A Walk Along The Ridgeway
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They say it is the oldest road in Britain, maybe the oldest in Europe. Starting from the highest navigable point of the Thames in prehistoric times, the Ridgeway follows the hilltops to arrive at Salisbury Plain where once wild cattle and horses roamed. When the valleys were forested and impenetrable, the Ridgeway offered a natural route over the downland and into the heart of this island. Centuries of cattle driving wore a trackway that curved across the hillside, traversing the contours of the landscape and unravelling like a ribbon towards the horizon.
Over thousands of years, the Ridgeway became a trading route extending from coast to coast, as far as Lyme Regis in the west and the Wash in the east, with fortresses and monuments along the way. Yet once the valleys became accessible it was defunct, replaced by the Icknield Way – a lower level path that skirted the foot of the hills – and there are burial mounds which traverse the Ridgeway dated to 2000BC, indicating that the highway was no longer in use by then.
In fact, this obsolescence preserved the Ridgeway because it was never incorporated into the modern road network and remains a green path to this day where anyone can set out and walk in the footsteps of our earliest predecessors in this land.
A few years have passed since my last excursion along the Ridgeway. Leaving Spitalfields early and taking the hour’s rail journey to Goring & Streatley from Paddington, I was ascending the hill from the river by eleven and onto the upland by midday. In this section, the flinty path of the Ridgeway is bordered with deep hedges of hawthorn, blackthorn and hazel, giving way to the open downland rich with the pink and blue flowers of late summer, knapweed, scabious and harebells.
A quarter of a century had passed since I first passed this way and yet nothing had changed up there. It is the same huge sky and expansive grassy plain undulating into the distance with barely a building in sight. This landscape dwarfs the human figure, inducing a sense of exhilaration at the dramatic effects of light and cloud, sending patterns travelling fast across the vast grassy wind-blown hills. When I first began to write and London grew claustrophobic, I often undertook this walk through the different seasons of the year. I discovered that the sheer exertion of walking all day, buffeted upon the hilltops and sometimes marching doggedly through driving rain, never failed to clear my mind.
As a consequence, the shape of the journey is graven into memory even though, returning eighteen years since my last visit, the landscape was greater than I had fashioned it in recollection. And this is the quality that fascinates me about such epic terrain, which the mind cannot satisfactorily contain and thus each return offers a renewed acquaintance of wonder at the scale and majesty of the natural world.
In those days, I was in thrall to endurance walking and I would continue until I could go no further, either because of exhaustion or nightfall. This vast elevated downland landscape encouraged such excessive behaviour, leading me on and on along the empty path to discover what lay over the brow and engendering a giddy sense of falling forward, walking through the sky – as if you might take flight. I walked until I thought I could walk no more and then I carried on walking until walking became automatic, like breathing. In this state my body was propelled forward of its own volition and my mind was free.
One day’s walk brings you to Uffington and the famous White Horse, carved into the chalk of the downland. Placed perfectly upon the crest of a ridge within a vast fold of the hills, this sparsely drawn Neolithic figure looks out across the arable farmland of Oxfordshire beyond and can be seen for great distances. A mystery now, a representation that may once have been a symbol for a people lost in time, it retains a primeval charisma, and there is such an intensity of delight to reach this figure at the end of a day’s walking. Breathless and weary of limbs, I stumbled over the hill to sit there alone upon the back of the hundred foot White Horse at dusk, before descending to the village of Bishopstone for the night. There, at Prebendal Farm, Jo Selbourne offers a generous welcome and, as well as the usual bed and breakfast, will show you the exquisitely smoothed ceremonial Neolithic axe head found upon the farm.
The second day’s walk leads through the earthen ramparts of Liddington Hill and Barbary Castle, and on either side of the path the fields are punctuated by clumps of trees indicating the myriad ancient burial mounds scattered upon this bare Wiltshire scenery. It is a more expansive land than the fields of Berkshire where I began my journey, here the interventions made in ancient times still hold their own and the evidence of the modernity is sparser. As I made the final descent from the hill towards Avebury, a village within a massive earthwork and stone circle which was the culmination of my journey, I could not resist the feeling that it was all there for me and I had earned it by walking along the old path which for thousands of years had brought people to arrive at this enigmatic location of pilgrimage.
