Pumps Of Old London
“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry” -Thomas Fuller, 1732
Hardly anyone notices this venerable pump of 1832 in Shoreditch churchyard, yet this disregarded artifact may conceal the reason why everything that surrounds it is there. Reverend Turp of St Leonard’s explained to me that the very name of Shoreditch derives from the buried spring beneath this pump, “suer” being the Anglo-Saxon word for stream.
The Romans made their camp at this spot because of the secure water source and laid out four roads which allowed them to control the entire territory from there – one road led West to Bath, one North to York, one East to Colchester and one South to Chichester. In fact, this water source undermined the foundations of the medieval church and caused it to collapse, leading to the construction of the current building by George Dance but, even then, there were still problems with flooding and the land was built up to counteract this, burying the first seven steps out of ten at the front of the church. Later, human remains from the churchyard seeped into this supply (as in some other gruesome examples) and it was switched over to mains water. Today, the sad old pump in Shoreditch has lost its handle, had its nozzle broken and even its basin is filled with concrete, yet a lone primrose flowers – emblematic of the mystic quality that some associate with these wellsprings, as sources of life itself.
Before the introduction of the mains supply in London, the pumps were a defining element of the city, public water sources that permitted settlement and provided a social focus in each parish. Now, where they remain, they are redundant relics unused for generations, either tolerated for their picturesque qualities or ignored by those heedless of their existence. When I began to research this subject, I found that no attention had been paid to these valiant survivors of another age. So I set out West to seek those other pumps that had caught my attention in my walks around the city and make a gallery for you of the last ones standing.
Holborn is an especially good place to look for old pumps, there I found several fine examples contemporary with the stately Georgian squares, and the Inns of Court proved rewarding hunting ground too. At Lincoln’s Inn, the porter told me they still get their water supply untreated from the Fleet river, encouraging me to explore South of Fleet St at the Temple, although to my disappointment Pump Court no longer has a pump to justify its name.
Up in Soho, at Broadwick St, you will find London’s most notorious pump, the conduit that brought a cholera epidemic killing more than five hundred people in 1854. Now it has been resurrected as a monument to the physician who detected the origin of the infection and had the pump handle removed. Today, the nearest pub bears his name, John Snow. The East End’s most famous specimen, the Aldgate Pump – that I have written of elsewhere in these pages – was similarly responsible for a lethal epidemic, underlining the imperative to deliver a safe water supply, an imperative that ultimately rendered these pumps redundant.
Perhaps the most gracious examples I found were by St Paul’s Cathedral, “Erected by St Faith’s Parish, 1819,” and in Gray’s Inn Square. Both possess subtle expressive detail as sculptures that occupy their locations with presence, and in common with all their pitiful fellows they stand upright like tireless flunkies – ever hopeful and eager to serve – quite oblivious to our indifference.
In Shoreditch churchyard, this sad old pump of 1832 has lost its handle, had its nozzle broken and basin filled with concrete, and is attended by a lone primrose.
In Queen’s Sq, Holborn this pump of 1840 has the coats of arms of St Andrew and St George.
In Bedford Row, Holborn, this is contemporary with its colleague in Queens Sq.
In Gray’s Inn Sq – where, in haste, a passing lawyer mislaid a red elastic band.
This appealing old pump in Staple Inn is a pastiche dated 1937.
This is the previous pump in the location above, more utilitarian and less picturesque.
In New Square, Lincoln’s Inn.
Between Paternoster Sq and St Paul’s Churchyard.
Outside the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. The text on the pump reads, “On this spot a well was first made and a house of correction built thereon by Henry Wallis Mayor of London in the year 1282.” Designed by architect Nathaniel Wright and erected in 1799.
Aldgate Pump marks the boundary between the East End and the City of London. The faucet in the shape of a wolf commemorates the last of these beasts to be shot outside the walls of the City.
London’s most notorious pump in Broadwick St, Soho. Five hundred people died in the cholera epidemic occasioned by this pump in 1854. Reinstated in 1992 to commemorate medical research in the service of public health, the nearby pub is today named “John Snow” after the physician who traced the outbreak to this pump. A red granite kerbstone across the road marks the site of the original pump.
Archive image courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Pavement Pounders
The work of Geoffrey Fletcher (1923–2004) is an inspiration to me, and today I am publishing his drawings of London’s street people in the nineteen sixties from Geoffrey Fletcher’s Pavement Pounders of 1967. For an introduction to Geoffrey Fletcher’s writing, I recommend The London Nobody Knows which has been reprinted with a new introduction by Dan Cruickshank.
Charlie Sylvester -“I’m Charlie Sylvester, Charlie of Whitechapel. I’ve been on the markets over forty years. I can’t keep still too long, as I have to serve the customers. Then I must take me pram and go fer some more stock. Stock’s been getting low. I go all over with me pram, getting stock, I sell anythin’ – like them gardening tools, them baking tins and plastic mugs. All kinds of junk. Them gramophone records is classic, Ma, real classic stuff. Course they ain’t long playing? Wot do you expect? Pick where you like out of them baking tins. Well, I’ll be seeing you next you’re in Whitechapel. Don’t forget. Sylvester’s the name.”
