Doreen Fletcher In Her Own Words
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On the eve of the opening of her new exhibition at Townhouse, Fournier St, E1 6QE, here is my interview with Doreen Fletcher. Doreen will be at the gallery tomorrow to meet visitors. Her exhibition, CORNERS, runs from Saturday 13th June until Sunday 5th July.
Portrait of Doreen Fletcher in her studio by Stuart Freedman
Doreen Fletcher – Looking back, I think I was attracted to painting even from the age of four or five. I loved colour and my dad used to take me to the local toy shop where I always insisted on the best quality paints. I was an only child, born into a working class family, and my parents were – as you might say these days – semi-literate. Consequently, from the age of about eight years old, I took responsibility for helping them out in dealing with officialdom, not unlike – I suppose – immigrant children in the East End today whose parents have limited English.
My mum and dad were very loving, and keen for me to have the opportunities they had missed. When I was five, I was bought a set of encyclopaedias from a salesman selling door-to-door on the never-never. It had colour reproductions of famous paintings such as Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ by Constable and Turner’s ‘The Fighting Téméraire’ and I thought they were wonderful.
I passed my eleven-plus exam but I had a very difficult time at grammar school because – although I was clever and always in the top six of the top stream – I came from the wrong side of the tracks. I felt I had to pretend I was from somewhere else, because most of the pupils came from professional middle-class families. Consequently, I could not invite school friends to our tiny terraced home. I did not speak with the right accent, have the social ease of the other children or possess their cultural knowledge.
The art room was a refuge for me because there I could express myself fluently under the expert tutelage of the art teacher Mr Hanford. He had trained at the Royal Academy School and was probably the only teacher of any influence I ever listened to. I loved Fridays when there was a two hour after-school art club. It was at one of these sessions that Mr Hanford advised against using black paint straight from the tube. To this day, I mix ultramarine and burnt umber for a warm black and raw umber and indigo for a cool black.
The Gentle Author – What work did your parents do?
Doreen Fletcher – Alice, my mother, worked in a munitions factory during the war and then became a domestic servant afterwards. It gave her ideas about not putting the newspaper or ketchup bottle on the table and she adopted ‘healthy eating,’ much to my irritation. She was also particular about keeping the front step, windows and net curtains clean. Colin, my dad, started off as a farm worker. He wanted to be a vet but due to illness he missed a year’s education at seven years old which meant that he left school hardly able to read or write.
After I was born, we moved from the village of Barlaston to Newcastle-Under-Lyme because my dad could earn more money in the town. In the late fifties, when the government erected pylons across the nation, he worked on the construction of these and later he found employment laying pipes for North Sea Gas. When my dad was fifty-seven, he had a brain haemorrhage at work, probably due at least in part to the vibrations of the pneumatic drill. He did not work again after that.
The Gentle Author – What was the first landscape that you knew?
Doreen Fletcher – It was composed of greys and browns – soot-streaked streets with sparrows and pigeons. I used to long for colour, for tinsel, for fairy lights and fairgrounds. Yet although I grew up in a two-up-two-down terrace in Stoke-on-Trent, every Sunday my parents took me on excursions by bus into the country, a different destination each time. This was rare at the time and I think it revealed their great sensitivity and care.
These trips were always accompanied by the purchase of a quarter pound of sweets and latterly, a brownie box camera that took tiny black and white photos. I liked going for long walks alone too. I was always looking and observing the variety of houses lining the streets I wandered through. Sometimes I roamed the countryside as well, walking along busy trunk roads. These days eyebrows might be raised, but there was nothing unusual in seeing unaccompanied children exploring back then. I loved my solitary walks.
The Gentle Author – What took you away from the Potteries?
Doreen Fletcher – I did not like living in a small town, it lacked cosmopolitanism. I hated the social constrictions and the pettiness I encountered. After A Levels, I decided I to study a subject that would earn me a living, so I enrolled on Bsc Sociology Course at North Staffordshire Polytechnic in Stoke. I have always been fascinated by other people’s lives, attitudes and behaviour.
However it proved a disastrous choice for me because the course dealt mostly with statistics and their interpretation. I did not even last two terms. So I went to work in a local tile factory – of which there were plenty in those days – where my job was sorting broken tiles. After six months I left, realising there was no future in it for me.
I knew my vocation was to be an artist. I spent a very happy year doing a foundation course in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. I felt at home there. I was comfortable and totally at ease in the chaotic atmosphere of the leaky portacabins that served as our studios. For the only time in my life, I did very little work. Instead I enjoyed making friends and formed a close relationship with a fellow student. Together we moved to London in 1972 where he attended Wimbledon School of Art and I worked as an art school model.
The Gentle Author – Did you apply to art school?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes, I applied to study at Croydon College. Even then, I was very independently minded and did not want a structured degree course where I might be expected to conform to a ‘house style’. At this point, I was painting quite a lot of self-portraits and still lifes.
One day in late 1973 I saw an exhibition of paintings of Mow Cop by Jack Simcock in Cork Street. Mow Cop was a hilltop village not far from my home. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, if I leaned out of my bedroom window at a dangerous angle, I could just see the Victorian folly on the summit of Mow Cop in the distance.
