City Animals
I am delighted to publish these CITY ANIMALS from Symbols & Secrets, written by The City Gent, a graduate of my blog writing course. The Gent has worked in the City of London for thirty years and every week he publishes stories of things that he likes. Follow SYMBOLS & SECRETS, Walking the City of London
We are now taking bookings for this autumn’s course, HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on November 10th & 11th. Come to Spitalfields and spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches from Leila’s Cafe, eat cakes baked to historic recipes by Townhouse and learn how to write your own blog. Click here for details
If you are a graduate of my course and you would like me to feature your blog, please drop me a line.
The Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap was where Sir John Falstaff and Prince Hal caroused in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One & Two. The present building at number 33-35 dates from 1868 and references this history with a boar peeping out of bushes and portrait heads of Henry IV and Henry V. Architectural critic, Ian Nairn, described the building as ‘the scream you wake on at the end of a nightmare.’
This magnificent leaping fox appears on the Grade II listed Art Deco shopfront of the Fox company, who manufacture and repair umbrellas. Mr Fox opened his first shop in the City in 1868 but this shop dates from 1935. You can still purchase a classy Fox umbrella if you go to their website, but the shop is now a wine bar.
Mice nibbling a piece of cheese add charm to a building in Philpot Lane off Eastcheap and have been described as London’s smallest sculpture. Even though they have been repainted, they are still hard to find. I am not saying precisely where they are but hopefully you will enjoy looking for them.
One theory of their mysterious origin is that the builders were pestered by mice who ransacked their lunch packs in 1862 left this informal tribute. Another story is that they commemorate a worker who died during the construction of the Monument. Apparently, mice ate his lunch but he accused a fellow by mistake and fell to his death in the ensuing fight.
Hanging signs were once a major feature of City streets. Charles I encouraged them to help those find their way around who could not read. They became immensely popular and proliferated to such an extent that they posed a threat to life in storms and windy weather. In 1718, when one caused the collapse of an entire frontage and killed four people, it was obvious something had to be done. But it was not until 1762 that businesses were forced to remove them and fix them to shopfronts instead. The Cat & Fiddle sign in Lombard St harks back to a tavern of that name which once stood on the site although this sign was actually only erected in 1902, along with several other replica signs, to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII.
This little Scottish terrier called Chippy rests now in All Hallows by the Tower at the feet of his master the Reverend ‘Tubby’ Clayton who was vicar between 1922 and 1963. He is best known for his work as an army chaplain during the First World War, in particular establishing Talbot House as a place of rest and sanctuary for the troops. After the war, Talbot House grew into the Toc H movement.
As you approach the Bank junction from Cheapside, look up and you will see two boys at either end of the building that was once headquarters of Midland Bank. Each one is struggling with an angry goose. Why a goose? A clue is the name of the street and the goose was a suggestion by the architect Edwin Lutyens to commemorate the former poultry market.
The Church of St Katherine Cree in Leadenhall St, which is one of the few to survive the Great Fire and the Blitz, has a rooster on its weathervane. The Bible tells how Peter denying Christ three times ‘before the cock crowed’. In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory I declared the rooster as the emblem of St Peter and also of Christianity itself. In the ninth Century, Pope Nicholas decreed all churches should display it and, although the practice faded away, the tradition of rooster weathervanes has survived in may places.
The Agnus Dei, or Lamb of God, is the emblem of the Middle Temple and can be seen in many places around the Inn. There is a theory that the holy lamb was chosen because it had originally been used by the Knights Templar whose arms were two knights mounted on one horse with a trotting Agnus Dei.
The leopard’s head – which has always been the mark of the London Assay Office – recalls King Richard II, whose symbol this was and who granted the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths its charter in 1393. It can be found over the entrance to the site of the former churchyard and church of St John Zachary which was partly destroyed in the Great Fire. In 1339, the Goldsmiths acquired this land and built the earliest recorded livery hall there.
This wise owl gazes at commuters as they trek over London Bridge from his perch on the House of Fraser department store north of the bridge.
