Looking Down On Old London
In my dream, I am flying over old London and the clouds part like curtains to reveal a vision of the dirty monochrome city lying far beneath, swathed eternally in mist and deep shadow.
Although most Londoners are familiar with this view today, as the first glimpse of home on the descent to Heathrow upon their return flight from overseas, it never ceases to induce wonder. So I can only imagine the awe of those who were first shown these glass slides of aerial views from the collection of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society at the Bishopsgate Institute a century ago.
Even before Aerofilms was established in 1919 to document the country from above systematically, people were photographing London from hot air balloons, zeppelins and early aeroplanes. Upon first impression, the intricate detail and order of the city is breathtaking and I think we may assume that a certain patriotic pride was encouraged by these views of national landmarks which symbolised the political power of the nation.
But there is also a certain ambivalence to some images, such as those of Horseguards’ Parade and Covent Garden Market, since – as much as they record the vast numbers of people that participated in these elaborate human endeavours, they also reduce the hordes to mere ants and remove the authoritative scale of the architecture. Seen from above, the works of man are of far less consequence than they appear from below. Yet this does not lessen my fascination with these pictures, as evocations of the teeming life of this London that is so familiar and mysterious in equal measure.
Tower of London & Tower Bridge
Trafalgar Sq, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Charing Cross Station
Trafalgar Sq & Whitehall
House of Parliament & Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge & County Hall
Tower of London & St Katharine Docks
Bank of England & Royal Exchange
Spires of City churches dominate the City of London
Crossroads at the heart of the City of London
Guildhall to the right, General Post Office to the left and Cheapside running across the picture
Blackfriars Bridge & St Paul’s
Hyde Park Corner
Buckingham Palace & the Mall
The British Museum
St James’ Palace & the Mall
Ludgate Hill & St Paul’s
Pool of London & Tower Bridge with Docks beyond
Albert Hall & Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum & Victoria & Albert Museum
Limehouse with St Anne’s in the centre & Narrow St to the right
Reversed image of Hungerford Bridge & Waterloo Bridge
Covent Garden Market & the Floral Hall
Admiralty Arch
Trooping the Colour at Horseguards Parade
St Clement Dane’s, Strand
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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The Lantern Slides of Old London
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The Statues & Effigies of Old London
The Reckoning With Crest Nicholson
David & Goliath by Osmar Schindler c.1888
Two weeks ago, I wrote to Crest Nicholson regarding their use without permission of my photograph of the Bethnal Green Mulberry in their leaflets and exhibition for their proposed London Chest Hospital Development. Although I would never have granted them permission, I asked them to pay for the use that had occurred. And yesterday they did so.
Last week – in an appalling moment of moral exposure – their response was to attempt to gag my criticism of their development and their plan to dig up the ancient Mulberry tree, as a condition of payment. Yet I reminded them I was under no obligation to accept any conditions from them, whereas they were legally obligated to pay me for their use of my photograph which was in clear breach of the law of copyright.
This week, thanks in no small measure to the magnificent support I received from you, the readers of Spitalfields Life, Crest Nicholson realised that they had no option but the pay me without requesting any conditions. Now they have admitted liability, I can consider whether to pursue action for damages.
In the meantime, there is a still time to write a letter of objection to their rotten London Chest Hospital development which includes digging up the Bethnal Green Mulberry. You will find a helpful guide below that explains how to write an objection which carries legal weight.
Read the pitiful saga here
Design by Paul Bommer
This is a simple guide to how to object effectively to Crest Nicholson’s application to redevelop the former London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.
Tower Hamlets Council will accept emails and letters until the Hearing of the Application, which is likely to be in March. Please send comments as soon as possible to be sure they are included in the planning officer’s report.
It is important to use your own words and add your own personal reasons for opposing this development. Any letters which simply duplicate the same wording will count only as one objection.
Be sure to state clearly that you are objecting to the application.
If you do not include your postal address your objection will be discounted.
Points in bold are material considerations and are valid legal reasons for Councils to refuse Applications.