The houses were built out of Peak District sandstone and local millstone grit. The place was bleak and dour. I was captivated, deciding then that I wanted to be an urban landscape painter, recording my own environment.
The Gentle Author – Where did you live when you first came to London?
Doreen Fletcher – To begin with, I stayed around Wimbledon, then I spent seven years living in Paddington where my fascination with urban scenes escalated. Coming from a small town in the North, it was an exciting place to be. I was close to the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, Notting Hill Gate and Portobello Road. I started painting local landmarks, the Electric cinema and the Serpentine boathouse. Then I became interested in Underground stations at night, Bayswater and Paddington. This project continued when I moved to the East End.
The Gentle Author – What brought you to the East End?
Doreen Fletcher – At that time artists were attracted to live and work in the East End because of the cheap studio space that was available. It was easy to rent because the local population were moving out and and artists were happy to live in dilapidated accommodation if it gave them room to work. Before long, a mutually supportive community of artists developed around Bow, Stepney and Mile End.
The Gentle Author – How do you remember the East End then?
Doreen Fletcher – I noticed the skies first, open and dramatic as they advanced into Essex. There were corrugated fences everywhere, still bombsites where buddleia proliferated and a few prefabs inhabited by artists. There was an openness in the streets which has since gone, now every corner has been built up and every vacant space filled.
Yet the distinctive quality of light remains particular to this part of London, a luminescence generated by the proximity of the river. I loved it here because I had had enough of the West End. It felt to me as if I were returning home. Like Stoke, the East End was predominantly working class and also had once been an important centre for industry. Corner shops and tiny pubs proliferated among street markets.
The Gentle Author – Why did you start painting the East End?
Doreen Fletcher – I was excited visually by being somewhere new to me yet that also reminded me of where I grew up. In the Potteries, the town planners’ ethos was ‘If it’s old, let’s sweep it away’ – regardless of its cultural and historical significance. I saw the same fate awaiting the East End. The first painting I did here was the bus stop in Mile End in 1983 and then Rene’s Café next.
The Gentle Author – Was this your full time occupation?
Doreen Fletcher – I was working as an artists’ model in an art school. It was the most boring job you could imagine, but I stuck at it during term-time so I could have periods of full-time painting. I was able to keep myself by working three days a week as a model.
The Gentle Author – How central to your life were your paintings at that time?
Doreen Fletcher – Painting was the focal point of my life. My studio was a small room at the top of a run-down three-storey house in Clemence Street. It faced north so the light was good for painting.
I walked around the East End at different times of day and in different weathers. Eventually a particular scene imprinted itself on my mind that could have potential as a painting. I did thumbnail sketches and took a photograph. Once I had gathered this information, I made a detailed drawing as a basis for the painting. This might evolve over a period of months or even years, as the tension built up between my need to represent reality and the demands made by the painting itself. I always struggle to resolve a picture in an abstract way as well as portraying a subject. To this day,I follow this methodical process to make a painting.
I worked a minimum of twenty-eight hours a week, a target I still adhere to. I was determined not to become a Sunday painter.
The Gentle Author – Did you have ambition for this work?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes and I did have some limited success in the eighties showing within the borough, receiving a few grants and being accepted in open exhibitions such as the Whitechapel and the London Group. Companies bought work from time to time and local people appreciated my paintings, but there was little interest from any critics or commercial galleries.
The Gentle Author – Did you pursue other avenues to get recognition for your work?
Doreen Fletcher – Once a month, I used to send off slides in response to competitions and requests for submissions in Artists’ Newsletter. It was time-consuming and costly without reward.
The Gentle Author – How did you maintain morale through those twenty years?
Doreen Fletcher – I am an optimist and I remained optimistic up until the late nineties, when my work grew increasingly unfashionable due to the rise of conceptual art. It became more difficult to find any places where I could exhibit my work that would even accept representational painting. My work was simply out of fashion My interest in the East End was waning too, as Canary Wharf transformed into a financial metropolis. I found I did not know what to paint any more. It felt as though a period of my life was coming to an end.
The Gentle Author – What made you feel that?
Doreen Fletcher – The East End was changing in a way that I could not understand or portray. The new buildings were densely packed, destroying the distinctive sense of place and community. At first, I was interested in the construction – on the Isle of Dogs for instance – but once it was finished there were just too many people and too much architectural uniformity.
The Gentle Author – Were there changes in your life too?
Doreen Fletcher – I grew more involved in teaching art to youngsters with special needs, taking a part-time job in further education. I became more interested because I found I was good at it and my teaching work was appreciated. Gradually, I worked more in the administrative side of education, supporting other lecturers.
The Gentle Author – Did you find that satisfying?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes, I was earning a salary and contributing to the community. It was rewarding to be working with other people after my years of isolation. I enjoyed participating in the local community rather than being an observer.
The Gentle Author – Once you had completed nearly twenty years of painting the East End, what were your feelings about that series of work?
Doreen Fletcher – I did not realise that I was creating any kind of social document at the time because I was so absorbed with each painting, each one constituting such a lot of work. I had tried very hard to get my pictures out there and get them seen. I had hoped for some kind of recognition. I was never ambitious in terms of international recognition but I did feel that the work was good enough to be recognised more than it was.
