Bobby Prentice, Waterman & Lighterman
Bobby Prentice, Waterman & Lighterman, is a well respected personality along the river. Today he is the skipper of a pleasure boat ferrying tourists between Hungerford Bridge and Greenwich, but his relationship with the Thames is lifelong and profound. Bobby holds the record for the Doggett’s Coat & Badge Race, is one of the Vintner’s Company Swan Upping Team, and his legendary prowess as a rower even includes successive attempts to row the Atlantic Ocean. Amiable and possessing a striking natural gravity, there is no doubt that Bobby is a hardy soul.
Originally, Watermen were those who took passengers across the river, and today it is necessary to win your Doggett’s Coat and Badge – in the annual race held each June – to be able to call yourself a true Waterman. In a critical distinction, Lightermen were those who transported goods, lightening the load of cargo vessels with their barges which were called “Lighters.” Both professions are of ancient origin upon the Thames and, in his career, Bobby has been both a Waterman & a Lighterman.
On a sparkling afternoon, I joined Bobby and his son Robert in the cabin of the Sarpenden and – as we slid down river from Hungerford Bridge along King’s Reach and through the Pool of London, passing under Tower Bridge – he outlined his relationship with this powerful watercourse that defines our city.
“I was born and bred in Wapping, all my family come from Wapping. In 1969, at the age of sixteen, I was apprenticed to my father Robert. His father Robert was a Lighterman before him and his father Robert before that, which makes me the fourth as far as we know – there may well have been other Robert Prentices before – and my son Robert is also a Lighterman. We worked for the Mercantile Lighterage Co and in those days Fords at Dagenham did a lot of manufacturing, and we used to deliver knocked down kit ( that’s all the parts to assemble a car) to West India Dock, London Docks, Royal Albert Docks, Victoria Docks, Tilbury Docks and to Sheerness on the Medway for export.
I chose to do it, but my father didn’t want me to because the docks were already closing. When I wanted to leave school at fifteen, he encouraged me to stay on a year to get my exams. But I loved every minute of being on the river. I joined Poplar & Blackwall Rowing Club at ten and I spent all my youth on the river. I had the river in me. I used to go and work with my father as a little boy, just as children do today – I often have my grandchildren on the boat with me.
I did a five year apprenticeship, and a lot of Watermen & Lightermen still apprentice their children for five years, even though you can get a boat driver’s licence in two. My grandfather bought me my first sculling boat for £100 in 1968 and I won the Junior International Championship in 1970 and 1971, and represented Britain in the Youth World Championships. I won the Doggett’s Coat & Badge in 1973, then the double sculls at Henley with Martin Spencer, and subsequently Martin & I won three Home Internationals for England and two National Championships.
When I finished my apprenticeship, I spent my first two years in West India Dock. Once I got my licence, it enabled me to tow barges behind tugs and much more. I was one of the “jazz hands,” which is like being a journeyman. At twenty-two I got moved down to Grays in Essex and became a Tug Skipper, but in 1982 the Mercantile Lighterage Co folded as a consequence of the decline of the docks. The only lighterage left now is “rough goods’ – London’s waste, and my youngest son does that – towing the barges down to Mucky Flats and Pitsea Creek. This current business, Crown River Cruises, started in 1986, we began with one boat and we’ve got five now, and we do scheduled services. I still row.”
Yet no-one who works on the Thames can ultimately resist the tidal pull of that great expanse of water beyond and in Bobby Prentice’s case this attraction led him to try to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat.
“Like most nutty things I’ve done it started in a pub. We’d been to a Doggett’s function and one of the lads suggesting rowing the Atlantic and I said , “No, I’ve finished serious rowing.” But then I went for a walk along Hadrian’s Wall and came back, and I decided to do it. We entered the Atlantic Race in 2005 from Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua and we set off a fortnight before Christmas in bad weather. It was hard mentally, but I made an agreement with my wife that I’d call her every Sunday at six on the satellite phone and I looked forward to it.