This bee is the keystone over the entrance to Honey Lane which connects Cheapside with Trump St. The name of the lane comes from the bee-keepers who used to live there and it also once led to All Hallows Honey Lane, a medieval church destroyed in the Great Fire.
The Black Eagle sign in Brick Lane reminds passers-by of the Black Eagle Brewery. Founded in 1666, in the eighteenth century under the management of Sir Benjamin Truman, it began the expansion that led to the creation of Truman, Hanbury & Buxton, the largest brewer in the world.
This beaver above 64 Bishopsgate is a reminder of the Hudson’s Bay Company which was based nearby and once dominated the fur trade. Beaver fur was much sought after, particularly for hats.
This figure of a ram by an unknown sculptor in New St, dates from the eighteen-sixties and once presided over the entrance to Cooper’s wool warehouse.
Photographs copyright © The City Gent
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Rachael South, Chair Caner & Upholsterer
Rachael South at her workshop in Dalston
It never fails to inspire me when I meet someone who finds joy in the work they do – and Rachael South, third-generation chair caner, is a prime example. The chain of events that led to making contact with Rachael was extraordinary and the resultant visit to her workshop proved a rewarding outcome.
One day I published a picture of an unknown man in a suit sitting on the kerb mending a cane chair, which came from David Sweetland’s A London Inheritance, where he writes a weekly commentary upon his father’s photographs of London in the fifties and sixties. The picture fascinated me because of its similarity to the age-old images of chair menders to be found in the Cries of London series of prints published in these pages. Imagine my surprise when his granddaughter, Rachael, got in touch, naming him as Michael South and explaining that she carries on the trade to this day which was taught to her by her father, who had in turn been taught by her grandfather.
My quest led me to an old workshop in Shacklewell Lane where Rachael spends her days caning and upholstering chairs by the light of a large window. “The family lived in Ladbroke Grove but was Irish in origin, I believe there were a lot of Irish immigrants there at one time, “she revealed to me, talking as she worked at her caning, “Michael, my grandfather, was a prizefighter and bare-knuckle boxer, but over time the chair caning took over as his boxing career waned. He had a pedlar’s licence and walked up the hill from Ladbroke Grove to work around Kensington and Knightsbridge. They may have been travelling people once, because I was told it was called ‘Gypsy Caning.’ You can do it in the street because you don’t need any tools, just a knife and a block of wood or hammer to knock out the pegs.”
Certainly, chair caning has been carried out upon the streets of London for centuries and Rachael delights in the notion of being the inheritor of this artisan tradition, which suits her independent nature very well and guarantees a constant income as long as she chooses to do it.
“Terry, my dad, wanted to stay on at school and train as a draughtsman but at fourteen my granddad said, ‘You’ve got to get a job,'” Rachael admitted to me.”He had been brought up doing chair caning and he managed to get an apprenticeship with Mrs Shield, who was a celebrity decorator of the time – before setting up his own upholstery workshop in Harrow where he trained six apprentices”
“My dad taught me caning when I was fourteen. I used to go along to his workshop and I liked it, because I’m quite a patient person and the upholsterers were a good laugh,” Rachael recalled fondly,” and when I went to art college, it was what I did to make money – I lived in Hammersmith and went round all the antiques dealers and they supplied me with enough caning to see me through.”
Employed as a textile designer, Rachael soon felt the need for freedom and set up her own workshop as upholsterer and chair caner. “I’ve never been without work and I have three people working with me. I’ve been caning chairs for over thirty years,” she confided to me proudly, “I can’t turn work away because I know I can do it and people are always so delighted when I give it back to them. I say, ‘That’s it done for another generation.'”
Rachael’s grandfather Michael South (1905-1964) at work in Kensington, sitting on his tool box
Michael worked with a pedlar’s licence in West London –“He had many brothers and sisters. One called Samson used to ride a motorbike on the wall of death and another called Danny had only one ear.”