In two days upon the hilltops I had only passed a dozen lone walkers, and now the crowds, the coach parties, the shops and the traffic were a startling sight to behold. And so I knew my journey had fulfilled its purpose – to reacquaint me freshly with the familiar world and restore a sense of proportion. My feet were sore and my face was flushed by the sun. In Berkshire, the ripe fields of corn were standing, in Oxfordshire, they were being harvested and, in Wiltshire, I saw the stubble being ploughed in. It had been a walk to arrive at the end of the summer. It had been a walk through time along the oldest road.
Goring Mill
“Join it at Streatley, the point where it crosses the Thames, at once it strikes you out and away from the habitable world in a splendid purposeful manner, running along the highest ridge of the downs.” Kenneth Grahame, 1898
A ninety-two year old man told me this year is the worst harvest he could remember. “It doesn’t want to come in the barn,” he lamented.
At East Illsley
“A broad green track runs for many a long mile across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away through cornfield and fallow.” Richard Jefferies, 1879
“A rough way, now wide, now narrow, among the hazel, brier and nettle. Sometimes there was an ash in the hedge and once a line of spindly elms followed it round in a curve.” Edward Thomas, 1910
On White Horse Hill
“The White Horse is, I believe, the earliest hill drawing we have in England. It is a piece of design, in another category from the other chalk figures, for it has the lineaments of a work of art. The horse, which is more of a dragon than a horse, is cut on the top of the down’s crest, so that it can only be seen completely from the air, or at a long view, from the surrounding country – but it was precisely this aspect of the Horse design that I found so significant.” Paul Nash, 1938
The Neolithic axe head found at Prebendal Farm, photo by Rob Selbourne.
At Bishopstone
At Barbary Castle
“The origin of the track goes back into the dimmest antiquity: there is evidence that it was a military road when the fierce Dane carried fire and slaughter inland, leaving his nailed bark in the creeks of the rivers, and before that when the Saxons pushed up from the sea. The eagles of old Rome were, perhaps, borne along it and yet earlier the chariots of the Britons may have used it – traces of all have been found: so that for fifteen centuries this track of primitive peoples has maintained its existence through the strange changes of the times, til now in the season the cumbrous steam ploughing engines jolt and strain and pant over the uneven turf.” Richard Jefferies, 1879
Since the man suspected of making crop circles died, his protege has adopted a different style of design.
At Avebury
At Avebury
Peta Bridle’s London Day By Day
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Today I publish a selection from Peta Bridle’s exhibition London Day by Day which opens tomorrow, September 3rd, at Southwark Cathedral and runs until 14th October. The show takes its title from Geoffrey Fletcher’s former weekly newspaper column as a tribute to the peripatetic artist who inspired Peta’s own travels with a sketchbook in the capital.
At Turnips, Borough Market
‘The beautiful and diverse mushroom varieties on display at Turnips, the greengrocers under the railway arches, resemble a vast edible work of art. At the heart of the Borough Market, where trains rumble overhead, Turnips are celebrated for their spectacular epic displays of pristine specimens of the best fruit and vegetables of the season.’
Southwark Cathedral Society of Bellringers
I was fortunate enough to be allowed to visit with my sketchbook to watch bell ringing practice at the cathedral. I discovered that the ancient tower has twelve bells and whilst the bells are being rung the walls shake ever so slightly.
View over Tower Bridge, Southwark
‘This is my elevated view over Tower Bridge from Butler’s Wharf, looking across the Thames to the City beyond. You can see pedestrians walk along the busy Thames path in Potters Field below and in the distance sits Norman Foster’s City Hall, strategically placed to face the Tower of London on the north bank, the former home of the Greater London Assembly and Mayor of London.’
Forgotten Streams, City of London
‘This beautiful bronze sculpture traces the path of the river Walbrook that once flowed from Shoreditch through the City of London. I enjoyed the contrast of ancient lost river in the foreground with the grand City buildings in the background, while in between the three workmen eat their lunches.
