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Pedro da Costa Felgueiras will tell you that he is a lacquer and paint specialist, or japanner – but I think he is an alchemist. In his secret workshop in a Hoxton backstreet, Pedro has so many old glass jars filled with mysterious coloured substances, all immaculately arranged, and such a diverse array of brushes, that you know everything has its purpose and its method. Yet even as Pedro begins to explain, you realise that he is party to an arcane universe of knowledge which defies the limits of any interview.
Pedro showed me Cochineal, the lush red pigment made from crushed beetles – very expensive at present due to floods in Asia. Pedro showed me Shellac, which is created by the Kerria lacca beetle as a coating to protect its eggs and, once harvested, is melted down and stretched out in huge transparent sheets like caramel – and is commonly used to make chocolate bars shiny. Pedro showed me Caput Mortuum, a subdued purple first produced by grinding up Egyptian mummies – Whistler was so horrified when he discovered the origin that he buried the paintings in which he used this pigment in his back garden. Pedro showed me his broad Japanese lacquer brush, of the kind made from the hair of pearl divers, selected as the finest and densest fibre. Pedro showed me his fine Japanese lacquer brush made from the tail of a rat, as he delighted to explain, once he had put it in his mouth to wet it.
“I find it very difficult to get excited about new paints,” he confided to me in his hushed yet melodious Portuguese accent, as the epilogue to this catalogue of wonders, “modern colours are brighter, but they will not last, they will flake away in twenty-five years.”
“Sometimes I feel I was born a hundred years after my time.” Pedro mused, “My earliest memories are of Sunday church, and of the gold and coloured marble, which I found quite overwhelming. But everybody else wanted new things – because they were surrounded by old things, they wanted plastic.” Growing up in Queluz just outside Lisbon, it was the Baroque palace covered in statues that cast its spell upon Pedro and when he discovered the statues had been made in Whitechapel, then he knew he had found his spiritual home. “I don’t know why I ended up here,” he admitted, “I had the desire to do something with my life and I would not have been able to do that if I stayed in Portugal.”
“When I first came to Spitalfields I used to walk around and look at the old houses, and now I have ended up working in many of them.” he continued, thinking back, “In London, I was fascinated by the junk markets and I bought things, and I wanted to restore them – it all came from that.” Pedro undertook a B Sc in restoration and was inspired by the work of Margaret Balardi who inducted him into the elaborate culture of japanning. “The first thing she taught me was how to wash my brush,” Pedro recalled with a grin.
“In the eighteenth century when they imported lacquer ware from the East, they started imitating it and used European techniques to do it. At first, they imported the ingredients from Japan but they couldn’t do it here and people died of it because it is poisonous,” Pedro explained, adding that he studied lacquer work in Japan and can do both Eastern and European styles. “I keep everything clean and I don’t touch it,” he assured me.
In the centre of the workshop was a fine eighteenth century lacquered case for a grandfather clock that had been cut down for a cottage when it went out of fashion in the nineteenth century. Pedro was painting the newly-made base and top, using the same paints as the original and adding decoration from an old pattern book. To reveal the finish, he wiped a damp swab across the old japanning and it instantly glowed with its true colour, as it will do again when he applies a new coat of shellac to unify the old and the new.
Using old manuals, Pedro taught himself to mix pigments and blend them with a medium, and now his talent and expertise are in demand at the highest level to work with architects and designers, creating paint that is unique for each commission. In the eighteenth century, every house had a book which recorded the paint colours used in the property and Pedro brought some of these out to show me that he makes for his customers today, with samples of the colours that he contrived to suit. There is a tangible magic to these natural pigments which possess a presence, a depth, a subtlety, and a texture all their own.
“I remember when it was a hobby and now it has become a job.” said Pedro, gazing in satisfaction around his intricately organised workshop,“You have to be diligent without cutting corners. It’s all about time. You grind the pigment by hand and it takes hours. It’s hard work. You can’t expect to paint a room in a week. It takes three days for the paint to dry and it will change colour over time – it’s alive really!”