After seven weeks rowing, it became a lottery who was going to capsize next – “bombing” we call it. The boat was so small, you’re literally living in a coffin. Then, early one morning, we bombed out and spent forty-nine hours in a life raft. My wife handled it very well when they called to say I was “lost” – “He’s done that before,” she said, “He’ll be back.” When I was in the life raft I’d just had my weekly call and the satellite phone was at the bottom of the ocean. They didn’t know where we were and the beacon we had was faulty, we didn’t know if it worked. I was lying in the raft and my elbow blistered from trying to hold the beacon up the satellite. I was trying not to sleep because of the hypothermia and hoping someone had picked up my signal, which only gave a seven mile vicinity of my position. We were picked up by 160,000 ton tanker called “The Towman.” The ship was searching an area of 1500 square miles. It was an oil tanker with an Indian crew, they were lovely people. After ten days on the ship, we ended up in Gabon and were repatriated to Heathrow.
We decided to have another go in 2008, this time with four in the crew, but we had several breakdowns and aborted after ten days, ending up in the Verde Islands. So I thought, “That’s the end of it, I’m never going to do it again.” Then Simon Chalke approached me and said, “We’re building a twelve man boat. and we want to go for the Atlantic record.” I had turned fifty-six at the time and I said, “It’s not fair on those in the crew who are twenty,” because the rota was six hours rowing and six hours rest. But Ian Couch, the skipper, had already rowed the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, and he wanted me on board, so I went for it. It was hard to tell my wife, but when I broke the news, she said, “Tell me something I didn’t know.”
I’d gone out in late November for training and come back again for Christmas. We were on standby waiting for the weather to clear, and then I got the call on Boxing Day and we set out a few days later in very early January. We didn’t break any records but we landed in Barbados after thirty-eight days, further South than we intended because of the weather conditions. I still haven’t been to Antigua.”
And then, even as I was still reeling from this account, Bobby shook hands and hopped off the boat at Tower Bridge leaving me in the company of his son Robert, the skipper of the ship, for the rest of the trip to the Thames Barrier. “So are you planning to row the Atlantic too?” I asked, wondering if this challenge might now become a rite of passage for successive Robert Prentices. “I wouldn’t discount the possibility,” he declared with relish as he stood with hands upon the wheel, his beady eyes twinkling excitedly at this enticing possibility.
I sat beside Robert on the bridge and he spoke animatedly as we travelled on through Limehouse Reach, Greenwich Reach, Blackwall Reach, Bugsby’s Reach and Woolwich Reach. He told me about the porpoises, dolphins and hundreds of seals he sees on the river, and how the whale in Westminster was not the first on the Thames because he saw one at Purfleet.
One Robert Prentice had disembarked, another Robert Prentice took his place at the wheel – the fourth and fifth Robert Prentices respectively – Watermen & Lightermen steering vessels through time as the mighty Thames flowed on.
Robert Prentice, fifth generation Waterman & Lighterman
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John Claridge’s East End Shops
Ross Bakeries, Quaker St, 1966
“I used to go to the shops with my mum every Saturday morning, and she’d meet people she knew and they’d be chatting for maybe an hour, so I’d go off and meet other kids and we’d be playing on a bombsite – it was a strange education!” John told me, neatly illustrating how these small shops were integral to the fabric of society in his childhood.“People had a pride in what they were selling or what they were doing” he recalled,“You’d go into these places and they’d all smell different. They all had their distinct character, it was wonderful.”
Although generations of the family were dockers, John’s father warned him that the London Docks were in terminal decline and he sought a career elsewhere. Consequently, even as a youth, John realised that a whole way of life was going to be swept away in the changes which were coming to the East End. And this foresight inspired John to photograph the familiar culture of small shops and shopkeepers that he held in such affection. “Even then I had the feeling that things were going to be overrun, without regard to what those in that society wanted.” he confirmed to me with regret.
As small shopkeepers fight for their survival, in the face of escalating rents, business rates and the incursion of chain stores, John Claridge’s poignant images are a salient reminder of the venerable tradition of local shops here that we cannot afford to lose.
Shop in Spitalfields, 1964.
