Comments on: Raphael Samuel’s Farewell To Spitalfields

By: stephen watts

stephen watts — Sun, 26 May 2024 09:13:09 +0000

Many thanks for the images & Raphael Samuel’s wonderfully lucid prose. It may be worth adding that Samuel lived on Elder Street for many years until his death in 1996. Stuart Hall has described him as ‘one of the most outstanding, original intellectuals of his generation’ and certainly he was one of the great pioneering historians of recent years. In case of interest, the most recent collection of Samuel’s writings is ‘Workshop Of The World : Essays In People’s History’ (Verso 2024). PS Re. Cherub’s reply : no, ‘Spitz’ no longer exists, everything changes, memory maybe persists …

By: Cherub

Cherub — Sat, 25 May 2024 18:30:59 +0000

I used to love Spitalfields Market (or what there was of it) when I worked at Spital Square about 25 years ago. I bought a watercolour painting of a Thai Buddhist saying from an artist there for my husband’s 40th birthday, it cost me about £35 and now hangs in the bedroom of our apartment in Switzerland. I remember buying books from a second hand bookshop, history books I should have read at college but couldn’t get hold of – I wish I’d known about that shop when I was studying at Mile End!

I also remember going to a wine bar in the market called Spitz – does that still exist? There was a poster advertising a singer called Dean Friedman and none of my young colleagues knew who he was, they all laughed when I said if you were my age you’d know him, I was heading towards 40 at the time 🙂

By: Lynne Perrella

Lynne Perrella — Sat, 25 May 2024 12:48:04 +0000

I so appreciate the photo of the person bending over (red jacket) and rummaging in the
uproar of cartons. I imagine I hear them grumbling a bit — “now where the HECK is it?”, etc.
Shuffling boxes around, searching, tossing, sorting, looking. Yes, markets are messy — like humanity. Part of their great appeal. I love looking at these images, knowing that once the marketplace was closed for the day/night/whichever, the sidewalk would be returned to a blank slate; possibly with random remains of the day scattered about. I am thinking of the many photos you have shared with us — of people overrunning the market, scouring it for their loot, happy with their discoveries, coveting an old book or record album, and communing with other lookers.
(and the strong community of sellers, too……….)
Thank you for taking us to these vibrant markets.

By: Bailey Jones

Bailey Jones — Sat, 25 May 2024 09:40:19 +0000

I just love Raphael Samuel’s metaphor that Spitalfields is a living, breathing palimpest.

I will never forget the first time I stumbled into Fournier Steet, following the map to get from Spitalfields market to Brick Lane, some 15 years ago. As I wandered round the surrounding streets, I felt I had, quite literally. walked into the past.

I had lived in West and South West London in the 1970s but had failed to venture East. I had explored Limehouse in the early 2000s after reading Our Mutual Friend but had no knowledge of Spitalfields, beyond the name, until a friend recommended the market. Walking along Wilkes Street, was indeed like peeling away the layers of time.

I knew and loved the Georgian terraces of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia but these narrow streets spoke of a different Georgian world, one which was much less gentle, much more real and incredibly atmospheric. I was quite literally stopped in my tracks by wonder.

When I, eventually – after this unexpected detour – got to Brick Lane, with its mosque, it’s shops and crowds and multi cultural street food sellers, I was deposited firmly back in twenty-first century London.

I have been back several times but have never experienced quite the same sense of wonder as when London suddenly peeled back its layers to provide a memorable encounter with its past.

By: aubrey

aubrey — Sat, 25 May 2024 08:54:02 +0000

. . . not forgetting the over tourism. I remember, as a kid , eating some of the discaded fruit left by the traders while the streets were being swept by the street cleaners after the day’s trading had ceased.

By: Sue Hadley

Sue Hadley — Sat, 25 May 2024 08:19:37 +0000

Interesting piece. Sadly it was far too untidy for the City types and was ‘in need’ of the creeping sanitisation we are still witnessing today.

By: Gilbert O’Brien

Gilbert O’Brien — Sat, 25 May 2024 08:07:02 +0000

Apart from anything else Samuel wrote beautiful, lucid prose and his precise evocation of the market, the area and its larger meaning was moving and frighteningly accurate. Heartbreaking.