Pedro paints a lacquer table to a design by Marianna Kennedy.
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Pamela Cilia, Bottling Girl
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Pamela Cilia
The reputation of the Truman’s bottling girls has passed into legend in Spitalfields. In the course of my interviews, so many people have regaled me with tales of this heroic tribe of independent spirited females who wore dungarees and clogs which thundered upon the cobbles as made their way through the narrow streets en masse, that I have been seeking an interview with one of these glamorous and elusive creatures for years.
Consequently, I was more than happy to make a trip to Rainham to pay a call upon Pamela Cilia, who proved to be a fine specimen of a bottling girl, full of vitality, sharp intelligence and strong opinions to this day. Illuminated by sparkling charisma and filling with joyous emotion as she recounted her story, Pamela was no disappointment.
“I loved it, I loved it, really loved it. But when my husband discovered I was going to work at Truman’s, he said, ‘I don’t want you working in that *******.’ He called it a certain place. Yet he already worked there, so I said to him, ‘If you give the place such a bad name, why are you working there?’ My first job was at Charrington’s in Mile End Rd until that closed down, then I worked for Watney Mann’s for seven years in Sidney St before they sold it to Truman’s, and that’s how we all ended up in Truman’s.
In the bottling plant, you had the filler, then you had the discharger and the labelling. The boxes came down and we filled them up. If a vacancy appeared on a machine, they did it by seniority – I think there were about seven machines. They had one ‘Galloping Major’ that done pints and quarts, and all the others were little bottles. They also had the canning machine. I was mainly on the canning machine.
We never had all this ‘safety,’ like now. We never wore glasses, we never had earpieces, so it was really dangerous, especially when the bottles went ‘bang’– especially when you had one in your hand and it exploded. You’d be getting them out of the pasteuriser, then all of a sudden ‘bang, bang bang, bang!’ because they hit against one another and they were hot from the pasteuriser.
I was forty-four and my children were all at school. In those days we lived in two rooms. Two pound a week, that’s what we paid. And my friend Doris used to take the kids to school and she used to bring them home. I clocked in at half past seven and finished at five.
When we got paid on Thursday’s, we used to go over to the Clifton – Thursday was curry day. My friend Adele said ‘I’ll take you to an Indian restaurant.’ At first, she took me to a restaurant near Middlesex Street, near the old toilets. ‘I’ll take you there for a curry,’ she offered, so I said ‘All right’ but when we ate there, I told her, ‘Oh, I don’t like that, Adele.’ The food was too hot.
The following Thursday we went to the Clifton, and on the tables were peppers. Terry, the engineer – big bloke – he said ‘Pam …’ He was going out Adele and had a row with her, they weren’t talking. He said, ‘Pam, it’s no good asking her for a roll …’ So I offered, ‘All right, I’ll get one for you.’ He said, ‘I want cheese and tomato.’ I got him two cheese and tomato rolls, but I took a pepper and took the pips out and put them in with the tomato pips. Then I gave them to him and went home afterwards, because I knew what he would do. I was a bit of a joker. I didn’t worry about anything. Nobody got me down.
My sister was different. She was a worrier. I mean, I went there one day and she was crying her eyeballs out. And they all said to me. ‘Pam, Betty’s crying,’ and I said, ‘What are you crying for?’ So she told me that Yvonne, or whatever her name was, said, ‘We can’t go home in her car if we smoke.’ I said ‘Listen, you don’t need her car. You got a pair of legs. Walk on them. Or get a cab home. Don’t let them get you down.’ Well, all the girls in there, they said ‘Pam, how brave you are, you don’t care.’
