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
At St Botolph Without Aldgate
I am delighted to publish this extract of a post from A London Inheritance, written by a graduate of my blog writing course. The author inherited a series of old photographs of London from his father and by tracing them, he discovers the changes in the city over a generation. Follow A LONDON INHERITANCE, A Private History of a Public City
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 graduate of my course and you would like me to feature your blog, please drop me a line.
My father’s photograph of St Botolph Without Aldgate in the fifties
The same view today
When I found the location where my father took his photograph only a single building remained in an entirely changed street scene. In his picture, the distinctive tower of St Botolph Without Aldgate is easily recognisable, although the top of the spire is missing through bomb damage. But there were no other obvious clues to identify where my father took his photo, although there is a bomb site between the church and the road.
I walked around the surrounding streets trying to find the location. My search was not helped by the new buildings obscuring the view of the church. However, when I walked down Dukes Place towards the junction with Creechurch Lane and Bevis Marks, I saw one building that looked familiar.
If you look to the left of the top photo, there is a tall building. If you look at the left of the photo below, the same building is still there – a lone survivor from the pre-war buildings in these streets.
Although the ground floor is different now, the upper floors have the same architectural features in both photographs. The building today is National Microfinance Bank House but, in my father’s time, it was Creechurch House. Walking down towards St Botolph’s without Aldgate, the church becomes visible and at the rear of the church are trees, much as in my father’s original photo.
The first written records mention St Botolph Without Aldgate in the twelfth century, although a Saxon church was probably built on the site, evidenced by tenth century burials in the crypt. Originally attached to the Priory of the Holy Trinity, it was rebuilt just before the dissolution during Henry VIII’s reign and restored in 1621. St Botolph without Aldgate was declared unsafe and demolished in 1739, making way for construction of the church we see today. This church by George Dance the Elder was built between 1741 and 1744 and aligned so the entrance and the tower faced the Minories.
“Without Aldgate” references the location of the church outside the walls of the City of London. There are several other St Botolph churches at the edge of the City, St Botolph Without Bishopsgate, St Botolph Without Aldersgate, and there was a St Botolph Billingsgate, destroyed in the Great Fire.
St Botolph established a monastery in East Anglia in the seventh century and died around the 680. In the tenth century, King Edgar had the remains of saint divided and sent to locations through London. They passed through the City gates and the churches alongside the gates through which the remains passed were named after St Botolph.He is the patron saint of wayfarers, who used the City gates as they travelled to and fro. It fascinates me that the names of these churches at the edge of the City of London today refer both to the Roman wall and to events from in tenth century.
St Botolph Without Aldgate viewed from the Minories
Elevation by George Dance the Elder of St. Botolph, c.1740s © Sir John Soane’s Museum
Section by George Dance the Elder of St. Botolph, Aldgate, c.1740s © Sir John Soane’s Museum
The interior of St Botolph without Aldgate retains the original galleries and Tuscan columns
The elaborate plasterwork was added between 1888 and 1895 by J.F. Bentley
Plasterwork by J.F. Bentley
Window commemorating the Stationers’s Company
Window commemorating the Paviour’s Company
Window commemorating the Spectacle Makers’ Company
An eighteenth century ceremonial sword rest
Photographs copyright © A London Inheritance
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George Dickinson, Sales Manager
George Dickinson, Sales Manager at Jackie Brafman’s in Petticoat Lane
Through the nineteenth and twentieth century, Petticoat Lane market was one of the wonders of London, until deregulation in the eighties permitted shops across the capital to open and the market lost its monopoly on Sunday trading.
One of the most celebrated and popular traders was Jackie Brafman, still remembered for his distinctive auctioneering style, standing on a table in the Lane and selling dresses at rock bottom prices.
George Dickinson worked as Sales Manager for Jackie Brafman for thirty-three years during the heyday of the sixties, seventies and eighties. Losing his father when he was still a child and coming to London from Newcastle as a teenager, George discovered a new family in Petticoat Lane and a surrogate father in Jackie Brafman.
