Learn How To Write Your Own Blog
Join me for a weekend in an eighteenth century weavers’ house in Fournier St and learn how to write your own blog. Learn the secrets of how Spitalfields Life runs, enjoy delicious lunches from Leila’s Cafe and cakes freshly baked to eighteenth century recipes by Townhouse. We always have a lot of fun. Places are available for the weekends of 4th & 5th November and we are also taking bookings for 3rd & 4th February 2018. The course fee of £300 includes lunches, cakes, teas and coffees. Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book your place.
Comments by students from courses tutored by The Gentle Author
“I highly recommend this creative, challenging and most inspiring course. The Gentle Author gave me the confidence to find my voice and just go for it!”
“Do join The Gentle Author on this Blogging Course in Spitalfields. It’s as much about learning/ appreciating Storytelling as Blogging. About developing how to write or talk to your readers in your own unique way. It’s also an opportunity to “test” your ideas in an encouraging and inspirational environment. Go and enjoy – I’d happily do it all again!”
“The Gentle Author’s writing course strikes the right balance between addressing the creative act of blogging and the practical tips needed to turn a concept into reality. During the course the participants are encouraged to share and develop their ideas in a safe yet stimulating environment. A great course for those who need that final (gentle) push!”
“I haven’t enjoyed a weekend so much for a long time. The disparate participants with different experiences and aspirations rapidly became a coherent group under The Gentle Author’s direction in a gorgeous house in Spitalfields. There was lots of encouragement, constructive criticism, laughter and very good lunches. With not a computer in sight, I found it really enjoyable to draft pieces of written work using pen and paper. Having gone with a very vague idea about what I might do I came away with a clear plan which I think will be achievable and worthwhile.”
“The Gentle Author is a master blogger and, happily for us, prepared to pass on skills. This “How to write a blog” course goes well beyond offering information about how to start blogging – it helps you to see the world in a different light, and inspires you to blog about it. You won’t find a better way to spend your time or money if you’re considering starting a blog.”
“I gladly traveled from the States to Spitalfields for the How to Write a Blog Course. The unique setting and quality of the Gentle Author’s own writing persuaded me and I was not disappointed. The weekend provided ample inspiration, like-minded fellowship, and practical steps to immediately launch a blog that one could be proud of. I’m so thankful to have attended.”
“I took part in The Gentle Author’s blogging course for a variety of reasons: I’ve followed Spitalfields Life for a long time now, and find it one of the most engaging blogs that I know; I also wanted to develop my own personal blog in a way that people will actually read, and that genuinely represents my own voice. The course was wonderful. Challenging, certainly, but I came away with new confidence that I can write in an engaging way, and to a self-imposed schedule. The setting in Fournier St was both lovely and sympathetic to the purpose of the course. A further unexpected pleasure was the variety of other bloggers who attended: each one had a very personal take on where they wanted their blogs to go, and brought with them an amazing range and depth of personal experience. “
“I found this bloggers course was a true revelation as it helped me find my own voice and gave me the courage to express my thoughts without restriction. As a result I launched my professional blog and improved my photography blog. I would highly recommend it.”
“An excellent and enjoyable weekend: informative, encouraging and challenging. The Gentle Author was generous throughout in sharing knowledge, ideas and experience and sensitively ensured we each felt equipped to start out. Thanks again for the weekend. I keep quoting you to myself.”
“My immediate impression was that I wasn’t going to feel intimidated – always a good sign on these occasions. The Gentle Author worked hard to help us to find our true voice, and the contributions from other students were useful too. Importantly, it didn’t feel like a ‘workshop’ and I left looking forward to writing my blog.”
“The Spitafields writing course was a wonderful experience all round. A truly creative teacher as informed and interesting as the blogs would suggest. An added bonus was the eclectic mix of eager students from all walks of life willing to share their passion and life stories. Bloomin’ marvellous grub too boot.”
“An entertaining and creative approach that reduces fears and expands thought”
“The weekend I spent taking your course in Spitalfields was a springboard one for me. I had identified writing a blog as something I could probably do – but actually doing it was something different! Your teaching methods were fascinating, and I learnt a lot about myself as well as gaining very constructive advice on how to write a blog. I lucked into a group of extremely interesting people in our workshop, and to be cocooned in the beautiful old Spitalfields house for a whole weekend, and plied with delicious food at lunchtime made for a weekend as enjoyable as it was satisfying. Your course made the difference between thinking about writing a blog, and actually writing it.”