I met my partner at Truman’s. He was a student of nineteen and I was forty-eight, they used to take students on at Truman’s at busy times. One day, I was out with Adele and she said,‘Pam, I’m not coming to dinner with you today’ and I went ‘You’re not? Why’s that?’ She said to me ‘A student has asked me to have a drink with him at dinner time.’ I replied, ‘Oh, I see, we’ll see about that’. I went straight over to Bernie and asked, ‘Excuse me, can I speak to you?’ And he said ‘Yes’ and I said ‘Are you taking my friend, Adele, for a drink at dinnertime?’ He said, ‘Yes’ and I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ He said, ‘What?’ and I said again‘I don’t think so.’ He said, ‘Why’s that?’ and I said, ‘If you take her then you’ve got to take me too.’ He went, ‘Oh, alright then, you can come too,’ and I said, ‘Never mind about alright, I’m coming…’
Later, Adele met a student too. Bernie was only nineteen when I met him and I’ve been with him for thirty-eight years. I’ve got four children from my first marriage. My youngest one is sixty-one now. I got one at sixty-one, one at sixty-two, one at sixty-three and the eldest one’s three years older, she’s sixty-six. So I’ve not done bad, bringing up four kids in two rooms. I may be eighty-three but I’m still as lively as if I was twenty-one.
I was brought up in Malta because my father was Maltese. We used to come back and forth, he was a seaman. In the end, he gave up the sea because he had malaria and he was in Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where they told him that he could get better treatment in London – so we all moved back to where my mother came from.
There were a lot of Maltese people in the East End then, but they had a very bad name. My husband was Maltese. He was a good husband but he used to hate me talking to bad girls and I’d ask him, ‘Why?’ In Stepney, you’d see the prostitutes, you had them all living in them houses next the hospital where they had furnished rooms. If they saw you with your kids, you don’t say to your child, ‘Don’t talk to her, she’s no good, she’s a so-and-so.’ That’s not me. For me, she’s a human being. Her life is her life. What happened was he said ‘Look Pam, say there’s a crowd of Maltese in Whitechapel’ – which there used to be years ago, they all gathered near the station. He said, ‘You’re not gonna talk to them. I’m being straightforward with you.’ He didn’t want me to get categorised like that or be labelled.
He didn’t want me to work at the bottling plant either, but I done it anyway. See, I’m stubborn. You had every creed, every race. I mean I’m gonna be fair because I have to, I got to swear. When I went in in the morning, I’d say ‘Good Morning, Sweary Mary,’ and she’d say to me ‘F*** off, you Maltese bastard!’
‘You Irish, you Welsh, you Scotch, you Black, you White’ – she’d have a name for every one of one of them. We had Lil, we used to call her ‘Barley-Wine Lil’ because, as soon as she came in, she’d grab a plastic cup. We’d all be thinking she was drinking tea – but she wasn’t! This was seven o’clock in the morning and she was drinking barley wine!
It was very, very good experience for me. I mean, if anything happens to me, I’ve had a good life. I loved the atmosphere, the fighting, and the swearing. And to me, they were straightforward people. Because they’d row with you today and speak to you tomorrow. They didn’t hold it against you. See, I’m a type of person can’t hold rows with people, I just want to be friends, you know.
Once, Me & Adele went down Brick Lane to the market and Sweary Mary was in front of us. We were in our welly boots and our overalls. They had these big stalls down Wentworth Street on a Friday or a Thursday, and we saw Mary – well I tell you what, I’ve never run from nobody. I said to Adele, ‘Look, Sweary Mary’s in front.’ Adele shouts out ‘Sweary Mary!’ Oh, she just turned round and shouted at us ‘F*** off, you Truman’s whores.’ Oh, did we laugh. I mean, it’s not nice really, but that was us. We couldn’t do it today. When you got home you were a different person because you were in your family.
If someone phoned me up and said ‘Pam, there is a permanent vacancy at Truman’s, would you do it?’ The answer’d be, ‘Yes.’ I’d probably go with one leg. You had your ups and downs but there was no violence and – the beer! It was nobody’s business.
Terry, the bloke I gave the peppers to, he was a comedian. It was so hot in the bottling plant that all we had on was our cross-over aprons and our bras and pants. I had a high chair, and I had to grab these cans and pull them forward. One day, he came behind my chair and – this is all because of the pepper in the cheese and tomato roll – I knew he’d get me back, but he didn’t get me straight away. He took my chair and tipped it upside down over a container for old cardboard boxes. He shook me, picking me up and throwing me off my chair into the big container. I couldn’t get out, my friends had to pass me wooden boxes so I could make steps to get out. Well you know, it was dangerous.