Rachael’s father Terry South at work in his workshop in Harrow in the seventies
Rachael South at work today in Dalston
Terry South and Rachael at his workshop in 1978
Rachael sets to work with cane soaked in water for flexibility
Michael always went to work dressed in a suit and leather shoes
Rachael with a bundle of reeds
“Israel Potter, one of the oldest menders of chairs still living” – as portrayed by John Thomas Smith in Vagabondiana, 1819
Photo by John Thomson from Street Life in London, 1876: Caney the Clown – ”thousands remember how he delighted them with his string of sausages at the yearly pantomime, but Caney has cut his last caper since his exertions to please at Stepney Fair caused the bursting of a varicose vein in his leg and, although his careworn face fails to reflect his natural joviality, the mending of chairs brings him constant employment.”
“Old Chairs to mend!” by Thomas Wheatley, seventeen-nineties
“Any Old Chairs To Mend! & Green and Young Hastings!” by Sam Syntax
“Old Chairs to mend, Old Chairs to Mend!” by J. Kendrew
“Chairs to Mend!” from The New Cries Of London, 1803
“The kerbside mender of chairs, who ‘if he had more money to spend would not be crying – “Chairs to mend!’ is one of the neatest-fingered of street traders. Watch how deftly he weaves his strips of cane in and out – how neatly he finishes off each chair, returning it to the owner, ‘good as new.'” from London Characters, 1934
William Marshall Craig’s Itinerant Traders in their Ordinary Costune, 1804 : “Chairs to mend. The business of mending chairs is generally conducted by a family or a partnership. One carries the bundle of rush and collects old chairs, while the workman seating himself in some convenient corner on the pavement, exercises his trade. For small repairs they charge from fourpence to one shilling, and for newly covering a chair from eighteen pence to half a crown, according to the fineness of the rush required and the neatness of the workmanship. It is necessary to bargain for price prior to the delivery of the chairs, or the chair mender will not fail to demand an exorbitant compensation for his time and labour.”
Chairmender at corner of Prince Orange Lane, Greenwich from Charles Spurgeon’s Londoners
From Julius Mendes Price’s London Types, 1919
From The Cries of London, early nineteenth century
Archive photos of Michael South © A London Inheritance
Cries of London courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Contact Rachael South for chair caning and upholstery
On Night Patrol With Lew Tassell
We join Constable Lew Tassell on a night patrol in the City of London on Tuesday December 12th 1972
Police Constable Lew Tassell of the City of London Police
“One week in December 1972, I was on night duty. Normally, I would be on beat patrol from Bishopsgate Police Station between 11pm-7am. But that week I was on the utility van which operated between 10pm-6am, so there would be cover during the changeover times for the three City of London Police divisions – Bishopsgate, Wood St and Snow Hill. One constable from each division would be on the van with a sergeant and a driver from the garage.
That night, I was dropped off on the Embankment during a break to allow me to take some photographs and I walked back to Wood St Police Station to rejoin the van crew. You can follow the route in my photographs.
The City of London at night was a peaceful place to walk, apart from the parts that operated twenty-four hours a day – the newspaper printshops in Fleet Street, Smithfield Meat Market, Billingsgate Fish Market and Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market.
Micks Cafe in Fleet St never had an apostrophe on the sign or acute accent on the ‘e.’ It was a cramped greasy spoon that opened twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. During the night and early morning it served print-workers, drunks returning from the West End and the occasional vagrant.
Generally, we police did not use it. We might have been unwelcome because we would have stood out like a sore thumb. But I did observation in there in plain clothes sometimes. Micks Cafe was a place where virtually anything could be sourced, especially at night when nowhere else was open.”
Middle Temple Lane
Pump Court, Temple
King’s Bench Walk, Temple
Bouverie St, News of the World and The Sun
Fleet St looking East towards Ludgate Circus
Ludgate Hill looking towards Fleet St under Blackfriars Railway Bridge, demolished in 1990
Old Bailey from Newgate St looking south
Looking north from Newgate St along Giltspur St, St Bartholomew’s Hospital
Newgate St looking towards junction of Cheapside and New Change – buildings now demolished
Cheapside looking east from the corner of Wood St towards St Mary Le Bow and the Bank
HMS Chrysanthemum, Embankment
Constable Lew Tassell, 1972
Photographs copyright © Lew Tassell
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A Hard-Working Life
Spitalfields Life Books will be publishing A MODEST LIVING, Memoirs of Cockney Sikh by Suresh Singh in October. Here is the third instalment and further excerpts will follow over coming weeks.