“After blogging for three years, I attended The Gentle Author’s Blogging Course. What changed was my focus on specific topics, more pictures, more frequency, more fun. In the summer I wrote more than forty blogs, almost daily from my Tuscan villa on village life and I had brilliant feedback from my readers. And it was a fantastic weekend with a bunch of great people and yummy food.”
“An inspirational weekend, digging deep with lots of laughter and emotion, alongside practical insights and learning from across the group – and of course overall a delightfully gentle weekend.”
“The course was great fun and very informative, digging into the nuts and bolts of writing a blog. There was an encouraging and nurturing atmosphere that made me think that I too could learn to write a blog that people might want to read. – There’s a blurb, but of course what I really want to say is that my blog changed my life, without sounding like an idiot. The people that I met in the course were all interesting people, including yourself. So thanks for everything.”
“This is a very person-centred course. By the end of the weekend, everyone had developed their own ideas through a mix of exercises, conversation and one-to-one feedback. The beautiful Hugenot house and high-calibre food contributed to what was an inspiring and memorable weekend.”
“It was very intimate writing course that was based on the skills of writing. The Gentle Author was a superb teacher.”
“It was a surprising course that challenged and provoked the group in a beautiful supportive intimate way and I am so thankful for coming on it.”
“I did not enrol on the course because I had a blog in mind, but because I had bought TGA’s book, “Spitalfields Life”, very much admired the writing style and wanted to find out more and improve my own writing style. By the end of the course, I had a blog in mind, which was an unexpected bonus.”
“This course was what inspired me to dare to blog. Two years on, and blogging has changed the way I look at London.”
HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ – 4th & 5th NOVEMBER 2017 and 3rd & 4th FEBRUARY 2018
Spend a weekend in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Spitalfields and learn how to write a blog with The Gentle Author.
This course will examine the essential questions which need to be addressed if you wish to write a blog that people will want to read.
“Like those writers in fourteenth century Florence who discovered the sonnet but did not quite know what to do with it, we are presented with the new literary medium of the blog – which has quickly become omnipresent, with many millions writing online. For my own part, I respect this nascent literary form by seeking to explore its own unique qualities and potential.” – The Gentle Author
COURSE STRUCTURE
1. How to find a voice – When you write, who are you writing to and what is your relationship with the reader?
2. How to find a subject – Why is it necessary to write and what do you have to tell?
3. How to find the form – What is the ideal manifestation of your material and how can a good structure give you momentum?
4. The relationship of pictures and words – Which comes first, the pictures or the words? Creating a dynamic relationship between your text and images.
5. How to write a pen portrait – Drawing on The Gentle Author’s experience, different strategies in transforming a conversation into an effective written evocation of a personality.
6. What a blog can do – A consideration of how telling stories on the internet can affect the temporal world.
SALIENT DETAILS
The next courses will be held at 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields on 4th & 5th November and on 3rd & 4th February.
The Course runs from 10am -5pm on Saturday and 11am-5pm on Sunday.
Accomodation at 5 Fournier St is available upon enquiry to Fiona Atkins fiona@townhousewindow.com
Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book a place on the course.
Staffordshire Dogs by Rob Ryan
The Bloody Romance Of The Tower
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey at Tower Green
“It has been for years, the cherished wish of the writer of these pages to make the Tower of London the groundwork of a Romance,” wrote William Harrison Ainsworth in 1840, introducing his novel, “The Tower of London” – and it is an impulse that I recognise, because I know of no other place in London where the lingering sense of myth and the echoing drama of the past is more tangible that at the Tower.
Each time I enter those ancient walls, am struck anew by the mystery of the place. I have to stop and reconcile my knowledge of history with the location where it happened, and each time I become more spellbound by the actuality of the place, which in spite of Victorian rebuilding still retains its integrity as an ancient fortress. I make a point to pause and read the age-old graffiti, to stop in each doorway and take in the prospect at this most dramatic of monuments.
When I discovered “The Tower of London” by William Harrison Ainsworth in the Bishopsgate Institute I was captivated by George Cruikshank’s illustrations, realising that not only had this favourite of mine amongst nineteenth century illustrators once stood in exactly the same places I had stood, but he had the genius to draw the images inspired by these charged locations.
