Sylvester Mittee, Welterweight Champion
Sylvester Mittee
I shall never forget my visit to Sylvester Mittee, unquestionably one of the most charismatic and generous of interviewees. We met in his multicoloured flat in Hackney where Sylvester keeps his collection of hats that he waterproofs by painting with the excess gloss paint left over from decorating his walls. During the course of our interview I began to go blind due to a migraine, yet Sylvester cured me by pummelling my back as a form of massage. Thanks to Sylvester’s therapy, I was bruised for weeks afterwards but my migraine was dispelled, and I came away with this remarkable interview.
“666 is my birth number, and my mother got scared until a priest told her that 666 is God’s number. I was called “spirit” back then. My mother, she went to the marketplace a few months before I arrived. She told people she could already feel me kicking and they said, “I think it’s the devil you got in there!”
My father was born in 1906, he was a very sober man and he liked to give beatings. He especially liked to beat me and I learnt to take it. He came to Britain from St Lucia in 1961, he’s passed away now. My mother still lives in St Lucia, she was born in 1926, she’s a tough old girl.
1966, 1976 and 1986 were important years for me, and at school nobody got more sixes than I did. Six is the number of truth and love and enlightenment. The only time I believed six was unlucky was when I was ill and life wasn’t happening for me.
I’ve been fighting for my life since I stepped off that banana boat at Southampton in 1962. Does a banana boat sound primitive? Ours had air-conditioning and a swimming pool.
My dad worked his bollocks off, doing everything he could to keep us alive. At first, he had a place in Hackney, then he rented a little run-down one bedroom flat in Bethnal Green, with my parents in one room and eight kids in the other, two girls and six boys. We had to live very close in them days. I came from St Lucia with my mum and dad in 1962 and my four sisters came in 1964 and my remaining four brothers in 1966.
When I came to England racism was bare. The kids in the playground ganged up on me and outnumbered me and they attacked me. Nobody did anything about it, parents, teachers, nobody. There was etiquette in fighting back home, but there was none of that in England. I was taught that you let people get up and you don’t hit people when they are down. But, if somebody hits you, you hit them back – that’s how I was brought up. I had to learn to fight. And I had to be good at it to survive. I had no choice. I fought to live and boxing became my life.
Before I knew how to reason, boxing was a short cut. The demons that you have inside, they control you unless you can think in a philosophical way. Boxing becomes a microcosm of the world when you are exposed to the extreme highs and lows of this life.
The experiences that boxing gave me have allowed me to grow. I’m like a tree and the punches I throw are the leaves I drop, so boxing is like photosynthesis for me. I fulfill my immediate needs, but I can also recognise my greater needs, and it is a chance to grow stronger.
Boxing is an opportunity to profess your philosophy through your actions and discover who you truly are. We are born into a part in life and expected to play our part bravely, and I am playing my part as good as I can. Boxing taught me how to grasp life. But the achievement is not in the winning, the enterprise will only hurt you if you seek perfection. I was European Welterweight Champion, but I say boxing just helped me get my bearings in life.
The boys in the playground who beat me, they were the ones who bought tickets to see me fight and they were cheering me on, supporting me. It gave me heart. I like to think it changed them, made them better people. I am a youth worker now in Hackney, and I also go to old people’s homes to do fitness classes and mobility exercises. Those kids that fought me in the playground and beat me, they live around me still. Now they are grown up and I work with some of their kids, and they come to me and tell me their parents remember me from school.”
Sylvester Mittee, European Welterweight Champion 1985.
Sylvester in his living room.
Sylvester on the cover of Boxing New 1985.
Photographs copyright © Alex Sturrock
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Mortlake Jugs
Once, every household in London possessed an ale jug, in the days before it was safe to drink water or tea became widely affordable. These cheaply-produced salt-glazed stoneware items, that could be bought for a shilling or less, were prized for their sprigged decoration and often painstakingly repaired to extend their lives, and even prized for their visual appeal when broken and no longer of use.
