From Andy Strowman’s Album
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Andy Strowman, poet of Stepney, sent me these photos and the stories which accompany them.
Uncle Dave
Uncle Dave came to visit us from time to time. Maybe my mum knew in advance, it was like having royalty come to see you.
One time he came over during his work lunchtime and my mum made him something to eat, like chicken soup. I told him I was going back his way, so we went together to Whitechapel Station. He was just about to get off at Aldgate East Station when I announced that I was going for a job interview.
“Shush!” he said,” Someone will get there before you!’
“Before you go in, take your raincoat off and fold it neatly draped over your arm.”
I got the job! It was only washing up, but Uncle Dave gave me the confidence.
Another time, when Uncle Dave and I had not long left the synagogue on the holiest night of the year, the Jewish New Year, in Hebrew Rosh Hashonah, a drunk man approached us, and his stormy face and mad rolling eyes made me, a boy of about eight, very frightened.
Uncle Dave pointed upwards at the night sky with its dazzling stars like a Van Gogh painting and uttered, “Look! Look up there!” As the drunk man searched the sky, Uncle Dave pulled my arm and we escaped.
When seventeen, that came in very handy in rescuing me from peril.
Bar Mitzvah
My mum and dad were so excited, they hired caterers to come to our poor house in Milward St. I had never seem so much food and drink for our family and guests in my life. Before the event, the synagogue service and all the family guests, the news was published in the Jewish Chronicle.
My mum was frantic, it was a lot of stress. My grandfather who lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and was originally from Ukraine came over for the bar mitzvah.
My friend and I sat on the stairs while all the grown-ups drank and talk. So much noise, it was like a wood-machining factory.
Uncle Jack
I like to remember the happy stories associated with him, like meeting my two young sons with giant Cadbury’s dairy milk bars. His generosity, such as when my mum was in hospital in Epsom, one of the patients needed their trousers mended and my uncle volunteered to do it, and brought them back to him.
His generosity was amplified by my friend Alan. Both were compulsive gamblers. After visiting the racecourse, Alan got off at Charing Cross main line station, a woman approached him and asked him for money. She said she was in a desperate state, so he gave her generously and she wanted to repay him.
One sunny day, Alan was sitting on a bench in Soho when this same woman came and repaid him.
Auntie Tina
Mental health can be a cruel teacher. Sadly, both my mum, Auntie Tina (Uncle Jack’s wife), Uncle Barney, and myself, have all had our share of it. Some can be attributed to circumstances, others to inherent cause but Auntie Tina had both.
Living in a high rise block of flats with disturbing neighbours nearby, being spat at in the lift, social isolation, can only lead to one thing. Her life was shorted much like Uncle Barney’s was.
Tina had come from Lisbon and had known more graceful days. The epiphany of lack of caring support and people hardly knowing neighbours, the ultimate question being, “Who could you ask among them if you have a serious problem?”
Reg & Valerie Parrish
Reg entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as part of the liberating forces. After what he saw there, all the dead bodies and Jewish people looking like skeletons, he vowed never to have any children and bring them into this world. Reg kept his word.
His sister, I believe her name was Valerie, was a member of ENSA, that entertained army troops during the war. She said, “We often ran the same risk as the soldiers in the war, and were caught up in shooting and bombing raids.”
Mum & Dad
My mum and dad were among the black cab taxi drivers who took children to the seaside for the day. These were children from care homes. In their case, the children were from Norwood Jewish care home.
The taxis were festooned with balloons and travelled as a long convoy to the seaside. There they had a good time – the children were fed and no doubt got an ice cream! I must admit to being jealous as going to the seaside was such a rare treat. To this day, the event still takes place by London taxi drivers. The Norwood home is I believe now closed though.
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David Johnson’s Cafes
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Fredson’s Cafe, Alie St
David Johnson took these magnificent photographs of cafes in Kodachrome around 1980, published here for the first time today.
“When I lived in East London, I started this project to photograph some classic cafes, mainly in the East End – but also elsewhere as I came across them in my travels. I think it was the sign-writing and eclectic typography which were the main attractions. I realised that they were not going to be around much longer. Many were run by Italian families who started up in the post-war period. Annoyingly, I did not make a note of the locations – so if you can help, please leave a comment.”