Yes, we had a bad name. Like I told you, my husband didn’t want me to go there because of the bad name. But it doesn’t mean to say you’re all the same. Yes, I had a laugh and joke, I’m not saying I didn’t. As I said, that bloke Terry got hold of me, he turned me upside down, my boobs went over my shoulders, and I didn’t think nothing of it. But my husband – to this day – he never knew. I didn’t see harm in it. But no, it was good, I loved it. Honest, I loved it. If it hadn’t closed down, I would still be there. I would probably be the sweeper-up!
My husband died after I left Truman’s but I had already met Bernie, and the marriage was already on the rocks. I left him in the end. I always said, ‘Once my children grow up, I’m off.’ And when my children got married, the last one, I was off. And that is how I met Bernie.
At first, they all thought that he was a policeman and I knew that thieving was going on, pinching beer. So he came in one morning and he had navy trousers on, and Adele said to me, ‘Pam, there’s a policeman in here.’ So I said, ‘What do you mean, a policeman?’ I went to him ‘Oi, are you a policeman?’ and he said, ‘No.’ Of course, when we saw him in the morning, we used to shout, ‘Morning, Officer!’ But it’s true, his father was a police sergeant at Chequers and he grew up there. We always said he was a bit of a snob.
I’m eighty-three and Bernie’ll be fifty-eight this year. We just hit it off, age didn’t make any difference. We clicked from that day we met. And he is good as gold. It was fate. I say to myself, ‘It’s fate you meeting Bernie, he wanted a bottling girl.’ He’s been in a lot of places, Bernie. He met Harold Wilson and – who’s that other prime minister? But that’s another story…”
Pamela Cilia at home in Rainham – ” I’m eighty-three and still as lively as if I was twenty-one.”
Labels courtesy Stephen Killick
Transcript by Jennifer Winkler
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First Brew at the New Truman’s Brewery
Tony Jack, Chauffeur at Truman’s Brewery
The Return Of David Prescott
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David standing outside 103 Commercial St in the mid-sixties
Growing up in the large flat above the Spitalfields Market at 103 Commercial St, with school and the family business nearby, David had run of the neighbourhood and he found it offered an ideal playground. One day in the sixties, David leaned out of the window and made his mark by spraying painting onto a flower in the terracotta frieze upon the front of the nineteenth century market building. Astonishingly, the white-painted flower is still clearly discernible in Commercial St half a century later, indicating the centre of David’s childhood world.
No wonder then that David chose to keep returning to his home territory, working in the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market until it closed in 1991. These days, he is amazed at the changes since he lived and worked here but – as long as the white-painted flower remains on Commercial St – for David, Spitalfields remains the location of his personal childhood landscape.
“Albert, my grandfather, ran fruit & vegetable shops down in Belvedere, and he used to come up to Spitalfields Market with his horse and cart to buy produce. So my father ‘Bert and his brother Reg decided to start a business in a little warehouse in Tenterground. Upstairs, there were prostitutes and men in bowler hats would come over from the City and look around, circumspect, before going upstairs.
They traded as R A Prescott, which was the initials of the two brothers, Reginald & Albert, but also my grandfather’s initials – which meant they could say they had been going over a hundred years already. They started in Spitalfields in 1952 but, when I was born in 1954, my father took the flat over the market at 103 Commercial St opposite the Ten Bells. Mickey Davis, who ran the shelter at the Fruit & Wool Exchange during the war lived in the flat below, but he had died in 1953 so we just knew his wife and two daughters.
I went to St Joseph’s School in Gun St and I loved it because all my friends lived nearby, in Gun St and Flower & Dean St, and I went to the youth club at Toynbee Hall. I used to walk through the market and everyone knew me – and since my sister, Sylvia, was six years older, they always teased – asking, ‘Where’s your sister?’