The Gentle Author – Were you disappointed?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes. I remember the day I made a conscious decision to pack away my paints. It was November 16th 2004. I said, ‘That’s it! I am not going to paint again.’ I had no knowledge that I was undertaking a journey and enduring a struggle that other artists in the East End had already experienced. If I had been aware of the East London Group and their example, I might have had the heart to continue.
The Gentle Author – Do you think your project reached its culmination?
Doreen Fletcher – At the time I did not think so, I believed I had done all that work for nothing. But looking at the work again, I am very glad I did it. I think it was important that I recorded something which has now vanished.
The Gentle Author – Do you think you evolved as a painter by doing this work?
Doreen Fletcher – If I had I been taken on by a gallery, I might have developed more as a painter. Instead, I think I found a method of working that suited what I was doing and I stuck with it. Maybe with a bit more encouragement I would have done what I am doing now, since I have come back to painting.
The Gentle Author – How do you judge if one of your paintings is successful?
Doreen Fletcher – A painting is successful for me when I believe I have captured an essence of a place in a moment. A picture must sit comfortably and solidly on the canvas. My concern as an artist is with the pockets of life that we ignore.
Now I have started painting again and the series of pictures I have been working in the last two years are the result of having lived in East London for thirty-five years. I have been reflecting on how much remains from the early years and come to appreciate how those people who still live here have adapted to the changes.
In the early eighties, this part of London was run down and very few people chose to be here. Some streets and buildings remain as reminders of that era, left to compete with new concepts of London that have emerged since the closing of local industries and the rise of corporate culture. In representing their utilitarian quality, I envisage my subjects not only as reminders of the past but also as active survivors struggling positively to find a place in a world changing beyond recognition.
I am a painter concerned with environments that are or have been inhabited. I try to resolve the struggle between how I see things and with abstraction, where the pictorial demands of structure, organisation and balance hold sway. My work is carried out slowly and methodically using a range of techniques to communicate a place of quietude and serenity. The difference between the work I am making today and the work I was doing before is that now I am a participant, no longer only an observer of East End life.
At Benjamin Truman’s House
Behold, the dusk is glimmering in this old house in Princelet St built in the seventeen-twenties for Benjamin Truman. A hundred years later, a huge factory was added on the back which more than doubled the size. In the twentieth century, this became the home of the extended Gernstein family from whom the last owners bought the house in the eighties. Notable as Lionel Bart’s childhood home, who once returned to have his portrait taken by Lord Snowden on the doorstep, in recent years it has served as the location for innumerable film and photo shoots. And now, as if to complete the circle, the house belongs the proprietors of the Old Truman Brewery.
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Raju Vaidyanathan, Photographer
Back of Cheshire St, 1986
“I used to climb up on the railway bridge and take photos,” explained photographer Raju Vaidyanathan when he showed me this picture which he has seen for the first time only recently even though he took it forty years ago. A prolific taker of photos around Spitalfields, Raju possesses over forty thousand negatives of people and personalities in the neighbourhood which, after all this time, he is now beginning to print. So I went down to the Idea Store in Watney Market where Raju works to learn more about his remarkable photography.
“I was born in Brick Lane above the shop that is now called ‘This Shop Rocks,’ and I still live on the Lane. My father, Vaithy came to this country in 1949, he was brought over as one of the very first chefs to introduce Indian cooking and our family lineage is all chefs. They brought him over to be chef at the Indian embassy and the day he arrived he discovered they had already arranged a room for him and that room was on Brick Lane, and he lived there until he died.
In 1983, I managed to get hold of an old camera that someone gave me and I started taking photos. As a kid I was very poor and I knew that I was not going to be able to afford take photos, but someone said to me, ‘Instead of taking colour photos, why don’t you take black and white?’ I went to the Montefiore Centre in Hanbury St and the tutor said he would teach me how to process black and white film. So that is what I did, I am a local kid and I just started taking photos of what was happening around me, the people, the football team, the youth club – anything in Brick Lane, where I knew all the people.
Photography is my passion but I also like local history and learning about people’s lives. Sometime in the late eighties, I realised I was not just taking photographs for myself but making a visual diary of my area. I have been taking photos ever since and I always have a camera with me. I am a history collector, I have got all the Asian political leaflets and posters over the years. In the Asian community everyone knows me as the history guy and photographer
Until four years ago, I had been working until nine or ten o’clock every night and seven days a week but then they restructured my hours and insisted I had to work here full time at the Idea Store. Before, I was only working here part-time and working as a youth worker the rest of the time. Suddenly, I had time off in the evenings.
People started saying, ‘You’ve got to do something with all these photos.’ So I thought, ‘Let me see if I can start sorting out my negatives.’ I started finding lots put away in boxes and I took a course learning how to print. For the last two years, I go in once a week and print my photos and see what I have got. I bought a negative scanner and I started scanning the first two boxes of negatives. I have never seen these photos because I never had the money to print them. I just used to take the photos and process the film. So far, I have scanned about eight thousand negatives and maybe next year, once I have sorted these out, I will start scanning all the others.”
Junk on Brick Lane, 1985
Outside Ali Brothers’ grocery shop, Fashion St 1986. His daughter saw the photo and was so happy that his picture was taken at that time.