Peanuts, Tower Hill – “We’ve only been doin’ this for a few months, me peanut pram and I. I only comes twice a week, Saturdays and Sundays. Sundays is best. It’s a hot day. Hope it will stay. I’m counting on it. How many bags do I sell in a day? I’ve never counted ’em. All I want is for to sell ’em out.”
Doing the Spoons, Leicester Sq -“I’ve been in London since 1932, doin’ the spoons, mostly. I does it when I’m not with the group – if they’re away or don’t show up. I’m about the only spoon man left. No, the police don’t bother us much – they know we’re old timers. We’re playing the Square tonight, later when the crowds will come.”
The Man with the X-Ray Eyes – “It’s the facial characteristics. I can usually guess within a year. It’s the emanations – that’s why they call me the man with the X-ray eyes. I’ve been doing it thirty-two years. Thirty -two years is a long time. I’m off-form today. Sometimes I am off-form and then I won’t take their money. I’m in show business. You see me on TV before the cameras. My show took London, Paris and New York by storm.”
Selections from ‘The Merry Widow,’ Oxford St – “You need a good breath for one o’ these. It’s called a euphonium. Write it down, same as when a man makes a euphemism at dinner. If I smoked or got dissipated, I couldn’t play. I can’t play the cornet, as it is, but that’s because I only have one tooth, as I’ll show you – central eating, as you say, Guv. I come from Oldham. When I was a boy of ten, I worked in Yates’ Wine Lodge, but I broke the glasses. I’m seventy-three now, too old for a job. But I don’t want a job, I have this – the euphonium. Life is an adventure, but things is bad today. People will do you down and not be ashamed of it. They’ll glory in it. Well, that’s it. My mother-in-law is staying with us so we have plenty to eat. She gives me the cold shoulder. I’m going for a cuppa tea. Have a nice summer and lots of luck.”
Lucky White Heather – “I’ve been selling on the London streets all my life, dearie. Selling various things – gypsy things – clothes pegs – it used to be clothes pegs. The men used to make them, but they won’t now – they’re onto other things. There wasn’t much profit in them, either. You sold them at three ha’pence a dozen. That was in the old days, dearie. Now I could be earning a pound while you’re drawing me. We comes every day from Kent. People like the lucky heather. But I’ll give you the white elephant – they’re very lucky. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be selling them on the streets of London now, would we, dearie?”
Pavement Artist at Work, Trafalgar Sq – “I’ve been away two years, I haven’t been well, but I’m back again now. I’ve worked in other parts, but nearly always in London. Used to be outside the National Gallery, where I did Constable. I used to do copies of Constable. I do horses, dogs and other animals. The children like animals best, and give me money. I’m only playing about today, you might say. I haven’t prepared the stone. It gives it a smooth surface, makes the chalks sparkle. Makes them bright and clear, y’know. These pastels are too hard. I like soft ones, but everything’s gone up and I can’t afford them. Oh yes, I always clean off the stones. I won the prize for the best pavement artist in London.”
L.S.D. the Only Criterion, Tavistock Sq – “I’ve been here thirty years. I became a combined tipster and pavement artist because I had the talent, and because I believe in independence. Some people buy my drawings. I don’t go to the races now. I used to – Epsom, Ascot and all that. I have my regulars who come to see me and leave me money in my cap. That’s what it’s for. The rank and file are no good. It’s quiet Saturdays except when there’s a football match – Scoltand, say – and they stay round here. Weather’s been terrible – no-one about. Trafalgar Sq is where the money is, but they fights. I’ve sen the po-leece intervene when they’ve been fighting among themselves, and they say, ‘ere, move on, you?’ It’s money what’s at the bottom of it. Money an’ greed. Like I’ve got written here.”
The Best Friend You Have is Jesus – “Forty years I’ve been selling plants in London, and for over thirty years the Lord’s work has been done. In 1935, I was backing a dog – funnily enough it was called ‘Real Work’ – at New Cross. All at once, a small voice, the voice of the Lord, spoke to me and said ‘Abel (My name is Abel), I’ve got some real work for you to do.’ I gave up drink and dogs and got the posters on the barrow – the messages. I’ve been thousands of miles all over London doing the work of the Lord. London is wicked, and it’s getting worse. But God is merciful, and always gives a warning. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord says ‘Repent’ before His wrath comes. He could destroy London with an earthquake. Remember Noah? – how God wanted them to go in the Ark? But they wouldn’t. They said, ‘We’re going to have a good time…’ The Lord could destroy London with His elements. It dosen’t worry me as I’m doing the Lord’s work. Let these iris stand in water when you get ’em home.”
One Minute Photos, Westminster Bridge – “‘Happy Len,’ they call me, but my real name’s Anthony. Fifty years on the bridge. 1920 I came, and my camera was made in 1903. It’s the only one left. I have to keep patching it up. The man who made it was called ‘Moore,’ and he came from Dr Barnardo’s. They sent him to Canada, and he and a Canadian got together, a bit sharp like, and they brought out this camera. Died a millionaire. I’m seventy-three, and I’ve seen some rum ‘uns on the bridge. There was a woman who came up and took all her clothes off, and the bobby arrested her for indecent behaviour. Disgraceful. The nude, I mean. She was spoiling my pitch.”
Music in the Strand – “I had to make some money to live, and so I came to play in the streets. I’ve never played professionally, I play the piano as well but I never had much training. I’m usually here in the Strand but sometimes I play in Knightsbridge, sometimes in Victoria St. There’s not so many lady musicians about now. I only play classical pieces.”
