Next tickets available 18th July for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields

A beano from Stepney in the twenties (courtesy Irene Sheath)

We have reached that time of year when a certain clamminess prevails in the city and East Enders turn restless, yearning for a trip to the sea or at the very least an excursion to glimpse some green fields. In the last century, pubs, workplaces and clubs organised annual summer beanos, which gave everyone the opportunity to pile into a coach and enjoy a day out, usually with liberal opportunity for refreshment and sing-songs on the way home.

Ladies’ beano from The Globe in Hartley St, Bethnal Green, in the fifties. Chris Dixon, who submitted the picture, recognises his grandmother, Flo Beazley, furthest left in the front row beside her next door neighbour Flo Wheeler, who had a fruit and vegetable stall on Green St. (courtesy Chris Dixon)

Another beano from the fifties – eighth from the left is Jim Tyrrell (1908-1991) who worked at Stepney Power Station in Limehouse and drank at the Rainbow on the Highway in Ratcliff.

Mid-twentieth century beano from the archive of Britton’s Coaches in Cable St. (courtesy Martin Harris)

Beano from the Rhodeswell Stores, Rhodeswell Rd, Limehouse in the mid-twenties.

Taken on the way to Southend, this is a ladies’ beano from The Beehive in the Roman Rd during the fifties or sixties in a coach from Empress Coaches. The only men in the photo are the driver and the accordionist. Joan Lord (née Collins) who submitted the photo is the daughter of the publicans of The Beehive. (Courtesy Joan Lord)

Terrie Conway Driver, who submitted this picture of a beano from The Duke of Gloucester, Seabright St, Bethnal Green, points out that her grandfather is seventh from the left in the back row.  (Courtesy Terrie Conway Driver)

Taken on the way to Southend, this is a men’s beano from The Beehive in the Roman Rd in the fifties or sixties in a coach from Empress Coaches. (Courtesy Joan Lord)

Beano in the twenties from the Victory Public House in Ben Jonson Rd, on the corner with Carr St.  Note the charabanc – the name derives from the French char à bancs (“carriage with wooden benches”) and they were originally horse-drawn.

A crowd gathers before a beano from The Queens’ Head in Chicksand St in the early fifties. John Charlton who submitted the photograph pointed out his grandfather George standing in the flat cap holding a bottle of beer on the right with John’s father Bill on the left of him, while John stands directly in front of the man in the straw hat. (Courtesy John Charlton)

Beano for Stepney Borough Council workers in the mid-twentieth century. (Courtesy Susan Armstrong)

Martin Harris, who submitted this picture, indicated that the driver, standing second from the left, is Teddy Britton, his second cousin. (Courtesy Martin Harris)

In the Panama hat is Ted Marks who owned the fish place at the side of the Martin Frobisher School, and is seen here taking his staff out on their annual beano.

George, the father of Colin Watson who submitted this photo, is among those who went on this beano from the Taylor Walker brewery in Limehouse. (Courtesy Colin Watson)

Pub beano setting out for Margate or Southend. (Courtesy John McCarthy)

Men’s beano from c. 1960 (courtesy Cathy Cocline)

Late sixties or early seventies ladies’ beano organised by the Locksley Estate Tenants Association in Limehouse, leaving from outside The Prince Alfred in Locksley St.

The father of John McCarthy, who submitted this photo, is on the far right squatting down with a beer in his hand, in this beano photo taken in the early sixties, which may be from his local, The Shakespeare in Bethnal Green Rd. Equally, it could be a works’ outing, as he was a dustman working for Bethnal Green Council. Typically, the men are wearing button holes and an accordionist accompanies them. Accordionists earned a fortune every summer weekend, playing at beanos. (courtesy John McCarthy)

John Sheehan, who submitted this picture, remembers it was taken on a beano to Clacton in the sixties. From left to right, you can seee John Driscoll who lived in Grosvenor Buildings, Dan Daley of Constant House, outsider Johnny Gamm from Hackney, alongside his cousin, John Sheehan from Constant House and Bill Britton from Holmsdale House. (Courtesy John Sheehan)

Images courtesy Tower Hamlets Community Homes

You may also like to read about

At Empress Coaches

The High Days & Holidays of Old London

Next tickets available 18th July for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields

Ron McCormick photographed Whitechapel & Spitalfields in the early seventies and these pictures were exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1973. 

Hessel St

Royal Oak, Whitechapel Rd

Old Montague St

Blooms, Whitechapel High St

Old Montague St

Old Montague St

Princelet St

Black Lion Yard

Fournier St

Brick Lane

Club Row

Brick Lane

Settle St, Whitechapel

Great Eastern Buildings, Quaker St

Woodseer St

Great Eastern Buildings, Quaker St

Sandys Row

Brick Lane Market

Christ Church School

Settle St, Whitechapel

Photographs copyright © Ron McCormick

You may also like to take a look at

Phil Maxwell’s Brick Lane

Philip Marriage’s Spitalfields

David Granick’s Spitalfields

Marketa Luskacova’s Brick Lane

Homer Sykes’ Spitalfields

Sarah Ainslie’s Brick Lane

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tour for July & August

I wonder if those who work in the corporate financial industries in Bishop’s Sq today ever cast their eyes down to the cavernous medieval Charnel House of c. 1320 beneath their feet, once used to store the dis-articulated bones of many thousands of those who died here of the Great Famine in the thirteenth century.

Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Jane Siddell, believes starving people flooded into London from Essex seeking food after successive crop failures and reached the Priory of St Mary Spital where they died of hunger and were buried here. It was a dark vision of apocalyptic proportions on such a bright day, yet I held it in in mind yesterday as we descended beneath the contemporary building to the stone chapel below.

At first, you notice the knapped flints set into the wall as a decorative device, like those at Southwark Cathedral and St Bartholomew the Great. London does not have its own stone and Jane pointed out the different varieties within the masonry and their origins, indicating that this building was a sophisticated and expensive piece of construction subsidised by wealthy benefactors. A line of small windows admitted light and air to the Charnel House below, and low walls that contain them survive which would once have extended up to the full height of the chapel.

When you stand down in the cool of the Charnel House, several metres below modern ground level, and survey the neatly-faced stone walls and the finely-carved buttresses, it is not difficult to complete the vault over your head and imagine the chapel above. Behind you are the footings of the steps that led down and there is an immediate sense of familiarity conveyed by the human proportion and architectural detailing, as if you had just descended the staircase into it.

This entire space would once have been packed with bones, in particular skulls and leg bones – which we recognise in the symbol of the skull & crossbones – the essential parts to be preserved so that the dead might be able to walk and talk when they were resurrected on Judgement Day. Yet they were rudely expelled and disposed of piecemeal at the Reformation when the Priory of St Mary Spital was dissolved in 1540.

Brick work and the remains of a beaten earth floor indicate that the Charnel House may have become a storeroom and basement kitchen for a dwelling above in the sixteenth century. Later, it was filled with rubble from the Fire of London and levelled-off as houses were built across Spitalfields in the eighteenth century. Thus the Charnel House lay forgotten and undisturbed as a rare survival of fourteenth century architecture, until 1999 when it was unexpectedly discovered by the builders constructing the current office block. Yet it might have been lost then if the developers had not – showing unexpected grace – reconfigured their building in order to let it stand.

Around the site lie stray pieces of masonry individually marked by the masons – essential if they were to receive the correct payment from their labours. Thus our oldest building bears witness to the human paradox of economic reality, which has always co-existed uneasily with a belief in the spiritual world, since it was a yearning for redemption in the afterlife that inspired the benefactors who paid for this chapel in Spitalfields more than seven centuries ago

The exterior walls are decorated with knapped flints, faced in Kentish Ragstone upon a base of Caen Stone with use of green Reigate Stone for corner stones

Window bricked up in the sixteenth century

Inside the Charnel House once packed with bones

Twelfth century denticulated Romanesque buttress brought from an earlier building and installed in the Charnel House c.1320 – traces of red and black paint were discovered upon this.

Fine facing stonework within the Charnel House

Fourteenth century masons’ marks

The Charnel House is to be seen in the foreground of this illustration from the fifteen-fifties

The Charnel House during excavations

You may also like to read about

In a Well in Spitalfields

A Dead Man in Clerkenwell

In the Crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields

In the Crypt of St Leonards, Shoreditch

Click here to book THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOURS for July & August

It is my delight to publish these old Whitechapel letterheads and receipts from Philip Mernick‘s astonishing ephemera collection. Many are remarkable for the beauty of their typographic design as well as revealing the wide range of industry and commerce. 

Speigelhalters were in Whitechapel from 1928 until 1988

Gardiner’s Corner was a familiar landmark in East End for generations

This was the family business of the artist Nathaniel Kornbluth

All letterheads and receipts courtesy of Philip Mernick

You may also like to take a look at

Old East End Letterheads & Receipts

The Trade Cards of Old London

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

In the days before social media, television or cinema, public executions were a popular source of entertainment in London. Ed Maggs, fourth generation proprietor of Maggs Bros, booksellers of 48 Bedford Sq, sent me this fine selection of Execution Broadsides that he came across.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution Broadside of Henry Horler for the murder of his wife Ann Horler on 17th November 1852, at Sun St, Bishopsgate.

Ann Horler’s mother, Ann Rogers, came to take her daughter away from her husband Henry Horler on the night before the murder was discovered. She had been told that her daughter had been abused by her husband. Henry Horler insisted his wife would not go with her mother that night, but Mrs Rogers should return in the morning for her. The next morning Ann Horler was found dead.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of John Wiggins at Newgate, 15th October 1867, for the murder of Agnes Oakes on the morning of Wednesday 24th July at Limehouse. Printed with the trial and execution of Louis Bordier, a Frenchman charged with the murder of Mary Ann Snow on the 3rd September 1867 on Old Kent Rd.

Agnes Oakes lived with John Wiggins as his wife for about six months prior to the murder. Neighbours said they witnessed John beating Agnes and she had said she would leave him if he did not stop.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of Michael Barrett, the Fenian, and last man to be hanged in public, on the 26th May 1868, Newgate. Barrett was arrested for the “Clerkenwell Explosion” on 13th December 1867 which killed twelve people and injured many others. Barrett was the only Irish Republican to be convicted of the crime, five others were acquitted.

This tragic event occurred during an attempt to release Richard O’Sullivan Burke from prison. The explosion was misjudged and not only did it blast a sixty foot hole in the prison wall, (O’Sullivan Burke is thought to have been killed in the blast), a number of tenements on Corporation Lane were also destroyed.