David Johnson
Aeron Cafe
Bridge Cafe
Corner Parlour
Alfredo’s Cafe, Islington
Sign at Alfredo’s Cafe
Flock-In
Gee’s Cafe
George’s Cafe, Whitechapel
The Happy Fillet
Jim’s Cafe, Islington
Jubilee Cafe
Moon & Sixpence Cafe
Norman’s Nosh Bar
Norman’s Nosh Bar
Phyllis’s Cafe
Silvio Cafe
The Ninety Eight
The Village Rest
Viking Cafe
Magno Cafe
Leslie’s Cafe
Crawford Cafe
Cafe
Empire Cafe
Photographs copyright © David Johnson
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David Johnson’s East End
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Liverpool St Station
Shall we take a tour around the East End in the early eighties in the company of David Johnson, courtesy of his wonderful Kodachrome images published here for the first time?
“My interest in London’s history goes back to the late sixties, when as a teenager I would take the train from Oxford and then, using a Red Bus Rover ticket and a copy of Geoffrey Fletcher’s The London Nobody Knows, discover some of the most interesting and off-beat parts of the capital. In 1977, seeking a job after graduating and with a strong interest in photography, I ended up in London selling cameras in Tottenham Court Rd. I first explored the old wharves and docklands before they disappeared and then, after moving to Dalston, the East End. Derelict buildings, faded signs, architecture on a human scale are all things which I liked to photograph then – and still do today.”
David Johnson
Liverpool St Station
Liverpool St Station
Liverpool St Station
Artillery Lane
Brushfield St
Christ Church Spitalfields
Fashion St
Spitalfields barber
Hanbury St
Brick Lane
Homeless men in Spitalfields
The City from Spitalfields
Whitechapel Market
Wapping Police Station
Wapping
St Paul’s School, Wellclose Sq
Wapping High St
River Plate Wharf
Wapping
Wapping Pier Head
The Gun, Isle of Dogs
The Black Horse, Limehouse
Grove Place, Hackney
Empress Coaches, Hackney
Regent’s Canal
Cat & Mutton Bridge
Broadway Market
Broadway Market
George Tallet, Fishmonger, Hackney
Carr’s Pet Stores, Hackney
Trederwen Rd, Hackney
Photographs copyright © David Johnson
Dorothy Annan’s Murals
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1. Radio communications and television
Wandering down under Holborn Viaduct years ago, I was halted in my tracks by the beauty of a series of nine large ceramic murals upon the frontage of Eric Bedford’s elegant modernist Fleet House of 1960 at 70 Farringdon St. Their lichen and slate tones suited the occluded afternoon and my mood. Yet even as I savoured their austere grace, I raised my eyes to discover that the edifice was boarded up prior to demolition.
Thankfully, the murals were moved to a new location in the Barbican – where they lighten a gloomy passage and bring joy to thousands every day, both residents of the estate and visitors to the arts centre alike.
Each of the murals was constructed of forty bulky stoneware panels and it was their texture that first drew my attention, emphasising the presence of the maker. Framed in steel and set in bays defined by pieces of sandstone, this handcrafted modernism counterbalanced the austere geometry of the building to sympathetic effect.
Appropriately for the telephone exchange where the first international direct-dialled call was made – by Lord Mayor of London Sir Ralph Perring to Monsieur Jacques Marette, the French Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones in Paris at 11am on 8th March 1963 – these reliefs celebrated the wonders of communication as an heroic human endeavour. In 1961, the General Post Office Telephonist Recruitment Centre was housed there at Fleet House and they paid telephonists £11 week, plus a special operating allowance of six shillings and threepence for those employed on the international exchange.
These appealing works, enriching the urban landscape with a complex visual poetry, were created by Dorothy Annan (1908-1983) a painter and ceramicist with a Bohemian reputation who, earlier in the century, produced pictures in a loose post-impressionist style and was married to the sculptor Trevor Tennant. Although her work is unapologetic in declaring the influence of Ben Nicholson and Paul Klee, she succeeded in constructing a personal visual language which is distinctive and speaks across time, successfully tempering modernism with organic forms and a natural palette.
It was the abstract qualities of these murals that first caught my eye, even though on closer examination many contain figurative elements, illustrating aspects of communication technology – motifs of aerials and wires which are subsumed to the rhythmic play of texture and tone.
Once a proud showcase for the future of telecommunications, Fleet House had been empty for years and was the property of Goldman Sachs who won permission to demolish it for the construction of a ‘banking factory.’ I feared that the murals might go the same way as Dorothy Annan’s largest single work entitled ‘Expanding Universe’ at the Bank of England which was destroyed in 1997.
Yet the City of London planning authority earmarked the murals for preservation as a condition of any development. And today, you can visit them at the Barbican where they have found a sympathetic new permanent home, complementing the modernist towers, bringing detail and subtle colour to enliven this massive complex. The age of heroic telephony may have passed but Dorothy Annan’s murals survive as a tribute to it.