“Desirous of exhibiting the Tower in its triple light of a palace, a prison and a fortress, the author has shaped his story with reference to that end, and he has also endeavoured to combine such a series of incidents as should naturally introduce every relic of the old pile, its towers, halls, chambers, gateways and drawbridges – so that no part of it should remain uninvolved.” explained Ainsworth in his introduction to his sensationalist fictionalised account of the violent end of the short reign of Lady Jane Grey. Yet it is George Cruikshank’s engravings which bring the work alive, providing not just a tour of the architectural environment but also of the dramatic imaginative world that it contains – and done so vividly that I know already that when I return I shall be looking out for his characters in my mind’s eye while I am there.
There is a grim humour and surreal poetry in pictures which, to my eyes, presage the work of Edward Gorey, who like George Cruikshank also created a sinister diaphanous world out of dense hatching. Maurice Sendak is another master of the mystery that can be evoked by intricate webs of woven lines in which – as in these Tower of London engravings – three dimensional space dissolves into magical possibility. But to me the prime achievement of these pictures is that George Cruikshank has given concrete life to the Tower’s past, creating figures that convincingly take command of the stage offered by its charged spaces and, like the acting of Henry Irving, appear as if momentarily illuminated by flashes of lightning. Cruikshank’s pictures are like glimpses of a strange dream, drawing the viewer into a compelling emotional universe with its own logic, peopled by its own inhabitants and where it is too readily apparent what is going on.
The popularity of William Harrison Ainsworth’s novel was responsible for creating the bloodthirsty reputation of the Tower of London which still endures today – even though for centuries the Tower was used as a domestic royal residence and administrative centre, headquarters of the royal ordinances, records office, mint, observatory, and a menagerie amongst other diverse functions throughout its thousand year history. Yet although it may be just one of the infinite range of tales to be told about the Tower of London, William Harrison Ainsworth’s Romance does witness historical truth. There is a neglected plaque in the corner of Trinity Green, just outside Tower Hill station, which is a memorial to those executed there through the centuries – as testament to the reality of the violence enacted upon those with the misfortune to find themselves on the wrong side of authority in past days.
Jane Grey’s first night in the Tower – “Prompted by an undefinable feeling of curiosity, she hastened towards it and, holding forward the light, a shudder went through her frame, as she perceived at her feet – an axe!”
Cuthbert Cholmondeley surprised by a mysterious figure in the dungeon adjoining the Devilin Tower.
Jane Grey interposing between the Duke of Northumberland and Simon Renard.
Jane Grey and Lord Gilbert Dudley brought back to the Tower through Traitors’ Gate – “Never had Jane experienced such a feeling of horror as now assailed her – and if she had crossed the fabled Styx, she could not have greater dread. Her blood seemed congealed within her veins as she gazed around. The light of the torches fell upon the black arches – upon the slimy walls and upon the yet blacker tide.”
Jane imprisoned in the Brick Tower – “Alone! The thought struck her to the heart. She was now captured. She heard the doors of the prison bolted – she examined its stone walls, partly concealed by tapestry – she glance at its barred windows, and she gave up hope.”
Simon Renard and Winwinkle, the warder, on the roof of the White Tower – “There you behold the Tower of London,” said Winwinkle, pointing downwards. “And there I read the history of England,” replied Renard. “If it is written in these towers, it is a dark and bloody history, ” replied the warder.
Mauger sharpening his axe – ” A savage-looking individual seated on a bench at a grinding stone, he had an axe blade which he had just been sharpening, and he was trying its edge with his thumb. His fierce blood-shot eyes, recessed far beneath his bent and bushy brows were fixed upon the weapon.”
Execution of the Duke of Northumberland upon Tower Hill – “As soon as the Duke had disposed himself upon the block, the axe flashed like a gleam of lightning in the sunshine – descended – and the head was severed from the trunk. Mauger held it aloft, almost before the eyes were closed, crying out to the the assemblage in a loud voice, “Behold the head of a traitor!”
Cuthbert Cholmondeley discovering the body of Alexia in the Devilin Tower – “Pushing aside the door with his blade, he beheld a spectacle that filled him with horror. At one side of the cell upon a stone seat, rested the dead body of a woman, reduced almost to a skeleton. On the wall, close to where she lay, and evidently carved by her own hand, the name ALEXIA.”