Horrible Spiders – “Christmas time is the best for us, Guv, if the weather ain’t wet or cold. Then the crowds are good humoured. I like my picture and I’m going to pick out an extra horrible spider for you in return. I’ll tell you a secret – some of the spiders ain’t made of real fur. They’re nylon. But yours is real fur, and it’s very squeaky.”
Salty Bob – “Come round behind the stall and have a bottle of ale. It’s a sort of club, a private club. It’s a grand life sitting here drinking, watching the world go by. I’ve been selling salt and vinegar for fifty years and I’m seventy now. I’ve seen some changes. Take Camden Passage, it’s all antiques, like Chelsea, none of the originals left hardly. Let me pour you another drink. Here we are snug and happy in the sun. I’ve just picked up nine pounds on a horse, and I’ve got another good one for the four-thirty. Next time you’re passing, join me for another drop of ale. No, you can’t pay for it. You’ll be my guest, same as now, at our private club behind the bottles of non-brewed, an’ the bleach.”
Don’t Squeeze Me Till I’m Yours – “That’s a German accordion – they’re the best. Bought it cheap up in the Charing Cross Rd. I do the mouth organ too, this is an English one – fourteen shillings from Harrods. I began with a tin whistle and worked me way up. I’ve a room in Mornington Crescent. My wife died, luvly woman, thrombosis. I could see here everywhere, lying in bed and what not, so I cleared out. I got to livin’ in hostels. But I couldn’t stand the class of men. I work here Mondays, Fridays sometimes. I also work Knightsbridge and ‘ere. I work Aldgate Sundays. I do well there. I gets a fair livin.’ So long as I’ve got me rent, two pounds ten, and baccy money, I don’t want nothing else.”
A Barrel Organ Carolling Across a Golden Street – They received their maximum appreciation in the East End, in the days when the area was a world apart from the rest of London, and the appearance of a barrel organ in Casey Court, among patrons almost as hard pressed as the organist, meant an interval for music and dancing, while the poor little monkey, often a prey to influenza, performed his sad little capers on the organ lid.
Sandwich Man – Consult Madame Sandra – “It’s a poor life, you only get twelve shillings and sixpence a day and you can’t do much on that now, can you, sir? It was drink that got me, the drink. When I come off the farms, I became a porter at Clapham Junction, sir. I worked on the railways, but I couldn’t hold my job. So I dropped down, and this is what I do now. All you can say is you’re in the open air. Sometimes I sleep in a hostel, sometimes I stay out. Just now I’m sleeping out. It was the drink that done it, sir.”
Matchseller – “I was a labourer – a builder’s labourer – an’ I come frae Glasgow. I’ve not been down here in London verra long – eight years. Do i like it here? Weel, the peepull, the peepull are sociable, but they not gie you much, so you only exist. Just exist. I don’t sleep in no hostel, I sleep rough. I haven’t slept in a bed in four weeks. I sleep anywhere. I like a bench in the park or on the embankment. I like the freedom. Anywhere I hang my hat, it’s home sweet home to me.”
A Romany – Apart from the Romany women who sell heather and lucky charms in such places as Villiers St and Oxford St, the gypsies are rapidly disaapearing from Central London. Only occasionally do you see them at their traditional trade of selling. lace paper flowers of cowslips. Modern living vans are invariably smart turn-outs that have little in common with the carved and painted caravans of fifty years ago. They are with-it-gypises-O! Small colonies can still be found on East End bombsites, which the Romanies favour for winter quarters.
‘A Tiny Seed of Love,’ Piccadilly – “Oh yes, Guvnor, they’re good to me if the weather’s fine. Depends on the weather. I can’t play well enough, as you might say. I used to travel all over, four or five of us, saxo, drums, like that. Sometimes there was as many as eight of us. Then it got dodgy. I’m an old hand now. I’ve settled down. I got two rooms at thirty-two bob a week, Islington way. Where could you get two rooms for sixteen shillings each in London? I can easily get along at the price I pay. What’s more, I’ve married the woman who owns the house, too. She’s eight years older than I am, but we get along amicable.”
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At Bow Church
In 1311, the residents of Bow became sick of trudging through the mud each winter to get to the parish church of St Dunstan’s over in Stepney, so they raised money to build a chapel of ease upon a piece of land granted by Edward II ‘in the middle of the King’s Highway.’ Seven hundred years later, it is still there and now the traffic hurtles past on either side, yet in spite of injuries inflicted by time, the ancient chapel retains the tranquillity of another age.
Even as you step through the churchyard gates of St Mary and cast your eyes along the undulating stone path bordered by yews, the hubbub recedes as the fifteenth century tower looms up before you. At this time of year, daisies spangle the grass among the tombs as a reminder of the former rural landscape of Bow that has been overtaken by the metropolis. Partly rebuilt in 1829 after a great storm brought down the tower, new ashlar stone may be easily distinguished from the earlier construction, topped off in the last century by red bricks after the church took a direct hit in World War II.