C & K Grocers, Spitalfields, 1982 – “From the floor to the roof, the shop was stocked full of everything you could imagine.”
Cobbler, Spitalfields, 1969.
Flo’s Stores, Spitalfields, 1962 – “All the shops were individual then. Somebody painted the typography themselves here and it’s brilliant.”
Fruit & Veg, Bethnal Green 1961 – “I’d been to a party and it was five o’clock in the morning, but she was open.”
W.Wernick, Spitalfields, 1962.
Fishmonger, Spitalfields, 1965.
Corner Shop, Spitalfields, 1961 – “The kid’s just got his stuff for his mum and he’s walking back.”
At W.Wernick Poulterers, Spitalfields, 1962 – “She’s got her hat, her cup of tea and her flask. There was no refrigeration but it was chilly.”
Fiorella Shoes, E2, 1966 – “There’s only four pairs of shoes in the window. How could they measure shoes to fit, when they couldn’t even fit the words in the window? The man next door said to me, ‘Would you like me to step back out of the picture?’ I said, ‘No, I’d really like you to be in the picture.”
Bertha, Spitalfields, 1982 – “Everything is closing down but you can still have a wedding! She’s been jilted at the altar and she’s just waiting now.”
Bakers, Spitalfields, 1959 – “There’s only three buns and a cake in the window.”
Jacques Wolff, E13 1960 – “His name was probably Jack Fox and he changed it to Jacques Wolff.”
Waltons, E13 1960 – “They just sold cheap shoes, but you could get a nice Italian pair knocked off from the docks at a good price.”
Churchman’s, Spitalfields, 1968 – “Anything you wanted from cigarettes to headache pills.”
White, Spitalfields 1967 – “I saw these three kids and photographed them, it was only afterwards I saw the name White.”
The Door, E2 1960.
The Window, E16 1982 – “Just a little dress shop, selling bits and pieces. The clothes could have been from almost any era.”
Victor, E14 1968 – “There’s no cars on the road, the place was empty, but there was a flower shop on the corner and it was always full of flowers.”
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
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Along the Thames with John Claridge
At the Salvation Army with John Claridge
Robson Cezar’s Whitechapel Houses & Corner Shops
Robson Cezar
At Christmas, we featured the wooden houses made by Spitalfields artist Robson Cezar out of fruit crates from Whitechapel Market. Since then, Robson has been busy through these last months of winter, collecting boxes and constructed more buildings, including a series inspired by the traditional corner shops of the East End. Contributing Photographer Rachel Ferriman visited Robson’s studio at Bow to record his new creations.
Robson has put seventeen of the wooden houses and corner shops he has made for sale. Every one is different and each comes with an LED light and battery to illuminate your building at night.
We are selling them on a first-come-first-served basis, so if you would like one please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com giving your first, second and third choice, and we will supply payment details. Postage and packing is £4. Unfortunately we can only post these within the United Kingdom.
These houses are sculptures not toys and we do not recommend them for children under the age of twelve.
Photographs copyright © Rachel Ferriman
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The Tower Of Old London
A contemplative moment at the Tower
Rummaging through the thousands of glass slides from the collection of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, used for magic lantern slides a century ago at the Bishopsgate Institute, I came upon these enchanting pictures of the Tower of London.
The Tower is the oldest building in London, yet paradoxically it looks even older in these old photographs than it does today. Is it something to do with the straggly beards upon the yeoman warders? Some inhabit worn-out uniforms as if they themselves are ancient relics that have been tottering around the venerable ruins for centuries, swathed in cobwebs. Nowadays, yeoman warders are photographed on average four hundred times a day and they have learnt how to work the camera with professional ease, but their predecessors of a century ago froze like effigies before the lens displaying an uneasy mixture of bemusement and imperiousness. Their shabby dignity is further undermined in some of these plates by the whimsical tinter who coloured their uniforms in clownish tones of buttercup yellow and forget-me-not blue.