All these jugs from the collection of Philip Mernick were produced in Mortlake, when potteries were being set up around London to supply the growing market for these household wares throughout the eighteenth century. The first of the Mortlake potteries was begun by John Sanders and taken over by his son William Sanders in 1745, while the second was opened by Benjamin Kishere who had worked for Sanders, and this was taken over by his son William Kishere in 1834.
These jugs appeal to me with their rich brown colouration that evokes the tones of crusty bread and their lively intricate decoration, mixing images of English country life with Classical motifs reminiscent of Wedgwood. Eighteenth-century Mortlake jugs are distinguished by the attenuated baluster shape that follows the form of ceramics in the medieval world yet is replaced in the early-nineteenth century by the more bulbous form of a jug which is still common today.
There is an attractive organic quality to these highly-wrought yet utilitarian artefacts, encrusted with decorative sprigs like barnacles upon a ship’s hull. They were once universally-familiar objects in homes and ale houses, and in daily use by Londoners of all classes.
1790s ale jug repaired with brass handle and engraved steel rim
A panel of “The Midnight Conversation” after a print by Hogarth
Classical motifs mixed with rural images
A panel of “Cupid’s Procession”
A woman on horseback portrayed on this jug
Agricultural implements and women riders
Toby Fillpot
Panel of Racehorses
Cupid’s procession with George III & Queen Charlotte and Prince of Wales & Caroline of Brunswick
Panel of “Cockerell on the Dungheap”
Panel of “The Two Boors”
Square- based jug of 1800/1810
Toby Fillpot
William Kishere, Pottery Mortlake, Surrey
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John Claridge’s Cafe Society
Commercial Cafe, Commercial Rd 1965
“This was one of those places you could just pop in from the cold and warm up,” photographer John Claridge recalled affectionately while contemplating this beloved cafe of yesteryear, “I love the front of it – it was just beautiful, especially the typography. The window above the curtain used to get all steamed up. It was very welcoming, you know, and it was was gorgeous to come in and have a nice cup of tea.”
In this set of photographs, John shows us his collection of cherished East End cafes, accompanied by some random portraits of people that you might expect to meet in them. “Everywhere you went, you would find a cafe where you could go in and get a bacon sarnie and a cup of tea,” he told me ,“they were not fancy restaurants but you could always rely on getting a cuppa and a sandwich.” In John’s youth, the East End was full of independently-run cafes where everyone could afford to eat, and his pictures celebrate these egalitarian and homely places that were once centres for the life of the community.
“You don’t have to build things up, you just show people the beauty of what is.” John assured me, neatly encapsulating his modest aesthetic which suits these subjects so well.
Pepsi, Narrow St 1963 – “I just love these graphics, and when you see it you hope it’s not going to go.”
Boxing managers at Terry Lawless’ Gym, E16 1969.
Windsor Cafe, 1982.
Windsor Cafe, 1982 – “As I walked past the Windsor Cafe, I looked back and saw ‘Snack Bar or Cafe.’ Genius!”
The Wall, 1961 – “We were all seventeen. At weekends we’d go down Southend. Peter on the left, his sister was going out with Georgie Fame.”
7Up, Spitalfields 1967.
Michael Ferrier, Breaker’s Yard, E16 1975 – “He looks like the artful dodger.”
Alfie Ferrier, Breaker’s Yard, E16 1975 – “Michael’s father was sitting inside the hut with his little wood-burner, where he had his cup of tea and a cigarette.”
Victory Cafe, Hackney Rd 1963 – “This was very early, they’d just delivered the sack of potatoes.”
Ted, Cheshire St 1967 – “This made me laugh, it’s his wardrobe in the background hanging there. It’s as if he’s about to burst into song or something!”
Scrap, Brick Lane 1966.
78b, Spitalfields 1967 – “You remember the lady in the kiosk? This is her with her friend.”
Spitalfields 1963 – “Just a chap standing with his eyes closed. He looked content and I didn’t want to disturb him.”
