Comments on: My Tenterground

By: Kerry-Ann Kendall

Kerry-Ann Kendall — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 20:48:32 +0000

Thank you for this fantastic insight into life in the Tenterground.

Part of my family, Dutch Jews from Amsterdam came to 2 Butler Street around 1860 and the last record I have of them being there at the time of writing is 1901. The has really helped me make sense of what life must have been like for them.

Hoping more stories of the roads around the Tenterground come up in the future.

Best Regards
Kerry

By: Eleanor

Eleanor — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 16:24:23 +0000

A fascinating and detailed insight into Ikey’s experience of life in the east end.

Ikey’s mention of his mother Rebecca’s ‘christening’ is very puzzling though, as Jews are not christened.

By: Pauline

Pauline — Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:50:59 +0000

Thank you for publishing this fascinating memoir. I can’t wait to read more. I can really picture Ikey’s home and family life. I was also so impressed with his neat writing and map. The photos were great too. What a handsome young man in 1938!

By: Linda Granfield

Linda Granfield — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:46:49 +0000

I could have kept reading more of this terrific memoir. I hope the entire manuscript will become a Spitalfields Life publication some time ‘down the road.’
Thank you, Mr. Jacobs.

By: Gillian Tindall

Gillian Tindall — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 16:34:13 +0000

Just word to readers hoping to explore Ikey Jacobs’ home ground – since, contrary to what he suggests, it has not of course been pulled down. His map, which he know himself to be `very very rough’ is actually upside-down – ie. the north is to the bottom.

It is interesting that his immediate childhood territory was still then, in the first decades of the 20th century, known as the `Tenter ground’, but he does not give any explanation for this name.

In fact, it was the name the land had in the 16th and 17th centuries when it was open space immediately outside London, and used a such for the drying of washed and dyed cloths. Nice to hear that it was still called that so long after it had been built up with streets.

By: Su C.

Su C. — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 15:22:33 +0000

I want to know what Ikey did for his life and hope there comes the opportunity to read his story.

By: aubrey

aubrey — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 11:06:58 +0000

A wonderful fulsome memoir. I can recall just similar situations but many decades later. There was a bakery near to Wheler Street arch from where we, as young boys, used to get broken biscuits. We’d go there after ‘swimming’ (morelike larking about) at York Hall Baths. I can’t recall whether we paid for them or not. But either way, whether they were given to us or whether we paid a few pennies for them, they were very welcome; stale or not!

By: paul loften

paul loften — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 10:23:16 +0000

Why isn’t it published ? For me its great reading . Thank you Norman and also GA for allowing us to read this vibrant history

By: Mathilde Grange

Mathilde Grange — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 09:54:05 +0000

Absolutely fascinating. So full of life. Ikey Jacobs’ descriptions jump off the page. I could see the soup kitchen, the front room, the jam jars, everything… Thank you.

By: Milo

Milo — Sun, 31 Jul 2022 09:51:56 +0000

Fascinating – and very funny in parts. There are so many layers to the history of these parts.