As the location of so many significant events in our history, the Tower carries an awe-inspiring charge for me. And these photographs, glorying in the magnificently craggy old walls and bulbous misshapen towers, capture its battered grim monumentalism perfectly. Today, the Tower focuses upon telling the stories of prisoners of conscience that were held captive there rather than displaying the medieval prison guignol, yet an ambivalence persists for me between the colourful pageantry and the inescapable dark history. In spite of the tourist hordes that overrun it today, the old Tower remains unassailable by the modern world.
The Ceremony of the Keys, c.1900
Salt Tower, c. 1910
Byward Tower, c.1910
Bloody Tower, c. 1910
The Tower seen from St Katharine’s Dock, c.1910
Tower Green, c.1910
View from Tower Hill, c, 1900
Upon the battlements, c. 1900
View from the Thames, c. 1910
Bell Tower, c.1900
Bloody Tower, c. 1910
Courtyard at the Tower, c.1910
Byward Tower, c 1910
Yeoman warders at the entrance to Bloody Tower, c. 1910
Vegetable plot in the former moat adjoining the Byward Tower, c.1910
Byward Tower, c. 1900
Water Lane, c 1910
Rampart, c 1900
Yeoman Gaoler – “displaying an uneasy mixture of bemusement and imperiousness.”
Middle Tower, c. 1900
Steps leading from Traitors’ Gate, c. 1900
Steps inside the Wakefield Tower, c. 1900
The White Tower, c. 1910
Royal Armoury, c. 1910
Beating the Bounds, c. 1920
Cannons at the Tower of London, c. 1910
Queen’s House, c. 1900
Elizabeth’s Walk, Beauchamp Tower, c. 1900
Yeoman Warder, c. 1910
Tower seen from St Katharine’s Dock, c. 1910
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Residents of Spitalfields and any of the Tower Hamlets may gain admission to the Tower of London for one pound upon production of an Idea Store card.
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Chris Skaife, Raven Keeper & Merlin the Raven
Alan Kingshott, Yeoman Gaoler at the Tower of London
Graffiti at the Tower of London
Beating the Bounds at the Tower of London
Ceremony of the Lilies & Roses at the Tower of London
Bloody Romance of the Tower with pictures by George Cruickshank
John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
Constables Dues at the Tower of London
The Oldest Ceremony in the World
A Day in the Life of the Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
Kevin O’Brien, Retired Roadsweeper
A few tour tickets are available this weekend: thegentleauthorstours.com
Kevin O’Brien at Tyers Gate in Bermondsey St with Gardners’ Chocolate Factory behind
One bright morning, I walked down to Bermondsey St to meet Kevin O’Brien and enjoy a tour of the vicinity in his illuminating company, since he has passed most of his life in the close proximity of this former industrial neighbourhood. Nobody knows these streets better than Kevin, who first roamed them while playing truant from school and later worked here as a road sweeper. Recent decades have seen the old factories and warehouses cleaned up and converted into fashionable lofts and offices, yet Kevin is a custodian of tales of an earlier, shabbier Bermondsey, flavoured with chocolate and vinegar, and fragranced by the pungent smell of leather tanning.
“I was born and bred in Bermondsey, born in St Giles Hospital, and I’ve always lived in Bermondsey St or by the Surrey Docks. My dad, John O’Brien was a docker and a labourer, while my mum, Betsy was a stay-at-home housewife. He didn’t believe in mothers going to work. He was a staunch Irishman, a Catholic but my mum she was a Protestant. I’ve got six brothers and two sisters, half of us were christened and half ain’t.
I grew up in Tyers Gate, a three bedroom flat in a council estate for nine children and mum and dad, eleven people. It was quite hard, we topped and tailed in the bedrooms. From there, we went into a house with three bedrooms in Lindsey St off Southwark Park Rd. It had no bath or inside toilet, so it was quite hard work living there for my mum. Bermondsey was always an interesting place because I had my brothers and my sisters all around me, and I had lots of good friends. Our neighbours were good. We helped one another out and everybody mucked in. Those were hard times when I was a kid after the war.
