over 8 years ago. You make the place come alive – a truly gorgeous blog.
Thank you and I’ll keep reading
You and your blog are a panacea for all ills, the philospher’s stone, the elixir of life.
When life seems a bit much, a stroll down the city streets with you fixes it.
I have just discovered your blog and am delighted to have done so. I am a Londoner but left the city for the countryside 35 years ago and miss its buzz. I am also an auto/biographer and oral historian and your daily blog is fascinating in that respect. All those lives recorded. I love it.
As a man Shoreditch-born who has gone sour on the Hoxton of his youth in recent (faddish and fashonable) years you might just sweeten me back up. Ta.
Spitalfields Life has changed my breakfast routine. Instead of the newspaper that rendered me simmering but helpless, I am now transported each morning to a place where history both recent and ancient lives and breathes, and that, gentle author, leaves me inspired. Thank you.
Dear Gentle Author,
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful images and words each day. It is a joy to read each day and “visit” these fascinating people and places that I hope to do in actuality one day. I look forward to the release of your much anticipated book. Have a lovely day from Detroit!
Angela
As a resident of Spitalfields, thank you so much for your work on this website. Your work as an historian is immeasurable. Eagerly awaiting the book.
I unearthed a single copy of the treasure that is Spitalfields Life in the Southend-on-Sea branch of T. K.Maxx for only £9-99. Without the money to buy it there and then, I hid the book behind larger designer cookery and travel books. Having to suppress my eager anticipation and fear of losing it, I had to wait almost a week before I could recover the volume from the safety of its hiding place and gorge on its contents.
Markets are the street theatre of retail and independent / family traders are the more human face of commerce. Thank you for reminding us what we have lost and must strive to protect.
I live in a little town in Australia, and was sent a link to you, by a friend in London.
I look forward to checking my email each day, and reading your words and hearing
your stories. It keeps me linked in to London, which I left 30 years ago. I would love
have been at the book launch. It looks like it was a wonderful evening, filled with all
those amazing people. Please don’t stop writing………… thank you.
Good Morning Mr. Gentle Author.
I have enjoyed reading and making minor contributions to your site for about 2 years now but it is only today that I have read for the first time the messages shown above. You should be very pleased with yourself for the pleasure that you have given around the world.
I also send greetings from my friend Mr. Max Lea MBE.
I saw your book in a window last week and was delighted by it. After doing a little research, I found your blog. Delightful!
I’m so happy I found your blog! One of my first jobs as a young engineer back at the tail end of the 1980s was the masterplanning for the redevelopment of Spitalfields Market. Back then it was the point where the old East End met the new brash city, and it was then that I fell in love with the area. I was broken hearted at the idea of the market being razed to the ground and replaced by the extension of the Broadgate buildings and ashamed of the role we were playing in it. Thankfully the plans ended up being toned down and thanks to your blog I’m delighted to see that the glorious and messy web of human relationships is still there. I can’t wait to work my way through your posts. Thank you.
I sense an immediate connection: I lived in and around Bethnal Green for over 15 years. Spitalfields and its wondrous characters thread in and out of my memories. I sensed that same vibrancy. I now write from Uganda, the Pearl of Africa, and I am similarly entranced.
Churchill himself wrote: “Uganda is alive by itself. It is vital …”
Dear Gentle Author:
Reading your words brought great joy – thank you!
Love to read all your story and achievements.
What a fascinating website good sir! Researching further for my Talks about the one and only Charles Dickens, I stumbled upon this delightful font of knowledge and experience. I am taking the liberty of referring to your site on my blog, for others to share, and look forward to visiting regularly. Marvellous, marvellous.
Bless you for this blog. I may be a floating Angel by 2037, but soon as I arrive, I will join the army urging on the final publication of your completed Spitafields Life…
I used to live at 79b Brick Lane and miss it very much, I have lived in many places and Brick Lane felt like home. I am a silk weaver so this may be why. I saw the article about this site in The Guardian and am hooked. Thank you Gentle Author XX
Your emails brighten up my day! I never know what to expect but they are all fascinating.
Dear Gentle Author ,
I was brought to your blog last year by the article regarding Stanley Rondeau and the Heugenots . I am related to the Rondeaus and your article uncovered a wealth of information previously unbeknown to me and for that I thank you greatly.
I now have another mystery to solve . My ancestor was one Benjamin Hooper who married Elizabeth Rondeau they had 13 children ( and Im still discovering more ) Their addressess are stated as Red Lion Court and Paternoster Row. I believe these to be between Brick Lane and Fleet Street.They were married at Christchurch Spitalfields and all their children were baptised there. His occupation was an Apothecary Chemist, The Royal Society does not have a record of him however I am keen to trace some information about him his family and his business as I am uncovering information about other Hoopers such as Hoopers Pills and a Joseph Hooper as on who was an apothecary chemist . I wonder if Culpepper was an apprentice of his and I know one of his sons was a Ships Surgeon. Any information gratefully received
best regards
Sarah Catterall
Carissimo Gentle Author,
per un italiano amante dell’Inghilterra il Suo blog è un’occasione unica per approfondire la conoscenza di una piccola ma affascinante porzione del suo affascinante Paese.
Grazie del Suo quotidiano lavoro, veramente pregevole nei testi e nelle foto