Looking East Over Spitalfields
‘Far below, a man leans against a bollard in Puma Court while, to the right, the rooftops of Fournier St meet Brick Lane Mosque and the former Warner Bell Foundry chimney beyond. At the end of Puma Court is Wilkes St with chimney stacks and weavers’ lofts, while to the left a lone figure walks down Princelet St towards Brick Lane. In the distance, Spitalfields’ old terraces meet the towers of Whitechapel.’
Rodney Archer’s Window Sill, Spitalfields
‘Celebrated aesthete Rodney Archer moved to Fournier St in 1984 and lived in his old beautiful house until his death in 2015. I visited his home only once, but I had the pleasure of meeting Rodney and drawing these plants on the window sill.’
St Andrew Undershaft, St Mary Axe
‘St Andrew’s was built in 1532 on the site of an earlier twelfth century church and its name refers to the tall maypole nearby. The church survived the Great Fire and the Blitz only to be hemmed in by huge towers today including the glittering bulk of the Gherkin which looms overhead, offering a powerful contrast of old and new, tightly packed together. The first historian of London, John Stow, is buried in the church and every three years a memorial service is held when a new quill placed in the hand of his figure upon his monument.’
Word On The Water, Regent’s Canal
‘This is a floating bookshop housed inside a twenties’ Dutch barge near Granary Sq at King’s Cross. New and used books are displayed for sale on shelves, both up on deck and below. Inside there are comfortable sofas where you can sit and read while viewing ducks swimming past at eye level. When I sat on the towpath to make this drawing, a trumpeter played jazz up on deck.’
Ragged School Museum, Mile End
‘This is the view from across the Regent’s Canal. The school was opened by Dr Barnardo in 1877 to provide education for children in Mile End and is now a museum, showing to visitors the reality of Victorian life for the poor. I took my son to visit and on the wall was a collection of photographs of pupils from the nineteenth century, one of whom was a young girl with Downs syndrome. My son has this condition and he thought it was a picture of him so I explained to him it was a little girl who lived a long time ago who had once attended the school.’
Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross
‘Coal Drops Yard was once the goods yard storing coal arriving from the north by rail, but in 2018 the place was transformed with old buildings repurposed into shops and restaurants, new homes built within the gasometers and the warehouses converted into a home for Central St Martin’s College of Art. Regent’s Canal winds around the side of the yard, separating it from the station and the nature reserve to the west.’
Alexandra Palace Boating Lake
‘The boating lake at Alexandra Park in North London was created in the 1870s by damming a stream that ran down the western boundary of the park. Filled with novelty pedal boats, the lake was intended to evoke a Venetian carnival. It gained national media attention in 1992 when rumour spread of a massive, four-foot-long pike inhabiting the waters and allegedly swallowing ducks whole.’
Nelson Dry Dock, Rotherhithe
‘To reach Nelson Dry Dock involves walking through thick soft mud. Engineers Mills & Knight Ltd Ship Repairs is painted in bold red capital letters around the yellow wrought iron gate. The dock closed in 1968 and now sits within a hotel complex but you only get this view from the foreshore or the water when you are up to your ankles in mud.’
St Augustine’s Tower, Hackney
‘This is the oldest building Hackney, built by the Knights Templar in 1292. When you climb to the top of St Augustine’s Tower there are wonderful views across Hackney towards the City. Far below, I saw a bus turning on to Mare St which is always busy with shoppers and a beggar sheltering under the railway bridge.’
Hodge the Cathedral Cat, Southwark Cathedral
‘Here is the magnificent Hodge the Cat, mouser-in-chief and resident feline at the cathedral. He has lodged himself into the wicker basket intended for service sheets. Hodge was a stray, rescued from the streets of south-east London and taken to a cat sanctuary where he was adopted by the cathedral on December 6th, which is St. Nicholas’s day when traditionally gifts are exchanged. Southwark Cathedral is a welcoming place to visit and you might even catch a glimpse of a small black and white cat whilst there…’
Drawings copyright © Peta Bridle
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Peta Bridle’s Gravesend Sketchbook
Blackie, The Last Spitalfields Market Cat
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Here you see Blackie, the last Spitalfields market cat, taking a nap in the premises of Williams Watercress at 11 Gun St. Presiding over Blackie – as she sleeps peacefully among the watercress boxes before the electric fire with her dishes of food and water to hand – is Jim, the nightman who oversaw the premises from six each evening until two next morning, on behalf of Len Williams the proprietor.
