Caroline Gilfillan & Andrew Scott’s East End
It is my pleasure to present these poems by Caroline Gilfillan with photographs by Andrew Scott – dating from the early seventies and encapsulating that era when Caroline & Andrew were squatters in the East End.
Spitalfields Street Sweepers
Council issue donkey jackets slung over saggy suits,
the street sweepers get to work,
broom heads shooshing over concrete and tar,
herding paper and peel and fag ends into heaps,
strong fingers grasping the broom handles,
knuckles big and smooth as weathered stones
moving easy in their bags of skin, watchful eyes
on you, your finger-clicks, your lens.
Aldgate Gent
Shoes shined, trilby brushed, ears scrubbed
clean as a baby’s back, he chugs through the
sun drops and diesel clag of Aldgate.
No crumbs in his turn-ups, no fluff in his pockets:
the wife, at home in one of the new flats
over by Mile End, keeps him spruce.
He’s on his way to meet Solly at Bloom’s
for gefilte fish and a chinwag. We flew
past him in a dented van, croaky from
last night’s pints, hair in need of a good cut
and ears a good wash behind. And No,
we didn’t notice him, but he was a good
father to his sons, if inclined to sound off.
His wife went first but his sister cooked for him
after, and the nurses at the London
did him proud when the time came.
Us? We played our gigs and tumbled on,
leaving scraps of quavers and clefs
scattered across the pavement, the kerb,
the bang, rattle and clank of Aldgate East.
Stoneyard Lane Prefabs
Two ticks and the fixer of the Squatters Union
has done the break-in, courtesy of a jemmy.
The door creaks in the fish-mud breeze blowing up
from Shadwell docks. Here you are girls.
Faces poke, glint through curtain cracks.
A man comes back for his hobnailed boots. Stands lit up
by orange street lights, his meek face
breathing beer. We got behind with the rent, he says,
muddy laces spilling over knuckles.
Thought we’d leave before the council chucked us out.
The next morning two hoods from the council break the lock,
bawl through the drunken door, Clear out or we’ll
board you in. Bump-clang of an Audi brings bailiffs.
The fixer flies in, fists up to his chin.
Has words. We hunch on the kerb with our carrier bags.
Mile End Automatic Laundry
Natter chat, neat fold, wheel carts of nets, sheets, blankets, undies, pillow-slips,
feed the steel drum, twirl and swoosh, dose of froth, soaping out the Stepney dirt.
Say hello to the scruffs from the squats off Commercial Road, more of them now,
breaking the GLC doors off their hinges, and I don’t stick my nose
where it’s not wanted, though you can tell a lot by a person’s laundry,
can’t you? That girl with the hacked-off hair, no bras in her bag, and no
fancy knickers, though the boy brings in shirts, must go to work
somewhere smarter than the street where they live and that
pond-life pub on the corner. Speaking of which,
walking home the other night I heard music,
a group, with drums, guitars, the lot,
so I peeped in and there was
the girl, earnest as a nun, singing
You can get it if you really want
and I thought
just you wait
and see.
Poems copyright © Caroline Gilfillan
Photographs copyright © Andrew Scott
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My Scrap Collection
For some years, I have been collecting Victorian scraps of tradesmen and street characters, and putting them in a drawer. These damp January days gave me the ideal opportunity to search through the contents and study my collection in detail. I am especially fascinated by the mixture of whimsical fantasy and social observation in these colourful miniatures, in which even the comic grotesques are derived from the daily reality of the collectors who once cherished these images.
Street Photographer
Exotic Birds
Sweets & Dainties
Acrobat & Performing Dog
Performing Dogs
The Muffin Man
Street Musician
Street Musician
Baker
Smoker
Butcher
Waiter
Itinerant
Sweep
Naturalist
Lounge Lizard
Dustman
Costermonger
Spraying the roads
Milkman
Knife Grinder
Scottish Herring Girls followed the shoals around the East Coast, gutting and packing the herring.