Father Bill Shergold, founder of 59 Club, at Southend – “I met him at the 59 Club to say hello. And someone wanted me to do a portrait for a charity thing, so I said, ‘Absolutely, we’ll get him down to Southend.'”
Cafe under a railway arch, E1 1968.
Isle of Dogs, 1970s – “This couple with the four kids lived in that tiny caravan. I did this picture for a charity to make people aware of poor living conditions.”
Hot Pies, E2 1982 – “It makes you think twice whether you would eat one of their hot pies.”
Under the Light, Puma Court, Spitalfields 1970 – “Two of my ex-brother-in-laws with Santi, a Spaniard who became a squash champion – we were on the way to the pub. Keith was working at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane at the time and I had a studio in the City, so I said, ‘I’ll meet you after work for a drink.'”
Dog, Wapping – “This was taken for anti-litter campaign and the headline was ‘You foul the pavement more than he does.'”
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
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How To Demolish A Listed Building
113 & 115 Redchurch St
Do you imagine that a listed building is safe from demolition? Then you are wrong, because this is the fate of an important grade II listed 1735 weavers’ house at 113 Redchurch St. It is to be ‘dismantled and reinstated,’ to quote the weasel words of the planning application approved by Tower Hamlets Council, submitted by the owners of the Truman Brewery who own this building as part of their substantial local property portfolio.
If the word ‘demolition’ had been used in the planning application, then consultation with national amenity societies such as the Georgian Group and Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings would be required, yet this is demolition by another name. The authentic character, human detail and historic quality of the building will be lost.
While the fine mansions of the silk merchants in Spitalfields are familiar, the modest houses of the journeymen weavers in Shoreditch and Bethnal Green are far less known. Few have survived, which makes this pair at 113 & 115 Redchurch St that retain many of their original features especially significant.
Peter Guillery’s The Small House in Eighteenth-Century London is the definitive work on the subject. Guillery features these houses which were built by William Farmer, a local carpenter who became a Freeman of the City of London. Guillery writes ‘the absence of information about lower-status housing has led to skewed representations of the housebuilding world of eighteenth century London. These buildings are important representations of an all but ‘craft-less’ vernacular tradition in the metropolis.’
When I visited the Redchurch St weavers’ houses in 2013 in the company of members of the Spitalfields Trust and a Tower Hamlets Conservation Officer, I was impressed to witness the layers of patina and encounter the humble workrooms of the eighteenth century journeymen, unaltered as if the weavers had just left. The dereliction was palpable, yet the buildings were in no worse state than many others rescued locally by the Spitalfields Trust over the past forty years, such as 5 & 7 Elder St in the seventies.
At that time, we were told the owner intended to restore both buildings but wished to remove the dividing wall on the ground floor to permit a retail space occupying both houses. While the Trust welcomed repair of the structures, they would not endorse removal of the ground floor wall, suggesting instead the insertion of a connecting door as a means to achieve the same result without compromising the integrity of the buildings.
How curious then that the Spitalfields Trust – with their acknowledged expertise in this field – were not consulted about the recent planning application for 113 Redchurch St to be ‘dismantled and reinstated.’
Troubling questions arise. Since Tower Hamlets Conservation Officers were aware of the risk, why was a listed property able to decay to the point at which it became ‘too far gone’? Why was no notice served upon the owner to fulfil their obligation to protect a listed building? Why is there to be no oversight or independent supervision of the dismantling of the fabric and its reinstatement?
Most critically, if a listed building such as this can become ‘too far gone’ and then be demolished, does the protection supposedly afforded by Historic England’s listing status mean anything anymore?
In 2020, we saw the demolition of three Regency cottages of 1828-31 beside the Regent’s Canal and the Art Deco Rex Cinema of 1938 in Bethnal Green, described in their planning applications as ‘retention.’ In fact, the cottages have been newly built back in enlarged, altered form while the site of the former cinema remains a hole in the ground. It appears that the word ‘retention’ has come to mean its opposite.
