Spitalfields Life

The illustrations of Charles Keeping (1924–1988) burned themselves into my consciousness as a child and I have loved his work ever since. A major figure in British publishing in the last century, Keeping illustrated over one hundred books (including the entire novels of Dickens) and won the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie Medals for his superlative talent.

In 1975, Keeping published ‘Cockney Ding Dong,’ in which he collected songs he remembered sung at home as a child. Illustrated with tender portraits of his extended family, the book is an unusual form of autobiography, recreating an entire cultural world through drawing and popular song.

I visited the Keeping Gallery at Shortlands in Kent to meet Vicky and Sean Keeping who talked to me about their father’s work, as we sat in the family home where they grew up and where much of his work is now preserved and displayed for visitors. You can read my interview at the end of this selection of illustrations from ‘Cockney Ding Dong.’

Illustrations  copyright © Estate of Charles Keeping

The Gentle Author – So why did your father create ‘Cockney Ding Dong’ ?

Vicky Keeping – We come from a family – he came from a family – where they all got together. They’d have their beer, they enjoyed their beer, and their Guinness – some of the women drank Guinness – and they would all sing and his Uncle Jack would play the piano. And everybody had their own song, so people would give their song and Dad loved that. We still know them all still, because we loved it, and people didn’t say, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to do it!’ They just got up and sang, and it was lovely and the songs were all from the music hall.

The Gentle Author – But he wasn’t a Cockney – where was he was from?

Vicky Keeping – He was from Vauxhall and he was born in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth. He was very much brought up by the female side of his family. His father passed away when he was ten, he had a burst ulcer. He was a driver on the Daily Star.

Sean Keeping – Before that, his father had been a professional boxer between about 1912 and 1922. He had many professional fights. I know he definitely fought the British champion at the time and won! A chap called Ernie Rice.

His father came from a very poor family and he was orphaned. They had a watercress stall in Lambeth Walk but they died in the workhouse. His mother’s family were also Londoners from Lambeth who came from a nautical background – his grandfather had been a sailor in the Merchant Navy. In the eighteenth century, they had come up to London from the West Country. Like many families, they had not originated in London.

Vicky Keeping – His grandfather was very important to Dad, because he was a great storyteller and would tell stories from his voyages and the different people he met and he was – I suppose – a bit ahead of his time because he was welcoming to all and would speak very positively about the people he met around the world. Dad loved hearing his stories, so he learnt from his grandfather that storytelling was important. That came through to us as well – when we sat round the family tea table we were encouraged to tell stories.

Very sadly, Dad’s dad and Dad’s grandfather passed away in the same year – in 1934 – when Dad was ten. It left Dad and his sister Grace and their mum Eliza very poorly off, but they lived in this extended family with Dad’s granny who was a very strong influence. Dad idolised her and his aunties, and they thought he was the blonde blue-eyed boy and they loved him dearly.

Sean Keeping – They lived in a small terraced house in 74 Vauxhall Walk, which was right alongside the market, and Dad’s early influences were not just his family but also the characters in Vauxhall Market – those often crop up in his books.

Vicky Keeping – One of the things that Dad loved to do in the garden was to look through a little knot hole to see the Schweppes bottling plant and the workhorses and that was something that never left him, that memory of horses.

There was no obvious creativeness in his background, but Dad said his father used to come home – because he worked in print – and bring home paper, and Dad’s sister Grace used to write a story and Dad would illustrate it.

Sean Keeping – He was not a child who would have gone running around the streets, they were children who would sit at home writing a story and drawing. From a very young age, Dad showed a fantastic aptitude for drawing and we’ve got some drawings of his from when he was twelve and thirteen, and they are really fantastic – showing a London of working horses and working people, that’s what he was trying to depict in his drawings.

Vicky Keeping – He was called up in the Second World War but he worked for Clowes the printers when he left school at thirteen. He was not a particularly great scholar at school. One of the things was that he found difficult was that he was left-handed and the teachers would try to get him to write with his right hand.

Sean Keeping – Working for Clowes the printers, he would go around on a horse & cart delivering paper, and that was where he met one of the characters who had a great influence on him – Tom Cherry. Many of the burly-looking men driving a horse through London in Dad’s pictures – they’re Tom Cherry, and usually he drew a little boy sitting next to him which was Dad. Tom had a great influence, telling him stories about London and the people of London.

Vicky Keeping – Dad became a Telegrapher on a frigate and he was on the boat at D-Day. After the war, he tried to get into Art College but that was very difficult, so he worked collecting pennies from gas meters. He worked for the Gas Light & Coke Company and he would go around on a bicycle, with a big sack on his shoulder with all the pennies in it, going from door to door in North Kensington. He used to tell us funny stories. At that time, North Kensington was a poor area and I think he got a lot out of the characters he met there, but he hated working for a company, for a boss, and he decided he wanted to do something better.