The conviction appeared largely to be based on the fact Michael Barrett was a Fenian and that several witnesses claimed he may have been in London at the time. Barrett stated he was in Glasgow on the day of the explosion and if ‘there were 10,000 armed Fenians in London, it was ridiculous to suppose they would send to Glasgow for a person of no higher abilities than himself.’

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of John Devine for the murder of Joseph Duck in the early morning of 11th March 1863, Little Chesterfield St, Marylebone.

The condemned pleaded not guilty to the crime which appeared to result from a robbery that went wrong. The jury was sympathetic to Devine and, although the verdict returned was guilty, there was a strong recommendation to mercy, as they were of the ‘opinion that the prisoner inflicted the injuries on the deceased while in the act of robbing him; but, at the same time they thought he did not intend to murder him.’ The scene of the execution was described thus: ’There was not a large concourse assembled to witness the sad spectacle, nor was there exhibited by those present any of that unseemly demonstrativeness which they are wont to indulge in.’

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of the nurse Catherine Wilson for the murder by poisoning with colchicine of her patient Maria Soames in Albert St, Bloomsbury, on the 18th October 1856. The last woman to be publicly hanged in London.

This was Catherine Wilson’s second indictment for poisoning a patient, having been acquitted the first time round to the astonishment of many. When the first trial took place, on 16th June 1862, in the documents the accused appeared as Constance Wilson and was also occasionally found under the alias Catherine Taylor/Turner. Immediately, she was taken back in to custody and charged with the murder of Maria Soames. During the initial trial, the police had been busy putting together evidence of further victims and even exhumed several bodies, including that of Ann Atkinson, Peter Mawer and James Dixon, who was one of Ms. Wilson’s former lovers. In seven of these exhumed bodies a variety of poisons were found.

The Judge presiding said he had ’never heard of a case in which it was more clearly proved that murder had been committed, and where the excruciating pain and agony of the victim were watched with so much deliberation by the murderer.”

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of Dr William Palmer, for the poisoning of John Parsons Cook at Stafford. Dr Palmer was described by Charles Dickens as ‘The greatest villain that ever stood at the Old Bailey’ in his article on ’The Demeanor of Murderers’. He is also referenced in several novels and an Alfred Hitchcock film.

He was also suspected, although never indicted, of the murder of his four children, all of whom died in infancy, his wife Ann Palmer, Brother Walter Palmer, a house guest Leonard Bladen, and his mother-in-law, Ann Mary Thornton. The doctor benefited financially from all of these deaths.

Dr Palmer was executed at Stafford Prison Saturday 14th June 1856. Although not mentioned in this broadside, the prisoner was said to have had an interesting exchange with the prison governor moments before his death. When Dr Palmer was asked to confess his crimes, the exchange went thus:

Dr Palmer – ’Cook did not die from strychnine.’

Prison Governor  -’There is not time for quibbling – Did you or did you not kill Cook?’

Dr Palmer – ’The Lord Chief Justice summed up for poisoning by strychnine.’

In the trial text, it is stated Dr Palmer reiterated he was: ‘innocent of poisoning Cook by strychnia.’

The Judge stated in his summation: ‘Whether it is the first and only offence of this sort which you have committed is certainly known only to God and your own conscience.’

Dr Palmer became notorious for his supposed crimes. It was said 20,000 people attended his execution and a wax figure of him was displayed at Madame Tussauds in the Chamber of Horrors from 1857 – 1979.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Trial broadside of Thomas Cooper,‘would-be’ highwayman, for the murder of Timothy Daly, policeman, and also for shooting at and maiming, with intent to murder, Charles Mott (a baker), and Charles Moss (another police officer) on 5th May at Highbury.

The defence, Mr Hory, addressed the jury, saying ‘for the first time during the seven years that he had been at the bar, he was called upon to address a jury upon a charge, conviction upon which was certain death. He almost felt that his anxiety would defeat itself. He could not help referring to different published statements, most of them monstrous perversions of established fact, and all calculated to excite the prejudices of a jury. When he saw these he could hardly fancy they lived in an enlightened age’.

Mr Hory made the case that the prisoner was not of sound mind, citing attempts of suicide, and claims of being Dick Turpin and Richard III. But this defence was unsuccessful with the jury reached a verdict of guilty, and Thomas Cooper was sentenced to death and executed July 7th 1842.

(Click on the image to enlarge and read the text)

Execution broadside of Charles Peace the notorious Blackheath burglar, for the murder of Arthur Dyson at Banner Cross, on the 29th November 1876.

Charles Peace murdered Arthur Dyson after become obsessed with Mr Dyson’s wife. Then Peace went on the run for two years with a £100 reward on his head, until he was betrayed by his mistress, Mrs Sue Thompson, who revealed his whereabouts to the police. She never received her expected reward as the police claimed her information did not lead directly to Peace’s arrest. He was caught on 10th October 1878, by Constable Robinson, who Peace shot at five times.

Subsequently, a waxwork figure of Charles Peace featured at Madame Tussaud’s, and two films and several books were produced about his life and crimes.