Herring Girl
You may like to see these other scraps from my collection
List Of Local Shops Open For Business
These are the essential shops that are open in Spitalfields and vicinity during the current lockdown. Readers are especially encouraged to support small independent businesses who offer an invaluable service to the community. This list confirms that it is possible to source all essential supplies locally without recourse to supermarkets.
Be advised many shops are operating limited opening hours at present, so I recommend you call in advance to avoid risking a wasted journey. Please send any additions or amendments for next week’s list to spitalfieldslife@gmail.com
This weeks illustrations are photographs by Tony Hall from the sixties and seventies. See the full set here
GROCERS & FOOD SHOPS
The Albion, 2/4 Boundary St
Ali’s Mini Superstore, 50d Greatorex St
AM2PM, 210 Brick Lane
Planet Organic, 132 Commercial St
Banglatown Cash & Carry, 67 Hanbury St
Breid Bakery, Arch 72, Dunbridge St
Brick Lane Minimarket, 100 Brick Lane
The Butchery Ltd, 6a Lamb St
City Supermarket, 10 Quaker St
Costprice Minimarket, 41 Brick Lane
Faizah Minimarket, 2 Old Montague St
JB Foodstore, 97 Brick Lane
Haajang’s Corner, 78 Wentworth St
Leila’s Shop, 17 Calvert Avenue
Nisa Local, 92 Whitechapel High St
Pavilion Bakery, 130 Columbia Rd
Rinkoff’s Bakery, 224 Jubilee Street & 79 Vallance Rd
Sylhet Sweet Shop, 109 Hanbury St
Taj Stores, 112 Brick Lane
Zaman Brothers, Fish & Meat Bazaar, 19 Brick Lane
TAKE AWAY FOOD SHOPS
Before you order from a delivery app, why not call the take away or restaurant direct?
Absurd Bird Fried Chicken, 54 Commercial St
Al Badam Fried Chicken, 37 Brick Lane
Allpress Coffee, 58 Redchurch St
Band of Burgers, 22 Osborn St
Beef & Birds, Brick Lane
Beigel Bake, 159 Brick Lane
Beigel Shop, 155 Brick Lane
Bellboi Coffee, 104 Sclater St
Bengal Village, 75 Brick Lane
Big Moe’s Diner, 95 Whitechapel High St
Burro E Salvia Pastificio, 52 Redchurch St
China Feng, 43 Commercial St
Circle & Slice Pizza, 11 Whitechapel Rd
Crosstown Doughnuts, 157 Brick Lane
Dark Sugars, 45a Hanbury St (Take away ice cream and deliveries of chocolate)
Donburi & Co, Korean & Japanese, 13 Artillery Passage
Eastern Eye Balti House, 63a Brick Lane
Enso Thai & Japanese, 94 Brick Lane
Exmouth Coffee Shop, 83 Whitechapel High St
Grounded Coffee Shop, 9 Whitechapel Rd
Holy Shot Coffee, 155 Bethnal Green Rd
Hotbox Smoked Meats, 46-48 Commercial St
Jack The Chipper, 74 Whitechapel High St
Jonestown Coffee, 215 Bethnal Green Rd
Laboratorio Pizza, 79 Brick Lane
La Cucina, 96 Brick Lane
Leon, 3 Crispin Place, Spitalfields Market
Madhubon Sweets, 42 Brick Lane
Mooshies Vegan Burgers, 104 Brick Lane
Nude Expresso, The Roastery, 25 Hanbury St
E. Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd
Pepe’s Peri Peri, 82 Brick Lane
Peter’s Cafe, 73 Aldgate High St
Picky Wops Vegan Pizza, 53 Brick Lane
Polo Bar, 176 Bishopsgate
Poppies, 6-8 Hanbury St
Quaker St Cafe, 10 Quaker St
Rajmahal Sweets, 57 Brick Lane
Rosa’s Thai Cafe, 12 Hanbury St
Shawarma Lebanese, 84 Brick Lane
Shoreditch Fish & Chips, 117 Redchurch St
Sichuan Folk, 32 Hanbury St
String Ray Globe Cafe, 109 Columbia Road
Sushi Show, 136 Bethnal Green Rd
Vegan Yes, Italian & Thai Fusion, 64 Brick Lane
The Watch House, 139 Commercial St
White Horse Kebab, 336 Bethnal Green Rd
Yuriko Sushi & Bento, 48 Brick Lane
OTHER SHOPS & SERVICES
Brick Lane Bookshop, 166 Brick Lane (Books ordered by phone or email are delivered free locally)
Brick Lane Bikes, 118 Bethnal Green Rd
Day Lewis Pharmacy, 14 Old Montague St
E1 Cycles, 4 Commercial St
Eden Floral Designs, 10 Wentworth St (Order fresh flowers online for free delivery)
Flashback Records, 131 Bethnal Green Rd (Order records online for delivery)