Modern Saree Centre 1985. It moved around a lot in Brick Lane before closing three years ago.
BYM ‘B’ football team at Chicksand Estate football pitch known as the ‘Ghat’ locally, 1986
108 Brick Lane, 1985. Unable to decide whether to be a café or video store, it is now a pizza shop.
‘Joi Bangla Krew’ around the Pedley Street arches. The BBC recently honoured Haroun Shamsher from Joi (third from left) and Sam Zaman from ‘State of Bengal (far left) with a music plaque on Brick Lane
Myrdle Street, 1984. Washing was hung between flats until the late nineties.
Chacha at Seven Stars pub 1985. Chacha was a Bangladeshi spiv and a good friend of my father. Seven Stars was the local for the Asian community until it closed down in 2000.
Teacher Sarah Larcombe and local youths (Zia with the two fingers) on top of the old Shoreditch Goods Station, which was the most amazing playground
Halal Meat Man on Brick Lane, 1986
Filming of ‘Revolution’ in Fournier St, 1986. The man tapping for cash was killed by some boys a few months later.
Mayor Paul Beaseley and Rajah Miah (later Councillor) open the Mela on Hanbury Street, 1985
The Queen Mother arrives at the reopening of the Whitechapel Gallery, 1986
Photographs copyright © Raju Vaidyanathan
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Moyra Peralta’s Worldly Goods
“These are all my worldly goods,” said Darren when he spread out these modest items to show Photographer Moyra Peralta in 1997. Moyra asked those she had befriended who lived upon the street to permit her to photograph the contents of their pockets and these pictures were the result.
Darren (Waterloo) – Dog, dog leads, keys on key-ring, penknife, cigarettes, lighter, matches, loose change, shoppers’ points card, religious medals on a string, prayer printed on a metal plate, photo of a dog, paperclip, safety pins, nine packets of sugar, paper serviette, personal papers, pain-killers, emery board and several plastic change bags.
Richard (Holborn) – Busking spoons (for `ham and egg-ing’, ie begging), diary, passport, one roll-up , matches, tobacco, cigarette papers, allowance book, medical prescription, Department of Social Security letter, penknife, photograph, paper tissues, and twenty-one pence.
Michael (Covent Garden) – Social Security book, moneybag, a pair of spectacles with case, a religious picture and prayer, a crucifix and chain, a five pound note, London Underground travel ticket, loose change, a US coin, two lighters, a pencil, comb, a chewing gum, a Medilink card and church postcards.
Chris, Malcolm & Jimmy (Trafalgar Sq) – Personal stereo, lighters, cigarettes, vitamin tablets, legal and medical papers, a photograph of Jack Nicholson, a cartoon drawing, copper coins, a match, a wristband and a lucky sprig of heather.
Sean (Covent Garden) – A Begging placard, a peeled orange, money tin, loose change, a paper hankie, cashew nuts, a pair of socks, an origami flower, a pocket dictionary, a postcard, a religious picture, a whistle, shoelaces, a plaster, a broken pencil and an Irish coin.
Rory – Virgin Atlantic docket, address book, a miniature elephant mascot, a personal stereo, two paperbacks, `british passport, an inhaler, a brush, two cigarette lighters, a matchbook, a pen, a hammer (for breaking into squats) and a torch (belonging to a friend).
Johnnie (Holborn) – A hairbrush, reading glasses, cigarette papers, tobacco, a lighter, a pair of scissors, a razor, a toothbrush, a toothpaste, vitamin capsules, a wallet, photographs, an envelope with more photographs, batteries, coins, a pen, a paperback and cream bath lotion.
Simon (Holborn) – A tobacco tin, some dog-ends, matches, a candle stub, loose change, paper towels, dog biscuits and bone, a collar and lead, a necklace, combs, a prescription, a notebook, a paperback, two photos, stamps, a copy of In & Around Covent Garden magazine, a cassette, a button, an envelope, a pencil, a bullet, a plastic knife and fork, and three tubes of glue.
Ray (Strand) – a wallet, a notebook, tissues, an address book, a news cutting, an Outreach contact card, phone cards, dice, a stamp, loose change, combs, a pair of spectacles, a watch, a pen, a playing card, a cigar stub, a pen cap, bottle of mouthwash, matches, buttons, shaving cream, soap, a piece of string, a needle, thread, a safety razor in a plastic case, throat sweets, scissors, antiseptic cream, wire and wire springs and a paperback.
Tommy (Holborn Station) – Copies of The Big Issue, a Vendor’s Identity Card, a spectacle case, cigarettes, peppermints, nail-clippers and a wristwatch.
Tony & Sandy – Rolling tobacco, a lighter, cigarette papers, painkillers, a plaster and a comb.
Richard displays his worldly goods in Holborn.
Photographs copyright © Estate of Moyra Peralta
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London Characters
In my desk drawer, I keep this fine set of London Characters, cigarette cards by an unknown artist issued by Lambert & Butler in 1934.