Images courtesy of Maggs Bros

You may also like to read about

All Change At Maggs Bros

John Fairburn’s Chapbooks

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

Billy Reading sent me this memoir by his great aunt Joyce Ellis, recalling her childhood visits to Minto Place, Bethnal Greet, home of her beloved grandfather James Ward (born 1861) and aunt Mary Ward (born 1888)

Joyce Ellis

During the thirties, Mum and I used to visit my grandfather James Ward nearly every week in Bethnal Green, travelling by tram and bus from our home in Leyton. He lived at 5 Minto Place which was part of a terrace of houses whose front door opened straight onto the pavement. It was a rented house and the front upstairs bedroom was sub-let to Mr & Mrs Shave whom we never met.

Steep linoleum-clad stairs led directly up to grandfather’s tiny workroom at the back of the house. His trade was making hand-sewn ballet shoes, made from lovely soft leather, black, red and white, which when finished would dangle streamer-like on hooks from their long laces around the wall. He also made light-soled shoes and I can see him now, using hob and last, cutting, fixing the sole and hammering the tacks into place.

My grandfather sewed ballet shoes with waxed thread using two needles simultaneously which were curved at the ends, one held in each hand. He always wore a well-worn coarse apron, deeply marked with grease and dirt, and his hands bore the evidence of years of hard work. A fire burned in the grate in his work room in winter and it was stifling hot in summer, even when the sash window overlooking the yard and the adjoining grimy rooftops was thrown open wide. Frequently, he stopped for a rolled fag of good British Oak tobacco, which was lit by a homemade bullet-shaped lighter with a huge uncontrollable flame that had to be carefully manoeuvred to avoid singeing his moustache. And he supped large mugs of tea, in which he left the spoon whilst he drank.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the tiny scullery, Aunt Mary managed all the household duties in a quiet detached fashion. There was a coal-burning copper for clothes washing in one corner, with a deep sink and scrubbed wooden drainer attached, beside a small table and a cooker. Everything was spotlessly clean but very basic. When needed, odd slip mats were placed on the linoleum covered floor. Obviously, times were hard yet my Aunt was a wonderful manager, making the best of what was available.

Refreshments with my Aunt were taken in the dark front room. Bread, butter and jam, and quite often soda bread was provided, plus a good solid dripping cake with a handful of dried fruit. The fireplace had an over-mantle with ornaments and framed sepia photographs and, in winter, a coal fire flickered (excellent for making toast) and shone on the china cupboard with its coloured glass and decorated plates. The gas mantle over the fireplace was lit when dusk descended but not before in an effort to keep costs to a minimum. A fire would only be lit in a bedroom if the inhabitant was seriously ill – this was the only exception!

The scullery door led out into a small, walled backyard. It contained the lavatory with its scrubbed wooden seat and newspaper, carefully cut and hung on a string. The communal tap of the house was also in the yard alongside the tin bath hung from a nail on the wall. Jim, the terrier dog, had his kennel in the corner beside the mangle with large wooden rollers.

My grandfather had a disfiguring lump in his back. Apparently, he broke a bone years earlier while climbing a ladder at home but he scorned doctors and paid no attention to it at the time. In later years however, it gave forth an unpleasant discharge, although he never made any fuss about it. A very tough man, as those of his time and circumstances were, he had to survive and any show of weakness was scorned and belittled. His personal remedy for his ailment was ‘a good dose of liquorice powder,’ a tonic which he also administered to his dog.

Aunt Mary dutifully moved into Minto Place to care for my grandfather during his middle to later years. Missionary work in the East End of London was her life’s work and calling. Quite often accommodation went with the job and finally she became a caretaker and companion to a couple at a Jewish Mission close by Bethnal Green station. She always thought of the welfare of others with complete disregard for herself.

My grandfather was an Air Raid Warden during the Blitz and ruled Minto Place and its inhabitants with authority. His ‘local’ was the Lord Canrobert, just around the the corner in Canrobert St, to which made his way with clockwork regularity for a pint of beer. Cribbage was played and I seem to remember money being paid in weekly for various Thrift Clubs, a means of ensuring money was available, however little, when needed. Sometimes an unattended pram would be seen outside with a couple of young children in it, whilst the parents were imbibing, but mostly pubs were male-dominated while the women stayed at home.

Wolverly St playground and the dark satanic school with its high walls faced Minto Place. Neighbours often gathered at their hearthstone doorways, some sitting on chairs in sociable groups, for this was the place to exchange views or just watch life pass by. A cool breeze could be created by leaving the front and back doors wide open the filter air through the house. If you were lucky enough to scrounge an orange box from the market, add a set of old pram wheels, you were much sought after by companions. Home made scooters, were also popular, as well as hoops, tops and whips.

One method of washing was the Bag Wash. Clothes were boiled in vast coppers and taken home, after they had been mangled, to drape over what was available to dry, and irons were permanently kept by the fire to be heated when necessary.

This was the hey-day of the Pawn Broker with three brass balls hanging outside the shop. People in need of money urgently to pay off a debt, usually the rent, pledged whatever they thought might bring forward some ready cash – a suit of clothes, a watch perhaps – in the vain hope that they could pay back the Broker to redeem the items at a later date.

Most streets had a corner shop where such essentials as firewood at a penny a bundle could be bought. Paraffin and Carbolic Acid for drains were dispensed to your own tin or bottle, and Vinegar was stored in wooden casks – everything was sold loose. There were biscuits displayed in tins from which you made your own choice – pick ‘n’ mix – and broken biscuits were much sought after because they were cheaper. Household soap was sold as a long bar, cut to size as required, and stored for a while to harden in order to last longer.