Unfortunately this destructive act is not an isolated incident for the owners of the Truman Brewery. They have a disappointing record in stewardship of the historic properties in their possession. This January, when they obtained their permission to demolish the Redchurch St house, marked the anniversary of an earlier act of vandalism – tearing up the ancient cobbled yard at the Truman Brewery within the curtilage of the listed buildings to the east of Brick Lane in 2021.
It comes as no surprise that these are the same people who want to build a shopping mall at the brewery site adjoining Brick Lane with four floors of corporate offices on top, widely believed to be the first step in the redevelopment of the Truman Brewery into a corporate plaza.
You will recall the planning application for the shopping mall and office block was approved by two councillors last year despite more than seven thousand letters of objection. A Judicial Review on the lawful or otherwise nature of this decision takes place at the High Court on June 29th and the Save Brick Lane Coalition has now raised over £23,000 but still needs to find another £17,000 in order to proceed.
Click here to support the fighting fund for the Judicial Review
The Save Brick Lane Coalition includes Bengali East End Heritage Society, East End Preservation Society, East End Trades Guild, House of Annetta, Nijjor Manush, Spitalfields Life & Spitalfields Trust.
Eighteenth century chimney breast with old range
Weaver’s garret
The narrow corner staircase leaves the workspace clear for looms
Surviving panelling
Eighteenth century wooden partition wall
Pantiled roofs such as this were once ubiquitous in Spitalfields
113 & 115 Redchurch St in the seventies before the front wall of 115 was rebuilt
113 & 115 Redchurch St as built in 1735
Photographs copyright © Spitalfields Trust
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George Cruikshank’s Punch & Judy
Mr Punch’s 360th Birthday is celebrated this Sunday at St Paul’s, Covent Garden, with a procession at 11am, a service with Mr Punch in the pulpit at noon, followed by maypole dancing and Punch & Judy shows in the churchyard.
Drawings by George Cruikshank, 1827, illustrating Giovanni Piccini’s “The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch & Judy.”
Punch: What Toby, are you cross this morning?
Scaramouch: You have been beating and ill-using my poor dog, Mr Punch!
Judy: Here’s the child. Pretty dear! It knows its Papa. Take the child.
Punch: What is the matter with it? Poor thing! It has got the stomach ache, I dare say.
Punch: Get away, nasty baby.
Judy: I’ll teach you to drop my baby out the window!
Punch: Stand still, can’t you, and let me get my foot up to the stirrup.
Punch: Oh Doctor! Doctor! I have been thrown, I have been killed.
Punch: Now Doctor, your turn to be physicked!
Blind Man: Pray Mr Punch, bestow your charity upon a blind man.
Jack Ketch: Mr Punch, you’re a very bad man.
Jack Ketch: Come out and be hanged!
Punch: Only shew me how and I will do it directly.
Punch: Here’s a stick to thump Old Nick!
Punch: Pray Mr Devil, let us be friends.
Punch: Huzza, huzza! The Devil’s dead!
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Mr Punch’s 360th Birthday
Join the celebration of Mr Punch’s 360th Birthday this Sunday at St Paul’s, Covent Garden, with a procession at 11am, a service with Mr Punch in the pulpit at noon, followed by maypole dancing and Punch & Judy shows in the churchyard.
Carmen Baggs with figures made by her father
On 9th May 1662, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary “Thence to Covent Garden… to see an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw, and a great resort of gallants …” It was the first record of a Punch & Judy show in London and, as a consequence, May 9th has become celebrated as Mr Punch’s birthday – when the all Punch & Judy “professors” gather each year upon the leafy green behind the church.
After an early morning shower on the day of my visit, the sun broke through to impart a lustre to the branches of may blossom growing in the churchyard, which create an elegant foliate surround to the freshly sprouting lawn, where the Punch & Judy booths were being assembled as the centrepiece of the May Fayre. As they set up their booths, the professors were constantly interrupted by the arrival of yet another member of their clan, and emotional greetings were exchanged as they reunited after another year on the road. Yet before long, a whole line of booths encircled the lawn and vibrant red stripes filled my vision whichever direction I chose to turn.