This black and white photograph by Robert Davis, with a nineteenth century barrow wheel in the background and a nineteen-fifties heater in the foreground, could have been taken almost any time in the second half of the twentieth century. Only the date on the calendar betrays it as 1990, the penultimate year of the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market, before it moved East to Stratford.
In spite of Jim the nightman’s fond expression, Blackie was no pet. She was a working animal who earned her keep killing rats. Underneath the market were vaults to store fresh produce, which had to be sold within three days – formalised as first, second and third day prices – with each day’s price struck at two in the morning. But the traders often forgot about the fruit and vegetables down in the basement and it hung around more than three days, and with the spillage on the road which local residents and the homeless came to scavenge, it caused the entire market to become a magnet for vermin, running through the streets and into the labyrinth beneath the buildings.
It must have been paradise for a cat that loved to hunt, like Blackie. With her jet black fur, so black she was like a dark hole in the world running round on legs, vanishing into the shadow and appearing from nowhere to pounce upon a rat and take its life with her needle-sharp claws, Blackie was a lethally efficient killer. Not a submissive creature that could be easily stroked and petted as domestic cats are, Blackie was a proud beast that walked on her own, learnt the secret of survival on the streets and won independent status, affection and respect through her achievements in vermin control.
“They were all very pleased with Blackie for her great skill in catching rats, she was the last great market cat,” confirmed Jim Howett, a furniture maker who first met Blackie when he moved into a workshop above the watercress seller in 1988. “The other traders would queue up for kittens from Blackie sister’s litters because they were so good at rat-catching. Blackie brought half-dead rats back to teach them how to do it. Such was Blackie’s expertise, it was said she could spot a poisoned rat at a hundred feet. The porters used to marvel that when they said, ‘Blackie, there’s a rat,’ Blackie would focus and if the rat showed any weakness, would wobble, or walk uncertainly, she would turn her back, and return to the fire – because the rat was ill, and most likely poisoned. And after all, Blackie was the last cat standing,” continued Jim, recounting tales of this noble creature that has become a legend in Spitalfields today.
“The story was often told of a kitten trained by Blackie, taken by a restaurant and hotel in the country. One day it brought a half-dead rat into the middle of a Rotary Club Function, seeking approval as it had learnt in Spitalfields, and the guests ran screaming.”
The day the Fruit & Vegetable Market left in 1991, Blackie adjusted, no longer crossing the road to the empty market building instead she concentrated on maintaining the block of buildings on Brushfield St as her territory by patrolling the rooftops. By now she was an old cat and eventually could only control the three corner buildings, and one day Charles Gledhill a book binder who lived with his wife Marianna Kennedy at 42 Brushfield St, noticed a shadow fly past his window. It was Blackie that he saw, she had fallen from the gutter and broken a leg on the pavement below. “We all liked Blackie, and we took care of her after the market left,” explained Jim, with a regretful smile. “So we took her to the vet who was amazed, he said, ‘What are you doing with this old feral cat?’, because Blackie had a fierce temper, she was always hissing and growling.”
“But Blackie recovered, and on good days she would cross the road and sun herself on palettes, although on other days she did not move from the fire. She became very thin and we put her in the window of A.Gold to enjoy the sun. One day Blackie was stolen from there. We heard a woman had been seen carrying her towards Liverpool St in a box but we couldn’t find her, so we put up signs explaining that Blackie was so thin because she was a very old cat.”
“Two weeks later, Blackie was returned in a fierce mood by the lady who taken her, she apologised and ran away. Blackie had a sojourn in Milton Keynes! We guessed the woman was horrified with this feral creature that growled and scratched and hissed and arched its back.”
“After that, Blackie got stiffer and stiffer, and one day she stood in the centre of the floor and we knew she wasn’t going to move again. She died of a stroke that night. The market porters told me Blackie was twenty when she died, as old as any cat could be.”
Everyone knows the tale of Dick Whittington, the first Lord Mayor of London whose cat was instrumental to his success. This story reminds us that for centuries a feline presence was essential to all homes and premises in London. It was a serious business to keep the rats and mice at bay, killing vermin that ate supplies and brought plague.