We used to play in the bombed-out church in Horselydown. That was our playing field and we crawled around inside the ruins. There were feral cats and it was filthy. We’d come home filthy and my mother would give us a good hiding. My brother, Michael loved animals and he used to bring cats home with him but my mother would take them back again. He was terrible, he wanted every animal, he would fetch home pigeons – the whole lot.
We were playing once and I fell in the ‘sheep dip’ – one of the vats used for tanning leather. We were exploring and we climbed down these stairs but I fell through a missing stair and into this ‘dip.’ It sucks you under. It stinks. It’s absolutely filthy. It’s slime. They had to drag me out by my arms. I went home and my mum made me take all my clothes off outside the front door on the balcony before scrubbing me down with carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush. All of me was red raw and I never went back in there again. It taught me a lesson. My mum was hard but fair.
In those days, the industries in Bermondsey were leather, plastic, woodwork and there was a chocolate factory. Nearly everybody in Bermondsey St worked in Gardners’ Chocolate Factory at some point. My first job was there, I worked the button machine, turning out hundred and thousands of chocolate buttons every day.
I hated school. I never liked it. I really hated it. I used to run out of school and they had trouble getting me back. I roamed the streets. The School Board man was always round our house, not just for me but for my brothers as well – although they went to school and actually managed to learn to read and write. Me, I hated it because I didn’t want to learn. I left when I was fifteen and went to work in the chocolate factory, I started as a labourer and worked my way up to being a machine operator. It was better than the apprenticeship I was offered as a painter and decorator at three pounds a week. At Gardners’ Chocolate Factory I was offered nine pounds and ten shillings a week. I was still living at home and my brothers couldn’t understand how I could put half of my earnings in a savings book. They couldn’t save but I didn’t drink. I didn’t like the taste of it. I didn’t start drinking until I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I was a late starter but I’m making up for it now.
I was always in the West End. I loved Soho and I liked being in the West End because I was free and I could do what I wanted. As a gay man in Bermondsey, it was hard. So all my friends and the people I got to know were in the West End. There were loads of gay places, little dive bars in Wardour St, as small as living rooms. The Catacombs was one I went to, in Earls Court. That was a brilliant place. When I was thirteen, I got into The Boltons pub. It was hard work, getting into pubs but you got to know other people who were gay. You could get arrested for being gay and that was part of the excitement. There was fear but you got to meet people.
I was about fifteen when I told my mum I was gay. Her first words were, ‘What’s your dad going to say?’ That was hard, because my dad didn’t speak to me for nearly a year. He wouldn’t even sit in the same room as me. He was such hard work. If I was going out anywhere, my brothers and sisters would say ‘He’s going out to meet his boyfriends!’ But they all loved me and I loved my family. I could always stick up for myself. If someone said something to me, I’d say something back. I was one of those that didn’t worry what people thought.
I got the sack from the chocolate factory because I didn’t like one of the managers and I threatened to put him in one of the hoppers. I chased him round the machines with a great big palette knife and he sacked me, so I walked straight out of that job, walked round to Sarsons’ Vinegar in Tower Bridge Rd and got another job the same day for more money. It was a two minute walk. Within a matter of two or three weeks, I became a brewer. It was a good job but many people did away with themselves there. They climbed onto the vats of vinegar until they got high on the fumes and fell into it. People were depressed, they had come back from the war to nothing and they couldn’t rebuild their lives.
After the vinegar factory, I got a job with Southwark Council as a road sweeper in Tower Bridge Rd. I couldn’t read or write but I used to memorise all the streets on the list that I had to sweep. Even though I’d walked down many of these streets all my life, I didn’t know their names until I learned to read the signs. It was an interesting job because you got to meet a lot of people on the street and I got chatted up as well. I got to know all the pubs and delivered them bin bags, so I could rely on getting myself a cup of tea and a sandwich. There was always a little fiddle somewhere along the line.
It’s all office work and computers in Bermondsey St now, but I’m here because this is my home. This is where I want to be, all my family are here. There’s loads of locals like me. There’s still plenty of Bermondsey people. I’ve got friends here. We grew up together. It’s where I belong, so I am very lucky. We’ve got a lot here. I walk around, and I go to museums, and I look at buildings. I go to Brighton sometimes just for fish and chips, that’s a very expensive fish and chips!”