In this first London Sikh biography, Suresh tells the story of his family who have lived in their house in Princelet St for nearly seventy years, longer I believe than any other family in Spitalfields. In the book, chapters of biography are alternated with a series of Sikh recipes by Jagir Kaur, Suresh’s wife.
You can support publication by pre-ordering a copy now, which will be signed by Suresh Singh and sent to you on publication.
Click here to order a signed copy of A MODEST LIVING for £20
Suresh Singh & Jagir Kaur at 38 Princelet St this summer (Photograph by Patricia Niven)
Mum with me in the yard at 38 Princelet St shortly after we left hospital
Mum came to join Dad in 1955, bringing my elder sister. I think she quickly became absorbed by motherhood and childbearing. She did not stay healthy because the house was so overcrowded. First she got asthma from the dust mites in the mattresses and then she got tuberculosis. Yet she remained a very generous woman and welcomed everybody. She tolerated our mad house and never said she wanted to live like other Sikh families. She never sought domestic comforts. She understood Dad’s beliefs and adapted to life in England in her own way. To look at Mum, you would think that she never left India. She just stayed in her Punjabi clothes, as if she had arrived yesterday.
She was always cooking in big pans for lots of people, brewing masala tea with milk on the gas ring. It seemed nothing ever boiled over. She had mastered it to an art, the size of the gas flame and the circumference of the pan. She made dals, cooked spinach, and roasted chicken at weekends. We kept a big sack of brown flour in a dustbin, twenty-five kilos, and she loved making chapatis in abundance. They were buttered with Anchor butter, wrapped in cloth to keep them soft and stacked one on top ofthe other in an aluminium pot with a lid. We always thought there was an endless bundle because they never ran out. On Friday someone would bring a freshly-killed chicken from the kosher chicken shop in Petticoat Lane or, as a treat, Dad would buy fish and chips from Alfies on Brick Lane. On Sunday and special occasions Mum would make prashad.
At the end of each week, Dad gave his unopened pay-packet to Mum. She kept it so if the family needed money in India she could get it. They never had a bank account, but had a way of hiding valuables in the house. They sent money through Grewal, the grocer in Artillery Passage, who had a means of exchanging it for rupees.
Mum spent quite a bit of time in hospitals before I was born and then with me in the baby clinic, where she met other women – English, Irish, Scottish, Jewish, Maltese, Pakistani and West Indian. They were all very poor and became friends because they came from big families. They were devoted to their own faiths and shared a strong sense of duty to their families. Every Friday while Mum was in Mile End hospital in Bancroft Road they gave each woman a bottle of Guinness for strength because they believed the iron was good for the blood. As a Sikh, Mum did not drink alcohol so she put the bottles in her bedside cupboard. It was like a drinks cabinet. The Irish women came and she gave them one each, and they all became close.
I remember these women visiting our house. They called her Mrs Singh and she corrected them, saying, ‘No, I am Mrs Kaur.’ They would ask, ‘Are you separated from Mr Singh?’ She was shocked that anyone would ask such a question but explained, ‘No, no, it’s our Sikh faith that men are called Singh and women are called Kaur.’ Singh means lion and Kaur means princess. Mum would then take the opportunity to talk about her faith and how this naming was initiated by the tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh.
Mum cultivated these warm relationships. She never judged anybody and had a gift for bringing women together regardless of their appearance, way of life or who they were. I think she inherited that quality from her dad who was a wise man. I was the luckiest in the family to spend so much time at home with my parents. They taught me how to hold a family together.
Mum wanted to stay at home and Dad never sent her out to work. She valued the responsibility of keeping the house, caring for her children and others in the family. He valued and trusted her judgement in keeping the household in order. She loved walking us to Christ Church School and enjoyed the social life at the school gate. We came home for dinner every day because the school meals were tasteless, without any spices.