Take a look at the full Application by following this link
Planning application PA/16/03342/A1
1. SOCIAL HOUSING
The level of social housing is below 28%, too far beneath the Mayor’s target of 50%.
2. THE LISTED BUILDING
The application proposes to demolish the Grade II listed 1860s south wing, causing harm to the designated heritage asset, and would therefore fail to comply with Paragraph 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990; National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs: 126, 131, 132, 133 and 134; as well as Tower Hamlets Local Plan Policy SP12.
The proposal would see the roof structure of the listed buildings unnecessarily rebuilt with new materials, involving the loss of original historic fabric when the applicant’s own survey notes that the chimneys are in ‘good condition’, and that the roof is ‘in a sound condition’. As such National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs: 126, 131, 132, 133 and 134 should be applied.
3. THE VICTORIA PARK CONSERVATION AREA
The development will damage the Victoria Park Conservation Area. The conservation area appraisal notes that: ‘Landmark institutional buildings generally sit within their own landscaped gardens, in keeping with the open character and setting of Victoria Park. The London Chest Hospital, opened in 1855, is the most significant of these buildings, in terms of its presence in the urban environment’.
The construction of large blocks beside the London Chest Hospital will deprive a landmark listed building of its open landscaped space and destroy the character of the conservation area. Paragraph 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, and National Planning Policy Framework paragraphs 137 and 138 should therefore be applied when considering this application.
4. THE MULBERRY TREE
Deep concerns exist over the proposed digging up of the ancient Mulberry Tree and the unlikelihood of its survival if it is moved. No credible evidence has been put forward that this tree, which is subject to a Tree Protection Order, is not a veteran tree.
Paragraph 118 of National Planning Policy Framework 2012 states that ‘planning permission should be refused for development resulting in the loss of … aged or veteran trees found outside ancient woodland, unless the need for, and benefits of, the development in that location clearly outweigh the loss’
Paragraph 197 of The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 states that local planning authorities, ‘must ensure, whenever it is appropriate, that in granting planning permission for any development adequate provision is made, by the imposition of conditions, for the preservation or planting of trees’.
WHERE TO SEND YOUR OBJECTION
Letters and emails should be addressed to
planningandbuilding@towerhamlets.gov.uk
Quote application: PA/16/03342/A1
Town Planning, Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG
Crest Nicholson’s proposed redevelopment of London Chest Hospital
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Eva Frankfurther, Artist
There is an unmistakeable melancholic beauty which characterises Eva Frankfurther‘s East End drawings made during her brief working career in the nineteen-fifties. Born into a cultured Jewish family in Berlin in 1930, she escaped to London with her parents in 1939 and studied at St Martin’s School of Art between 1946 and 1952, where she was a contemporary of Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach.
Yet Eva turned her back on the art school scene and moved to Whitechapel, taking menial jobs at Lyons Corner House and then at a sugar refinery, immersing herself in the community she found there. Taking inspiration from Rembrandt, Käthe Kollwitz and Picasso, Eva set out to portray the lives of working people with compassion and dignity.
In 1959, afflicted with depression, Eva took her own life aged just twenty-eight, but despite the brevity of her career she revealed a significant talent and a perceptive eye for the soulful quality of her fellow East Enders.
“West Indian, Irish, Cypriot and Pakistani immigrants, English whom the Welfare State had passed by, these were the people amongst whom I lived and made some of my best friends. My colleagues and teachers were painters concerned with form and colour, while to me these were only means to an end, the understanding of and commenting on people.” – Eva Frankfurther
Images copyrigh t© Estate of Eva Frankfurter
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A Reply From Crest Nicholson
Ten days ago, I wrote to Crest Nicholson regarding their use without permission of my photograph of the Bethnal Green Mulberry in their leaflets and exhibition for their proposed London Chest Hospital Development. I was encouraged by their initial response, admitting ‘we made a mistake’ and apologising ‘I am sorry you have had to contact us in this respect.’ But then this disappointing letter arrived from the Company Secretary which attempts to gag my criticism of their development and their plan to dig up the ancient Mulberry tree. Click here to read my initial letter.