Queen Mary surprises Courtenay and Princess Elizabeth
Lawrence Nightgall dragging Cicely down the secret stairs in the Salt Tower
Courtenay’s escape from the Tower
The burning of Edward Underhill at Tower Green – “As the flames rose, the sharpness of the torment overcame him. He lost control of himself, and his eyes started from their sockets – his contorted features and his writhing frame proclaimed the extremity of his agony. It was a horrible sight, and a shudder burst forth from the assemblage.”
The Death Warrant – “Mary tried to ascertain the cause of the animal’s disquietude as its barking changed to a dismal howl. Not without misgiving, she glanced towards the window and there between the bars she beheld a hideous black mask, through the holes of which glared a pair of flashing eyes.”
Elizabeth confronts Sir Thomas Wyatt in the torture chamber – “‘Sir Thomas Wyatt,’ Elizabeth declared in a loud and authoritative tone, and stepping towards him, ‘If you would not render your name forever infamous, you must declare my innocence!'”
The Fall of Nightgall – “Nightgall struggled desperately against the horrible fate that waited him, clutching convulsively against the wall. But it was unavailing. He uttered a fearful cry, and tried to grab at the roughened surface. From a height of nearly ninety feet, he fell with a terrific smash upon the pavement of the court below.”
The Night before the Execution – “In spite of himself, the executioner could not repress a feeling of dread and the contrary urge, which represented his curiousity. He pointed towards the church porch, from which a figure, robed in white, but insubstantial as the mist, suddenly appeared. It glided noiselessly along and without turning its face to the beholders.”
Jane Grey meeting the body of her husband at the scaffold – “She knew it was the body of her husband, and unprepared for so terrible an encounter, uttered a cry of horror.”
Plaque at Trinity Green on Tower Hill
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John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
A Conversation With Doreen Fletcher
On the eve of Doreen Fletcher’s second exhibition IN BETWEEN, ALMOST GONE which opens this Friday 13th October at Townhouse, Spitalfields, I visited Doreen in her studio to learn the story behind her remarkable urban landscape paintings of the East End
Turner’s Rd, 1998
Doreen Fletcher – Looking back, I suppose I was very spoiled. From a young age I liked painting and my dad used to take me to the toy shop and we had to buy the best, most expensive paints. I was an only child, born into a working class family, and my parents, Colin & Alice, were semi-literate, I guess you would say.
I was a bit of a loner, I liked going for long walks. I passed the eleven-plus but I had a very difficult time at Grammar School because, although I was clever, I came from the wrong side of the tracks. I used to have to wear this hat and every morning, as I was walking to school, the Secondary Modern kids would come and knock it off my head. When I got to school, I had to pretend I was from somewhere else, because all the other kids they came from families who were doctors, solicitors, and so I felt, you know… odd.
The Gentle Author – What was the first landscape that you knew?
Doreen Fletcher – It was grey. Grey, brown streets with sparrows, lots of sparrows and pigeons. I used to long for colour. I grew up in a two-up, two-down terrace in Stoke-on-Trent, but every Sunday my parents used to take me on a bus into the country and I just loved colour.
I remember, when I was five, I was bought a set of encyclopaedias from the guy who came round knocking on street doors and it had colour pictures in it – paintings – and I thought they were wonderful. And I suppose that was when I started to be interested in visual things – plus at Grammar School, when we were doing Art, I did not have to talk and my accent in those days was quite broad. All the other girls spoke with posh accents, so I would paint in silence and it was something I was good at, so I got praise for that.
The Gentle Author – What work did your parents do?
Doreen Fletcher – Oh Alice, my mother, she was a servant. She worked in a munitions factory during the war and then she became a servant afterwards. It gave her ideas about not having the newspaper on the table and no tomato ketchup, and healthy eating. So in her case, there was a slight social mobility. She was very very fussy about the front step being clean. Colin, my dad, started off as a farm worker, he had wanted to be a vet but the fact that he did not like school – could hardly read or write – stood in the way.
After I was born, they moved to the town because he could earn more money and, in the late fifties, when they started putting up pylons he worked on that, and then later he worked putting in pipes for North Sea Gas too. When he was fifty-seven, he had a brain haemorrhage when he was working, probably because of the pneumatic drills, and he did not work again after that.