“There’s still plenty of Bermondsey people”
Kevin O’Brien at the former Sarsons’ Vinegar Factory in Tower Bridge Rd where he once worked
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Darton’s Nursery Songs
I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Nick Darton whose ancestor William Darton Junior (1781 – 1854) was a publisher in the City of London two hundred years ago and published these charming Nursery Songs on June 15th 1818.
The Juvenile Review described it as ‘A very foolish book, ….. what, for instance, can be more ridiculous than the idea of “a dish running after a spoon,” or the moon being in a fit?’ yet it was published in many editions over the next fifty years and numerous other publishers followed in a similar tradition.
William Darton Junior attended the Friends School in Clerkenwell but was removed at the age of eight to help in his father’s publishing business in Gracechurch St. After two years, he was sent to Ackworth School in Yorkshire before returning to London when he began his apprenticeship with his father at the age of fourteen. He showed early promise as an engraver and was adding his signature his own work even before his full seven years of apprenticeship were up. In 1804, he left his father’s business in his early twenties to set up by himself at Holborn Hill, concentrating on the publication of children’s books, games, educational aids, pastimes and juvenile ephemera.
Let us go the wood, says this pig
What to do there? says this pig & c.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
And sown will come cradle
And baby and all.
To bed, to bed, says sleepy head.
Let’s stay awhile says slow,
Put on the pot, says greedy gut.
We’ll sup before we go.
See Saw Margery Daw
Pat it and prick it and mark it with C
And then it will serve for Charley or me.
The Clock struck one,
The mouse came down,
Hickory Diccary Dock.
Who comes here? A Grenadier
What do you want? A pot of beer
Where’s your money? I’ve forgot
Get you gone, you drunken sot.
Cushy Cow bonny, let down thy milk.
Jack & Jill
Baa baaa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Little Jack Horner
The Lion & The Unicorn
Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree
Little boy blue, blow your horn
The cat’s run away with the pudding bag string
There was an old woman, she lived in a shoe
Ding Dong Bell, Pussy Cat’s in the Well
The Man in the Moon
The little husband
There was a little man & he had a little gun
Little Johnny Pringle
Taffy was a Welchman, Taffy was a Thief
Four & Twenty Blackbirds baked in a pye
He’ll sit in a barn
And keep himself warm
And hide his head under
his wing, Poor Thing!
Images courtesy of Nick Darton
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The Invigilators Of Spitalfields
Have you ever wondered what goes through the minds of those implacable silent invigilators who stand sentinel, presiding over the rooms at Dennis Severs House? I spoke with some of them recently when Lucinda Douglas Menzies did their portraits and discovered that, despite their unassuming demeanours, they each had quite a lot to say.
Emily Ball
‘I am studying History of Art at the Courtauld, specialising in Performance Art, its history and evolution from Loïe Fuller to the present day.
Even aside from the performances that take place here, I see Dennis Severs’ House itself is a kind of performance that amounts to a self-portrait. This was his world and his mind, literalised as a house. You are walking into his imagination. He was living his performance through his life which ties in to notions of ‘endurance performance’ – although it was clearly not endurance for him because he seems to have loved it so much!
It became so much more than a performance because it was his life. I think what he did is unique. For a lot of the performances I study there is little physical evidence, but he managed to immortalise his vision in a house and because of the Spitalfields Trust it is saved for everyone for perpetuity. We are really lucky to have it because there are so many performances that are lost, you had to be there or there was no audience so nobody knows about them.
When I experienced one of the tours here, I thought it was going be a guide taking us through the history in each room but actually it was it this astonishing performance that brought to life Dennis Severs’ vision. I loved how startling it was with loud noises, banging on the door and the shouting outside.
If I had to live in a time in the past, I would live at the court of Charles II because of the masques that he staged. I would have loved to have been a part of those, the theatre, the amazing costumes, the fun and the parties.’