Once you enter the door, the subtly splayed walls of the nave, the magnificent wooden vaulted roof and the irregular octagonal stone pillars reveal the medieval provenance of the ancient structure which is domestic in proportion and pleasing in its modest vernacular. Escaping the radical alterations which damaged too many old churches, St Mary was restored gently in 1899 by C R Ashbee, who set up his School of Handicrafts in Bow at the end of the nineteenth century. Ashbee inserted twenty-two foot oak beams across the nave at ceiling height to hold the structure together, fitted discreet double-glazing to exclude the sound of iron cartwheels upon the cobbles and added a choir vestry at the rear in understated Arts & Crafts design.
Beneath your feet, previous residents of Bow lie packed together in a vault sealed by a Health Inspector in 1890, now rehydrated by rising water as tributaries of the River Lea flow beneath the shallow foundations. Meanwhile, on the day of my visit, a mother and toddler group played happily upon the floor inches above above the charnel house and laughing children delighted in racing up and down the nave – past the stone font of 1410, replaced in 1624 with a one of more modern design and which lay in the rector’s garden for three hundred years before it was re-instated.
Monuments to members of the wealthy Coborn family loom overhead. One is for Alice who died of smallpox at fifteen years old on her wedding day in 1699 and, challenging it from across the nave, a much more elaborate memorial to her wealthy step-mother Prisca who died two years later – hinting perhaps at long-forgotten family tensions.
Diverting the eye from such distractions, the architecture draws your attention forward and an elaborate Tudor ceiling rewards your gaze in the chancel, where C R Ashbee’s richly-coloured encaustic tiles rival the drama of the celandines in the churchyard outside and a curious post-war Renaissance style window offers whimsical amusement with its concealed animals lurking within the design.
Not overburdened with history, yet laced with myriad stories – St Mary’s was once the parish of Samuel Henshall who saw the potential in patenting the corkscrew before anyone else and of George Lansbury, the pioneering Socialist, whose granddaughter, the actress Angela Lansbury, who came back to honour his centenary recently.
Reflecting the nature of our era, the current focus of work at St Mary’s is the organisation of a food bank to serve the needs of local people, but if Geoffrey Chaucer or Samuel Pepys came through Bow – as they did centuries ago – they would still recognise the chapel of ease of their own times and its lively East End parish, of rich and poor, fish merchants, reformers and entrepreneurs.
The bells of Bow
Oak beam added by C R Ashbee as part of his restoration of 1900 and double-glazing, against the noise of the cartwheels upon the cobbles, which is the oldest example in a church in Britain
Tudor roof in the chancel
Bow’s oldest monument, commemorating Grace Amcott, wife of wealthy ‘ffyshmongr’ 1551
Encaustic tiles of 1900 by C R Ashbee
Iron Flag from the tower discovered among the bomb damage of World War II
East Window with architectural design and concealed animals
Cat from the east window
Parish chest, seventeenth century
Medieval font of 1410, rescued after three hundred years in a garden
C R Ashbee’s choir vestry of 1900
Medieval tower restored in 1829 with ashlar stone and with brick after World War II bomb damage
The statue of Gladstone has his hands daubed with red paint
Bow in 1702
Bow Church seen from the east, early eighteenth century
Bow Church seen from the west, eighteenth century
Bow Church seen from the west, early nineteenth century
1905
C R Ashbee’s drawing of his proposal for the renovation of the church in 1899
St Mary’s Football Team, 1910
St Mary’s Football Team, 1938
Wartime damage
With grateful thanks to Joy Wotton for her kind assistance with this feature
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Easter Flowers at St Dunstan’s
At Sangorski & Sutcliffe
As a twenty-one year old photojournalist, Monty Meth visited Sangorski & Sutcliffe, traditional bookbinders, and took portraits of the craftsmen and women at their workshop in Poland St, published in ‘The Sphere’ in September 1947. Remarkably, Sangorski & Sutcliffe are still in business today, producing bindings in the time honoured-fashion and operating now from premises in Victoria.
Head of the firm, Mr Stanley Bray, works on the special binding for ‘The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’ a task which it will take him ten years to complete. Around him can be seen the original drawings of the two previous bindings which were lost – the first in the Titanic disaster and the second during the London Blitz. The covers will contain one thousand and fifty-one jewels inset into the leather, use five thousand pieces of leather and contain one hundred square feet of gold leaf. The completed book will be a fine and rare specimen of the English bookbinder’s art.
Cutting the edges of the book – the instrument being operated by the craftsman in this picture is a miniature “plough,” whose accuracy and fineness of finish are essential to good work.
The sections of the book are sewn on a frame. This type of frame is essentially the same as those in use for hundreds of years in the bookbinding craft. Each section – usually of eight or sixteen pages – is sewn to the cords singly, until the whole book has been built up ready for the boards or covers to be added.
Sewing in the headband – this band, woven in at the top and bottom of the book will protect it against rough usage in handling on the bookshelves. In the finished volume, both the headbands are covered by the leather binding. The headbands are made up of silks in contrasted colours.
The cords which bind the sections of the book are frayed out so that they can be laced into the boards which form the covers. The smoothness of the finish of the leather depends upon this operation.
Cutting up a skin for leather back and corners. The original, rich, dark-red, native-tanned Nigerian goatskin, almost identical to the Morocco used by French and English master-binders of the eighteenth century, is now used for binding many books in this country today. The leather is usually British-dyed. Here it is being cut to size for back and corners ready for paring, as shown below. The grain of the leather adds to the finish of the book.