Over its three centuries of operation, there were innumerable generations of cats bred for their ratting abilities at the Spitalfields Market, but it all ended with Blackie. Like Tess of the D’Urbevilles or The Last of the Mohicans, the tale of Blackie, the Last Great Spitalfields Market Cat contains the story of all that came before. Cats were the first animals to be domesticated, long before dogs, and so our connection with felines is the oldest human relationship with an animal, based up the exchange of food and shelter in return for vermin control.
Blackie at 42 Brushfield St
Blackie in her final years, 1991/2
Nineteenth century print of Dick Whittington & his cat
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The Highdays & Holidays Of Old London
Join me for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON this afternoon Bank Holiday Monday 31st August at 2pm
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On Bank Holiday Monday, let us to consider the highdays & holidays of old London
Boys lining up at The Oval, c.1930
School is out. Work is out. All of London is on the lam. Everyone is on the streets. Everyone is in the parks. What is going on? Is it a jamboree? Is it a wingding? Is it a shindig? Is it a bevy? Is it a bash?
These are the high days and holidays of old London, as recorded on glass slides by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society and once used for magic lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute.
No doubt these lectures had an educational purpose, elucidating the remote origins of London’s quaint old ceremonies. No doubt they had a patriotic purpose to encourage wonder and sentiment at the marvel of royal pageantry. Yet the simple truth is that Londoners – in common with the rest of humanity – are always eager for novelty, entertainment and spectacle, always seeking any excuse to have fun. And London is a city ripe with all kinds of opportunities for amusement, as illustrated by these magnificent photographs of its citizens at play.
Are you ready? Are you togged up? Did you brush your hair? Did you polish your shoes? There is no time to lose. We need the make the most of our high days and holidays. And we need to get there before the parade passes by.
At Hampstead Heath, c.1910.
Walls Ice Cream vendor, c.1920.
At Hampstead Heath, c.1910.
At Hampstead Heath, c.1910.
Balloon ascent at Crystal Palace, Sydenham, c.1930.
At the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, 1896.
Christ’s Hospital Procession across bridge on St Matthews Day, 1936.
A cycle excursion to The Spotted Dog in West Ham, 1930.
Pancake Greaze at Westminster School on Shrove Tuesday, c.1910.
Variety at the Shepherds Bush Empire, c.1920.
Dignitaries visit the Chelsea Royal Hospital, c.1920.
Games at the Foundling Hospital, Bloomsbury, c.1920.
Riders in Rotten Row, Hyde Park, c.1910.
Physiotherapy at a Sanatorium, 1916.
Vintners’ Company, Master’s Installation procession, City of London, c.1920.
Boating on the lake in Battersea Park, c.1920.
The King’s Coach, c.1911.
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession, 1897.
Lord Mayor’s Procession passing St Paul’s, 1933.
Policemen gives directions to ladies at the coronation of Edward VII, 1902.
After the procession for the coronation of George V, c.1911.
Observance of the feast of Charles I at Church of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, 1932.
Chief Yeoman Warder oversees the Beating of the Bounds at the Tower of London, 1920.
Schoolchildren Beating the Bounds at the Tower of London, 1920.
A cycle excursion to Chingford Old Church, c.1910.
Litterbugs at Hampstead Heath, c.1930.
The Foundling Hospital Anti-Litter Band, c.1930.
Distribution of sixpences to widows at St Bartholomew the Great on Good Friday, c.1920.
Visiting the Cast Court to see Trajan’s Column at the Victoria & Albert Museum, c.1920.
A trip from Chelsea Pier, c.1910.
Doggett’s Coat & Badge Race, c.1920.
Feeding pigeons outside St Paul’s, c.1910.
Building the Great Wheel, Earls Court, c.1910.
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
So Long, Martin White
Textile Consultant Martin White died on Thursday aged ninety-five. After the loss of his business partner Philip Pittack from Covid in 2020, Martin continued running Crescent Trading, Spitalfields’ last cloth warehouse, until recently.
Martin White, aged two in 1933
“That was the difference between Philip & me,” explained Martin White, articulating the precise distinction between himself and his business partner Philip Pittack, “He was a Rag Merchant, whereas I am a Textile Consultant. I understand textiles, I know about suitings and have been dealing in them since 1946. Our different specialities complemented each other.”