We never locked the doors except when we went to bed at night. One day, we came home and found a woman asleep in the living room and my dad sent her on her way. I used to climb up out from our flat and take my dog for a walk across the roof of the market, until the market police shouted at me and put up barbed wire to stop me doing it. Our mums and dads didn’t know what we were up to half the time. We made castles inside the stacks of empty wooden boxes that had been returned to the market.
I remember there was was a guy with a large bump on his head who used to shout and chase us. It would start on Brick Lane and end up in Whitechapel. There was another guy with a tap on his head and one who was shell-shocked. These poor guys, it was only later we realised that they had mental problems.We threw tomatoes, and we put potatoes on wires and spun them fast to let them fly.
In 1966, me and my pal Alan Crockett were in ‘The London Nobody Knows.’ They said, ‘Do you want to be in a film? We want you to run down the street and pile into a fight.’
My dad died of lung cancer when I was fifteen in 1969, but my mum was able to stay on in the flat. He got ill in April and died in August in St Joseph’s Hospice in Mare St. I left school and went to work with my uncle. By then, Prescotts had moved over to 38 Spital Sq. They weren’t part of the market, they supplied catering companies with peeled potatoes and they bought a machine to shell peas and were the first to offer them already podded. I worked with my elder brother Michael too, he set up on his own at 57 Brushfield St, but then he moved to Barnhurst in Kent and bought a three bedroom house. I became a van boy at Telfers, I used to leave home at half past two in the morning to get to Greenwich where they had a yard, by three to start work.
In 1972, we left the flat in Spitalfields and moved to a house in Kingston, and I worked for Hawker Siddley – they trained me as an engineer. But I missed the market so much, I had to come back. I got a job with Chiswick Fruits in the Fruit & Wool Exchange and then I went back to Prescotts. I was working at the Spitalfields Market in 1991 when they moved out to Leyton, but it was’t the same there and, by 2000, I’d had enough of the market. In those days, you could walk out of one job and straight into another. I must have had thirty to forty jobs.“
R A Prescott of 38 Spital Sq
David as a baby at 103 Commercial St in 1955
David at five years old at his brother Michael’s wedding in Poplar in 1959
David with his mum, Kathleen, playing with the dog in the yard at the back of the market flat
David’s sister Sylvia, who went to St Victoire’s Grammar School in Victoria Park
David is centre right in the front row at St Joseph’s School, Gun St
In 1966, David and his pal Alan Crockett were in ‘The London Nobody Knows.’ This shot shows Alan (leading) and David (behind) running down Lolesworth St.
Christmas at 103 Commercial St in 1967
David’s mother Kathleen and his father ‘Bert on holiday in 1968
David stands on the far right at his sister Sylvia’s wedding at St Anne’s, Underwood Rd, in 1964
David leaned out of his window and sprayed paint onto this flower in 1964
Looking south across the Spitalfields Market
Spitalfields Market empty at the weekend
Spital Sq after the demolition of Central Foundation School
The Flower Market at Spitalfields Market
From the roof of Spitlafields Flower Market looking towards Folgate St
Clearing out on the last day of the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market in 1991
David stands in the Spitalfields Market today beneath the window that was once his childhood bedroom
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William Kent’s Arch In Bow
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‘a poignant vestige from a catalogue of destruction’
Ever since I first discovered William Kent’s beautiful lonely arch in Bow, I want to go back to take a photograph of it whenever the wisteria is in bloom. For a couple of years circumstances conspired to prevent me, but eventually I was able to do so and here you can admire the result without needing to leave your home.
This fine eighteenth century rusticated arch designed by the celebrated architect and designer William Kent was originally part of Northumberland House, the London residence of the Percy family in the Strand which was demolished in 1874. Then the arch was installed in the garden of the Tudor House in St Leonard’s Street, Bow, by George Gammon Rutty before it was moved here to the Bromley by Bow Centre in 1997, where it makes a magnificent welcoming entrance today.