Before being pasted to the back and corners of the book, the leather has to be pared to a suitable thickness. The leather must be capable of being turned neatly over all the joints and it must also be of uniform thickness. Hence it is pared by an expert on a stone, a task which calls for great skill and sureness of touch.
The bands on the back of the book are sharpened. Before a book is lettered, the expert finisher secures as much definition as possible. Later he will add lines across the back which will add greatly to the general attractiveness of the book.
The leather margin of the front cover is decorated with gold leaf ornamentation. This work is undertaken by a finisher, who is responsible for all the tooling on the leather. He is the aristocrat of the bindery, and upon his invention in design and skill in execution the final appearance of the book depends. The craftsman above is considered by experts to be one of the best in the country today.
A very important feature of bookbinding is the restoration of old books – they come from rare bookshelves and most of them are old classics. Under an expert craftsman’s hand, they will regain all their old charm and use.
The completed volumes, hand-produced in every binding detail, receive their final pressing from twelve to twenty-four hours. After that, they will be ready to sustain the roughest usage. This massive press is over one hundred years old and is still in full use.
At one time, Britain enjoyed a great reputation for the craftsmanship of our hand bookbinders. From Cromwellian times onwards right up to the late-Victorian days, leather-bound books lined the shelves of our forefathers. Very few firms remain in this country to pursue this ancient craft, but amongst those which remain, Sangorski & Sutcliffe hold a very high place – in fact, amongst connoisseurs of bookbinding they rank at the very top. The binding of a book necessitates thirty-eight different operations – as yet, no machine has been invented which competes in skill and artistry with the art of the hand bookbinder. At their workshops in Poland St, craftsmen have prepared books for many exhibitions since 1904 – and as proof that this kind of bookbinding is still in demand by book lovers all over the world, sixty-five per cent of theoutput is for export.
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Monty Meth, Photographer & Journalist
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Roy Wild, Loving Son
Roy with his Mum & Dad in the forties
Previously in these pages, I have reported Roy Wild’s stories of working at the Bishopsgate Goodsyard and his family’s hop-picking adventures, but the last time I visited him Roy wanted to talk to me about his beloved parents and tell me their stories.
“My father Andrew Earnest Wild was born in 1907 in Clerkenwell, within the sound of Bow Bells, and he lived in Bastwick St (known as ‘the Bass’) off Central St. His father was Andrew Benjamin Wild and his mother was Ellen Leach. He was the eldest of four brothers and two sisters – Emmy and one he lost – and another half sister, Maggie.
When he was sixteen, he falsified his age and joined up with the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent, based in Maidstone. The Ministry of Defence sent me his pay book and what have you. It says, ‘A hardworking clean and sober man, of smart appearance, he can be trusted to carry out his duties without supervision, intelligent and reliable, a good type of man.’
He put down 1906 but he was actually born in 1907, on 13th of September. He was shipped to India and was there for the whole of his service, which was I think eleven years, in Madras and Calcutta. He took up boxing there, became regimental champion and fought in the all-India finals. I have a solid silver medal that he won in Madras for bayonet fighting. It is my most prized possession, upstairs in my jewellery box.
My Dad was a bit of a rough handful before he mellowed. One of my relations who knew my Dad when they were young told me, ‘I saw your Dad have a fight down the Bass, he knocked the guy out and grabbed him by the back of his neck and dragged him across the tramlines for the tram to run over him.’
I do remember once we were on a bus, Dad and I, sitting on the long seat next to where the bus conductor stood. On the seat was one of those paper bags for copper coins and I picked it up, and was looking at it when the conductor came along. He asked me, ‘What are you doing with that?’ I did not know what to say so the old man said, ‘What’s the matter?’ The conductor asked, ‘Does he usually pick up things that don’t belong to him?’ So Dad told him I was only a child and grabbed him by the throat. He almost threw the conductor off the bus, that was the type of character he was. When it came to protecting his children, he would not stand for anything.
When he first came home from India, my Dad worked on the underground, laying lines, but then he left that and went to be a Hoffman presser in Putney. He was there for some years and became foreman until he was called up in 1939, when I was two years old. His guvnor contacted the authorities and said that he was needed because of his job – as well as being an ARP warden, looking out for overhead bombers, so he got exempted from the Second World War. But then they brought somebody in and gave him a higher position than my Dad. Now, he was a no-nonsense guy my Dad and a lot of it I have inherited from him. This guy had never been in the cleaning business, so they put him under my dad’s wing, yet gave him a higher position than my Dad and more money. Dad was a foreman at the time, he said, ‘You expect me to teach him and when I’ve taught him, he’ll be ordering me about.’ So there was a dispute and after years there, ‘That’s it, I’m out of here,’ he said – simple as that.
Instead, he went and worked as a Hoffman presser for a Jewish guy in Victoria St, SW1. My Dad was good at what he did, he used to press all my clothes when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. It was quite a prestigious shop, by the name of Jones, and lots of stars would go in. Dad used to tell me that, when you press a suit, you always go through the pockets first, in case there are any matches in there, especially red top matches, which could start a terrible fire with the cleaning spirit. In one pocket, Dad found a gold ring which belonged to the Bishop of Westminster and he gave it to his guvnor and received some sort of commendation for it.