Harry Brand, 122 Columbia Road (Order gifts online for delivery)
Leyland Hardware, 2-4 Great Eastern St
Post Office, 160a Brick Lane
Rose Locksmith & DIY, 149 Bethnal Green Rd
Sid’s DIY, 2 Commercial St
ELSEWHERE
E1 Dry Cleaners, Cannon Street Rd, E1 2LY
E5 Bakehouse, Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace, London Fields (Customers are encouraged to order online and collect in person)
Gold Star Dry Cleaning & Laundry, 330 Burdett Rd
Hackney Essentials, 235 Victoria Park Rd
Quality Dry Cleaners, 16a White Church Lane
Newham Books, 747 Barking Rd (Books ordered by phone or email are posted out)
Rajboy, 564 Commercial Rd, E14 7JD (Take away service available)
Region Choice Chemist, 68 Cambridge Heath Rd
Symposium Italian Restaurant, 363 Roman Road (Take away service available)
Thompsons DIY, 442-444 Roman Rd
Photographs copyright © Estate of Tony Hall
You may like to take a look at these other photos by Tony Hall
So Long, Mannie Blankett
Mannie Blankett – the oldest man in the City of London – died on 4th January aged one hundred and three years
Mannie Blankett
“You can call me ‘Jack Of All Trades’ if you want,” suggested Mannie with a characteristic grin of self-effacement, when I asked his profession, as if he were more concerned to make things easier for me than to assert his accomplishments. Such was the philosophical detachment of one born in 1917, who saw the passage of the twentieth century, who was the last of a family of six children, and was a man at peace with himself.
While the January afternoon light faded outside, I was privileged to spend a few hours with Mannie in the peace of his modern flat looking down upon the Petticoat Lane Market.
“As a youngster, I remember going to the Pavilion Theatre in the Whitechapel Rd and seeing the boxing and wrestling. It was full of people and very popular. That was a long time ago, the end of the thirties, so you can imagine how old I am. The boxing ring was in the middle of the theatre with seats all round and upon the stage. It can’t have been expensive because I didn’t have anything. It must have been pennies. I remember an American boxer came over called ‘Punchy’ Paul Shaffer who knocked out all his opponents in the first round and there was Max Krauser the wrestler, a heavyweight who won all his fights.
I was born in Jamaica St and I left the East End at twenty years old, when the family moved to Stamford Hill in 1937. Jamaica St had all these bug-ridden houses then. We used to call them ‘red bugs,’ and they came out in the summer. Six of us shared a three bedroom house and we had no back garden or bathroom, and we had an outside toilet. Opposite, there was a company that did deliveries by horse and cart, collecting and transporting goods. There were few cars around then, very few people had them, just the milkman, the baker and the coalman. I wish I could remember more about the old days. As a kid, my mother used to take me up to Brick Lane to buy clothes and I remember the market in Whitechapel all along Mile End Waste
My parents came from Poland. My father Harry was a furrier who had his own business in the West End and my mother Sarah had six children to bring up. Blankett & Sons had workshops around Oxford St and Soho, and I had a brother who worked there with my father. I went to South St School, then I won a scholarship to Mile End School in Myrdle St and I was supposed to stay until sixteen, but my mother took me out at fourteen. I didn’t want to work as a furrier, instead I worked as a hairdresser all over the East End, before my mother sent me to a hairdressing school to learn my trade for three years but I wasn’t keen on that – the hours were very long, eight in the morning until eight at night – so I went into the family business after all.