(Click on this letter to enlarge)
My reply emailed to Crest Nicholson today:
29th January 2018
Dear Kevin Maguire,
Thankyou for your letter of 25th January in response to my letter of 17th January, relating to your use without permission of my photograph of the Bethnal Green Mulberry, which you reproduced in your leaflets and exhibition for your proposed London Chest Hospital development.
I understand that you have ceased circulation of the leaflet, removed my photograph from your exhibition and are now offering to pay for this usage.
However, I am unable to agree with your proposed letter of agreement in its current form.
I see no need for confidentiality in this matter and intend to continue to publish our correspondence as I have done to date. The confidentiality provision should be removed.
The statement referring to no admission of liability is a nonsense – you have acknowledged that it is my photograph which you have used without my permission. There is a clear breach of my copyright for which there is liability.
Your language concerning what I may or may not publish in the future is totally irrelevant to the issue of your breach of my copyright and has no place in the letter.
“by accepting this payment you agree that you shall not publish or cause to be published any false, misleading, derogatory, or disparaging comments about Crest Nicholson.”
You well know that I am critical of your proposed London Chest Hospital development and your attempts to secure permission to dig up the ancient Bethnal Green Mulberry, so I am unwilling to sign a document which would grant you recourse to take action against me if I were to write anything that you might choose to interpret as “false, misleading, derogatory, or disparaging.”
You underestimate me if you think that I will permit you to gag me by making it a condition of payment.
May I remind you it was your indefensible behaviour in using my photograph without permission in your leaflet discrediting the history of the Bethnal Green Mulberry which was the catalyst for this dialogue?
I am under no obligation whatsoever to accept any conditions of payment from you, but you are under legal obligation to pay me for the use of my photograph which was in clear breach of the law of copyright.
Please pay me without further delay.
Yours sincerely
The Gentle Author
The Gentle Author’s photograph of the Bethnal Green Mulberry which Crest Nicholson want to dig up
The Gentle Author’s photograph as reproduced without permission by Crest Nicholson in their leaflet and exhibition for their proposed London Chest Hospital development
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Beattie Orwell, Centenarian
Portrait of Beattie Orwell by Phil Maxwell
On an especially cold day recently, it was my delight to accompany Contributing Photographer Phil Maxwell to visit centenarian Beattie Orwell and sit beside her in her cosy flat while she talked to me of her century of existence in this particular corner of the East End.
A magnanimous woman who delights in the modest joys of life, Beattie is nevertheless a political animal who is proud to be one of the last living veterans of the Battle of Cable St – a formative experience that inspired her with a fiercely egalitarian sense of justice and led to her becoming a councillor in later life, acutely conscious of the rights of the most vulnerable in society.
In spite of her physical frailty at one hundred years old, Beattie’s moral courage grants her an astonishing monumental presence as a human being. To speak with Beattie is to encounter another, kinder world.
“I am Jewish and both my parents were East Enders, born here. My father’s parents came over from Russia. On my mother’s side, her parents were born here but her grandfather was born in Holland. So I am a bit of a mixture!
My father Israel worked as a porter at the Spitalfields Market and my mother Julia was a cigar maker at Godfrey & Phillips in Commercial St. I grew up in Brunswick Buildings in Goulston St, until I got bombed out. It was horrible, we had a little scullery, too small to swing a cat. My mother had one bedroom and, the three children, we slept in a put-you-up. I had two sisters Rebecca & Esther. Rebecca was the eldest, she very clever at dressmaking. When she was fifteen, she could make a dress. We needed her because my father died when he was forty-four, he had three strokes and died in Vallance Rd Hospital. I was only thirteen. He used to take me everywhere, he was marvellous. He took to me to the West End to visit my aunt, she was an old lady with a parrot and lived on Bewick St. We used to have a laugh with the parrot.
We moved to City Corporation flats in Stoney Lane and I went to Gravel Lane School. It was lovely school, they taught us housewifery. We had a little flat in the school and we used to clean it out, then go shopping in Petticoat Lane to buy ingredients to make a dinner, imagining we were married. The boys used to do woodwork and learnt to make stools and things like that. I loved that school. When I was twelve it closed and I went to the Jewish Free School in Bell Lane. It was very strict and religious. When the teacher wanted us to be quiet, she’d say, ‘I’m waiting!’ It was good, I enjoyed my school life.