The Tudor House was purchased in a good condition of preservation from the trustees of George Gammon Rutty after his death in 1898 by the London County Council, who chose to demolish it and turn the gardens into a public park. At this point, there were two statues situated at the foot of each of the pillars of the arch but they went missing in the nineteen-forties. One of the last surviving relics of the old village of Bromley by Bow, the house derived its name from a member of the Tudor family who built it in the late sixteenth century adjoining the Old Palace and both were lovingly recorded by CR Ashbee in the first volume of the Survey of London in 1900.
The Survey was created by Ashbee, while he was living in Bow running the Guild of Handicrafts at Essex House (another sixteenth century house nearby that was demolished), in response to what he saw as the needless loss of the Old Palace and other important historic buildings. Today, only William Kent’s arch remains as a poignant vestige from a catalogue of destruction.
William Kent (1685 –1748) Architect, landscape and furniture designer
Northumberland House by Canaletto, 1752
Northumberland House shortly before demolition, 1874
William Kent’s arch in the grounds of the Tudor House, Bow, in 1900 with its attendant statues, as illustrated in the first volume of the Survey of London by CR Ashbee (Image courtesy Survey of London/ Bishopsgate Institute)
William Kent’s arch at St Leonard’s Street, Bromley by Bow
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Hackney Mosaic Project In Regent’s Park
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Creators of the mosaic, Lisa Werner, Jackie Ormond, Gallina Sheke, Robin Pritchard, Ken Edwards, Janice Desler, Katrina & Iris Harvey, Gabi Liers, Rada Stilianova, Rose Woolmer & Tessa Hunkin
I cycled over to Regent’s Park to visit my friends at Hackney Mosaic Project as they celebrated the unveiling of their latest masterpiece in the children’s playground at the Parkway entrance, Camden Town.
Designer Tessa Hunkin and her team have conjured an elegant circular pavement within a pergola where children play on rainy days. Divided in slices like a pie, the design features whimsical images of the wild creatures who inhabit the park desporting themselves at play in a pastoral scene – hedgehogs flying a kite, a heron with a hula hoop, a squirrel blowing bubbles, a fox balancing a ball on his nose, and more.
‘The design was approved by the end of 2022,’ Tessa Hunkin explained to me, ‘so we were able to start work after Christmas. Our team took on the task with incredible enthusiasm and it was all finished in three months. Installation was delayed by the unsettled weather but we finally got three dry days and Walter Bernardin, the master mosaic fixer, was able to complete the job with his usual skill.’
THE HACKNEY MOSAIC PROJECT is seeking commissions, so if you would like a mosaic please get in touch hackneymosaic@gmail.com
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The Mosaic Makers of Hackney Downs
The Award-Winning Mosaic Makers of Hackney
Save JC Motors Of Haggerston
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Leonard Maloney
Please support Leonard Maloney and his staff at JC Motors. Working from a railway arch in Haggerston, Len and his colleagues provide an invaluable and affordable service to drivers as well as offering training in skilled employment to dozens of young people. Thus JC Motors fulfils an important social function alongside a necessary service to customers, and Len has been recognised by local residents and celebrated the Mayor of Hackney for his important contribution to the community.
Yet Len’s business is under threat. In 2017, Transport for London who own the arches confronted Len with an annual rent increase from £22,000 to £72,000. Such an increase makes Len’s business unviable since he cannot increase charges to the customers to cover it or increase the volume of repairs in the space he has.
Since then – with the support of East End Trades Guild – Len has been trying to negotiate a sustainable rent but instead TfL have just been clocking up £70,000 of ‘arrears’ and now are threatening eviction if he does not pay by this Friday June 9th.
We urge readers sign this letter to Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, asking him to intervene and save JC Motors.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE LETTER IN SUPPORT OF LEN MALONEY & JC MOTORS
“I’ve spent my whole working life here in the arches,” Len admitted to me, when Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I visited him. He spoke placidly, shook our hands in welcome and made relaxed eye contact when we arrived at his garage, and I was immediately aware how tidy and ordered the place was.
A peaceful atmosphere of mutual respect and concentration prevailed – a white camper van was up in the air undergoing maintenance beneath and the boot of a red sports car was open while repair was undertaken. Len & I sat on two car seats at the rear of the arch to chat while Sarah photographed the motor engineers at work.