I worked there for a couple of years and I learnt all the parts of the trade, making patterns, cutting and nailing. At lunchtimes, I used to go swimming and sunbathing at the Serpentine Lido and I got chatting with the attendant and he said there was a job going as a lifeguard and suggested I apply. I worked at the Lido for five years, it was a seasonal job from Easter until September. At school, I had learnt to swim and won a bronze medal for lifesaving. I was in my late teens and I loved that job. In our English summers, you get weeks of rain and we used to sit and play chess all day.
I always wanted to travel and, one day, I saw an advert in the London Times offering return tickets to India for seventy-five pounds. So I got a ticket and it was to travel overland, so it took a month just to get there! I met this young lady, Pat Evans, and we used to write to each other. When I went to India, I gave up my flat in Blandford St, so she said, ‘When you come back you can stay at my place in Croydon for a night, if you need somewhere.’ I stayed ten years until she died. She used to do a bit of writing, she wrote stories and poems for magazines and had quite a few published. In Croydon, I got a job at the swimming pool in Purley Way, opposite where the old airport and I was there for five years.
I got called up in 1943 for three years and, when I came out, I did a bit of hairdressing and part-time work in the family business to get by. In the sixties, I worked in Housman’s Radical Bookshop in the Caledonian Rd and I was in the Peace Movement. I joined Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and became one of the Committee of One Hundred, including Bertrand Russell, Arnold Wesker, Christopher Logue and Vanessa Redgrave. We had demonstrations and, when they were arrested, we would step in to fill their places – I was arrested a number of times too.
When I was in Croydon, I got friendly with a guy who liked to dress up in uniform and do historical re-enactments, and he told me there was a VE Day Celebration coming up in the East End and they had two big bands playing including one led by Glenn Miller’s brother. So we went along and I met this woman who lived in Petticoat Sq. She was called Rene Rabin and that was twenty-five years ago. That was how I came back to the East End, to live in Middlesex St. Now I’ve lived in Petticoat Lane for twenty years and I like it round here. I have travelled a full circle in my life. “
Mannie with his sister Anne and their parents Sarah and Harry Blankett in the thirties
The Pavilion Theatre as Mannie knew it in the thirties
In his flat in Petticoat Sq, Mannie Blankett looks down upon the Petticoat Lane Market
Mannie features in this film, chatting with pals
You may also like to read these other Petticoat Lane Stories
Laurie Allen of Petticoat Lane
Travellers Children In London Fields
Our January sale ends tonight. All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight.
Click here to visit the Spitalfields Life Bookshop
Copies of Colin O’Brien’s TRAVELLERS CHILDREN IN LONDON FIELDS are included in the sale
“I came across the travellers whilst I was photographing a deserted warehouse in the London Fields area in 1987. They had parked their caravans in and around Martello St, near the railway arches by the station. This part of Hackney was very run down in the eighties. The streets were littered with rubbish and many of the decaying Victorian terraces were being demolished. The area was neglected and dangerous, with graffiti everywhere.
The travellers were Irish, mostly families with three or four children, living in modern caravans which looked extremely cramped but comfortable. On the first week I started to take one or two Polaroid shots of the children which I gave to them to show their parents. Some of the parents then dressed the children up and sent them out for me to take more pictures.
I continued to take many more images over a period of three weeks and got to know some of the travellers well. They took me into their confidence and trusted me with their children. It was only when I started to print the images that I realised what an amazing set of photographs they were.
When I returned to the site on the fourth week the families had gone. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was – after all, this is what travellers do, they move on. I had no way of contacting them but I was left with an amazing set of pictures.”