Peter Batty, a Punch & Judy professor of forty years, who has been coming here for thirty years, could not help feeling a touch of melancholy in the churchyard in spite of the beauty of the morn. “We go from one box to another,” he said, reaching up with the hand that was not holding Mr Punch to touch his booth protectively, and recalling those professors who will not be seen upon this green again. “I think of Joe Beeby, Percy Press – the first and the second, Hugh Cecil and Smoky the Clown,” he confided to me regretfully – “People keep getting old.”
Yet Peter works in partnership with his youthful wife, Mariake, and their fourteen year old son, Martin, who is just starting out with his own shows. “It’s such a lovely way of life, we’re really lucky when so many people have to do proper jobs, and it’s a brilliant way to bring up children.” she assured me, cradling Judy, while Martin nodded in agreement, holding the Policeman. “We play together and have a fantastic time – it suits us very well and it’s completely stress free.” she declared. They were an appealing paradox, this contented family who had found happiness in performing Mr Punch and his bizarre drama of domestic violence.
“I was just a bored housewife,” recalled Mrs Back to Front, a lively Punch & Judy professor with her brightly coloured clothes reversed, “twenty-nine years ago, I had a six month old baby and a three year old son, and I was asked to do a puppet show for a fete at his school and I was converted to it. I came here to Covent Garden and I bought a set of Punch & Judy puppets, and I got a swozzle too and found I could use it straightaway.” Then, with a chuckle of satisfaction at the exuberant life she has invented for herself and batting her glittery eyelashes in pleasure, she announced – “My six month old baby is now Dizzy Lolly – she does magic and she’s very good with a monkey puppet too.”
My next encounter was with Geoff Felix, an experienced puppeteer with a background in film, television and theatre who has been doing Punch & Judy since 1982.“I was influenced by Joe Beeby,” he explained, revealing his source of inspiration, “he saw a show in 1926, which the player learnt from someone in the nineteenth century, and Joe kept it going. And that’s how the oral tradition has been preserved.” Geoff explained that the Punch & Judy characters we recognise today, both in appearance and in the story, are based upon those of Giovanni Piccini whose play was transcribed by John Payne Collier in 1828 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. Casting his eyes around at his peers, “It is the swozzle that unites us,” he whispered to me, as if it were a sacred bond, when referring to the metal instrument in the mouth used to make the shrill voice of Mr Punch – “it forces us to create shows based in action.”
Then, Alix Booth, a feisty Scotswoman in a top hat, who has been a Punch & Judy professor for thirty-seven years, told me, “When I was eleven, I inherited a set of paper mache figures. I started working with them and in the end I was doing small shows in Lanark. I still have the figures, over a hundred years old, and although I had to replace Mr Punch’s coat, his waistcoat and trousers are perfect. My figures are based on the Piccini book of 1828, they have their mouths turned down at the ends and huge staring eyes – nowadays Mr Punch is sometimes given a smile, but I prefer him with his mouth turned down, it’s more realistic.”
“I have learnt my craft, and I can keep a children’s party happy for an hour and a half without any trouble at all.” she informed me plainly. “But it was very much for adults originally – entertainment for the Georgian man in the street and it’s full of laughs – it’s all in the timing.”
After my conversations with the professors, I was delighted to stand and enjoy the surreal quality of all the booths lined up like buses at a terminus when I have only ever seen them alone before – yet what was fascinating were the differences in spite of the common qualities. There were short fat ones and tall skinny ones, plain and fancy, with the height defined by the reach of each individual puppeteer. And while the red and white theatres standing under the great chestnut tree awaited their audiences, the professors enjoyed the quiet of the morning to catch up and swap stories.