The Gentle Author – So what took you away from the Potteries?
Doreen Fletcher – I did not like living in a small town. I hated the constrictions and the pettiness. I wanted to go to Art School in London, and I met a boy who got a place in one and I moved with him to London.
The Gentle Author– But did you apply to Art School yourself?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes, I did a Foundation Course in Newcastle but after that I became a model. I did that for a long time.
The Gentle Author – Where did you live when you came to London?
Doreen Fletcher – I moved to Colliers Wood in South West London and I got a job at an Art School as a model. Gradually, I started taking photographs and doing drawings but – at that point – I did not really know what I wanted to paint, except that it was almost a compulsive activity.
I did quite a lot of self portraits and still lives. It was only when I moved to Bayswater in 1976 that I developed a strong interest in urban landscape. For me, it was a very exciting place to be – having come from this small town – and it was close to the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, Notting Hill Gate and Portobello Rd. I started painting the local streets – the Electric Cinema, the Serpentine Boathouse – and then I became interested in Underground stations at night – Bayswater, Paddington – and this continued when I moved to the East End.
The Gentle Author – What brought you to the East End?
Doreen Fletcher – Simply that the relationship I was in broke up and I met someone new and the housing was cheap in the East End. It was relatively cheap to rent at that time because lots of people were moving away, so artists were still moving in to places like Bow and Mile End.
The Gentle Author – How do you remember the East End as it was then?
Doreen Fletcher – There was corrugated iron everywhere! I loved it here because I had had enough of the sophistication of the West End. It seemed to me like coming back home here – lots of corner shops and tiny pubs. There was a community but, after a couple of years, I realised that they were not staying, and the corner shops and pubs were closing.
Bus Stop, Mile End, 1983
The Gentle Author – Why did you start painting the East End?
Doreen Fletcher – I was visually excited by being somewhere new. The first painting I did in the East End was the bus stop in Mile End in 1983, and then I think I did Renee’s Café next. Once I realised they were going, it triggered this idea of painting the pubs and the shops.
The Gentle Author – Was this your full time occupation?
Doreen Fletcher – No, I was working as a model. It was the most boring job you could imagine but I just stuck at it during term time, so I would have periods of full-time painting and I could keep myself by working three days a week as model.
The Gentle Author – How central to your life were your paintings at that time?
Doreen Fletcher – Very. That was my focal point. My studio was a small room at the top of a run-down three-storey house in Clements St. It faced north so the lighting was good in the day time.
I spent a lot of time just walking around at all times of day and in different weather conditions. Eventually a specific scene imprinted itself on my mind which I felt could have potential as a painting. I would make thumbnail sketches sketches on the spot and take a picture with my camera.
Once I had gathered as much information as I could, I would make a highly detailed drawing which acted as a basis for the painting. This might evolve gradually over a period of months or even years, as a tension built up between my need to represent reality and the demands made by the painting itself. I always struggled to resolve it in an abstract and objective way as well as recording a recognisable subject.
I used to try and work twenty-eight hours a week, I never wanted to become a Sunday painter.
The Gentle Author – Did you have ambition for this work?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes and I did have some limited success in the eighties. I had a show at Spitalfields Health Centre on Brick Lane and then at Tower Hamlets Library in Bancroft Rd. Local people loved my paintings but there was limited interest from any critics.
The Gentle Author – Did you pursue other avenues to get recognition for your work?
Doreen Fletcher – Once a month, I used to send off for lots of slides in response to competitions and requests for submissions in Artists’ Newsletter but it never seemed to go anywhere.
The Gentle Author – How did you maintain morale through that twenty year period?
Doreen Fletcher – I have an optimistic nature and I remained optimistic up until the late nineties when my interest in the genre waned and I think it affected the quality of what I was doing. I realised I was coming to the end of the series I was doing of the East End.
The Gentle Author – What told you that you were coming to the end?
Doreen Fletcher – The East End was changing and I was not really interested any more. The new build made it very dense, taking away the individuality and the sense of community. At first, I was interested while it was being built – on the Isle of Dogs, for instance – but once it became functional there were just too many people.
The Gentle Author – At the time you concluded the series, were there changes in your life?
Doreen Fletcher – I became more involved in teaching Art to kids with special needs. I grew more interested too, because I appeared to be good at it and my work was successful. Gradually, I became involved in the tutorial side of it as well and supporting other lecturers.