Remarkably, The Chestnut Seller, The Boot Black, The Coffee-Stall Keeper, The Flower-Seller, The Ice-Cream Vendor, The Fish-Stall Keeper and The Pavement Artist survive, in very limited numbers and in differing forms. With references to black-shirts and the depression, these cards speak eloquently of the life of inter-war London, – ‘these enlightened days of stainless steel ‘ as they are described here with brash confidence. Yet, only yesterday, I saw a woman standing outside Liverpool St Station with a large handmade placard ,’2 Bedroom Flat to Sell,’ which made me wonder if we might be on the brink of a street-selling revival in our capital.
“Baked Chestnuts!” – With the approach of autumn, the Baked Chestnut Man wheels his barrow with its glowing fire – over which the chestnuts pop and sizzle – to a frequented spot where the appetizing smell of his wares tempts pennies from the pockets of the passers-by.
A Billingsgate Porter – Beginning his day’s work at five am, the Billingsgate Porter has nearly finished his labours by the time the trains and buses are unloading hundreds of City workers onto Eastcheap and Fish St Hill – streets which are pervaded by the unmistakable sea-weedy and fishy odours which never entirely depart from the neighbourhood of the Monument.
The Boot-Black – In bygone days, the boot-black was found in every street corner. Each man had a large tin kettle for removing mud, two or three brushes and a very old wig – the latter being indispensable in a shoeblack outfit, very useful for whisking away dust and wiping off wet mud.
The “Cabby” – Drivers of “growlers” and “hansom” cabs are still to be seen, and may be recognised by their whole-hearted contempt for motors, their ready wit and and preferences for frequenting places associated with horses, such as Tattersall’s, Barnet Fair and Regent’s Park on Whit Monday.
“Catch ‘Em Alive!” – Modern hygiene with its slogan “Swat that fly” has done away forever with, “Catch ’em alive, O!” – the cry of the tall man in the tall hat which displayed a struggling mass of flies on its sticky trimming.
The Chair-Mender – The kerbside mender of chairs, who “if he had more money to spend would not be crying – “Chairs to mend!” is one of the neatest-fingered of street traders. Watch how deftly he weaves his strips of cane in and out – how neatly he finishes off each chair, returning it to the owner, “good as new.”
The Coffee-Stall Keeper – Many a drama of London-in-the-darkness is enacted at the coffee stall, which trundles its way each evening to its pitch where it remains until the city begins to awaken. Men and women of many types seek its hospitality during the hours of darkness, “down and outs” rubbing shoulders with revellers returning home in the early morning – and not a few are gladdened by a copper or two thrust into their hands by comrades a little better off than themselves.
The Cornet Player – A character never lacking in London streets is the Cornet Player, who provides a kind of magic that draws dogs like a magnet to him. He relies chiefly upon the licensed houses for his living, and can usually be recognised by his bulk.
The Covent Garden Porter – The Covent Garden Porter is the “Cockney of all the Cockneys” – good-humoured, hard working and possessed of a ready wit. Like his confrère at Billingsgate, he has been accused of being a “linguist” but although his speech may occasionally be forceful and picturesque, there is doubtless many a fox-hunting squire who might give him points and a licking!
The Crossing Sweeper – In bygone days, the Crossing Sweeper was a veritable “gentleman” of the road, who in many cases inherited his broom and his pitch from his parents. Tradition relates that the profession of a crossing sweeper was at one time a safe road to fortune.
The Flower Seller – The Flowers Sellers or perhaps more correctly “flower-girls” – for flower sellers in London always remain girls irrespective of age – are among the most picturesque of London characters. The flower-girl of Piccadilly, sitting beside her gay and fragrant basket in the shadow of “Eros” is the aristocrat of them all.
The Hyde Park Orator – Red-shirt, black-shirt, green-shirt and others – all are sure of an audience, especially on Sundays, when occupying their rostrums near Marble Arch. they are usually prepared for good-natured heckling – and often get it! Should things take a less friendly turn, there is always a “bobby” to keep his eye on things!
The Ice-Cream Vendor – The old-fashioned ice-cream barrow is dying hard, despite the rivalry of mass-production. Ice-cream “merchants” were usually Italian and the gaudy representations of Lake Como and the Rialto decorating his stall. Invariably called “Johnnie,” he met the demands of his of his youthful clientele, of messenger-boys and the like – to whom ice-cream makes an irresistible appeal – with exemplary patience and good humour.
The Kerbstone Trader – Dignity fails at the sight of the Kerbstone Trader. Aldermen, merchants and mere office-boys “fall” for his latest novelty “all made to wind up.” Red hot from an important board meeting, the Chairman of the Company relaxes on hearing the unspeakable sounds which proceed from the slow collapsing india-rubber pig.
The Newsboy – In some respects, the Newsboy reveals quite remarkable business instincts, chief among them his gift of shouting commonplace news in such a manner to make it sound important. He reads his own papers – how and when is a complete mystery – for his eye is always on a likely customer, but he can always tell you what Arsenal has done, and who is riding the favourite in the “big ‘un.”
The Old Fish-Stall Keeper – Wherever Londoners gather together, the fish-stall is found, whether in the crowded streets or one of the seas-side resorts where Cockneys take their doses of ozone. “Arry” and “Arriet” do much of their courting around the whelk stall, and comic singers owe much amusing patter to its delicacies, winkles and the necessary “extra” in the shape of a pin.