JC Motors has been serving customers for more than decade at this location and earned a reputation in the neighbourhood for honest pricing and reliability, and many of his mechanics are local people who have joined through placements and schemes. Everything might appear as it should be, yet there is an air of poignancy since Len – in common with many other businesses under the railways arches – lives with uncertainty since all the arches were sold off.
“Everything is becoming coffee bars around here now,” Len informed me in regret, “and it seems our job has become seen as ‘dirty’ and we’re no longer wanted any more now that it’s become posh.”
“My dad had an old Austin Cambridge that he used to repair at weekends and that gave me a taste for this work. I’ve always loved taking things apart and putting them back together, and the smell of diesel oil has been attractive to me for as long as I can remember.
In 1981, I was sent on a day release from Danesford School to Hackney College where I met Barry Carlisle who specialised in repairing minis, and in the evenings I came to work for him in an arch here in Haggerston. Then Joe Chee came long and saw me working on a Volkswagen Camper van and he said, ‘If ever you need a job, come and see me.’
At first when I left school, I went to work for Barry but he had an accident and lost an eye, so then I had to go back to Joe Chee and we began working together in 1982. He was foreman at a Volkswagen garage in St John’s Wood. We made a great team and I learnt a lot from him. We started a body shop off the Kingsland Rd and a shop selling Volkswagen parts. That was fantastic and it carried on until 1999. He did the paperwork and sold the parts and I ran the bodyshop, and we collected lots of customers and took on three apprentices. But eventually Joe Chee got ill and passed away and I couldn’t run the whole business, so I closed the shop and continued with the garage.
I began taking on local young people through the Inspire Hackney scheme and now my son Miles is working with me. Everyone has their job to do and they know where the parts are and I have taught them what to do. Some customers bring their cars in and just tell me to repair whatever needs doing, but I also get single mums who don’t have a lot of money and I can just repair what is necessary to keep the car safe. I’ve had mums bring in their kids in prams and then the kids come back to me to ask advice when the time comes to get their first car.”
The team at J C Motors
Joe Chee is commemorated in the name of the company ‘JC Motors’, followed by Leonard’s initials
Miles Maloney
Len’s own beetle that he hopes to restore one day
Mr Bramble, Motor Engineer
Mr Singh, Motor Engineer
Hakeem Saunders – “I’ve been here since I was thirteen”
Adnan Leal
Leonard & his son Miles
Leonard Maloney
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
J C Motors LDM, 332 Stean St, Haggerston, E8 4ED
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Israel Bidermanas’ London
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Lithuanian-born Israel Bidermanas (1911-1980) first achieved recognition under the identity of Izis for his portraits of members of the French resistance that he took while in hiding near Limoges at the time of the German invasion. Encouraged by Brassai, he pursued a career as a professional photographer in peacetime, fulfilling commissions for Paris Match and befriending Jacques Prévert and Marc Chagall. He and Prévert were inveterate urban wanderers and in 1952 they published ‘Charmes de Londres,’ delivering this vivid and poetic vision of the shabby old capital in the threadbare post-war years.
In the cemetery of St John, Wapping
Milk cart in Gordon Sq, Bloomsbury
At Club Row animal market, Spitalfields
The Nag’s Head, Kinnerton St, W1
In Pennyfields, Limehouse
Palace St, Westminster
Ties on sale in Ming St, Limehouse
Greengrocer, Kings Rd, Chelsea
Diver in the London Docks
Organ Grinder, Shaftesbury Ave, Piccadilly
Sphinx, Chiswick Park
Hampden Crescent, W2
Underhill Passage, Camden Town
Braithwaite Arches, Wheler St, Spitalfields
East India Dock Rd, Limehouse
Musical instrument seller, Petticoat Lane
Grosvenor Crescent Mews, Hyde Park Corner
Unloading in the London Docks
London Electricity Board Apprentices
On the waterfront at Greenwich
Tower Bridge
Photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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