Colin O’Brien
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
Click here to order a copy for half price
Remembering A Hoxton Childhood
All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight on Sunday.
Click here to visit the Spitalfields Life Bookshop
Today I present these extracts to give you a flavour of AS Jasper’s memoir of growing up in the East End at the beginning of the twentieth century, A HOXTON CHILDHOOD, which was acclaimed as a classic when it was described by the Observer as ‘Zola without the trimmings.’
My father had a distinct Roman nose, a full moustache, slightly bandy legs and drooping shoulders. His main object in life was to be continually drunk and he had every opportunity to keep that way. His job was delivering overmantels and small furniture to various places in East London. He used to go out at five in the morning. First call was the local pub for rum and milk, this he could keep up all day. He always had money. Of every three articles he delivered, one was nicked, and the proceeds shared among the men who loaded him up. But at home he was tight with his money. I don’t ever remember my mother having a week’s wages off him – six or seven shillings was the most she ever received.
The reason he never gave her regular wages was he knew my mother could always earn a few shillings with her machine. To me, my mother was the most wonderful woman on earth. I find it hard to describe the love that she gave us. She had come to this country at the age of eighteen. Her family were musicians and had played at the royal Dutch Court. I never discovered why they emigrated – probably thought they could do better here.
When I was old enough to understand, I asked her what made her marry a man like my father. She told me that he had taken her out many times, but she always had to be home early for my grandmother was very strict. Eventually one night he brought her home past midnight and Grandmother refused to open the door. Consequently, he took her to his own place, made her pregnant and they had to get married. He deceived her from the start, she never got over the fact that he gave her a brass wedding ring.
In 1915, several commodities were in short supply. Among them were screws and glue. If any could be obtained, a good price could be had from the small cabinet-makers in the district.
Evidently, during their drinking bouts, the old man told Gerry what a wonderful market there was for screws and glue and how he wished he could get hold of some. Gerry was working in Bethnal Green Road, making munition boxes. Plenty of screws and glue were used in their construction. Gerry reckoned he could get plenty but some arrangement would have to be made to collect them. He could get them out during his afternoon tea break, but not dinner-time or night-time. I was approached and asked to go each day to meet Gerry during his afternoon tea break.
Mum went mad when she knew what they were up to, but between the two of them they managed to convince her there was no risk. I had to take a shopping bag to school with me and then proceed to Bethnal Green Road at four o’clock. I can’t remember the name of the pub where I had to meet Gerry. At the side of the pub there was a gents’ toilet that was always open.
When Gerry came along I would dive in and he would follow. He would quickly undo his apron and take out packets of screws and packets of dried glue from inside his trousers. He also had his pockets stuffed. They were quickly dropped in the bag and I would walk home. This I had to do every day of the week and Saturday mornings also. The old man would take them on his round and flog them to various small cabinet-makers. On Saturday afternoons they would share out the proceeds. I don’t remember ever getting anything out of this, but I suppose I must have done. Mum wouldn’t have let me do it for nothing. It’s a marvel I didn’t grow up a criminal the things I had to do for them.
Mum decided to start selling clothes again. One Friday she said to me, ‘Stan, I want you to go down Hoxton in the morning and see if you can find a site where we can pitch a stall.’ The market was usually chock-a-block with stalls but this didn’t deter her from sending me to have a look round. I started from the ‘narrow way’ of Hoxton and walked along towards Old Street, but couldn’t see many vacant places. Coming back, I saw somewhere that took my eye. In the centre of the road between Nuttall Street and Wilmer Gardens were two public lavatories, flanked all round by a wide pavement. There were two or three stalls there but plenty of room for more. Home I went and told Mum. This pleased her and she thought she could do all right there, but I had lost my cart.
Some time ago, I had to go to Whiston Street Gasworks for three penn’orth of coke. To get the coke I went in the gate, paid my threepence in the office and got a ticket. I then went to where the men were filling the sacks, got loaded and went back to where I had left my cart. When I got there someone had pinched it. I should have known better. The lads round there could take your laces out of your boots and you wouldn’t know they were gone. I had to carry the coke home and swore I would somehow get my cart back. Mum worked hard all that week and bought and mended any old clothes she could find and got them ready for the stall on the coming Saturday.