The Organ Grinder – The Organ Grinder and his monkey belong to a less sophisticated age than the present, with its bands of unemployed musicians and “tinned music” in various forms. This organist of the eighties was usually a native of Switzerland and instrument was a worn-out organ, under the weight of which he could sometimes scarcely stagger.
The Pavement Artist – He is above all an optimist – a sudden shower and all his day’s work is in vain! You may find him in any open space – near St Martin-In-The-Fields, Trafalgar Sq or on the Embankment – with his equipment of brightly-coloured chalks and a duster. The pavement artist is said to have been “the cradle” of some successful artists, but is certain that many who have known better days have resorted to this means of making a living.
The Quack Medicine Man – The “Medicine Man” of the street corner sells many things, from a cure for toothache to a remedy for broken hearts. Blessed with a wonderful gift of the gab and an endless store of ready wit, he is ready to expose all the secrets of Pharmacopoeia.
The Rag & Bone Man – The cry of “rags and bones” is familiar in the meaner streets, but often it is nit easy to recognise the words! Closely allied with the dealer in “rags” is the dealer of “old clo!” – the lady or gentleman who offers an aspidistra or a pot of ferns for an overcoat or a pair of trousers which has seen better days!
The Knife Grinder – Even in these enlightened days of stainless steel, the old-fashioned Knife Grinder may still be seen plying his trade in the London streets, with his well-known cry, “Knives, scissors, grind!” His lack of wares is more than compensated for by the picturesqueness of his outfit.
The Muffin Man – This is the Muffin Man, his bell clangs out its story of cosy fireside teas, and at the same time announces that summer is over! But history relates that ever since one of the fraternity was summoned for ringing his bell on a Sunday afternoon, the Muffin Man must choose with care the locality in which he goes selling the muffins.
The Sandwich Man – The Sandwich Man strikes a minor note in the great symphony of London life. His is the métier of the unfortunate, and sometimes his role as a perambulating advertisement is tinged with bitter irony. The shabby man directing all and sundry to the smart tailor, and the shaggy man advertising a first-class barber are bad enough, but what is one to say of the poor stray condemned to carry a board advertising the price of a first-class lunch with complete menu?
The Windmill Man – The Windmill Man will go down to posterity as a kind of “Pied Pier” who lured away the children from the noise and squalor of the streets to fairyland. The sound of his voice – for street vendors are still permitted to call their wares in the meaner streets – is a signal for a throng of scampering children to gather round him to exchange old bottles for gaily-painted windmills.
You may also like to take a look at these other sets of the Cries of London
Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders
William Craig Marshall’s Itinerant Traders
H.W.Petherick’s London Characters
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London
More John Player’s Cries of London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana of 1817
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana III
Doreen Fletcher’s New Paintings
It is my delight to publish Doreen Fletcher‘s new paintings to be seen in her forthcoming exhibition CORNERS at Townhouse Fournier St, E1 6QE, from next Saturday 13th June until Sunday 5th July. Below Doreen introduces her paintings in her own words.
House on the Corner
‘This north-facing house is directly opposite Wanstead Flats, on the front line of the densely populated streets of Forest Gate. Built in the 1870s, it has seen horses and carriages trotting down the road, cows wandering past, then anti-aircraft gun emplacements on the Flats during World War Two, shaking the foundations of houses when they fired at the enemy planes. My painting captures the moment when the street lights come on and illuminated windows offer a tantalising glimpse of interiors, as inhabitants return and retreat into their homes.’
Look At Me!
‘A mother raises her hands encouragingly at her small child bravely tackling a ride for the first time. Three times a year, I am drawn to the bright lights of the fair on Wanstead Flats, unable to resist the temptation to bring order and permanence to the chaos and transience. Painting any fairground scene involves uniting a plethora of colours, light sources and interlocking shapes and forms that appear indistinguishable at first glance. For me, if the painting is to work, all these elements must hang together.’
Capel Moon
‘Snow is rare in London with a few exceptional years, 1979 being the most notable in my memory. I have not done many paintings depicting snow, although I have always been fascinated by the transformation and magic wrought by its fall. December 2024 was exceptionally cold and Wanstead Flats were transformed briefly into a wonderland, particularly at night – most magical just before darkness fell when the snow illuminating the Flats was balanced by the glow in the sky and the lights of surrounding houses.’
Maryland
‘My task here was to create a satisfying composition, encompassing the expanse of white-painted brickwork work on the right, and I sought to resolve this by placing a man seated on the wall. The warm blue and orange tones of the shop emphasise the contrast with the cool whites above and greys in the foreground.’
Nana Yaa
‘When I moved to London in 1972, I encountered fruit and vegetable stalls outside tube stations for the first time. On a wet January morning in Leytonstone, I saw this shop across the road where the produce glowed through the gloom like a beacon, a scene enhanced by the young man sitting in front, oblivious of the cold, concerned only with his phone.’
Shop on the Corner
‘I have been painting my immediate environment for decades now. For the majority of this time I have lived in East London, always with a small general grocery shop round the corner. On extended stays in the country, I find I forget to buy essential items on my weekly shopping trip, since in the city it really does not matter. This painting is of my corner shop in Forest Gate but it could be almost anywhere.’
