A.S. Jasper, Author & Cabinet-Maker
Join me at the launch party for A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After on Tuesday 25th April 7pm at the Labour and Wait Workroom, 29-32 The Oval, Off Hackney Rd, Bethnal Green, E2 9DT. There will be live music, readings and refreshments. Tickets are £5, including £5 discount off the cover price. Click here to book
Together, A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After comprise an authentic testimony of the survival and eventual triumph of a protagonist who retains his sense of decency against all the odds. A Hoxton Childhood is a tender memoir of growing up in Hoxton before the First World War, while The Years After details the author’s struggles and successes in the Shoreditch cabinet-making trade.
Albert Stanley Jasper
“The initials stand for Albert Stanley, but he was always know as Stan, never Albert,” admitted Terry Jasper, speaking of his father when we met at F. Cooke’s Pie & Mash Shop in Hoxton Market. A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood was immediately acclaimed as a classic in 1969 when The Observer described it as “Zola without the trimmings,” and now Spitalfields Life Books is publishing a handsome new definitive edition accompanied for the first time by the sequel, The Years After.
“In the late sixties, my mum and dad lived in a small ground floor flat. Looking out of the window onto the garden one morning, he saw a tramp laying on the grass who had been there all night. My dad took him out a sandwich and a cup of tea, and told him that he wouldn’t be able to stay there” Terry recalled, “I think most people in that situation would have just phoned the police and left it at that.” It is an anecdote that speaks eloquently of Stan Jasper’s compassionate nature, informing his writing and making him a kind father, revered by his son all these years later.
Yet it is in direct contrast to the brutal treatment that Stan received at the hands of his own alcoholic father William, causing the family to descend in a spiral of poverty as they moved from one rented home to another, while his mother Johanna struggled heroically against the odds to maintain domestic equilibrium for her children. “My grandmother, I only met her a couple of times, but once I was alone with her in the room and she said, ‘Your dad, he was my best boy, he took care of me.'” Terry remembered.
“There are a million things I’d like to have asked him when he was alive but I didn’t,” Terry confided to me, contemplating his treasured copy of his father’s book that sat on the table between us, “My dad died in 1970, he was sixty-five – It was just a year after publication but he saw it was a success.”
“When he was a teenager, he was a wood machinist and the sawdust got on on his lungs and he got very bad bronchitis. When I was eight years old, the doctor told him he must give up his job, otherwise the dust would kill him. My mum said to him that this was something he had to do and he just broke down. It was very strange feeling, because I didn’t think then that grown-ups cried.”
Stan started his own business manufacturing wooden cases for radios in the forties, employing more than seventy people at one point until it ran into difficulties during the credit squeeze of the fifties. Offered a lucrative buy-out, Stan turned it down out of a concern that his employees might lose their jobs but, shortly after, the business went into liquidation.”He should have thought of his family rather his workers,” commented Terry regretfully, “He lost his factory and his home and had to live in a council flat for the rest of his life.”
“My dad used to talk about his childhood quite a lot, he never forgot it – so my uncle Bob said, ‘Why don’t you write it all down?’ And he did, but he tried to get it published without success. Then a friend where I worked in the City Rd took it to someone he knew in publishing, and they really liked it and that’s how it got published. When the book came out in 1969, he wanted to go back to Hoxton to see what was still left, but his health wasn’t good enough.”
Terry ‘s memories of his father’s struggles are counterbalanced by warm recollections of family celebrations.”He always enjoyed throwing a party, especially if he was in the company of my mother’s family. It wasn’t easy obtaining beer and spirits during the warm but somehow he managed to find a supply. He was always generous where money was concerned, sometimes to a fault, and he had a nice voice and didn’t need much persuading to get up and sing a song or two.”
Stan Jasper only became an author in the final years of his life when he could no longer work, and the success of A Hoxton Childhood encouraged him to write The Years After, which was found among his papers after his death and is published now more than forty years later. The two works exist as companion pieces, tracing the dramatic journey of the author from the insecurity of his early years in Hoxton to the comfortable suburban existence he created for his family as an adult. The moral lessons he learnt in childhood became the guidelines by which he lived his life.
Together, A.S. Jasper’s A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After comprise an authentic testimony of the survival and eventual triumph of a protagonist who retains his sense of decency against all the odds. “He said he would always settle for the way life turned out,” Terry concluded fondly.
Click here to pre-order a copy for £20
Stan (on the right) with his brother Fred
Stan and his wife Lydia
Terry as a boy
Terry with his dad Stan
Stan and his sister Flo
Stan Jasper
Terry with his mum and dad at Christmas
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Stan Jasper with his dog Nipper
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A Hoxton Childhood & The Years After
James Boswell, Artist & Illustrator
The Gentle Author is delighted to collaborate with Labour and Wait to present a SPITALFIELDS LIFE BOOKSHOP for ten days at the WORKROOM, 29-32 The Oval, Off Hackney Rd, Bethnal Green, E2 9DT, in the shadow of the magnificent gasometers. This will be a rare chance to take a look at all Spitalfields Life Books titles in one place and have a peek behind the scenes at Labour and Wait too.