He went to night classes at the Regent St Polytechnic but, because he left school at thirteen with no formal qualifications and had been through the war, it was very difficult for him to get in at first. He tried and tried, and eventually he spent time in a psychiatric hospital due to his experiences in the War. I think it was also to do with his father. When his father and his grandfather died in the same year, they were laid out in the front room and – as a ten year old – Dad had to go and kiss them. That had a profound effect on him. He spent six months in a psychiatric hospital and two weeks of those were in a deep sleep. Yet he talked about the great characters he met there and there was a Psychiatrist, Dr Sargent, who knew Dad should go to Art College and he supported him in writing letters – and eventually that’s what happened.

Sean Keeping – When Dad went to Art College, he had to fight hard to get a grant because, at that stage, his mother had been widowed for a number of years and she had a job cleaning, so there was not a lot of money around. But eventually, he got a grant to go to Regent St Polytechnic. Right after the war, there were two types of students – those that had just come out of the forces who were much more mature and those who had come directly from school. So it was an interesting mix of people and mix of cultures.

The Gentle Author – How did he set out to make an income as an illustrator?

Sean Keeping – Dad was not motivated by making a career or making money or even motivated – I think – by success. Dad was motivated by one thing and that was doing what he wanted to do – drawing pictures of things that he wanted to draw pictures of – so he never really thought about a career. But then he got a job on the Daily Herald, drawing the strip cartoon and that started to pay very well, and from that he was able to move out of the council flat that he lived in with his mother in Kennington and buy a small terraced house in Crystal Palace.

When they were looking for houses, once he was making money from the strip cartoon, they looked in two areas – one was Crystal Palace and the other was Chelsea. Now the idea that you might choose Crystal Palace or Chelsea to look for a house nowadays is an strange idea, but they decided on Crystal Palace!

(Transcription by Rachel Blaylock)

Visit The Keeping Gallery at Shortlands in Kent where you can see the work of both Charles & Renate Keeping preserved in their family home. Visits are by appointment arranged through the website and Shortlands is a short train ride from Victoria.

Inspired by the Edward Bawden exhibition at Dulwich and encouraged by an invitation from resident Stella Herbert, I enjoyed a trip to Great Bardfield last week. Stella is an inveterate collector but perhaps most impressive is her collection of watering cans parading through her yard like a flock of prize geese. Did you know that English watering cans have a handle positioned laterally over the can while French watering cans have a handle that traverses the can from back to front?  This was just the first of many interesting facts I learned in what proved to be a day filled with wonders.

Alas I arrived a few weeks too late to view Stella’s cherished rainbow-hued herbaceous border, yet I was entranced by her garden with its hidden arches and mysterious pathways leading to an old brick-floored greenhouse where an ancient vine and a lemon tree preside.

After the clamour of London, the quietude of Great Bardfield was startling. When we ventured to walk up through the High Street, the peace that is distinctive to an English village in the middle of the day in the middle of summer prevailed. No pedestrians and few cars. The square Brick House where Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious lived in the middle of the last century sits at the centre of an appealing array of immaculately kept old houses of idiosyncratic form and style. Our destination was the cottage museum with its memorable display of locally made corn dollies and agricultural tools, all preserved within a cosy one room dwelling.

Great Bardfield was the subject of Edward Bawden’s Life in an English Village in 1949, illustrating the small trades that were essential to community life in his time, including the butcher, the baker, the tailor and the saddler. All gone now except the local pub, The Bell, and perhaps more residents work in London these days than in the village itself. Yet I was delighted to visit the excellent bookshop which is clearly a vital social focus as well as a supply of good reading material.

Stella is the keeper of the keys for the ‘cage,’ a lock-up for presumed miscreants in past days. We peered through the grille at the bearded mannequin perched upon his straw mattress and patiently listened to the recording which explained the history of misbehaviour in Great Bardfield, before Stella locked up for the night.

The attractive flint parish church sits on a hill overlooking the village which may explain the huge blue and gold tower clockface, claimed to be the largest in the land, which is of a scale to be read comfortably from a distance. Dating from the twelfth century, it has a modest down-to-earth squat proportion and is notable for its curious fourteenth century stone rood screen, sprouting like a tree diverging into branches of tracery with corbels representing Edward III and his wife. Within the sanctified stillness of the old church, tombs, artefacts and monuments testify to eight hundred years of village life in Great Bardfield.

A flock of watering cans

An avenue of apple trees

Edward Bawden’s house

Stella locks the village ‘cage’ for the night

Graffiti at the church

Great Bardfield church has one of the largest clockfaces in the land

Parish Church of Great Bardfield

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