Rory Henderson
‘I am a Stage Manager working in theatre production but I did my degree in English Literature, focussing on eighteenth century aestheticism and I came across Dennis Severs’ House through that. There’s actually a course which sends students here to get an idea of the notion of ‘textured performance,’ with performance being alive in the setting of a house. That is what is unique about Dennis Severs’ House.
I came here because I wanted to learn more abut this world and Dennis Severs. I had not realised before that there was such an important site in Queer History on my doorstep and I was keen to have the opportunity to work here.
It’s fun because I work with people from such interesting and different backgrounds and we are all here together in this house, making it come alive for people. Theatre tends to very linear in form but this is beyond anything I have ever experienced. It has been a learning curve to work out how to manoeuvre around so many fragile and old props.
If I had to live in the past – as long as it was not forever – I would go back to the late eighteenth century because I studied it and I already know so much about it.
Then I could discover for myself what the Readers’ Societies and secret gay literary circles were actually like. I would befriend the people I have been studying who created texts exploring gay eroticism. My dissertation was about anonymous Queer Texts – including ‘The Sins of The Cities of the Plain’ – that were published secretly among societies of writers, and how these underground productions were passed between friends until they became widely popular.’
Amy Haigh
‘I am an Artist and Researcher focusing mainly on themes of Ecology, living and working in South East London. I studied at Camberwell and Royal College of Art , graduating from MA Information Experience Design in 2019. At some point on this journey I transitioned from Environmental Graphic Designer to Artist, and now work from my studio on Old Kent Rd to study and retell ecological narratives, mainly through sculpture and installations.
Working at Dennis Severs’ House, I feel inspired to be in a creative space. Although I come from London I did not know of the house and I was intrigued, I find it quite magical. The house and the tours are all about creating a world and storytelling through use of space, lighting and objects, and this is something that I am deeply interested in.
I like working in an environment that feels far away from the outside world, especially when the visitors are completely engaged. It is an inspiring space and I watch how people go round it and what they notice – people often point out things that I had not seen before.
Watching people walk round and being part of that energy is a really great experience. As an artist, I am fascinated by the process of putting something from your imagination into the world and see how it is viewed, what feedback you get.
If I had to live in a time in the past, I would choose to live in the sixties and the seventies. It was an interesting time and the rebellious nature of that era appeals to me.’
Phoebe Wadman
‘I have just finished my Master’s Degree in Queer History so I am especially interested in this aspect of Dennis Severs’ House. I understand that it is not obvious to everyone but I can see it in the way it has been put together, employing lots of secondhand junk to create this ridiculously over-the-top beautiful interior. The act of doing that is Queer in itself.
When I look at the interiors of this house, I think about the history of HIV and AIDS. I like Simon Pettet’s cheeky tiles in the fireplace of the master bedroom, his tile of copulating bunnies at the kitchen window and the shaving bowl he made. I love Simon’s work and it makes me smile to see these personal touches and be reminded that he was here. I love to see the photos of Dennis too. It is a history that is still hidden in many ways. In London, we do not have a memorial to those who died of AIDS and there is little recognition of what happened. But being surrounded here by this personal history is really touching.
If I had to live in the past, I would choose to live in the nineteen-seventies and eighties – which is not that long ago – because I am fascinated by that time in terms of Queer History, the legal recognition of LGBTQ rights, and the sexual and feminist wars. It is an interesting era that has not gone away but speaks a lot to where we are now.’
Lis Gernerd
‘I have a PhD in Eighteenth Century Dress and Material Culture, so I am really excited to work here because Dennis Severs’ House has a playful way of dealing with history. Objects here are not in glass boxes and there is anachronism. The house is curated to make visitors feel they are entering the past in a way that is not conveyed by traditional museums. The point here is not to be authentic but to give a sense of history.
I love the Smoking Room most at Dennis Severs’ House. I love the scent, it is what gets you first. For me, the scent of tobacco is the most emotive in the house. I also love the textiles in the Smoking Room, my favourite embroidery is there upon the velvet frock coat draped over the chair. It is the room with the most stories to tell.