After he left the pressing job, Dad did various jobs before he went on the railway, working for London & North Eastern Railway at Pedley St off Vallance Rd. He was there for quite some years, became the official for the National Union of Railwaymen and organised the annual beanos with all the guys he worked with. I used to take friends of mine from Bishopsgate depot where I worked and we had a jolly boys outing down to Margate. When he retired, my Dad did night work and a couple of cleaning jobs in the City. He was very fastidious and he enjoyed good health. He was always down Columbia Road Market. My Dad, he loved the flowers yet he never really had a garden. When we were in Northport St, there was a backyard, where he had a few chickens and his garden consisted of no more than a window box.
He was never out of work and always provided for us. Those years that we lived in Northport St were the years of the parties at our house, where people would come out of the pubs, carrying the booze home, having a ‘Moriarty’ as it was known. In those days, we had nothing else other than a piano. Across the road from us was a pub called the Rushton Arms. All the street and surrounding streets used to drink in there on a Friday and Saturday night, and the kids sat outside with a packet of crisps and a glass of lemonade and an arrowroot biscuit. They used to get hold of a pint glass and rub that on the pavement keep rubbing it until a hole was formed and, you can imagine what happened, when it was refilled – all the beer ran everywhere. Then, one night, there was an almighty bang when it took a hit from a bomb, and there was not much left of the old Rushton Arms.
My Mum, Rosina Florence Wild, was born in 1911 in Clerkenwell, in Galway St and grew up there. She knew Dad’s family in Bastwick St and when Dad went to join up for the army, she was just twelve. But when he was demobbed and came home from the army aged twenty-four, she was a young lady and a good dancer. My Mum was a ‘Charleston girl’ as they say, ‘a real flapper.’ They hit it off, and started stepping out together and got engaged. A year later they were married at St Luke’s Old St, and I was born the next year at Barts Hospital and christened in the same church. My Mum saw in the paper a house was going in Northport St, so she applied for it and we moved to Hoxton when I was a year old.
During the war years, Mum worked at Arthur Burton’s in Old St, making bandages and dressings for wounded soldiers. Mum did piecework – we pushed the pram from Northport St along New North Rd into City Road and left onto Old St. Arthur Burton’s was a big building next to Moon’s Motors, where we loaded the pram with rolls of bandages, big long strings of them. We would have bags and bags of them to be packed. I would help Mum while Dad was on night work, we would sit there during the evening by the radio, packing bandages. One load would keep us going for a couple of days, then we pushed the pram again over to Arthur Burton’s and received a pittance. It was much like hopping, but we needed the money in those days plus we were helping the war effort.
When the war came to an end, I was going to school in Whitmore St School. At eleven, some of the brainier boys went to Shoreditch Central School in Hoxton. You were considered a little bit ‘like that’ if you went to Shoreditch Central, us we went to the original Blackboard Jungle, Pitfield St School.
During those years, Mum was an early morning office cleaner at a bank in Gresham St in the City. She would start work at half past five, cleaning, dusting and emptying the waste paper baskets, and then she would come home in time to see me off to school. She would be home by about eight in the morning and would do me a packed lunch. She continued doing early morning cleaning until I started work. I said to Dad, ‘It’s not right that mum goes out the early hours of the morning,’ and he made her pack up mornings and just do evenings.
My Mum was not necessarily strong in stature but in resolve. She continued with the evening cleaning job for years – by then she must have been in her fifties I would think – until she packed up completely. We did not need the money anymore. Dad was still working and I was working and giving her a little bit out of my wages every week, so we coped fairly well. My Mum’s fridge was a bowl of water on the windowsill with a bottle of milk in it. That was how we kept the milk fresh. My Mum’s vacuum cleaner was a dustpan and brush, and my Mum’s washing machine was a copper in the scullery. In the little back room where we used to eat, there was a range and Mum used to cook on that. She would put Zebo all over it and then polish it. She worked hard on scrubbing the front steps, and she would whiten it or use red ochre, so the front steps always look nice.
One day, when he was seventy-five, my Dad went upstairs and was a bit breathless, so he saw the doctor. The doctor sent him to the hospital but they could not find out what was wrong with him. He started to lose weight and he got so frail he could not get up the stairs, and Mum had made a bed up for him downstairs. I used to come round on his appointment day and carry him out, he would only let me carry him. I put him in the car and Tony my brother, myself, and my Mum, we would take him to Bart’s Hospital. They wanted to open him up and see what the problem was. By then, he was on oxygen – a little mask he had and a canister by the bed. Dr Bennett, the consultant, he said to my dad, ‘The nurse is going to take you into the other room and I want you to blow.’ But that was just to get him out of the room, the consultant said to Tony and me, ‘We don’t know what’s wrong with your dad and he will not let us open him up to see what’s wrong, so I can only tell you your dad is going to die – and I suggest you take him home and let him die among the people that love him.’ My Mum was in the other room with him, she did not know, only his two sons. We took him home and he went downhill.
I went away to the Isle of Sheppey for the weekend with my two children. My wife and I, we came home and I called my Mum’s place, and Tony picked up the phone and I knew. I knew because Tony was there and he said, ‘Dad took a turn for the worse and he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.’ That was when the problems began really because Mum asked ‘They won’t cut him open will they, Roy?‘ and I said ‘No mum, of course they won’t.’