Groups of musicians begged in the streets, frequently ex-service First World War veterans who were quite often limbless or blind and ever hopeful of a penny thrown their way. Unfortunately, most passersby were just as hard up themselves and could not afford to contribute.

East End Sunday mornings were never complete without a visit to crowded Petticoat Lane in Aldgate for shopping and meeting friends. The choice of goods and produce was vast, ranging from home made toffee and cough candies to fruit, flowers and vegetables. Herrings were sold straight out of deep barrels and live eels wriggled in trays until they came under the thud of the cleaver to be chopped into small pieces for the waiting customer. They did not come fresher than that! I shall leave the smell that pervaded the air to your imagination.

Hawkers sold bottles of medicine which they said would cure all your ailments. I well remember one who had the answer to the elimination of worms, which were quite prevalent in those days – I suppose through lack of general hygiene. He would have the offending worms on display, preserved in glass bottles, to support his claims. One had to be careful of bag-snatchers and pick-pockets in such crowds.

Nearby, Club Row was for the sale of livestock – puppies, barely old enough to leave their mothers, chicks to be reared in back yards for much-needed eggs, goldfish to be carried away triumphant in a jam jar. More or less anything could be bought or sold there.

Horse-drawn carts and wagons, both commercial and domestic – including the baker and the milkman – were still the main form of transport. While the carters were in pubs and cafes at lunchtime, horses were given their nosebags containing chaff, usually leaving great drifts of the stuff in the road where they had thrown up their heads to eat the reminder of the bag and spilt the contents. Great long stone drinking troughs were located at busy street corners for their consumption. Someone was always on the look out, ready to rush out armed with a bucket and shovel to sweep up the resultant manure for sale to the few who may have had a postage stamp-sized garden. I think the going rate was a penny a bucket.

My grandfather’s pride and joy was a very heavy bicycle on which he travelled everywhere, lit by a huge acetylene lamp. He had a black cape and sou’wester for wet days. When we lived in Leyton, Chingford and later Ilford, he regularly visited us on Sundays ‘on the bike’ up until his late seventies. His first encounter with a roundabout on the Woodford Avenue completely flummoxed him and he said he went round it the wrong way. Rene & I always received sixpence pocket money on these welcome visits. When we lived at 20 Flempton Rd, Leyton E10, my dad and grandad rented an allotment nearby. They shared the cost of seed, the work and the produce. Grandad cycled his share back to Bethnal Green in a hessian sack tied around his body. Dad built a nice shed with seats on three sides and hooks to keep the tools. A well was sunk and protected with a creosoted wooden lid.

Grandfather died in his mid-eighties after a short illness. Aunt Mary brought us the news – few people had telephones – and I can still remember the shock and emptiness that his death brought me. No more to hear the eagerly-awaited bell ring out on his bike to herald his arrival. No more to hear the latest news of Minto Place and its environs. He was a much-loved hardworking Victorian man, full of character and strength.

Minto Place was patched up many times after bomb attacks and was eventually pulled down for redevelopment. Aunt Mary was temporarily rehoused in a flat in the Guinness Buildings, Victoria Park, Bethnal Green, which was a dreadful depressing old building, long overdue for demolition. It was so dark that the light had permanently to be kept switched on. Lines of washing, secured from the balconies, stretched across courtyards until it was dry. Conversations seemed to echo from every level and the smell and feel of poverty was all around.

Thankfully, she was transferred to a block of flats know as Peabody Buildings in the Cambridge Heath Rd district of Bethnal Green, where she lived for a while, before finally moving as part of a London County Council scheme to relocate people out of London into the countryside at the edge of the Green Belt  at Chigwell Row in Essex. It was retired person’s flat but it was not long before she found part-time work, helping the family with housekeeping. I hope they appreciated her fully and thought themselves fortunate to have her services, as there never was a more conscientious or hardworking person. She lived entirely for other people – Church, family and work were her priorities.

Aunt Mary visited us at Babbacombe Gardens, Ilford, once a month, travelling by bus to Gants Hill and changing. When my brother Martin was born in 1953, she took over from my mother at the time of his birth and stayed a couple of weeks to undertake all the household duties to the last detail.

Although she never had much money to spend, Aunt Mary had the magic touch with cookery and was always able to turn basic ingredients into an appetising meal. Her needlework was also born out of making something out of nothing. Invariably, second hand material was used and her stitches were so tiny they could hardly be seen.

BBC Radio Four was her constant companion, enabling her to keep abreast of  current affairs, and reading widely was a great joy. The bible was the source of her knowledge, direction and peace of mind yet she was never sanctimonious or forced her faith upon us. Poetry was of particular interest to her and she would sometimes borrow my books to share and read aloud with her friends. I remember the Welsh poet W.H. Davies being one of her many favourites. Perhaps his early days as a tramp appealed to her?

Aunt Mary died aged seventy-six and is buried in Chigwell Row churchyard. Only upon reflection as an adult do I fully realise and appreciate her sterling, selfless qualities and sensitivity which endured unwaiveringly. I feel privileged to have such a dear aunt as my mentor.