Famous for his monocle and pearl tiepin, as well as his unrivalled knowledge, Martin White was one half of the duo at Crescent Trading, possessing more than one hundred and twenty years of experience in the business between them. Their continuous comedy repartee won them a reputation as the Mike & Bernie Winters of the textile trade.
In particular, Martin was known for his ability to make an offer on a parcel of textiles on sight. “Very few people know how to do it,” he admitted to me. “Recently, Philip & I went on a buying trip twice a year, but in the past I used to go buying every day.” Martin’s story revealed how he acquired his remarkable knowledge of textiles, developing an expertise that permitted him obtain the quality fabrics for which Crescent Trading was renowned.
“My father, William White, was a leather merchant but he also had some boot repair shops and, because he was a bit of mechanic, he rebuilt boot repairing machines. And that’s what he wanted me to go into. We lived in a very nice house in Shepherd’s Hill, Highgate, but unfortunately my father was diabetic who didn’t believe in conventional medicine. He was a herbalist and he became very ill in his forties and died at forty-six.
I started work at fourteen for my two uncles, Joe Barnet & Mark Bass (known as Johnny,) at their shop in Noel St off Berwick St in 1946. I was a little boy who didn’t know anything and in those days fabric was rationed and very hard to come by. Joe used to go up north and he had contacts in Manchester who used to get him stuff from the mills. It was a tiny shop and everything we got we sold immediately. They were making thousands every week and I was getting two pounds a week for carrying the fabric in and out. I used to like touching the fabric and that’s how I learnt about it.
While I was there, my father died and another of my uncles, David Bass, came to see my mother and he said he would take me to work for him and give me a wage, so she wouldn’t have to worry about me. But when the two uncles I was already working for heard this, Joe Barnet sent his wife Zelda to my mother to say that, if I worked for David, I would take all their customers from Noel St and it would ruin their business. So Joe Barnet told my mother he would look after me. He had just formed an association with a government supply business in Bethnal Green and he asked me to go down there and watch because he didn’t trust them, and that was my job.
So the first Friday came and he gave me five pounds, that was my wages. The following week, I found a parcel of cloth for sale in Brick Lane and I bought three thousand yards at a shilling a yard and I sold it for three shillings and sixpence a yard. The next Friday, Joe gave me fifteen pounds but I realised I had no chance of furthering myself with him, so I left and started working with another boy of my own age, Daniel Secunda. We were fifteen years old. We had no premises. We used to stand by the post at the corner of Berwick St, and people came to us with samples and goods to sell. We took the samples and sold them, and we made a good living between the two of us. We were young and we were carefree.All the money we earned, we spent it. We were happy. We went out every night. And that lasted for about three years, before the business got hard when rationing ended.
Then I met a guy who wanted to go into business properly with us, Pip Kingsley. He took premises in Berwick St and formed P. Kingsley & Co. After a while, it became apparent that while Danny was a very good-looking and likeable fellow, I was the worker out of the two of us. So Kingsley got rid of Danny and rehired an old job buyer who had retired, Myer King, and we started working together. He was an Eastern European, a very big man who couldn’t read or write. He had the knack of job buying ‘by the look.’ He’d go into a factory and make an offer for everything on the spot. This method of buying was different to anything I had ever seen but it worked. By working with him, I learnt what to do and what not do. And that knowledge was the basis of how I did business from then on.
I was happy working with Kingsley & Myer, but then I met my wife to be, Sheila, and I decided that I wanted my share of the money that my father had left in trust for my younger brother Adrian and me when we were twenty-one. I wanted to get married, and Sheila had been married before and she had a little boy. She was very beautiful. She’s eighty-five and she’s still beautiful.
My brother Adrian was known as Eddie and, at the age of eleven while my father was dying, he contracted sugar diabetes, so they were both in hospital. In the next bed to him was George Hackenschmidt, a boxer who had done body-building and my brother became interested in this. It was a very sad thing, my dad died when they were both in hospital and an uncle said to Eddie, ‘When you get out, I’ll buy you anything you want,’ to make him feel better. So Eddie said, ‘I want a set of weights.’
