Just Another Day With John Claridge
Cobb St, Spitalfields 1966
One morning in 1966, photographer John Claridge met these four men working in Cobb St, Spitalfields. “They were bloody silly,” recalled John fondly half a century later, “and there’s not enough of that in this world.” It was John’s way of introducing this set of pictures to me, published here for the first time, which he entitles“Just Another Day.”
“They were good people – full of fun – and this picture was nice to take, it has a warmth to it.” he added, upon contemplation of the image. And, if there is a common quality among these pictures, it is an open-hearted delight in the quotidian, or as John puts it –“The daily things that people do, going to work, stopping at the corner, visiting the shops.”
Where others might find only the mundane, John sees the poetry of the human condition. There may be endless sleet in Spitalfields, freezing fog in Victoria Park, and the passengers are eternally falling asleep on the early train out of Upton Park, yet John always reveals the joy and the humanity of his subjects. A generous spirit informs his photographs.
“Some of these pictures are of life drifting by,” John informed me, “because there are gentler ways of seeing the world than the obvious.”
Cup of tea, Spitalfields 1966.
Kosher butchers, Bethnal Green 1962 – “It wasn’t very big and it did have a certain smell to it.”
The cap, Spitalfields 1982 – “I love the things you don’t know as well as the things that are explained.”
Four men, Spitalfields 1982 – “You could create your own story with that.”
The baker at Rinkoffs, Vallance Rd, Bethnal Green 1967 – “Having a cup of tea and enjoying a breath of fresh air as the light’s coming up.”
Rinkoffs, Bethnal Green 1967
Breaker’s yard, E16 1975 – “I was talking to her dad and she just wandered off and got in the car.”
Feeding the birds in Victoria Park, E3 1962 – “there was ice on the lake.”
Passing the graveyard, 1970s
Bridge repair, E3 1960s
The crane, E16 1975 – “I printed this photo for the first time last week.”
SOS motors, Spitalfields 1982
Sewer Bank, Plaistow 1960s – “Where the kids used to go on their bikes and I’d take my scrambler. The craters were fantastic, it was a different kind of playground.”
In Plaistow, 1961 – “Just down the road from where I lived. It certainly has a lot of charm to it, look at how little traffic there is. That could be my dad on the bike, coming back from the docks.”
Station stairs, Upton Park 1963 – “Sometimes I met my mum here after school, when she was coming back from Bow where she worked as machinist making shirts.”
Station entrance, Upton Park 1963 – “I like stations, it’s that feeling you get of arriving on a film set.”
Leaving Plaistow early morning in winter, E13 1963 – “I had a motorbike but I liked going on the tube if the traffic was bad.”
The shed, Plaistow 1969 – “This was at the top of the street where I lived. He used to go round with that barrow and pick things up, and sell bits and pieces in that shed. A very nice man and a gentleman.”
End of the day, Spitalfields 1963.
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
You may also like to take a look at
Along the Thames with John Claridge
At the Salvation Army with John Claridge
A Few Diversions by John Claridge
Signs, Posters, Typography & Graphics
Views from a Dinghy by John Claridge
In Another World with John Claridge
A Few Pints with John Claridge
Some East End Portraits by John Claridge
Great pics, Love the one with the Ford Capri, it looks like a GT. I had one with a yellow body and a black top. Loved it. G
The marvellous atmosphere of the East End in the 60’s captured for posterity !
Thanks for sharing these great images.
Lee
I always remember my Grandad started driving a Ford Capri when he retired. I thought that it made him and my Grandma look like real hipsters at that time! Angella-Dee x
Dead and gone but still alive in these fine prints!
It gets better and better, now we get to inside the shops, I look at these prints and think of John as a young man running around with a camera, taking pictures of his life, no rules, no fear, just for the love of it, it just doesn’t get more real, these images in years to come will become iconic to the history of the real East End.
Thank you John for sharing, hopefully there’s more to come, I really hope so.
J
John Claridge, the East End’s Cartier Bresson. Every picture is a gem.
Whilst I see noise all around, I hear only whispers and murmurs. Quiet souls speaking softly, mumbling, muttering & sharing secrets.
A collection of blissful images from a world I never knew. My family had a Kosher fish shop in north London in the late 70’s- Happy days. We also had a much treasured Ford Capri!
Thank you John.
Freddie Edmondson.
Sublime portraiture in a nutshell. Simple and pure. The man and his environment. I fully enjoy the simplicity of these powerful portraits. Great and still alive in these fine black and white prints.
Lovely, lovely scrap yard… I do hope that Heaven has a massive scrap yard where I can potter about all day… Another set of great photos.
Love’ SOS motors’ and ‘The Shed’ . I love the grainy and gritty texture of ‘Station Entrance’ in Plaistow.
Yet more wonderful images John and as usual everyone has said it all before me! It just goes to show that you were totally absorbed by images so early on and had a complete empathy with everyone who crossed your path – a truely compelling set of pictures – thankyou as ever
My husband grew up around Upton Park / East Ham / Plaistow and back in the 70s my elder sister lived on the Barking Road there so the pics are very intesting.
It may be just another day to each of these folk but JC’s lens renders a poetic feel to all of them . . . enshrined forever in the mists of East End time.
See they’ve latched on to the Capri. Phwooar! Carsholton to Chigwell, Barnet to Blackheath, brown suede brogues, Daks slacks, few Babychams or Calypso [ Called ‘Leg Openers’ by the trade ] for miss
Permafrost … power where you need it – Derek the Dirty’s dream car – See if he’d got a Jag they’d keyed it
if not the brake fluid paint job for getting a bit above the manor and mates … but with the Capri – well it was raced wasn’t it, so, egalitie fraternitie what? Moss driving gloves and off to Brighton or Henley.
Lads at Cobb Street having a good laugh, the one on the left a ringer for Lionel Bart or Lyin’ Abaht as I
used to scold him trying to get his creative spark going again.
One on the left in ‘ four men’ He’s wearing my aunt Elsie’s tea cozy her niece bobble knitted for her.
And those tube trains! High ceilings, quality steel tubing & detail, grooved wood floors, classic patterned and lovely seats – terrific moshing in rush hours. Our pal Pete Butler who was at LSP noe LCP when Tom Eckersley was head used to flit a paper butterfly on a 6fy rod on the heads of his fellow passengers, Pete being 6ft plus …. especially those girls heading for Hornchurch he was tempted by. And, those strap handles eh! Like a stage set of ominous blackjacks hanging above, also of course known as ‘Priests’. Got it again JC – The percussive ring of the echoes of my, and your, mind. The cast is assembled, gangs all here and crazier than Morton Frazier’s Harmonica Gang.
Brilliant eye/mind/heart JC.