The Gentle Author – Did you find that rewarding?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes, I was earning money from it and it was rewarding working with other people, so I became more and more involved in that.
The Gentle Author – Once you had completed nearly twenty years of painting the East End, what were your feelings about that series of work?
Doreen Fletcher – I felt that I had tried very hard to be successful, to get my work out there and get it seen. I had hoped for some kind of recognition. I was never ambitious in terms of international recognition or anything like that, but I did feel that the work was good enough to be recognised more than it was
The Gentle Author – Were you disappointed?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes. I remember the day I made a conscious decision to pack away my paints. It was November 16th 2004. I said, ‘That’s it!’ I am not going to paint again.
The Gentle Author – Do you think your project reached its culmination?
Doreen Fletcher – At the time I thought not, but looking at the work again, I am very very glad I did it now – what I think was important was that I recorded something which has gone.
The Gentle Author – Do you think that you evolved as a painter by doing this work?
Doreen Fletcher – I think, if I had I been taken on by a gallery, I would have developed more as a painter. Instead, I think I found a method of working that suited what I was doing and I stayed with it. Maybe with a bit more encouragement I would have done what I am doing now – since I have come back to painting – which is pushing the boundaries?
The Gentle Author – Do you have a criterion for judging if one of your paintings is successful?
Doreen Fletcher – Yes, a painting is successful for me when I believe I have captured a moment.
Transcript by Louisa Carpenter
Portrait of Doreen Fletcher by Lucinda Douglas Menzies
Doreen Fletcher’s exhibition IN BETWEEN, ALMOST GONE opens on Friday 13th October at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields and runs daily until 27th October. Catalogues are available for £5.
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Doreen Fletcher’s New Exhibition
Readers will be familiar with the work of Doreen Fletcher whom I met in 2015, when she had hidden twenty years worth of paintings away in an attic, after giving up her work as an artist ten years earlier due to the lack of any interest in her pictures.
Subsequently, Doreen and her paintings have become acclaimed and this Friday 13th October, following the success of her debut show in 2016, she opens her second exhibition at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, Spitalfields, which runs until 29th October.
Most excitingly, inspired by the immense positive response to her work, Doreen has started painting again and her exhibition, entitled IN BETWEEN, ALMOST GONE, is a mixture of old and new pictures.
Postbox in Tooley St, 1997
Popcorn Stand at the Wakes, 1994
The Ragged School Museum, Copperfield Rd 2017
Thames Pier, Isle of Dogs, Boxing Day 1988
Metalworks, Chasely St, 2017
East End Dentist, 2017
Foot Tunnel, Silvertown, 2017
Train Over Canal, 1993
The Queen’s Head, York Sq, 2017
Bow Police Station, 2017
Road To Nowhere, 2013
Summer in Limehouse, 1997
Massala Cafe, E14, 2017
Carwash, Salmon Lane, 2017
Browns, We Have Moved, 2017
Emporium, Commercial Rd, 2017
Pharmacy, Commercial Rd, 2017
Fried Chicken Shop, 2017
Lino Shop, 2017
Tyre Shop, Salmon Lane, 2017
Dr Barnardo’s, Copperfield Rd 2017
‘Your no Bansky!’ Docklands Tyres & Exhausts, Commercial Rd, 2017
The Little Cottage, Silvertown, 2017
Twilight, St Anne’s Churchyard, 1998
Paintings copyright © Doreen Fletcher
Doreen Fletcher’s work is featured in EAST END VERNACULAR, Artists who painted London’s East End streets in the 20th century
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Bert Hardy, Photographer
Continuing his series of profiles of photographers who pictured the East End in the twentieth century, Contributing Writer Mark Richards explores the photography of Bert Hardy
Father Joe Williamson, Cable St, 1940
Bert Hardy is the quintessential London photo journalist – confident, skilled and fearless. He was the lead photographer for Picture Post for nearly two decades until it closed in 1957 and won numerous awards. His series ‘Fire Fighters!’ won him his first named credit in Picture Post and he followed this up with a number of equally celebrated series such as ‘East End at War’ and ‘Life in the Elephant.’