I tried to stop the post mortem. I went to Golden Lane to see the pathologist who was going to do it. He asked me, ‘Mr Wild, you seem adamant that you don’t want your father to receive a post mortem, why is that?’ I said ‘Well, he was terrified of going under the knife when he was alive and it would upset my mother terrible.’
‘I can understand that but there’s a time when the law has to be applied,’ he replied, ‘because your father died en route to the hospital, we have to do it.’ So they did it and on the death certificate it said ‘Sarcadosis.’ We did not know what that meant, so my brother got a medical dictionary and it means the complete breakdown of the lungs, that was why he could not breathe. Dad was buried at East Finchley Cemetery in a double plot in 1983 and the plot was held for when Mum joined him twenty-seven years later, just before her ninety-seventh birthday. You know, she was a good Mum, both of them were good parents.”
Transcript by Rachel Blaylock & Nicola Kearney
Rosina Wild – ‘My mum was a ‘Charleston girl,’ as they say – a real flapper’
Andrew Wild – ‘My Dad was a bit of a rough handful before he mellowed’
Roy Wild
At Northport St, Hoxton – (Rosina Wild is on the left)
Andrew Wild plays spoons
Rosina Wild at her flat in Old Market Sq, Bethnal Green
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Janet Brooke’s East End Shopfronts
In the eighties, Janet Brooke undertook series of prints of some favourite East End shops and a selection are currently on display at the Museum of London until 7th July
Cafe, Roman Rd
“I moved to Bow in the mid-seventies after a stint of squatting in Whitechapel and Leytonstone. I was teaching printmaking at East Ham Technical College, which became Newham Community College and then Newham College of Education before closing the Art Department in 2006. Yet, thankfully, I did manage to buy their beautiful Imperial Press made in Curtain Rd in 1832 that I used to print my linocuts. While I was teaching, I also made my own prints and in 1980, armed with a new camera, I started taking photographs and decided to use the results as inspiration for my work. So I started with a set of screenprints of the shops in Ropery St, where I lived and which I used every day.’ – Janet Brooke
MR HASLER’S SHOP (Screenprint) on the corner of Eric St and Bow Common Lane had seen better days. It was not always clear whether it was open or not, because it very dark inside with the windows boarded up. I do not remember it selling much more than newspapers and a few cigarettes, but I do remember having our Sunday paper delivered by Mr Hassler himself or, more often, by Mrs Hasler. Hasler’s is no longer a shop.
THE POST OFFICE (Screenprint) was on the opposite corner of Eric St and Bow Common Lane. It is no longer a shop.
JESSIE’S PROVISIONS (Screenprint), our local grocery store, was further down Eric St on the corner of Hamlets Way, where you could buy everything you needed including fresh bread, delivered twice a day, warm from the bakery. Jessie’s is still a grocery shop.
MICK’S GENT’S LONG HAIR STYLIST (Screenprint) was on the next block along Hamlets Way, on the corner of Mossford St. Mick was Maltese I think and claimed to be a ‘Gents Long Hair Stylist,’ although I think he was more of a traditional barber. I remember taking my son there as a small boy, he sat on a plank balanced across the arms of the barber’s chair and always chose one of the Italian styles pictured on the wall, maybe a Tony Curtis. He looked stylish afterwards but his hair soon reverted to its more usual Dennis the Menace look. Mick’s is still a barber’s shop.
THE CRYSTAL TAVERN (Screenprint) was on the other side of Hamlets Way on the corner of Burdett Rd. The sign was worn away, so it was more often referred to as ‘the dive’ or sometimes’ The Arbus Arms.’ The interior was all faded plush, gilt and mirrors with a barmaid to match.
BENNY’S (Linocut) was on Hamlets Way opposite The Crystal Tavern. It was more a hole in the wall than a shop but I bought all my fruit and vegetables there, served at first by Benny himself, sometimes his wife, then his two sons and finally their grandsons. During Apartheid, I asked where their apples came from, not wanting to buy anything from South Africa, and was always assured that they came from somewhere else but I was never convinced. The family did pretty well from the shop yet, although they had smart cars parked up the street, they never spent any money on improvements or heating in the winter. Benny’s shop is now a takeaway pizza outlet.
40 HESSEL ST (Linocut) Next I turned to Whitechapel, especially Hessel St which had lots of colourful shops that were very suitable for linocuts. They were nearly all Bangladeshi businesses with a just few remnants of the Jewish ones left but, within a couple of years they had all been homogenised by modern shop fronts, no more individually hand-painted, and sometimes misspelt signs.
69 HESSEL ST (Linocut)
LOVELEY CLOTH STORE (Linocut)
C & K GROCERS (Linocut)
BANGLADESHI STORES (Screenprint) where you could buy almost everything, including a ticket to Dhaka
ROGG’S (Linocut), round the corner in Cannon Street Row, was one of the last Jewish deli’s in the East End, where customers came from miles around to get their beigels and pickles. The site of Rogg’s is now a parking lot.
ALBAN’S LADIES HAIRDRESSING (Linocut), 65 Roman Rd, specialised in ladies hairdressing supplies and never stinted on the window display. It later became an art gallery and is now a coffee shop.