I left when I was fourteen and I went to work right away, dressmaking in Alie St. I used to lay out material. I do not know why but I must have heavy fingers, I could not manage the silk. It used to fall out of my hands. I only lasted a week before I left, I could not stand it. Then I went to work with my sister at Lottereys in Whitechapel opposite the Rivoli Picture Palace, they used to make uniforms for solders. I went into tailoring, men’s trousers, putting the buttons on with a machine. We worked long hours and it was hard work. By the time I got married I was earning two pounds and ten shillings a week. I never earned big money. I worked all the way through the war. I gave all the money to my mother and she gave me a shilling back. I used to walk up to the West End. It was threepence on the trolley bus.
I was nineteen in 1936. I was there with all the crowds at the Battle of Cable St. I am Jewish and I knew we must fight the fascists. They were anti-semitic, so I felt I had to do it. I was not frightened because there were so many people there. If I was on my own I might have been frightened, but I never saw so many people. You could not imagine. Dockers, Scottish and Irish people were there. It was a marvellous atmosphere. I was standing on the corner of Leman St outside a shop called ‘Critts’ and everyone was shouting ‘ They shall not pass!’ I was with my friend and we stood there a long time, hours. So from there we walked down to Cable St where we saw the lorry turned over. I never saw the big fighting that happened in Aldgate because I was not down there, but I saw them fighting in Cable St near this turned over lorry. From there, we walked down to Royal Mint St, where the blackshirts were. They were standing in a line waiting for Oswald Mosley to come. So I said to my friend, ‘We’d better get away from here.’
We went back through Cable St to the place where we started. From there, the news came through ‘They’re not passing.’ We all marched past the place where Fascists had their headquarters – they threw flour over us, shouting – to Victoria Park where we had a big meeting with thousands of people. I had never seen anything like it in my life and I used to go to all the meetings. I never went dancing. My mother used to say, ‘I don’t know where I got you from!’ because I was only interested in politics. I am the only one like this in the whole family. I still know everything that is going on.
I used to go to Communist Party socials in Swedenborg Sq, off Cable St, and – being young – I used to enjoy it. Then I joined the Labour Party, the Labour League of Youth it was called. We used to go on rambles. It was lovely. We went to Southend once. I always used to march to Hyde Park on May Day and carry one of the ropes of our banner. I met my husband John in Victoria Park when I was with the Young Communists League, although I was not a member. They had a Sports Day and my husband was running for St Mary Atte Bowe because he was a Catholic. I met him and we went to a Labour Party dance. We got married in 1939.
We managed to get a flat in the same building as my mother, at the top of the stairs. They were private flats and I remember standing outside with a banner saying, ‘Don’t pay no rent!’ because the owners would not do the flats up. They did not look after us, it was horrible thing for us to have to do but it worked. I laugh now when I think about it. I was always brave. I am brave now.
We got bombed out of those flats while my husband was in the army. I had a baby so they sent me to Oxford where my husband was based with the York & Lancasters. We had a six-roomed house for a pound a week. My mother and sister came with me and they looked after my baby while I went to work in munitions. I was a postwoman too and I used to get up at four in the morning and walk over Magdalen Bridge.
I came back to the East End to try to get a flat here and I got caught in one of the air raids, but I knew this was where I had to live. My mother used to get under the stairs in Wentworth St when there was a raid and put a baby’s pot on her head. The war was terrible.
They sent my husband to Ikley Moor and it was too cold for him, so we came back for good. I managed to get two horrible little side rooms in Stoney Lane, sharing a kitchen between four and a toilet between two. I had no fridge, just a wooden box with chicken wire on the front. I used to go the Lane and buy two-pennorth of ice and put the butter in there. I had to buy food fresh everyday. There was a black market trade in fruit. These flats had been built for the police but the police would not have them, so they let them out to other people. All the flats were named after royalty, we were in Queens Buildings. I watched them building new flats in Cambridge Heath Rd but, before I could get one of them, I was offered a lot of horrible flats. Yet when I got there we were overcrowded, until we got a three bedroom flat at last, because I had two girls and a boy. I lived sixty-seven years there.