2. Cables and communication in buildings
3. Test frame for linking circuits
4. Cable chamber with cables entering from street
5. Cross connection frame
6. Power and generators
7. Impressions derived from the patterns produced in cathode ray oscilligraphs used in testing
8. Lines over the countryside
9. Overseas communication showing cable buoys
Dorothy Annan’s murals upon Fleet House, Farringdon St, November 2011
Dorothy Annan’s murals at the Barbican Centre
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Philip Lindsay Clark’s Sculptures in Widegate St
Whitechapel Lads
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These portraits were taken around 1900 at the Working Lads Institute, known today as the Whitechapel Mission. Founded in 1876, the Institute offered a home to young men who had been involved in petty criminal activity, rehabilitating them through working at the Mission which tended to the poor and needy in Whitechapel. Once a lad had proved himself, he was able to seek independent employment with the support and recommendation of the Institute.
The Working Lads Institute was the first of its kind in London to admit black people and Rev Thomas Jackson, the founder, is pictured here with five soldiers at the time of World War I
Stained glass window with a figure embodying ‘Industry’ as an inspiration to the lads
In the dormitory
Rev Thomas Jackson & the lads collect for the Red Cross outside the Mission
Click here to learn more about The Whitechapel Mission
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George Parrin, Ice Cream Seller
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‘I’ve been on a bike since I was two’
I first encountered Ice Cream Seller, George Parrin, coming through Whitechapel Market on his bicycle. Even before I met him, his cry of ‘Lovely ice cream, home made ice cream – stop me and buy one!’ announced his imminent arrival and then I saw his red and white umbrella bobbing through the crowd towards us. George told me that Whitechapel is the best place to sell ice cream in the East End and, observing the looks of delight spreading through the crowd, I witnessed the immediate evidence of this.
Such was the demand on that hot summer afternoon that George had to cycle off to get more supplies, so it was not possible for me to do an interview. Instead, we agreed to meet next day outside the Beigel Bakery on Brick Lane where trade was a little quieter. On arrival, George popped into the bakery and asked if they would like some ice cream and, once he had delivered a cup of vanilla ice, he emerged triumphant with a cup of tea and a salt beef beigel. ‘Fair exchange is no robbery!’ he declared with a hungry grin as he took a bite into his lunch.
“I first came down here with my dad when I was eight years old. He was a strongman and a fighter, known as ‘Kid Parry.’ Twice, he fought Bombardier Billy Wells, the man who struck the gong for Rank Films. Once he beat him and once he was beaten, but then he beat two others who beat Billy, so indirectly my father beat him.
In those days you needed to be an actor or entertainer if you were in the markets. My dad would tip a sack of sand in the floor and pour liquid carbolic soap all over it. Then he got a piece of rotten meat with flies all over it and dragged it through the sand. The flies would fly away and then he sold the sand by the bag as a fly repellent.
I was born in Hampstead, one of thirteen children. My mum worked all her life to keep us going. She was a market trader, selling all kinds of stuff, and she collected scrap metal, rags, woollens and women’s clothes in an old pram and sold it wholesale. My dad was to and fro with my mum, but he used to come and pick me up sometimes, and I worked with him. When I was nine, just before my dad died, we moved down to Queens Rd, Peckham.
I’ve been on a bike since I was two, and at three years old I had my own three-wheeler. I’ve always been on a bike. On my fifteenth birthday, I left school and started work. At first, I had a job for a couple of months delivering meat around Wandsworth by bicycle for Brushweilers the Butcher, but then I worked for Charles, Greengrocers of Belgravia delivering around Chelsea, and I delivered fruit and vegetables to the Beatles and Mick Jagger.
At sixteen years old, I started selling hot chestnuts outside Earls Court with Tony Calefano, known as ‘Tony Chestnuts.’ I lived in Wandsworth then, so I used to cycle over the river each day. I worked for him for four years and then I made my own chestnut can. In the summer, Tony used to sell ice cream and he was the one that got me into it.
I do enjoy it but it’s hard work. A ten litre tub of ice cream weighs 40lbs and I might carry eight tubs in hot weather plus the weight of the freezer and two batteries. I had thirteen ice cream barrows up the West End but it got so difficult with the police. They were having a purge, so they upset all my barrows and spoilt the ice cream. After that, Margaret Thatcher changed the law and street traders are now the responsibility of the council. The police here in Brick Lane are as sweet as a nut to me.
