Comments on: Dickens in Spitalfields 5, the young artist

By: Stella

Stella — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 18:23:55 +0000

Yes, I’ve loved this Dickens’ perambulation through Spitalfields too, almost felt I was there beside him and Mr. Broadelle!

By: Clare Shepherd

Clare Shepherd — Sun, 29 May 2022 09:53:22 +0000

I have spent the last 40 minutes reading first the Dickens email today, and then the following installments here. It has been a wonderful journey. Thank you so much. Each email from you is an event in our house. We are Devonians, not Londoners, but love to read about the East End and its history znd characters. Thank you for all you give us.

By: michelle stuart

michelle stuart — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:37:55 +0000

In the late 1950’s I purchased a round wooden spice box from the Quaker area of Pennsylvania in an antiques shop in New York City. The box with SPICES stenciled on the lid contained round spice boxes inside each with a stenciled lid saying cinnamon, cloves, ginger, etc on the small top. When I got it home I opened the lid and a rush of spice fragrance enveloped me. It was heady.
I keep the same box on my kitchen shelf to this day and when I want to be transported to a past of the aroma of baking spice cakes and perhaps a more simply life as well, I open the box and take a deep breath. It has not changed a bit.

By: Jean Whittaker

Jean Whittaker — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:23:55 +0000

Stumbled upon your Blog by accident & like you too love the eclectic chaos that is the Thursday Collectors Market , I have been a regular visitor over the past 4 years and love the creative talent that the traders exude, it is a real treasure with a wonderful diverse mix not seen anywhere in London.

By: Anne

Anne — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:29:55 +0000

I have my uncle’s and my father’s painting boxes but with oil paint tubes still inside, unusable now of course as the boxes date from the 1930s and 1940s. I also have a pallette still smeared with oil paint that one of them used.
When the boxes are opened the aroma is heavenly and transports me back to 1950s Manchester when I used to come upon my father’s box put away in a cupboard and would take a peek inside. He made me my own painting box which I still have and treasure.

By: the gentle author

the gentle author — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:55:04 +0000

In reply to Joan. I shall go in search of Atlantis

By: Joan

Joan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:18:15 +0000

Another fascinating post. Seeing Brian Oxley’s painting box made me think of Atlantis. Can we hope for a post on that fantastic treasure trove at some point?

By: McNeill

McNeill — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:11:11 +0000

“The intrinsic worth of every simple article of furniture or embellishment is enhanced by a hundred-fold ( as it always may be) by neatness and order.”

But not by a fine dusting of Arabian sand, brought in through the a/c. Time to clean my flat. Mrs Haversham had cobwebs and cake, I have dust and dates.

I’ve enjoyed Dickens’ foray into Spitalfields. I happened to be reading Orwell’s essay recently, which pointed out that Dickens didn’t really know the working class and hardly wrote about them, indeed hardly ever wrote about “work”. This seems to be true from memory. Clearly, though, he wrote about work elsewhere, and engaged with the working class, just not in his fiction – “keeping them at arm’s length”, as it were. I wonder if this has something to do with the traumatising effect of his time spent in a blacking factory as a child, and the deep humiliation it caused him? The rest of London was processed and emerged triumphant in the Sparkler’s imagination … but not the working classes. Interested and intrigued, but not inspired, eh?

Having read most of his novels, if someone asked me what Dickens thought of the poor, I’d only be able to reply, “He liked them as long as they were clean.” In other words as long as they didn’t let their state overwhelm them.

He would have had more sympathy if they’d had to deal with neverending clouds of dust …