When Stefan Lorant came to London and established Picture Post, he revolutionised photo journalism in this country, establishing a format that endured long after he stopped being editor in 1940. The unique character of Picture Post was its ability to tell stories through a balance of photography, captions and text which was immediately accessible to all readers. It reached a circulation of nearly two million and, at the peak, it was estimated that it was read by nearly half of the adult population of Britain.
Lorant’s publications (Weekly Illustrated, Lilliput, Picture Post) gave exposure to many well-known photographers including Brassaï, Bill Brandt and Henry Cartier-Bresson, as well as less well-known but equally accomplished photographers such as Kurt Hutton, Wolfgang Suschitzky and Thurston Hopkins. However, if one photographer encapsulated the spirit of Picture Post it was Bert Hardy.
Hardy was a firmly grounded and talented documentary photographer. The strength of his work lay in his ability to capture a moment, put people at their ease, marshal a crowd, and get in there and take the photographs that others would miss. By all accounts, he was a photographer who would run toward danger rather than from it if that was needed to get the photograph.
Born in May 1913 in Priory Buildings, Webber St just off the Blackfriars Rd, Bert Hardy’s personal confidence and courage was legendary, which perhaps came from being the eldest of seven children and growing up as a Cockney in early twentieth century London. He left school at the age of fourteen and worked for a developing and printing company. This was the start of a long and remarkable career working with film, first as a developer and printer and then as a self-taught freelance photo journalist.
Shortly after beginning work at the Central Photographic Service, he decided to do his own work on the side and set up a processing unit at home. Then he decided to try his hand at photography, having heard that it could be quite lucrative. He purchased an old plate camera from a pawnbroker and that was the beginning of his photographic career.
His first commercial photograph was of the King and Queen on Blackfriars Rd, where he famously used his sister’s head as a rest for the heavy plate camera. After selling two hundred copies of the picture as a postcard, Hardy decided that photography was for him and began photographing people in pubs, on outings and on the street, then selling them the pictures as a way of making money.
As his career developed, it became clear that Bert Hardy was a natural with a camera and this was complemented by his easy way with people and his bold approach to getting a photograph. In 1936, he began working as a freelance photographer with the General Photographic Agency and his photographs began to appear in the Daily Mirror, Weekly Illustrated, and the Illustrated London News among others. Many of the photos were unattributed with the photographer simply being recorded as a ‘stringer,’ yet his reputation began to be established quite early on as someone who enjoyed working under pressure and could produce quality photographs quickly and at a high volume. By 1940, Bert had become a rising star at Picture Post and a whole series of commissions followed, leading to him becoming their top photographer.
He risked his life regularly when photographing the Blitz in London and captured a whole series of photographs of the city burning and of the heroic firefighters dealing with the aftermath. It was an approach that defined him as a photographer both in London and when covering the Second World War in Europe (he was a sergeant in the British Army Film Unit from 1942 to 1946) as well as wars in Korea and elsewhere.
In retrospect, his work now provides us with a unique record of everyday life in London and elsewhere. In particular, his series Life in the Elephant has a quality reminiscent of the work by John Thomson in Street Life in London some seventy years earlier. Bert Hardy had an empathy with his subjects that draws out their humanity and you feel as though you could step through his photographs into the scene.
Bert Hardy’s photographs of the Gorbals in Glasgow in 1948 were one of his most striking series. He was sent there by the Picture Post along with Bert Lloyd to do a follow-up of the commission that was originally given to Bill Brandt. Brandt’s photos were considered too abstract and did not show to the genuine poverty of the area. Picture Post needed someone with a different approach to bring out the essence of the Gorbals. In typical daring fashion, Bert Hardy persuaded the locals to let him photograph some of their living conditions directly. As always, he had his camera pre-set to middle-distance focus – just in case he spotted a potential photograph – when he suddenly came across two urchins in the street. This became the defining image of that series and won a prize from the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
One of Bert Hardy’s most famous photographs was a racy picture of two young women sitting on the railings at Blackpool – the Blackpool Belles. It is instantly recognisable as one of the most loved images of that era and many believe it was spontaneous. Like most similar images, it was staged. Yet the surprising thing about this photograph is not the set-up but the fact that he took it using a Box Brownie camera rather than his usual Leica. He did this to illustrate that it is not the camera that makes a great photograph but the photographer. In his account of this in ‘My Life’ Bert Hardy said:
“With a standard-issue Box Brownie and a close-up lens plus yellow filter and an improvised cardboard viewfinder, I roamed the Golden Mile looking for suitable subjects. In the end, I got a couple of showgirls from the pier theatre to help me. The picture I eventually took of the two girls sitting on the railings with their skirts blowing up has been one of my most popular photographs.”