James Ward enjoys a trip to the beach dressed in a three piece suit

A family group during the Second World War with James Ward second from right

You may also like to read

In Dutch Tenterground

Memoirs of William Henry Knapp

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

My old friend Clive Murphy regarded himself as a snapper rather than a photographer. Yet Cafe Royal Books have published a splendid zine of his pictures from Spitalfields 1987-1996. Click here to buy a copy for £6.70.

Pauline, Animal Lover, 77 Brick Lane, 16 July 1988

When it comes to photography, Clive Murphy – the novelist, oral historian and writer of ribald rhymes – modestly described himself as a snapper. Yet although he used the term to indicate that his taking pictures was merely a casual preoccupation, I prefer to interpret Clive’s appellation as meaning “a snapper up of unconsidered trifles” – one who cherishes what others disregard.

“I carried it around in my shoulder bag and if something interested me, I would pull out my camera and snap it,” Clive informed me plainly, “I am a snapper because I work instinctively and I rely entirely upon my eye for the picture.”

In thousands of snapshots, every one labelled on the reverse in his spidery handwriting and organised into many shelves of numbered volumes, Clive chronicled the changing life of Spitalfields, of those around him and of those he knew, since he came to live above the Aladin Restaurant on Brick Lane in 1973. These pictures are not those of a documentary photographer on assignment but the intimate snaps of a member of the community, and it is this personal quality which makes them so compelling and immediate, drawing the viewer into Clive’s particular vivid universe in Spitalfields.

One day, we pulled out a few albums and leafed through the pages together, selecting a few snaps to show you, and Clive told me some of the stories that go with them.

Brick Lane, May 1988

Komor Uddin, Taj Stores, 7 December 1990

Columbia Rd Market, 13 November 1988

Jasinghe Ranamukadewasa Fernando (known as Vijay Singh), Holy Man with acolyte, Brick Lane, March 1988 – “Many people in Brick Lane thought he was the new Messiah and the press came down in droves. He was regarded as a very holy man, he held court in the Nazrul Restaurant and people took his potions and remedies. When he died, I joined the crowd to see his body at the Co-op Funeral Parlour in Chrisp St.”

Clive Murphy’s cat Pushkin, 132 Brick Lane, July 1988 – “Pushkin followed me down Brick Lane from Fournier St one night and, when I opened my hall door, he came in with me. So he adopted me, when he was only a kitten and could hardly jump up a step. And I had him for twenty years.”

Neighbour’s doves hoping to be fed, 16 March 1991 – “The Nazrul Restaurant used to keep doves and, when they disappeared, Pushkin was blamed but I assure you he had nothing to do with it.”

Kyriacos Kleovoulou, Barber, Puma Court, 23 February 1990 – “I’ve had a few haircuts there in the past.”

Waiter, Nazrul Restaurant, Brick Lane, 29 May 1988

Harry Fishman, 97 Brick Lane, 19 September 1987 – “He was a godsend to everybody because he cashed any cheque on the spot. I think he was used to being robbed, so he wanted to get rid of the cash. Harry Fishman was the most-loved man on Brick Lane in the seventies, his shop was always full of people wanting to be around him, and I often delivered papers to The Golden Heart for him.”

Harry Fishman’s shop, corner of Quaker St, 19 September 1987

Window Cleaning, Woodseer St, March 1988 – “This man used to run an orchestra and, at all dances and Bengali events, they would play.”

Sunday use of Weinbergs (sold), November 1987 – “It was a printers and when it closed it became a fruit stall. Mr Weinberg was a very jolly fat man, slightly balding, who ordered his staff about. He would say things like, ‘Left, right, left, right, do it properly!’ I dined at his house and I didn’t like the cover of my first novel, so I asked him to redesign it for me. He had a nephew who had never been with a woman and he asked me to find him an escort agency. We all dined in a restaurant behind the Astoria Theatre in the Charing Cross Rd, and then I let them use my front room. But after an hour she came out and said, ‘It’s no use, I give up!’ but we still had to pay, and his nephew never became a man.”

Christ Church Night Tea Stall, October 1987 – “I always went out as the last thing I did before I went to bed, to have a snack.”

Clive’s landlord, Toimus Ali, at The Aladin Restaurant, 6 March 1991 – “He was very taciturn.”

Fournier St, 7 February 1991 – “I used to come here and have lunch with all the taxi-drivers who loved it so much.”

Retired street cleaner, Brick Lane, March 1988

Tramp, Brick Lane, 29 May 1988

Pushkin unwell, Jan 4 1991 – “I was told it would be quite alright to feed my cat on frozen whitebait, but I didn’t thaw it properly and it killed my Pushkin.”

Harry Fishman’s shop after closure, 97 Brick Lane, 27 September 1987

Clive at his desk, 132 Brick Lane, 31 December 1989

Photographs courtesy of the Clive Murphy Archive at the Bishopsgate Institute

You may like to read my other stories about Clive Murphy

A Walk With Clive Murphy

At Clive Murphy’s Flat

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours

Water Gate at Greenwich

When Queen Mary commissioned Christopher Wren in 1694 to build the Royal Hospital for Seamen, offering sheltered housing to sailors who were invalid or retired, she instructed him to “build the Fabrick with Great Magnificence and Order” and there is no question his buildings at Greenwich fulfil this brief superlatively. Early on a summer morning, you may discover yourself the only visitor and stroll among these august structures as if they existed solely for your pleasure in savouring their ingenious geometry and dramatic spatial effects.