Short Cut
‘I discovered this view of the petrol station on Aldersbrook Road in Wanstead by accident when my dog Charlie ran into the bushes chasing a squirrel. It made me think of my childhood when I loved looking at familiar sights from unusual angles. I remember once drawing our living room sitting from the top of a step ladder and the space was transformed into a place of mystery for me. So this is my new perspective on the petrol station, which I had passed on the main road hundreds of times without really looking.’
Stanley at the Duke
‘The neon sign of the Duke of Wellington in Spitalfields draws the eye as you cross Commercial Street. Yet even though the pub is situated on the corner of a busy road, it is a peaceful backwater, a station of calm.’
St Gabriel on the Flats
‘This is a well-known local landmark on Wanstead Flats. I have built the composition in horizontal bands to frame the silhouette of the church, just hinting at the lights of the garage on Alderbrook Road that appears in another painting in my exhibition. Set during the brief lull of twilight, the pale violet sky and a visible moon conjure a quiet moment of transition.’
Sunday Morning, Maryland
‘Maryland is usually clogged with cars, people hurrying to and from the nearby station, and noisy with the clamour of buses stopping and starting. Yet on an unusually sunny morning in winter, I found it deserted and was struck by the shapes made by this cluster of shops, and the shadows cast on the walls. My composition celebrates a rare moment of quiet in the midst of the busy metropolis.’
Venus Ascent
‘I chose an unusual perspective for this painting, focusing on the wall of steps leading to the bridge with yellow graffiti, rather than the barge moored alongside or the bridge itself, either of which would have been more obvious choices. This decision challenged me to unite the elements of the picture through use of light and colour. Though absent of figures, the scene records evidence of human activity, my aim was to capture a pause.’
Walk On By
‘This is Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, on a freezing February night. I was impressed by the contrast between the cold glare of the seafood market and the deep tones of the winter sky. I employed the wet pavement, reflecting the competing blue neon and LED lights, to evoke the mood of an East London street in winter.’
Yellow House
‘Opposite these houses lies the beginning of Epping Forest in the form of Wanstead Flats. This yellow house and its companion caught my attention, while out walking one cold November evening, as a mecca of warmth and comfort just the other side of the road from the Flats.’
Donovans (Coloured pencil drawing)
Donovan Bros is the only evidence in Spitalfields of the thousands of Irish immigrants who came here in the nineteenth century. The two O’Donovan brothers, Jeremiah and Dennis, came to Liverpool from Dublin in the eighteen-thirties at the time of the potato famine. Dennis took a passage from Liverpool to seek his fortune with the Hudson Bay Trading Company, while Jeremiah came to the East End and founded Donovan Bros, still run by the family today.
Images copyright © Doreen Fletcher
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Phyllis Bray, Artist
David Buckman author of Artists of the East London Group recalls the forgotten artist, Phyllis Bray. Celebrated for her murals at the People’s Palace in Mile End, Bray was a significant talent and an integral part of the lost history of one of the major artistic movements to come out of the East End in the last century.
Phyllis Bray, Myth & Nature, a retrospective exhibition, runs until 21st June at Batsford Gallery, 266 Hackney Rd, E2 7SJ.
Detail of mural ‘The Drama’ by Phyllis Bray at the People’s Palace
Many artists enter a twilight period after death while their work is reassessed. Some recover and others do not, yet one enjoying a positive reassessment at present is the artist Phyllis Bray, with two events spotlighting her work.
The first is the refurbishment of the People’s Palace in Mile End, where part of her large mural The Drama has been restored and is on permanent display. The other is her current retrospective exhibition, at Batsford Gallery in Hackney Rd, where many of her finest paintings are on display.
Phyllis Bray was born in 1911 and, after studying at Queenwood, Eastbourne, attended the Slade School of Fine Art between 1927-31, where she was fortunate to catch the end of Henry Tonks’ distinguished professorship. He had a reputation for acerbic comments upon the work of female students, occasionally reducing them to tears, but Bray was a gifted favourite. She won a string of awards and, at the strawberry tea honouring Tonks on the day of his departure in 1930, she was one of those chosen to wait on him.
Bray gained her fine art diploma in 1931 and that summer married John Cooper, who had been a teacher of evening classes since he left the Slade in 1922. It was his second marriage, after an unsuccessful one to another Slade student, Helen Taylor. By 1931, Cooper had established the East London Group through classes he taught at the Bow & Bromley Evening Institute in Coborn Rd from the mid-twenties onwards. The debut exhibition of work by the East London Art Club at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in December 1928, part of which was shown at what is now the Tate Britain in early 1929, led in November of that year to the first of eight annual East London Group exhibitions at Alex. Reid & Lefevre patronised by wealthy collectors.
The show was an astonishing success and had to be extended for several weeks, described by the Manchester Guardian as “one of the most interesting and significant things in the London art season.” It was there that Cooper and other East London Group stalwarts, including as William Coldstream, Murroe FitzGerald, Archibald Hattemore, Elwin Hawthorne, Harold and Walter Steggles, and Albert Turpin established their careers.