“I was born as George Albert Dickinson in Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, one of six brothers and a sister. We had a very good family life and we were happy until my father died when I was nine. In those days, they did not know whether it was cancer or tuberculosis. He was manager of a brewery and a very good piano player. He used to get behind the piano in the dining room and play the chords.
My mother had to sell our four-bedroomed house and we moved in with an aunt. After three months, the aunt died and we had to get out again. We moved to a small terraced house in Scotswood, and my mother did cleaning and worked in a pub in the centre of Newcastle. Our neighbour was a retired miner and every month he got a ton of coal from the coal board. His wife used to come ask, ‘George, Would you like to shovel it into the coal hole? If anybody wants to buy some coal, it’s sixpence a bucket.’ I used to do that for her and she gave me a shilling.
I lived there until I was fourteen when I was allowed to leave school and go to work because of the situation. My eldest brother became a fireman in Newcastle during the war and another was sent to Burma as a medic. There’s only me and my younger brother left now.
I had two jobs in Newcastle. First in a bedding company, making divans, and then I had a go at French polishing, but I got the sack from that – why I do not know. So I went to try to get a job at a fifty shilling tailors and I think I lasted about two days, I did not like it at all.
At fifteen years old, I decided to come to London. My sister met me at King’s Cross and took me to Camden Town. I was just mesmerised by it all. It was Irish and Greeks. A nice place to live at the time. She had a dairy in Pratt St and I lived with her for a little while. I got a job at a textile firm in the West End as a storeman and travelled back and forth by bus.
Then I got my call-up papers at the age of eighteen in 1956. I did ten weeks training at Winchester Barracks and from there we flew from Luton airport to Singapore where we were given a week’s jungle training before being sent to a rubber plantation which was a base for an army camp.
When I came out of the forces, I returned to the old firm but they went into liquidation, so I went to another firm which I did not like at all. I was walking around the West End and I bumped into a driver from a dress company, Peter. I had known him from the old firm. I said, ‘I’m looking for a job, Peter.’ He asked, ‘Do you mind what you do?’ I replied, ‘No, not at all.’ So he told me, ‘There’s a job going. It’s a Mr Brafman, he owns a place in Petticoat Lane.’ I did not know what Petticoat Lane was. Evidently it was a market but, coming from Newcastle, I did not have a clue.
So I phoned him up, went down the same day for the interview and met him in the dress shop. He asked me, ‘What are you doing now?’ I explained who I had worked for and he must have phoned them up, because he told me, ‘Mr Flansburgh thought a lot of you.’ After that, he said, ‘When can you start?’ ‘Any time,’ I replied. ‘Start on Monday,’ he told me.
Jackie Brafman was a terrific boss. At first, I did general things, sweeping and clearing up hangers. There were two shops, a small one which was retail and the large one was wholesale, full of stock. Over the course of time, I started selling in the wholesale department. Eventually, I met Mrs Brafman who was a pet lover. They bought two dogs and called them George & Albert after me. I built up a reputation as a good salesman and I never had to ask for a rise all the years I was there. If the boss was going to a boxing match, he always took me, even if it was Mohammed Ali. I was ringside with him when Cooper fought Ali and he split his glove. A very good man. He was like another father to me. He insisted I call him ‘Jack’ from the second week at work, so eventually I called him ‘JB.’ He did not mind that at all.
On Sunday, he used to stand on a table and auction goods to the public in Petticoat Lane. I arranged for a special desk to be made that was big enough and strong enough to stand on. We had iron rails suspended above from the ceiling where we could hang dresses, a few of each in different sizes. I used to stand on a ladder and feed the clothes to him. I even picked up a bit of Yiddish, I could count the dress sizes in Yiddish. He would tell the customers he had sizes from ten to eighteen and they put their hands up, asking ‘Have you got a ten? Have you got a twelve?’ and I would be feeding the dress out to the crowd. On two occasions, he was in hospital so I got up and auctioneered. It was at Christmas time and we did very well. He was so well known and liked.