It was back in 1945, Eddie was twelve and he got one hundred pounds worth of weights and equipped a gym in our garage, and he started doing these workouts in the American magazines that George Hackenschmidt had given him. Eventually, he became Charles Atlas’ body. They would take the head of Charles Atlas and put it on a photo of my brother in the adverts for body-building.
When we broke my father’s trust fund, Eddie was twenty-one and we each received eight hundred pounds. My brother only lifted weights and sat in the sun, so I said to him, ‘What are you going to do with this? Give it to me and we’ll be partners, and I’ll do all the work and you can sit in the sun.’
Now, I wanted to get married to Sheila and her father was a textile merchant but her family didn’t like who I was. One of them was A. Kramer who happened to be Dave Bass’ solicitor and he phoned me up to warn me off her. So I told him what he could do, and Sheila and I got married in a registry office in 1955. Sheila’s little boy was four and her father, Lou Mason, didn’t want him to suffer, so he came to see me at my business and I showed him what I was buying.
Then he approached me one day and asked if I was interested in looking at a parcel of goods he had found in Wardour St at a lingerie company called Row G. So I went to see the parcel and made an offer of seven hundred pounds on sight. Lou said, ‘We don’t do business that way,’ and I said, ‘I’ll do it how I want to do it.’
The owner said, ‘No,’ but two weeks later I went back. He took the seven hundred pounds and it was all sold within two weeks for eighteen hundred pounds. My father-in-law said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s wonderful, why don’t you come and work with me?’ I couldn’t say, ‘No,’ to my father-in-law. There was no option. I said to my brother, ‘We’ll have to part company and I’ll give you your money back.’ He never forgave me.
The very first deal that came along was Cooper & Keyward, they had a lot of rolls of suiting and it came to two thousand pounds. But when I asked my father-in-law for the money to buy it, he said, ‘I’m a bit short this week.’ I just about had the two thousand pounds so I laid out the money myself and took the goods, and my father-in-law was able to sell it to his customers. On Friday, I said to him, ‘I need forty pounds to take my wife out,’ and he said, ‘We don’t spend money that way!’ So I fell out with my father-in-law. It turned out, he didn’t have the money to pay me because his business was going bankrupt.
I went round to get my goods which were in the basement of a shop in Berwick St and my mother-in-law was in the shop. A cousin came out and said, ‘You’re going to kill her, can’t we meet at the weekend and sort this out?’ At the meeting, my father-in-law accused me of being a liar but my wife’s aunt, Joyce, knew him and said to me, ‘I believe you.’ I never was a liar. She said to me, ‘If I lend you a thousand pounds, can you make a living?’
In Berwick St, Johnny Bass was trying to sell his stock at the shop where I had started work. The Noel St shop was full of fabric and he’d offered it to several people but no-one could assess what was there. He wanted four thousand pounds yet, because of my knowledge, I was able to cut a deal for two thousand four hundred pounds. It was Friday night and he said, ‘Give me some money.’ He’d just come of out of the bookmakers and he was penniless. I had a hundred pounds on me, so I gave him that and I had to find the rest of the money.
I went to get it from Joyce but she was in hospital. So I visited her and she said, ‘My husband Bert will get the money for you,’ and on the Monday he came with me to pay Johnny. Joyce had a property in Mansell St and I filled it up with the fabric and started selling it every day from there. Joyce was coming over to collect money from me in her handbag. She was charging me one hundred pounds a week rent plus interest, so I realised she thought I was working for her now but it wasn’t a partnership in my eyes and I wouldn’t go along with it.
I told her I wanted premises in Great Portland St and I needed money for that. It was agreed and that’s what we did. It was called the Robert Martin Company – Sheila’s son was called Robert. I got Daniel Secunda back to work with me. It was 1956, I had my own shop at last. And that’s how I became a textile merchant.”
Aged two, 1933
Aged three, 1934
Aged five in 1936
At school in Highgate, 1936
At a family wedding in September 1939. On the left are William & Muriel White, Martin’s parents. Beside them is Joe Barnet, Martin’s first employer, and his wife Zelda.