Once my cousins’ wives started coming over from the Punjab and staying with us, Mum took them to the clinic and they would spend time together. She demonstrated how to put a terry nappy on a baby with a safety pin, and how to boil nappies in a pan with Daz on the gas ring to get them nice and white again. She was a mother to them, these newly-wed women who came and stayed for a while. She taught them a few tricks of the trade.
When I was born in 1962, I already had my eldest sister from India, my second sister and my brother. There were always other children in the house, so often I did not know who was family and who was not. Dad had adopted one of our cousins from India and I just thought all these people were family. I called everybody brother or sister. Food was cooked in a large pan and we all ate chapatis together on the floor. It was a simple but hard-working life.
Our family
Mum with a friend in Trafalgar Sq
Dad’s pay packet
Click here to order a signed copy of A MODEST LIVING for £20
The Tragical Death Of An Apple Pie
Last week, I bought a whole box of apples from Kent for just five pounds in Sclater St and so I take this opportunity to present The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie, an alphabet rhyme first published in 1671, in a version produced by Jemmy Catnach in the eighteen-twenties.
Poet, compositor and publisher, Catnach moved to London from Newcastle in 1812 and set up Seven Dials Press in Monmouth Court, producing more than four thousand chapbooks and broadsides in the next quarter century. Anointed as the high priest of street literature and eager to feed a seemingly-endless appetite for cheap printed novelties in the capital, Catnach put forth a multifarious list of titles, from lurid crime and political satire to juvenile rhymes and comic ballads, priced famously at a halfpenny or a ‘farden.’
A An Apple Pie
B Bit it
C Cut it
D Dealt it
E Did eat it
F Fought for it
G Got it
H Had it
J Join’d for it
K Kept it
L Long’d for it
M Mourned for it
N Nodded at it
O Open’d it
P Peeped into it
Q Quartered it
R Ran for it
S Stole it
T Took it
V View’d it
W Wanted it
XYZ and & all wished for a piece in hand
Dame Dumpling who made the Apple Pie
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The Fate Of The Bethnal Green Mulberry
Photograph by Bob Philpots
A huge and violent storm broke over the East End last night, rending the sky apart. Was it a remnant of the hurricane that swept across the Atlantic or was it a meteorological manifestation of the conflict that erupted in Tower Hamlets Council Chamber at Mulberry Place?
In the councillors’ discussion of Crest Nicholson’s scheme to redevelop the former London Chest Hospital, the Bethnal Green Mulberry dominated. The fresh-faced Arboculturalist employed by the developer declared that he was ‘100% certain’ the tree could survive being dug up and moved, adding that the means of undertaking this would be ‘bespoke.’ In the way that coffins can be bespoke, I thought. He boasted of 100% success in the moving of Mulberries, yet when questioned was unable to say how many Mulberries he knew of that had been moved. Even Tower Hamlets new Tree Officer, Adam Armstrong, conceded that there was ‘a fair probability it would not survive.’
Julian Forbes Laird, UK Expert Witness in Tree Conservation, was more explicit in his lecture on the subject at the Garden Museum last spring, he said ‘The Bethnal Green Mulberry is a veteran and the proposal to relocate it is unlikely to succeed. The tree will either fall apart or die, or possibly both.’
As the meeting proceeded, discussion ranged around the various shortcomings of the scheme. There was deliberation over the degree of damage to the historic Chest Hospital, including demolition of a listed building and loss of its unique original roof structure, and whether this constitutes ‘substantial harm.’
Councillors asked why there was only 35% affordable housing when the Mayor’s target was 50%. A local resident questioned the loss of twenty-seven mature trees, the excessive height and density of the development, and the consequent loss of light to nearby homes. On questioning, the developer revealed there would be no public path through the new housing development, rendering it a gated community.
Criticisms were aired about Crest Nicholson’s public consultations in which the height of the buildings was never revealed and misleading images made them look smaller than they were. Concerns were raised about the relationship of the affordable homes with those at market value, and whether they would be segregated with separate entrances. A clear consensus arose that no aspect of the development was entirely satisfactory.