Since the fifteenth century, the Palace of Pleasaunce commanded the bend in the river here, where Henry VIII was born in 1491 and Elizabeth I in 1533. Yet Inigo Jones’ Queen’s House built for Anne of Denmark and the words ‘Carolus Rex’ upon the eastern extremity of the Admiral’s House, originally begun in 1660 as a palace for Charles I, are the only visible evidence today of this former royal residence abandoned at the time of the English Civil War.

It was Wren’s ingenuity to work with the existing buildings, sublimating them within the seamless unity of his own grandiose design by replicating the unfinished fragment of Charles’ palace to deliver magnificent symmetry, and enfolding Inigo Jones’ house within extended colonnades. The observant eye may also discern a dramatic overstatement of scale in architectural details that is characteristic of Nicholas Hawskmoor who was employed here as Wren’s Clerk of Works.

From 1705, the hospital for seamen provided modest, wood-lined cabins as a home-from-home for those who had spent their working lives at sea, reaching as many as two-thousand-seven-hundred residents at its peak in 1814, until superceded in 1869 by the Royal Naval College that left in 1995. Today the University of Greenwich and Trinity School of Music occupy these lofty halls but, in spite of its overly-demonstrative architecture, this has always been a working place inhabited by large numbers of people and the buildings suit their current purpose sympathetically .

The Painted Hall is the tour-de-force of this complex, guaranteed to deliver a euphoric experience even to the idle visitor. Here the Greenwich Pensioners in their blue uniforms ate their dinners until James Thornhill spent eighteen years painting the walls and ceiling with epic scenes in the classical style celebrating British sea power and it was deemed too grand for anything but special occasions. Yet down below, the home-made skittles alley brings you closer to the domestic lives of the former residents – who once enjoyed fierce after-dinner contests here using practice cannon balls as bowling balls.

Exterior of the Painted Hall

The Chapel

King William Court

King William Court

The Admiral’s House was originally built as a residence for Charles I. Abandoned in the Civil War, Queen Anne commissioned Wren to rehabilitate the unfinished palace as part of his design for the Royal Hospital for Seaman which opened in 1705

Inspired by the Elgin marbles, the elaborate pediment in Coade stone is a tribute to Lord Nelson

Exterior of the Painted Hall

Pump and mounting block in Queen Anne Court

The chapel was completed to Wren’s design in 1751 and redesigned by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart in 1781

Plasterwork by John Papworth

Queen Anne Court

In the Painted Hall

Begun in 1708, Sir James Thornhill’s murals in the Painted Hall took nineteen years to complete

Man with a flagon of beer from Henry VIII’s Greenwich Palace

Man with a flask of gin from Henry VIII’s Greenwich Palace

The Skittles Alley of the eighteen-sixties, where practice cannon balls serve as bowling balls

Entrance to the Old Royal Naval College

The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, is open daily 11:00 – 5:00 Admission Free

Click here to book

Back of Cheshire St, 1986

“I used to climb up on the railway bridge and take photos,” explained photographer Raju Vaidyanathan when he showed me this picture which he has seen for the first time only recently even though he took it forty years ago. A prolific taker of photos around Spitalfields, Raju possesses over forty thousand negatives of people and personalities in the neighbourhood which, after all this time, he is now beginning to print. So I went down to the Idea Store in Watney Market where Raju works to learn more about his remarkable photography.

“I was born in Brick Lane above the shop that is now called ‘This Shop Rocks,’ and I still live on the Lane. My father, Vaithy came to this country in 1949, he was brought over as one of the very first chefs to introduce Indian cooking and our family lineage is all chefs. They brought him over to be chef at the Indian embassy and the day he arrived he discovered they had already arranged a room for him and that room was on Brick Lane, and he lived there until he died.

In 1983, I managed to get hold of an old camera that someone gave me and I started taking photos. As a kid I was very poor and I knew that I was not going to be able to afford take photos, but someone said to me, ‘Instead of taking colour photos, why don’t you take black and white?’ I went to the Montefiore Centre in Hanbury St and the tutor said he would teach me how to process black and white film. So that is what I did, I am a local kid and I just started taking photos of what was happening around me, the people, the football team, the youth club – anything in Brick Lane, where I knew all the people.

Photography is my passion but I also like local history and learning about people’s lives. Sometime in the late eighties, I realised I was not just taking photographs for myself but making a visual diary of my area. I have been taking photos ever since and I always have a camera with me. I am a history collector, I have got all the Asian political leaflets and posters over the years. In the Asian community everyone knows me as the history guy and photographer

Until four years ago, I had been working until nine or ten o’clock every night and seven days a week but then they restructured my hours and insisted I had to work here full time at the Idea Store. Before, I was only working here part-time and working as a youth worker the rest of the time. Suddenly, I had time off in the evenings.

People started saying, ‘You’ve got to do something with all these photos.’ So I thought, ‘Let me see if I can start sorting out my negatives.’ I started finding lots put away in boxes and I took a course learning how to print. For the last two years, I go in once a week and print my photos and see what I have got. I bought a negative scanner and I started scanning the first two boxes of negatives. I have never seen these photos because I never had the money to print them. I just used to take the photos and process the film. So far, I have scanned about eight thousand negatives and maybe next year, once I have sorted these out, I will start scanning all the others.”