My husband never earned much money so I had to carry on working. He had twenty-two shillings a week pension from the army. He did all kinds of things and then got a job in the Orient Tea Warehouse. In 1966, when he was going to be Mayor of Bethnal Green and they would not give him time off, he went up to the Hackney Town Hall and got a job in the Town Clerk’s Office. He was always good at writing, he had lovely hand writing.
I became a councillor and I loved it. Our council was the best council, they were best to the old people. We used to go and visit all the old people’s homes. I never told them I was coming because I used to try and catch them out. We checked the quality of food and how clean it was. I organised dinners in York Hall for all the old people and trips to Eastbourne, but it has all been done away with – they do nothing now.
I was a councillor for ten years from 1972 until 1982. I had to fight to get the seat but I always loved old people, my husband was the same. He was known as the ‘Singing Mayor’ because he used to sing in all the old people’s homes. From when I was forty-two, I used to go round old people’s homes on Friday nights and I still do it. We have dinners together, turkey, roast potatoes and sausages, with trifle for afters.”
Beattie Orwell is featured in Phil Maxwell & Hazuan Hashim’s forthcoming film PENSIONERS UNITED. Watch the trailer and you can support this inspirational endeavour by clicking here
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
See more of Phil Maxwell’s work here
Phil Maxwell’s Kids on the Street
Phil Maxwell & Sandra Esqulant, Photographer & Muse
More of Phil Maxwell’s Old Ladies
Phil Maxwell’s Old Ladies in Colour
Lucinda Rogers At Ridley Rd Market III
Outside Kash fabric shop
In the third of this series, Contributing Artist Lucinda Rogers & I visit Ridley Rd Market in Dalston to meet more of the traders featured in her current exhibition On Gentrification – Drawings of Ridley Rd Market at House of Illustration in Kings Cross.
Lucinda is discussing her work at the gallery on Thursday 1st February at 7pm. Click here for tickets.
Hamid for fabrics
Hamid Sedigh – “I came to this country in 1974 to see the Beatles in Liverpool. I couldn’t understand English then, but I loved the music and I used to buy their 45 records. I became a student of fashion at Redbridge College, where I studied for two years. I brought a carpet with me from Iran and I thought, ‘If I need some money, I can sell it.’ I offered it to a rich man for £1000 but he said, ‘I will give you £800.’ It was an expensive silk carpet that I had been given as a present, so I would not part with it. In Stamford Hill, there was a carpet shop I knew run by those gentlemen with black hats and ringlets, so I offered it to them. They offered to swap it for twenty rolls of fabric that they had and I said, ‘Yes.’ I brought it to this market in 1978 to sell from a stall and I have been here selling fabric ever since.”
Donna & Maria at Jimbos
Donna Merny – “My sister was working here and she asked me to come on Saturday, but I ended up working on weekdays too from nine until four. Almost everyone that works here is a friend of a friend and we all know each other’s children. It’s quite a nice atmosphere and I like meeting the different people, we get all sorts here. There are only a few people, you think, ‘Oh no! Not her again.’ I serve customers and do general tidying up. To be honest, I worked in an office and I didn’t like it at all. Brenda who owns this shop, her family used to have a lot of stalls in this market more than forty years ago.”
Fruit Mountain, entrance to Ridley Rd
Matt Fawcett (just visible behind his fruit mountain) – “I get up at four in the morning and I am at New Spitalfields Market at five-fifteen, five days a week. It pays the bills. The guy who started this stall, he was a prize fighter, so I think that was how he got the best pitch in the market.”
Drawings copyright © Lucinda Rogers
Lucinda Rogers: On Gentrification – Drawings from Ridley Rd Market is open at House of Illustration, Tuesday – Sunday from 10am-6pm until 25th March
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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 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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