“It has established a club, brought us all together and kept the tradition alive,” Alix asserted, turning impassioned in her enthusiasm, “And that’s so important, because every year new young performers come along and join us.” But then we were interrupted by the brass band heralding the arrival of Mr Punch and we realised that, as we had been talking, crowds of people had gathered. It was a perfect moment of early summer in London, but for Punch & Judy professors it was the highlight of the year.
Professor David Wilde has the largest collection of Punch & Judy puppets – over six hundred.
Professor Geoffrey Felix, scenery based upon a design by Jesson and Mr Punch in the style of Piccini.
Professor James Arnott restores and repaints old figures.
Mrs Back To Front
Professor Alix Booth, thirty-seven years doing Punch & Judy professionally.
The Batty Family of Puppeteers, Mariake, Martin and Peter.
Professor Brian Baggs, also known as “Bagsie.”
Professor Paul Tuck – “I’ve only been let out for today – I’m really a ladies’ hairdresser.”
Parade to celebrate the arrival of Mr Punch in Covent Garden.
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James Leman, Silk Designer
The oldest surviving set of silk designs in the world, James Leman’s album contains ninety ravishingly beautiful patterns created in Steward St, Spitalfields between 1705 and 1710 when he was a young man. It was my delight to visit the Victoria & Albert Museum and study the pages of this unique artefact, which is the subject of an interdisciplinary research project under the auspices of the V&A Research Institute, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Leman Album offers a rare glimpse into an affluent and fashionable sphere of eighteenth century high society, as well as demonstrated the astonishing skill of the journeyman weavers in East London three hundred years ago.
James Leman (pronounced ‘lemon’ like Leman St in Aldgate) was born in London around 1688 as the second generation of a Huguenot family and apprenticed at fourteen to his father, Peter, a silk weaver. His earliest designs in the album, executed at eighteen years old, are signed ‘made by me, James Leman, for my father.’ In those days, when silk merchants customarily commissioned journeyman weavers, James was unusual in that he was both a maker and designer. In later life, he became celebrated for his bravura talent, rising to second in command of the Weavers’ Company in the City of London. A portrait of the seventeen-twenties in the V&A collection, which is believed to be of James Leman, displays a handsome man of assurance and bearing, arrayed in restrained yet sophisticated garments of subtly-toned chocolate brown silk and brocade.
His designs are annotated with the date and technical details of each pattern, while many of their colours are coded to indicate the use of metallic cloth and different types of weave. Yet beyond these aspects, it is the aesthetic brilliance of the designs which is most striking, mixing floral and architectural forms with breathtaking flair in a way that appears startling modern. The Essex Pink and Rosa Mundi are recognisable alongside whimsical architectural forms which playfully combine classical and oriental motifs within a single design. The breadth of James Leman’s knowledge of botany and architecture as revealed by his designs reflects a wide cultural interest that, in turn, reflected flatteringly upon the tastes of his wealthy customers.
Until last year, the only securely identified woven example of a James Leman pattern was a small piece of silk in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Miraculously, just as the V&A’s research project on the Leman Album was launched, a length of eighteenth-century silk woven to one of his designs was offered to the museum by a dealer in historical textiles, who recognised it from her knowledge of the album. The Museum purchased the silk and is investigating the questions that arise once design and textile may be placed side by side for the first time. With colours as vibrant as the day they were woven three hundred years ago, the sensuous allure of this glorious piece of deep pink silk adorned with elements of lustrous green, blue, red and gold shimmers across the expanse of time and is irresistibly attractive to the eye. Such was the extravagant genius of James Leman, Silk Designer.
On the left is James Leman’s design and on the right is a piece of silk woven from it, revealing that colours of the design are not always indicative of the woven textile
The reverse of each design gives the date and details of the fabric and weave
Portrait of a Master Silk Weaver by Michael Dahl, 1720-5 – believed to be James Leman
All images copyright © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
With grateful thanks to: Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner, Senior Curator of Designs – Dr Victoria Button, Senior Paper Conservator – Clare Browne, Senior Curator of Textiles – Dr Lucia Burgio, Senior Scientist and Eileen Budd, V&A Research Institute Project Manager
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