I bought a pair of crocodiles in the Club Row animal market once. They’re docile as long as you keep them in the water but when they’re out of it they feel vulnerable and they’re dangerous. I can’t remember what I did with mine when they got large. I sell watches sometimes. If anybody wants a watch, I can go and get it for them. In winter, I make jewellery with shells from the beach in Spain, matching earrings with ‘Hello’ and ‘Hola’ carved into them. I’m thinking of opening a pie and mash shop in Spain.
I am happy to give out ice creams to people who haven’t got any money and I only charge pensioners a pound. Whitechapel is best for me. I find the Asian people are very generous when it comes to spending money on their children, so I make a good living off them. They love me and I love them.”
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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Matyas Selmeczi, Silhouette Artist
A Cat In The Dog Days
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While Londoners luxuriate in the warmth of high summer, I miss my old cat Mr Pussy who endured the hindrance of a fur coat, spending his languorous days stretched out upon the floor in a heat-induced stupor.
As the sun reached its zenith, his activity declined and he sought the deep shadow, the cooling breeze and the bare wooden floor to stretch out and fall into a deep trance that could transport him far away to the loss of his physical being. Mr Pussy’s refined nature was such that even these testing conditions provided an opportunity for him to show grace, transcending dreamy resignation to explore an area of meditation of which he was the supreme proponent.
In the early morning and late afternoon, you would see him on the first floor window sill here in Spitalfields, taking advantage of the draught of air through the house. With his aristocratic attitude, Mr Pussy took amusement in watching the passersby from his high vantage point on the street frontage and enjoyed lapping water from his dish on the kitchen window sill at the back of the house, where in the evenings he also liked to look down upon the foxes gambolling in the yard.
Whereas in winter it was Mr Pussy’s custom to curl up in a ball to exclude drafts, in these balmy days he preferred to stretch out to maximize the air flow around his body. There was a familiar sequence to his actions, as particular as stages in yoga. Finding a sympathetic location with the advantage of cross currents and shade from direct light, at first Mr Pussy sat to consider the suitability of the circumstance before rolling onto his side and releasing the muscles in his limbs, revealing that he was irrevocably set upon the path of total relaxation.
Delighting in the sensuous moment, Mr Pussy stretched out to his maximum length of over three feet long, curling his spine and splaying his legs at angles, creating an impression of the frozen moment of a leap, just like those wooden horses on fairground rides. Extending every muscle and toe, his glinting claws unsheathed and his eyes widened gleaming gold, until the stretch reached it full extent and subsided in the manner of a wave upon the ocean, as Mr Pussy slackened his limbs to lie peacefully with heavy lids descending.
In this position that resembled a carcass on the floor, Mr Pussy could undertake his journey into dreams, apparent by his twitching eyelids and limbs as he ran through the dark forest of his feline unconscious where prey were to be found in abundance. Vulnerable as an infant, sometimes Mr Pussy cried to himself in his dream, an internal murmur of indeterminate emotion, evoking a mysterious fantasy that I could never be party to. It was somewhere beyond thought or language. I could only wonder if his arcadia was like that in Paolo Uccello’s “Hunt in the Forest” or whether Mr Pussy’s dreamscape resembled the watermeadows of the River Exe, the location of his youthful safaris.
There was another stage, beyond dreams, signalled when Mr Pussy rolled onto his back with his front paws distended like a child in the womb, almost in prayer. His back legs splayed to either side, his head tilted back, his jaw loosened and his mouth opened a little, just sufficient to release his shallow breath – and Mr Pussy was gone. Silent and inanimate, he looked like a baby and yet very old at the same time. The heat relaxed Mr Pussy’s connection to the world and he fell, he let himself go far away on a spiritual odyssey. It was somewhere deep and somewhere cool, he was out of his body, released from the fur coat at last.
Startled upon awakening from his trance, like a deep-sea diver ascending too quickly, Mr Pussy squinted at me as he recovered recognition, giving his brains a good shake, once the heat of the day had subsided. Lolloping down the stairs, still loose-limbed, he strolled out of the house into the garden and took a dust bath under a tree, spending the next hour washing it out and thereby cleansing the sticky perspiration from his fur.
Regrettably the climatic conditions that subdued Mr Pussy by day, also enlivened him by night. At first light, when the dawn chorus commenced, he stood on the floor at my bedside, scratched a little and called to me. I woke to discover two golden eyes filling my field of vision. I rolled over at my peril, because this provoked Mr Pussy to walk to the end of the bed and scratch my toes sticking out under the sheet, causing me to wake again with a cry of pain. I miss having no choice but to rise, accepting his forceful invitation to appreciate the manifold joys of early morning in summer in Spitalfields, because it was not an entirely unwelcome obligation.
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Mr Pussy Gives his First Interview
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