If I had to live in the past, provided I had the money, I would be happy to live in the late eighteenth century because then all of my research questions could be answered. The seventeen-seventies and eighties are definitely my happy place.’
Sean Wilcox
‘In the early seventies, my father took me to see Christopher Plummer play the Duke of Wellington and Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte in ‘Waterloo.’ It was a gateway for me and suddenly the past came to life. Then, in 2002, I sought out Dennis Severs’ House and realised I had to become part of it.
I am fascinated by Dennis Severs’ ability to capture the domestic life of eighteenth century Spitalfields. It is not academic like a museum here, it transports you back in time into an aesthetic context and it caught my imagination.
I find, even though I have been here twenty years, the house has an infinity of moods, changing with the seasons.
My relationship with it continues to evolve all the time too, as I become more aware of the different way the light comes through sash windows at different times of the year. The novelty may have worn off but there are constantly new novelties that appear.’
Ottelien Huckin
‘I am a painter. Before the pandemic my work was figurative and I was interested in the Rococo. I used to paint large canvasses but now I work on small pieces and, over the lockdown, I learnt the technique of Japanning – a seventeenth century process which involves thirty layers of varnish, sanded in between and gilded with gold leaf. I wanted to learn something that would slow my practice down, and I like the idea of creating a decorative object rather than a painting. Maybe it was an existential crisis? Because of the pandemic I wanted to create work that would last for hundreds of years.
I moved to London a year ago in the middle of lockdown and I sought a job that would contribute to my art practice. Dennis Severs’ House speaks to me because it is filled with interesting objects and lots of examples of Japanning. I am half-Dutch and I dabble in Delftware, so that element here attracts me too.
I love the eclecticism of it all. I love coming to work where I am able to study an object and try to understand it, learning about different periods in history. I love the Japanned grandfather clock in the hallway at Dennis Severs’ House, I can stare at it for hours because it is so beautiful.
Simon Pettet’s Delftware appeals to me because I appreciate his approach to craft. There is a respect for tradition yet, equally, he is creating narratives and images that related to his life in Spitalfields. It is a lovely combination of the personal and the historic, and I hope my work is a bit like that too.
If I had to live in the past, I would choose the mid-eighteenth century because I love all the clothes in the master bedroom, especially the flower embroidery. To dress up like that every day would be quite nice but, as a woman, I realise whatever time I chose would not permit me as many freedoms as I enjoy today.’
Sam Keelan
‘I am an artist, mainly working in Photography but also Film. I used to be fascinated by camp horror, but now I have shifted my interest to the uncanny and the banal. Originally, I did my Foundation course at Leeds College of Art then Sculpture at Wimbledon and, as my post graduate, I studied Drawing at the Royal Academy for three years.
Coming from Yorkshire, much of my work is about suburban Yorkshire but with a Queer twist. At lot of my photography and writing concerns layers of artifice and fakery, how it can hold something less spectacular or even mundane beneath.
Dennis Severs’ House fascinates me as this space which is set up as if it had been lived in by a family through four generations, yet it was lived in at the same time. It is both fake and real simultaneously, and there is a curious tension between these things. I think it is quite camp to change your whole house into a set that you live within. It contains both aspiration and tragedy in equal measure. While it is really impressive in its own right, it expresses a longing for something unattainable too.
I appreciate the silence at Dennis Severs’ House. As an invigilator, my job is to make sure people do not talk or touch things. I like being in my own head. It feels like solitude in public because there are a lot of people walking around. It is quite a strange experience.
I love the Drawing Room most – you really feel like you walked in and something has just happened. Also I enjoy the Regency Room because the pink colour palette appeals to me.
If I had to live in an era in the past, I would choose Classical Greece. It might be fun because there was so much debauchery and I am attracted to the homoerotic aspects of that world. I am interested by how the Graeco-Roman aesthetic has been filtered through Georgian culture into the present day, where now you might even find bad plastic classical columns and Roman or Greek busts in a spa.’
Portraits copyright © Lucinda Douglas Menzies
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