Thanks to a Freedom of Information request by a local resident, letters between Crest Nicholson’s Chairman Stephen Stone and Tower Hamlets were made public which revealed some corporate muscle had been applied. Stone – who enjoyed a bonus of of £2.25 million last year – wrote that the offer of 35% affordable housing would be withdrawn if the application had to go to appeal.
When the Head of Planning was asked if the scheme could be rejigged so that the Bethnal Green Mulberry could be saved, he answered in the affirmative. Then the change in planning law which came into force in July was raised. It gives extra protection to ancient and veteran trees which can now only be sacrificed for ‘wholly exceptional reasons.’ No-one could see how these were ‘wholly exceptional reasons,’ until the Head of Planning explained helpfully that it did not apply – since the proposal was actually to ‘save’ the Bethnal Green Mulberry by digging it up and moving it.
When it came to the vote, a couple of councillors raised their hands to reject the proposal and a couple raised their hands to accept it. There was confusion and conferring in whispers. The Chair announced that three voted to reject it but four voted to accept and one abstained. In spite of three hundred letters of objection and ten thousand signatures on a petition, the application was approved. Crest Nicholson’s development can go ahead and the tree will be dug up.
I was the first out of the council chamber, leaving behind a lot of angry and disappointed people. I ran through the corporate plaza, buffeted by the approaching storm. I sat on the train home in shock. Will the tree fall apart? Will it decay and die after moving? Will it flourish for centuries in its new position? Time alone will reveal the fate of the Bethnal Green Mulberry.
Nurses dance round the ancient Bethnal Green Mulberry in the grounds of the London Chest Hospital, 1944 (Courtesy of the Royal London Hospital Archives)
Click here to read my feature in The Daily Telegraph about the scandal of the Bethnal Green Mulberry
Read more here about the Bethnal Green Mulberry
How Old is the Bethnal Green Mulberry?
Here We Go Round The Bethnal Green Mulberry
A Plea For The Bethnal Green Mulberry
The Reckoning With Crest Nicholson
On Publication Day For Mr Pussy
Please join me at 6:30pm on Monday 1st October to launch THE LIFE & TIMES OF MR PUSSY, A Memoir of a Favourite Cat at Britain’s oldest bookshop, Hatchards in Piccadilly, where I will be reading stories from the book and signing copies. Admission is free and all are welcome.
Click here to order a signed copy for £15
In his sixteen years, my old cat Mr Pussy only gave one interview. So what could be a more appropriate post on his publication day?
Name?
Mr Pussy
Nicknames?
They call me ‘Rosemary’ as a tease sometimes – it is the name my first owner gave me as a kitten when she thought I was a girl. Hence the gender confusion.
Theme Tune?
Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner…
Age?
Twelve
Owners?
My first owner was a kind old lady who loved gardening and taught me to love plants, but since her demise I live with the next generation.
Brief biography?
Born on the street in Mile End, then a wild five years in Devon catching rabbits and moorhens, but now back in the East End for good.
Catchphrase?
In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London.
Favourite Habits?
Perching on a window sill and looking down imperiously. Licking up fresh running water in the sink. Sitting in patches of sunlight and on paper bags.
What constitutes a perfect evening for you?
Stretched out before the iron stove in an insensible stupor of warmth.
Favourite food?
I am partial to licking chicken liver pate off a finger.
Defining moment of your life?
The death of my mistress. I search for her every day and still live by the routine that I established with her. I have not given up hope she might come back if I wait long enough. Like Hamlet, I wear my black coat in eternal mourning.
If you could do one thing to make the world a better place for felines what would it be?
Tell everyone to sit still.
If you could meet a celebrity who would it be and why?
William Shakespeare, because we share an instinctive appreciation of the lonely poetry of the night.
Here follows a selection of Mr Pussy’s photography
Interesting street art on Brick Lane
Masterpiece by Banksy
The cat that wrote the dictionary
Attractive public sculpture in Bloomsbury
