Comments on: A Walk With Rachel Lichtenstein

By: Mark Haviland

Mark Haviland — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 12:54:59 +0000

Dear Rachel,
My daughter Ariel bought me ‘On Brick Lane’ for my birthday. I started reading it, and wow, the memories came flooding back!
I was born in the London Hospital ( now the Royal London ), and spent my early childhood years in the East End. With the demise of the docks in the late 60s, we moved to Eastbourne. In January 1978, I was back in the East End as a young man of 22, fresh out of university. I arrived initially as a student teacher, but soon dropped out of that to become fully involved with the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, or THAP, as it then was ( subsequently Eastside, which seems sadly prosaic by comparison!). I had a fair few curries at the Nazrul!
I knew Alan Gilbey very well. His lightning sketch of a vampire with a stake through his heart still hangs above my head as I write this, on the other side of the world! Alan and his friends had a street theatre group called Controlled Attack, whose shows I photographed on a number of occasions. It’s good to see he hasn’t lost his wonderful acerbic wit with the passing of the years.
I’m pretty certain I crossed paths with Bill Fishman a time or two, in the bookshop if nowhere else.
I met Sally Flood at writers’ group gigs, and then of course there was the inimitable Gladys McGee, who got on well with locals like Alan, but took a dim view of university-educated hippie interlopers, as she saw some of us. Gladys used to perform in a gold lame jumpsuit and called herself ‘Gladdie Glitter’. I saw her perform her wonderful poem ‘Empire Day’ umpteen times, and never failed to get a kick out of it.
I also knew the Joneses. Well, Denise mostly, because she worked in our lefty bookshop, first on Watney Street and then on Whitechapel Road. Dan always seemed some how distant, a bit like God, operating on some unknowable higher plane ( but doing wonderful things for the community ). It’s funny the things that stick in the crevices of your brain: I remember one time we had a day trip to London Zoo, and I carried Polly Jones on my shoulders. She would have been three or four then. She would have to be pushing towards 40 now, I suppose!
In 1980 and 81 I worked as assistant to artist Ray Walker on a giant mural in Chicksand Street. ( Dracula? Really? ) I remember going to one of the cafes in Brick Lane for teas. They had the paper cups lined up ready on the display cabinet, with sugar already in them – tea without sugar was simply not an option. Ray died very unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1984, just before I came to Australia, and I understand the mural is no longer there either.
Later, in about 1982, I was asked to photograph people visiting the National Front stall in the market from the vantage point of a top floor room across the street. I set up my camera in the window and happily snapped away, convinced I was invisible in the darkened room. Then just as they were about to pack up for the day, one of them turned and looked up at my window and waved. So I suppose I wouldn’t have been much good as a spy.
I realised some years ago that things had changed around there when I heard that Posh Spice was buying her clothes in Hoxton, once a total no go area for hippie types like me. But your description of what Brick Lane is like now makes me think I don’t want to see how it’s changed.
But your book opened up so much more about the area, from lion cubs to Kafka ( wow! ). Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your wonderful work, appreciated far more than I can say.
Warmest best wishes.

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 14:31:14 +0000

Fascinating. Lovely to see the photographs of Bill Fishman. I would recommend Rachel’s books on the East End to everyone!

By: John Parham

John Parham — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 13:05:37 +0000

I’ve lived in the Fieldgate Street area of Whitechapel for four decades now and still call it LJ, or Little Jerusalem, being as there’s the East London Mosque right next to the old Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue (sadly, but inevitably, now closed) and also St Boniface – the German Roman Catholic Church just a few steps away. The area still retains its identity of a close-knit and lively community: different peoples now perhaps, and with a large population of passers-through, but still with its own unique atmosphere and flavour. Lately, too, some of the uglier shadows of yesteryear have been rising again in the shape of regular unwelcome visits from far-rightist groupings appearing on the streets around the mosque, and there are the also extremist Muslim groupings from outside the area who come in to stir things up.

Many thanks for this and so good you’re walking in old Bill Fishman’s footsteps.

Best Wishes from Whitechapel!

By: Lawrie Nerva

Lawrie Nerva — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 09:21:25 +0000

A lovely reminder of my old friend Bill Fishman.

Thank you for a moving trip down memory lane.

By: John Barrett

John Barrett — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 07:01:03 +0000

Shalom Aleichem Rachel; This is a good well illustrated blog well done. Of course people in Little Jerusalem are more scattered now, this once tight community have moved outwards. The early community was stronger and more confident when they all together at Synagogue, many early settlers coming from Eastern Europe. I liked Bill; This upstanding gentleman Bill Fishman has to be a kind man with a story to tell, now that’s nice. Take care and keep walking. John

By: Valerie-Jael

Valerie-Jael — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:32:15 +0000

This brings back nice memories. I am just reading Rodinsky’s Room again. The area has changed so much, but I am happy to see that some places are still there. The Jewish East End community was a wonderful place to grow up. Valerie

By: Vivien Kells

Vivien Kells — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 23:54:45 +0000

Your article was so enlightening and of such a great rich history.
As a Christian I have an appreciation of the traditions and teachings in the Old Testament.
Europe is now suffering from the vacuum left by all the culture and education provided by
the Jewish (Yiddish) people. These were resourceful and made their own way in life – not relying on the government of the day to provide but contributing to the fabric of society.