One of his favourite sayings was ‘You’ve heard of Christian Dior, I’m the Yiddisher Dior!’ He always had a bottle of whisky on the shelf and he would say, ‘George, get the paper cups.’ Maggie, a regular customer, would come in and he would ask, ‘Would you like a drink, Maggie?’ He poured whisky into these paper cups and topped it up with cola. He would tell her, ‘I’m only doing this to get you a little but tipsy so you don’t know what you are buying.’
There was another guy who used to come in and stand on the side of the shop, and I realised what he wanted. I asked, ‘Can I help you, Sir?’ and he said, ‘No, I’m waiting for one of the ladies to serve me.’ So I called, ‘Celia, Can you come and look after this gentleman?’ Eventually, I gained his trust and he showed me his photographs of him in dresses with wigs and makeup. He looked brilliant. He was a drag artist, but he did not want the lads to know. He used to spend a lot of money and only Celia could serve him.
I became manager of the wholesale department, a double-fronted shop in Wentworth St, opposite the public toilets. People came from all over the world. Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Arabia, as well as from all over this country. There were five girls working in the retail shop and we used to employ schoolkids to stand outside by the stall and make sure nothing got pinched.
Jack would go to the West End and buy stuff from Clifton, which was very big fashion house for larger size women, and Peter Kay and Remark and Kidmark. These were all top names years ago. He would buy ‘over-makes’ from them. If they were given an order from Marks & Spencer for a thousand garments, they might make twelve hundred in case of any problems. Jack would buy the extra at a knock-down price. We might sell a dress for four-fifty retail and three-fifty wholesale, but Jack got them for seventy pence each. He done so well Jackie.
Jackie’s father Maurice Brafman lived in Nightingale House, a home for the elderly.It was a beautiful place and he had his own room. The dining room was just like a hotel. He used to phone me up on a Friday morning and say, ‘George, Can you get me some groceries?’ I would go to Kossoff’s and buy cholla for him, and collect his kosher meat from the butcher. He did like his salami and occasionally a bit of fruit. I would put it all in a bag and, when I was going home, I would make a stop in Nightingale Lane to deliver his groceries. He would always check them and pick an argument about something. He would say, ‘You haven’t brought me so and so!’ and I would reply, ‘Mr Brafman, it’s in the bottom of the bag.’ ‘Alright,’ he would concede but he would always find fault. It was lovely seeing him. He lasted about five years there.
In the end, Jack took very ill. He was only coming in occasionally. He had a silver cloud Rolls Royce and I drove it a couple of times up to the West End to pick up stuff when he was not too well. He ran the business from home and his wife would come in occasionally to collect the takings. Sometimes, he would turn up in his wife’s car and stagger in to say, ‘Hello.’
He had two sons and two daughters and eventually Mark, the eldest brother, opened clothes shops all over London called ‘Mark One.’ His wife caught him with another woman and took him for everything. He was worth a fortune and he had a house with a ballroom in the middle. The youngest son, David, went into the business in Petticoat Lane and closed the shop.
Working at Jackie Brafman’s was the best part of my life, apart from getting married and having daughters. When I first came to London to find work at fifteen years old, I was rather shy and a bit inward. By working with Jack and talking to him, I changed. When he was not too busy, Jack would call me into the retail shop and ask me questions, ‘What do you think of this?’ I would give him my opinion and gradually I built up a bit of confidence. Mrs Brafman told me one day, ‘You know, Mr Brafman says you are the backbone of the business.’ I felt so good about it.”
Jackie Brafman, Petticoat Lane (Photograph courtesy of Jewish East End Celebration Society)
George Dickinson, Sales Manager at Jackie Brafman’s
Read these other stories about Petticoat Lane
Laurie Allen of Petticoat Lane
The Wax Sellers of Wentworth St