Martin’s brother Adrian (known as Eddie) who became the body of Charles Atlas
Martin White & Danny Secunda, his first working partner in 1956
Martin White & Philip Pittack, Crescent Trading, Winter 2010
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The Old City Of London
The City of London has long been a subject of fascination for me and these powerfully atmospheric glass slides of over a century ago from the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society Collection at the Bishopsgate Institute evoke the drama and mystery of this ancient citadel magnificently.
Join me on Bank Holiday Monday for storytelling ramble across the Square Mile, from the steps of St Paul’s through the narrow alleys and lanes to the foot of old London Bridge, in search of the wonders and the wickedness of the City of London.
Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF THE CITY OF LONDON
Ludgate Hill
George & Vulture
Throgmorton St
Apothecaries Hall
Goldsmiths Hall
Tower Bridge
Mansion House
London Bridge
Earl of Warwick
The Old Dick Whittington, Clothfair
Billingsgate Market
The Little Midshipman, Leadenhall St
Leadenhall Market
St Mary Woolnoth
Doors in Laurence Pountney Lane
St Michael’s Cornhill
St Mary Le Bow
Watchhouse Smithfield
London Bridge
St Margaret Pattens
The Pannyer Boy
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Helen’s Bishopsgate
Fishmongers Hall
Leadenhall Market
Mark Lane
All Hallows London Wall
Royal Exchange
St Paul’s Cathedral
London & Middlesex Archaeological Society Collection photos courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Seventeenth Annual Report
Seventeen years ago this week, I began to publish a daily post in these pages. In this year’s annual report I have both good news and bad news, as you will read below. One concerns the fate of the Truman Brewery while the other is the announcement of Sarah Ainslie’s WOMEN AT WORK.
TRUMAN BREWERY
I regret to report that the Secretary of State has approved redevelopment of the Truman Brewery into a corporate plaza and data centre as the outcome of the Public Inquiry last autumn overseen by Government Inspector Paul Griffiths. I did not have a good feeling about this since he also oversaw the Public Inquiry into the Whitechapel Bell Foundry that decided in favour of a bell-themed boutique hotel. The pitiful disappointment is that Tower Hamlets Council created a Community Masterplan for the site to deliver 350 homes for local people as opposed to the Brewery proposal which includes only six social homes. This Masterplan could have been enforced by the Inspector but instead it was discounted. The Save Brick Lane campaign and Spitalfields Trust are now considering a legal challenge.
WOMEN AT WORK
Thanks to the support of you – the readers of Spitalfields Life – who contributed to our crowdfund in the spring, our plan to publish a handsome hardback monograph of Sarah Ainslie’s East End portraits WOMEN AT WORK has come to fruition.
Publication will be accompanied by an exhibition of Sarah’s portraits at Four Corners photography gallery in Bethnal Green, opening in November then touring through 2027 to two other venues in East London and the Alcove women’s library in Rhode Island.
You can help publication by preordering now and we will post you a copy signed by Sarah Ainslie at the beginning of November in advance of publication on 5th November. Additionally, we are including a complimentary copy of Journal of a Man Unknown (cover price £10) with all pre-orders in the United Kingdom.
CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER ‘WOMEN AT WORK’ AND GET A FREE COPY OF ‘JOURNAL OF A MAN UNKNOWN’
I cannot ignore the thought that the contradiction between these two pieces of news reflects the nature of our times. The Brewery decision reveals a government in thrall to big money and big tech in the quest for growth at any cost, despite the objections of more than 7000 people.
By contrast, Sarah Ainslie’s crowdfunded book celebrates the women whose work is often unrecognised, whether in factories, working from home or caring for the vulnerable – tradeswomen, community organisers, garment workers, faith leaders, artists, firefighters, shopkeepers, transport workers, cleaners and NHS staff, and all who sustain and bind together our communities with their warmth, labour and fellowship.
I am so proud to be the publisher of WOMEN AT WORK which speaks to this moment with defiant joy.
With such thoughts in mind, thus ends another year in the pages of Spitalfields Life.
I am your loyal servant
The Gentle Author
Spitalfields,
28th August 2026
CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR SIGNED COPY AND GET A FREE COPY OF ‘JOURNAL OF A MAN UNKNOWN’
We are including a complimentary copy of Gillian Tindall’s novel Journal of a Man Unknown with all preorders in the United Kingdom
