Comments on: At the Fish Harvest Festival

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 18:12:41 +0000

My father was Assistant Superintendent at Billingsgate when he died in 1968. Family legend has it he followed Stanley Holloway into the job of Office Boy about 1930.
I remember, on early morning visits, hearing the tough guys shouting out ‘Up the Hill’ to call for a load for their barrows to be run up to Eastcheap. The practice made the papers when Billy Walker, the Blond Bomber, was the big heavyweight hope.
My mum and dad weren’t big film-goers: the only time we went to the cinema was if Billingsgate was featured, however fleetingly. The only films I can remember were ‘The Boy on the Bridge’ and ‘Left Right and Centre’.
I doubt it’s still there but for many years the words Superintendent’s Office was visible in the glass of a first floor window on to Lower Thames Street, below and to the west of Britannia.
I don’t think it’s an urban legend that when the market closed they found the building was supported on an accumulation of solid ice which had to be carefully melted to let the building settle.

By: Dennis Patten

Dennis Patten — Sat, 21 Jan 2017 11:10:34 +0000

Kate if you can email me at oldgeezer21@hotmail.com or dp@australiancorporatewear.com.au I can send you a photo of Manny with Diana Dors at the market. It was taken around 1965.

By: B Bean

B Bean — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 04:24:38 +0000

This is great stuff for me to show my mum.She was born in bow in 1928 and moved to Hertfordshire during the war.Her Grandmothers maiden name was Godier,who we believe were fishmongers in the east end,going some way back.

By: Kate Abrahams

Kate Abrahams — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:16:31 +0000

Hi Dennis,
My husband’s Grandfather was Manny Abrahams, unfortunately he passed away in the mid-90’s, having worked at Billingsgate until he was 83. My husband is supposedly very much like him. If you have any stories about him, that would be great to hear
Kate Abrahams

By: Dennis Patten

Dennis Patten — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:44:20 +0000

Hi, I am Dennis Patten currently living in Sydney Australia after careers, marriages and producing babies in various parts of the World since 1968, the day I left my job as a Billingsgate Porter and first journied to the Americas. I started work at Billingsgate in 1960 as a junior at Thomas M. Wright next to the cafe and opposite a distant relative Alfie Pollock. My boss was the WONDERFUL Arthur Davies along with Nolan, Ted, Jimmy, Frank, the legendary Jack Smart and England amateur international TERRY HOWARD, who still works at the market today. Often nightly in my dreams I astrotravel back to those days and often shed a tear when the memories are accompanied by Charles Aznavour’s “yesterday when I was young”. I can honestly state the “I LOVED WORKING AT BILLINGSGATE”. The personalites, ex fighters, Billy Walker, Michael Caine’s dad Alf, the Titan union leader Jimmy Wickes and the blokes I was always fighting and arguing with…David Thurlow, Ronnie Johnston and Lumpy Jim !! My friends were everyone, with David Walker, David Gordon, Manny Abrahams my minder Moe Nathan and the bloke who always asked me when I was throwing shadow punches to the old boxers “How many fights did you really have” (punch drunk)……..Tommy Barton. I would sell my soul to Argentina, to relive just one week of those “heady days”

By: kev hallett

kev hallett — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:18:24 +0000

as a kid i used to visit the old billingsgate with my granfather who like my father{the porter in the pic Billy Hallett } worked there it was a amazing place lots of happy memorys of early mornings seing my dad at work.strange thing is i hope im forgiven i dont like the taste of fish

By: jeannette

jeannette — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:31:24 +0000

We all sang and prayed together as the church became a great lantern illuminated by shifting patterns of October sunshine, while the bones of the long-dead slumbered peacefully beneath our feet. The verses referring to “those who go down the sea in ships and occupy themselves upon the great waters,” and the lyrics of “For those in peril on the sea” reminded us of the plain reality upon which the trade is based, as we sat in the elegantly proportioned classical space and the smell of fish drifted among us upon the currents of air.

one of your immortals.
i love that the ancient, perhaps immortal, porters and their immortal hats sit in the back near the fish, presumably, while the fur trimmed bobbins crowd to the front.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:07:35 +0000

A wonderful piece of writing, with its careful descriptions and closeness to the subject. The photographs are tremendous of course but you seldom find prose as well balanced and beautifully crafted as this. It will clearly serve as a brilliant archive as well as a reminder of the times we live in today, much fuller of quirky character and meaningful stories than we might ever imagine without reading this.

Also loved the Cafe story with the wonderful ninety year old. Let’s hope we can all look half as glamorous as that when we’re 70 never mind 10 years off the century. What an amazing life, so hard and so well captured, with its sad detail of lives lost through broken heartedness and children slipping into death – all in the context of the shock and loss of war.

By: Rowena

Rowena — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:21:43 +0000

Who on earth is the man in your pictures named Crudgie? The Sailor, Biker and Historian? An intriguing gap in this post. Tell us more about him. He looks somewhat a fish out of water at the harvest festival, or a different kettle of fish altogether.

Great post as usual. Beautiful pictures. I shall forward on to my boyfriend, who is a fisherman down in Newhaven, East Sussex. Lots of his fish ends up in Billingsgate Market, I’m sure, and he certainly does live a ‘life of peril’ on the sea.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:12:55 +0000

Photo of Billingsgate in 1910: http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.9401

Fishporter’s jerkin, 1950: http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.5508

Porter’s token: http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.5970