Junk on Brick Lane, 1985

Outside Ali Brothers’ grocery shop, Fashion St 1986. His daughter saw the photo and was so happy that his picture was taken at that time.

Modern Saree Centre 1985. It moved around a lot in Brick Lane before closing three years ago.

BYM ‘B’ football team at Chicksand Estate football pitch known as the ‘Ghat’ locally, 1986

108 Brick Lane, 1985. Unable to decide whether to be a café or video store, it is now a pizza shop.

‘Joi Bangla Krew’ around the Pedley Street arches. The BBC recently honoured Haroun Shamsher  from Joi (third from left) and Sam Zaman from ‘State of Bengal (far left) with a music plaque on Brick Lane

Myrdle Street, 1984. Washing was hung between flats until the late nineties.

Chacha at Seven Stars pub 1985. Chacha was a Bangladeshi spiv and a good friend of my father. Seven Stars was the local for the Asian community until it closed down in 2000.

Teacher Sarah Larcombe and local youths (Zia with the two fingers) on top of the old Shoreditch Goods Station, which was the most amazing playground

Halal Meat Man on Brick Lane, 1986

Filming of ‘Revolution’ in Fournier St, 1986. The man tapping for cash was killed by some boys a few months later.

Mayor Paul Beaseley and Rajah Miah (later Councillor) open the Mela on Hanbury Street, 1985

The Queen Mother arrives at the reopening of the Whitechapel Gallery, 1986

Photographs copyright © Raju Vaidyanathan

You may also like to take a look at

Phil Maxwell’s Brick Lane

Sarah Ainslie’s Brick Lane

Colin O’Brien’s Brick Lane

Marketa Luskacova’s Brick Lane

Homer Sykes’ Spitalfields

Click here to book

“These are all my worldly goods,” said Darren when he spread out these modest items to show Photographer Moyra Peralta in 1997. Moyra asked those she had befriended who lived upon the street to permit her to photograph the contents of their pockets and these pictures were the result.

Darren (Waterloo) – Dog, dog leads, keys on key-ring, penknife, cigarettes, lighter, matches, loose change, shoppers’ points card, religious medals on a string, prayer printed on a metal plate, photo of a dog, paperclip, safety pins, nine packets of sugar, paper serviette, personal papers, pain-killers, emery board and several plastic change bags.

Richard (Holborn) – Busking spoons (for `ham and egg-ing’, ie begging), diary, passport, one roll-up , matches, tobacco, cigarette papers, allowance book, medical prescription, Department of Social Security letter, penknife, photograph, paper tissues, and twenty-one pence.

Michael (Covent Garden) – Social Security book, moneybag, a pair of spectacles with case, a religious picture and prayer, a crucifix and chain, a five pound note, London Underground travel ticket, loose change, a US coin, two lighters, a pencil, comb, a chewing gum, a Medilink card and church postcards.

Chris, Malcolm & Jimmy (Trafalgar Sq) –  Personal stereo, lighters, cigarettes, vitamin tablets, legal and medical papers,
 a photograph of Jack Nicholson, a cartoon drawing, copper coins, a match, a wristband and a lucky sprig of heather.

Sean (Covent Garden) – A Begging placard, a peeled orange, money tin, loose change, a paper hankie, cashew nuts, a pair of socks, an 
origami flower, a pocket dictionary, a postcard, a religious picture, a whistle, shoelaces, a plaster, a broken pencil and an Irish coin.

Rory – Virgin Atlantic docket, address book, a miniature elephant mascot, a personal stereo, two paperbacks, 
`british passport, an inhaler, a brush, two cigarette lighters, a matchbook, a pen, a hammer (for breaking into squats) and a torch (belonging to a friend).

Johnnie (Holborn) – A hairbrush, reading glasses, cigarette papers, tobacco, a lighter, a pair of scissors, a razor, a toothbrush, a toothpaste, vitamin capsules, a wallet, photographs, an envelope with more photographs, batteries, coins, a pen, a paperback and cream bath lotion.

Simon (Holborn) – A tobacco tin, some dog-ends, matches, a candle stub, loose change, paper towels, dog biscuits and bone, a collar and lead, a necklace, combs, a prescription, a notebook,  a paperback, two photos, stamps, a copy of In & Around Covent Garden magazine, a cassette, a button, an envelope, a pencil, a bullet,  a plastic knife and fork, and three tubes of glue.

Ray (Strand) – a wallet, a notebook, tissues, an address book, a news cutting, an Outreach contact card, phone cards, dice, a stamp, loose change, combs, a pair of spectacles, a watch, a pen, a playing card, a cigar stub, a pen cap, bottle of mouthwash, matches, buttons, shaving cream, soap, a piece of string, a needle, thread, a safety razor in a plastic case, throat sweets, scissors, antiseptic cream, wire and wire springs and a paperback.

Tommy (Holborn Station) – Copies of The Big Issue, a Vendor’s Identity Card, a spectacle case, cigarettes, peppermints, nail-clippers and a wristwatch.

Tony & Sandy –  Rolling tobacco, a lighter, cigarette papers, painkillers, a plaster and a comb.

Richard displays his worldly goods in Holborn.

Photographs copyright © Estate of Moyra Peralta

You may also like to read about

Moyra Peralta in Spitalfields

Moyra Peralta’s Street Portraits