Opposite the house where we lived was a coal shop and they had a couple of barrows which they let out on hire. I booked one for Saturday, when at eight sharp I got it loaded up with two sacks of clothes, old boots and anything Mum thought she could sell. I pushed the barrow and Mum walked alongside of me. I was just hoping the pitch was vacant. It was and I was overjoyed.
I propped up the barrow with the front legs I had brought along with me so that Mum could sit on it. We had some boards and these we laid out on the barrow. Mum unpacked the clothes and we were away. By nine-thirty people were beginning to flock into the market and we soon had some customers. The frocks and pinafores went like wildfire. ‘Fifteen pence the frocks,’ Mum would say, and ‘ninepence the pinafores.’
About midday we were half sold out. I asked Mum if she would like some tea. ‘Ere y’are, son,’ she said, and took the money out of the takings. I got a jug of tea and some sandwiches and we ate them ravenously. We’d had no breakfast owing to our having to start out early. Three o’clock came and we had sold out. Mum told me to stay with the barrow while she went shopping, and came back loaded. She treated me to the pictures and gave me money to buy sweets. I had never known such times.
POSTSCRIPT BY A.S. JASPER
I find that few realise how bad conditions were such a comparatively short time ago. (‘Your story reads more like something out of Dickens,’ is a typical comment.) It was easy, it seems, for the better-off to be unaware of the appalling poverty and near starvation that existed. But those of us (and there are plenty) who remember lining-up in the snow at the local Mission for a jug of soup or second-hand boots, begging for relief at the Poor Law Institution, being told to take our caps off and address officials as ‘sir’, realise it all too well. Yet amid those terrible times, we found time to laugh. We did not expect many pleasures out of life, but those we could get we took to the full. Perhaps it was this that enabled us to survive and perhaps this is why some of my older readers said they looked back with nostalgia and even affection to some aspects of those old days.
To my younger readers, may I say, ‘Be thankful that you were born now and not then. Go forward, but try to be tolerant of your parents on the way.’
Illustrations copyright © Estate of James Boswell
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AS Jasper, Author & Cabinet-Maker
A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After
James Boswell, Artist & Illustrator
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More Ghastly Facades
To give you a chance to stock up for the new lockdown, we are extending our January sale. All titles in the online shop are half price with the discount code JANUARY until midnight on Sunday.
Click here to visit the Spitalfields Life Bookshop
Despite everything, the relentless advance of facadism continues across London as illustrated by these most recent examples. THE CREEPING PLAGUE OF GHASTLY FACADISM is included in the sale.
In Newell St next to Nicholas Hawksmoor’s St Anne, Limehouse
Nineteenth century warehouse in Norton Folgate facaded by British Land
Former Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel
Corner of Half Moon St and Piccadilly
Former American Embassy, Grosvenor Sq, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1960
All that remains of the Kings Rd Odeon. Originally named the Gaumont Palace, it was designed by cinema architect William Edward Trent and opened in 1934.
Eighteenth Century Weaver’s House in Norton Folgate facaded by British Land
All that remains of Kensington Odeon. Originally built in as 1926 as The Kensington in 1926, designed by Julian Randolph Leathart & W.F Grainger.
Click here to order a copy for half price
“As if I were being poked repeatedly in the eye with a blunt stick, I cannot avoid becoming increasingly aware of a painfully cynical trend in London architecture which threatens to turn the city into the backlot of an abandoned movie studio.”
The Gentle Author presents a humorous analysis of facadism – the unfortunate practice of destroying an old building apart from the front wall and constructing a new building behind it – revealing why it is happening and what it means.
As this bizarre architectural fad has spread across the capital, The Gentle Author has photographed the most notorious examples, collecting an astonishing gallery of images guaranteed to inspire both laughter and horror in equal measure.
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