The woman in the spotted dress was a ‘Tiller Girl’ called Pat Stewart who was wearing a bathing costume under the dress. The striped costume was prominent in the original photograph and was airbrushed away in the darkroom leading to much speculation as to what she was wearing under the dress, if anything at all! The picture has become one of those that is often reproduced without being attributed to the photographer.
When Edward Hulton took over as Editor in 1953 it was the beginning of the end for Picture Post which went into terminal decline, closing in 1957. It was the close of an era for photo journalism in Britain. Hulton blamed its failure on the arrival of television but poor editorial decisions by him and a change of focus in 1953 were significant factors. Although he was kept on doing other work for Hulton publications, Hardy moved into photography for advertising where he had great success and work flowed in.
Then, in 1964, Bert Hardy chose a complete change of direction and bought a farm in Oxted, Surrey. He still kept his printing business going but became a farmer and lived on the farm for the rest of his life. Even as a farmer, he still lectured on photography and was also made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. By all accounts, these were happy times but London had lost one of its most influential photographers. In 1995, he suffered a heart attack which proved fatal but his spirit lives on through his work which has stood the test of time.
Cockney Life in the Elephant & Castle, 1948
Fabric shop at the Elephant & Castle, 1948
Dishwashers, Life in the Elephant, 1948
Shopping for jewellery, Life in the Elephant, 1948
Homeless shelter, Life in the Elephant, 1948
Gorbals boys, Glasgow, 1948
Game of Stones, Gorbals, Glasgow, 1948
Royal Wedding – King George VI with the bride, Princess Elizabeth 1947
The Pool of London, 1949
Docks near the Pool of London, 1949
Woman on the London Underground, 1952
Piccadilly, 1953
The combined fleets ashore, Gibraltar, 1954
The Bluebell Girls on stage, 1954
Blackpool belles, 1951
Shoe shiner, Piccadilly, 1953
Loneliness in London, Katherine Whitehorn as a new arrival at Waterloo, 1956
Too Many Spivs, Notting Hill, 1954
Liverpool, 1950
Saying goodbye to a loved one, Paddington Station, 1940
Firefighters during the London Blitz, 1941
Photographs copyright © Estate of Bert Hardy
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Dan Jones’ East End Portraits
In recent years, Dan Jones has painted a magnificent series of portraits from different eras for East End Tales by the Speed History Writers Group. Many of these are well known but others less familiar, so you can click on any of the names below to learn more about the subjects. Click here to book for SPEED HISTORIES at Bishopsgate Institute this Wednesday 11th October
Police Constable James Stewart
Portraits copyright © Dan Jones
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Postcards From Petticoat Lane
Today I am sending you postcards from Petticoat Lane. Here are the eager crowds of a century ago, surging down Middlesex St and through Wentworth St, everyone hopeful for a bargain and hungry for wonders, dressed in their Sunday best and out to see the sights. Yet this parade of humanity is itself the spectacle, making its way from Spitalfields through Petticoat Lane Market and up to Aldgate, before disappearing into the hazy distance. There is an epic quality to these teeming processions which, a hundred years later, appear emblematic of the immigrants’ passage through this once densely populated neighbourhood, where so many came in search of a better life.
At a casual glance, these old postcards are so similar as to be indistinguishable – but it is the differences that are interesting. On closer examination, the landmarks and geography of the streets become apparent and then, as you scrutinise the details of these crowded compositions, individual faces and figures stand out from the multitude. Some are preoccupied with their Sunday morning, while others raise their gaze in vain curiosity – like those gentlemen above, comfortable at being snapped for perpetuity whilst all togged up in their finery.
When the rest of London was in church, these people congregated to assuage their Sunday yearning in a market instead, where all temporal requirements might be sought and a necessary sense of collective human presence appreciated within the excited throng. At the time these pictures were taken, there was almost nowhere else in London where Sunday trading was permitted and, since people got paid in cash on Friday, if you wanted to buy things cheap at the weekend, Petticoat Lane was the only place to go. It was a dramatic arena of infinite possibility where you could get anything you needed, and see life too.
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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