Phyllis Bray began her participation by showing two paintings at the second exhibition in December 1930, among a total of ninety catalogued works, and each year after that her paintings and drawings became important features of these shows. She was also a valuable additional teacher at Bow, as Cooper struggled to cope with his commitment of three nights a week while also holding classes in Lambeth and Shoreditch and, eventually, at the Central School of Art too. By the 1937-38 academic season, Cooper was no longer at Bow and Bray took responsibility for overseeing the students with the support of another teacher.
But by then her marriage to the volatile Cooper had collapsed. The crisis came in 1936, the year of the last East London Group winter show at Alex Reid & Lefevre and Bray’s commission to paint murals for the New People’s Palace. It was during this work in Mile End that she formed an emotional attachment to the architect George Coles.
The old People’s Palace had long been a centre of East End cultural life. Its creation was due to the beneficence of painter, property owner and philanthropist John Barber Beaumont who donated money to found a Philosophical Institution in Mile End that would provide educational and recreational facilities for working men. In 1887, Queen Victoria opened the Queen’s Hall as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations but a fire had destroyed the building in 1931. Construction of a New People’s Palace proceeded in 1936, with the front of the building enhanced by five sculpted reliefs by Eric Gill of Drama, Music, Fellowship, Dancing, Sport and Recreation.
Architect George Coles oversaw the interior and fellow architect Victor Kerr advocated the inclusion of Phyllis Bray’s murals. Coles was a master of the Art Deco style, and his works included the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, the Carlton Cinema in Islington, the Troxy in Stepney and several Odeons. At the Queen’s Hall, it was decided that instead of painting direct onto plaster as she originally proposed, Bray would undertake three panels on canvas, each twelve feet by ten feet, and the subjects would be The Dance, The Drama and The Music.
A contemporary photograph shows Bray, elegantly balanced upon a precarious stepladder, busy painting The Dance. She was always athletic, and later in life famously strode early in the morning to plunge at dawn into the ladies’ pool near her home in Hampstead and turned a cartwheel on the Heath in celebration of her sixtieth birthday.
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth performed the opening ceremony at the New Queen’s Hall on 13th February 1937. Previously, in November of 1936, Queen Mary had seen Bray at work and been impressed by her painting and, several months after the opening, the Queen returned again, requesting to view the completed murals. Yet, although the New People’s Palace enjoyed some success before the war, by 1953 it was put up for sale and Queen Mary University acquired it.
The fate of the murals was unknown until restoration began on the building and the mystery was uncovered by Eoin O’Maolalai, Senior Estates Project Manager at Queen Mary, after a researcher at Tate Britain inquired whether the paintings had survived. Although the lower half of the murals had been destroyed when the hall was converted to a lecture theatre, O’Maolalai realised that the top half still existed in a storeroom above the theatre. “I found the wall and ran my fingers over the painted surface. What I felt wasn’t plaster, it was more like fabric. I looked more closely, found a tear in the fabric, peeled off some of the paint and below it I could see the vague outlines of what could be one of the murals.” O’Maolalai told me,”I peeled off some more of the paint and realised that I had found the top half of the murals. It was clear that the bottom half had been removed, possibly in the 1950s when a suspended ceiling was installed in the Small Hall.”
Restoration concentrated on the central panel, The Drama. Paint specialist Catherine Hassall scraped flecks of the covering paint off with scalpel, millimetre by millimetre, to reveal Bray’s work underneath. Hassall also carried out paint analysis during restoration work in the Great Hall, to match the redecoration to its original colour scheme. Once the overpaint was scraped off, the Bray canvas was carefully removed from the wall, lined and stretched – and a decision was made not to touch up the picture, to avoid losing original paint. The fragment was put on display at the official reopening of the People’s Palace, after a £6.3 million renovation. Alongside it, are displayed photographs of the building and murals from the venue’s thirties heyday.
After her failed marriage to John Cooper, Bray married Eric Phillips, a top civil servant. She died in 1991 after a successful career as an artist, with multiple mixed and solo exhibitions. As well as commercial work, including a string of book illustrations, she employed her talents as a muralist in assisting Hans Feibusch, a collaboration lasting over forty years – creating paintings in Chichester Cathedral, Dudley Town Hall in Worcestershire, the Civic Centre in Monmouth and many parish churches. London examples are St Crispin’s in Bermondsey, with a fine ceiling by Bray, and St Alban the Martyr in Holborn.
Phyllis Bray, c. 1936
At work on the People’s Palace murals, 1936
The completed murals – The Dance, The Drama and The Music
The Dance, watercolour study
Elwin Hawthorne, Phyllis Bray, John Cooper and Brynhild Parker at the Lefevre Galleries, c. 1932
Temple of Juno Agrigento, gouache (courtesy of Louise Kosman, Edinburgh)
Selinunte, Sicily, gouache (courtesy of Louise Kosman, Edinburgh)
Landscape, gouache (courtesy of Louise Kosman, Edinburgh)
French Harbour, gouache (courtesy of Louise Kosman, Edinburgh)
Landscape near Brockweir, gouache (courtesy of Louise Kosman, Edinburgh)
The Mill, oil on canvas, 1933
The Lobster & The Lighthouse, oil on canvas
Phyllis Bray sketching in Bow by Hannah Cohen, c. 1932, crayon drawing