ACKERMAN’S BUTTONS LTD (Linocut), 326 Hackney Rd, was a pretty basic shop with no window display and inside just stacks of cardboard boxes of buttons and a one bar electric fire. Mr Ackerman did not waste money although I think he owned a button factory in Hackney somewhere.
BILLY’S SNACK BAR (Screenprint) was on the corner of Pritchards Rd and Emma St. It stayed the same for years and, of all the shops I have made prints of, is still there with the same name but different signage.
Images copyright © Janet Brooke
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A Bethnal Green Childhood
Linda Wilkinson, who grew up near Columbia Rd Market, recalls her family’s Sunday rituals in this extract from her forthcoming memoir of departure and return to the East End, COLUMBIA ROAD: OF BLOOD & BELONGING published by September Books on 1st June
Linda and Geoffrey outside Garcias and Daltrey in Columbia Rd in 1953
Sunday has its own rhythm and rites. After the changing of the beds mum will check that the roast is ready for the oven that the vegetables are prepared and she will, for the first time that week, sit and read a newspaper. If the weather is fine in mid-morning Nan will visit for a cup of tea, but irrespective at noon Dad will go to the pub and come home for his meal and an afternoon sleep.
Over and above all of this, the Sunday flower market takes place as it has done since the 1860s. I adore the fact that I can perch on the doorstep and watch the ebb and flow of people. Women wear the ubiquitous turbans over their hair as they purchase flowers, or bulbs. Not many men are out apart from the market traders who flirt mercilessly with the clientele, who give as good back. The hue and cry of the costers in the market is the same as many another. ‘So many for two and six,’ the numbers a moveable feast according to the season. ‘The best bargain you’ll ever have.’ Goods are sold from the pavement, having come on handcarts or in small vans. It feels warm and safe and happy, and I hug my knees and relish the entertainment.
My grandmother is upon me before I realise it. Wearing her best dress she prods me with her walking stick. Her soft white hair is piled ornately under a pearl-encrusted hairnet and outrageous earrings dance and dangle with her every movement. She is in her late seventies and she scares most people. ‘Get up dreamer, let me by.’ She pats me none too softly on the head and wanders down the passageway.
In the kitchen, I occupy my favourite spot on the floor where I can appreciate the enormity of both Nan and her personality. I love these visits.
I see her on Saturdays when we go to her flat near the Broadway Market to do her shopping, but having her here in my home feels special. I watch as she pours tea into her saucer, dunks toast into the cup and then sucks it. She has teeth, false teeth, but they sit in a handkerchief in her coat pocket. The slurping sound as she sucks the tea from the saucer is unrestrained.
‘Mum!’
‘I can’t wear the teeth all the time Bella, they rub.’
Dad, who is ever present at these visits, rattles his newspaper but remains invisible behind it.
‘Get some new ones.’
Nan seems fond of her black rubber dentures, but perhaps it’s just that she hasn’t got the hang of a new pair being free on the State.
‘Lin’s going to nursery soon,’ Mum informs her.
‘She’ll have to speak then.’
‘I can speak.’
‘Can you now?’
‘And she can read.’
‘Don’t be daft, she’s only a child.’
‘Mum taught me.’
She is unimpressed until mother snatches the newspaper from Dad and I stutter through a few sentences.
‘She’s a strange one, all that staring at you in silence, now this.’
‘She’s just a bit different.’
They drift on to conversations not connected with me and I slip back into watching them. Tony, my brother, comes in; he and Nan have a great affection for one other. He is full of the bustle of a teenager on his way to manhood and I have to sit on a chair to avoid his stomping feet. Even Dad lowers his paper and joins in until twelve o’clock chimes. Nan leaves, Dad changes to go to the pub and Mum returns to the kitchen.
Later, once Dad has returned and eaten his roast, he falls asleep on the smooth white territory of the bed where I join him. Mother sits and snoozes in the kitchen, legs propped on another chair, but Dad and I lie down. He has a smell on these afternoons, a smell that I can never forget. In contrast to the sheets it is a feast of the earth. Sweat, beer and tobacco. In his armpits the black matt of hairs curl, unlike the dark straightness on his head. There is no grey there, well perhaps a hint. Sunlight is deflected by the window of the house next door. It bounces weakly into the bedroom. The walnut veneer of the bedhead is warmed to a deep glow. I trace the black lines with a small finger. Soon he will have to wake. Soon the beer will clear from his head. It will be six o’clock and we will eat winkles, shrimps and white buttered bread. Later he will stand in the street, this summer street, and smoke in the darkness. I will sit on the window ledge next to him and listen to the soft banter that the neighbours exchange. There is no traffic and the other children race up and down. He knows that I prefer to sit close to him; there are never any admonishments to go and play.
I kneel on the bed and look down at him. The vest and pants he wears are thick. Like the sheets they have survived the rite of passage through the inferno of cleaning. Above the bed, behind the walnut, is a mantelpiece. On this stands a glass of water. I hear sounds of stirring and a kettle being filled. Gently I dip a comb into the glass. The drips fall like small crystals as I drag the teeth slowly through his hair. His eyes like mine are brown. Smiling he stays my hand.
‘All right, kid?’ I nod, and he envelopes me in a glorious hug of love and understanding.
Linda and her brother Tony, 1952
Harry & Bella Wilkinson on their wedding day, 1939
Linda’s mother and grandmother, 1932
Columbia Rd
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