(Wednesday 26th April – Saturday, May 6th, 11am-6pm. Closed Sunday 30th April)
The Facading Of The White Hart
Over the past year, a carbuncle has appeared on top of the ancient White Hart in Bishopsgate. It is the creation of Amsprop, a company belonging to entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar, who began his career nearby in Petticoat Lane and for whom this will serve as his monument in the East End.
The White Hart (1246-2015)
Charles Goss, one of the first archivists at the Bishopsgate Institute, was in thrall to the romance of old Bishopsgate and in 1930 he wrote a lyrical history of The White Hart, which he believed to be its most ancient tavern – originating as early as 1246. “Its history as an inn can be of little less antiquity than that of the Tabard, the lodging house of the feast-loving Chaucer and the Canterbury pilgrims, or the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap, the rendezvous of Prince Henry and his lewd companions.” – Charles Goss
In Goss’ time, Bishopsgate still contained medieval shambles that were spared by the Fire of London and he recalled the era before the coming of the railway, when the street was lined with old coaching inns, serving as points of departure and arrival for travellers to and from the metropolis. “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, The White Hart tavern was at the height of its prosperity.” he wrote fondly, “It was a general meeting place of literary men of the neighbourhood and the rendezvous of politicians and traders, and even noblemen visited it.”
The White Hart’s history is interwoven with the founding of the Hospital of St Mary Bethlehem in 1246 by Simon Fitz Mary, whose house once stood upon the site of the tavern. He endowed his land in Bishopsgate, extending beneath the current Liverpool St Station, to the monastery and Goss believed the Brothers stayed in Fitz Mary’s mansion once they first arrived from Palestine, until the hospital was constructed in 1257 with the gatehouse situated where Liverpool St meets Bishopsgate today. This dwelling may have subsequently became a boarding house for pilgrims outside the City gate and when the first licences to sell sweet wines were issued to three taverns in Bishopsgate in August 1365, this is likely to have been the origin of the White Hart’s status as a tavern.
Yet, ten years later in 1375, Edward III took possession of the monastery as an ‘alien priory’ and turned it over to become a hospital for the insane. The gateway was replaced in the reign of Richard II and the date ‘1480’ that adorned the front of the inn until the nineteenth century suggests it was rebuilt with a galleried yard at the same time and renamed The White Hart, acquiring Richard’s badge as its own symbol. The galleried yard offered the opportunity for theatrical performances, while increased traffic in Bishopsgate and the reputation of Shoreditch as a place of entertainments drew the audience.
“Vast numbers of stage coaches, wagons, chaises and carriages passed through Bishopsgate St at this time,” wrote Goss excitedly, “Travellers and carriers arriving near the City after the gates had been closed or those who for other reasons desired to remain outside the City wall until the morning, would naturally put up at one of the galleried inns, or taverns near the City gate and The White Hart was esteemed to be one of the most important taverns at that time. Here they would find small private rooms, where the visitors not only took their meals but transacted all manner of business and, if the food dispensed was good enough, the wine strong, the feather beds deep and heavily curtained, the bedrooms were certainly cold and draughty, for the doors opened onto unprotected galleries – but apparently they were comfortable enough for travellers in former days.”
The occasion of Charles Goss’ history of The White Hart was the centenary of its rebuilding upon its original foundations in 1829, yet although the medieval structure above ground was replaced, Goss was keen to emphasise that, “When the tavern was taken down it was found to be built upon cellars constructed in earlier centuries. Those were not destroyed, but were again used in the construction of the present house.” This rebuilding coincided with Bedlam Gate being removed and the road widened and renamed Liverpool St, after the Hospital of St Mary Bethlehem had transferred to Lambeth in 1815. At this time, the date ‘1246 ‘- referring to the founding of the monastery – was placed upon the pediment on The White Hart where it may be seen to this day.
“This tavern which claims to be endowed with the oldest licence in London, is still popular, for its various compartments appear always to be well patronised during the legal hours they are open for refreshment and there can be none of London’s present-day inns which can trace its history as far back as The White Hart, Bishopsgate,” concluded Goss in satisfaction in 1930.
In 2011, permission was granted by the City of London to demolish all but the facade of The White Hart and in 2015 the pub shut for the last time to permit the construction of a nine storey cylindrical office block of questionable design, developed by Sir Alan Sugar’s company Amsprop. Thus passes The White Hart after more than seven centuries in Bishopsgate, and I am glad Charles Goss is not here to see it.
The White Hart by John Thomas Smith c. 1800
The White Hart from a drawing by George Shepherd, 1810
White Hart Court, where the coaches once drove through to the galleried yard of the White Hart
Design by Inigo Jones for buildings constructed in White Hart Court in 1610
Seventeenth century tavern token, “At The White Hart”
Reverse of the Tavern Token ” At Bedlam Gate 1637″
The White Hart as it appeared in 1787
The White Hart, prior to the rebuilding of 1829
“When the tavern was taken down it was found to be built upon cellars constructed in earlier centuries. Those were not destroyed, but were again used in the construction of the present house.” Charles Goss describing the rebuilding of 1829. These ancient vaults were destroyed in the current redevelopment.
The White Hart in 2015
The White Hart in 2017
Seen from the churchyard of St Botolph’s Bishopsgate by James Gold, 1728
Seen from the south west
Seen from Liverpool St
The meeting of the old and new in Liverpool St
The development seen from Houndsditch
Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Palm Sunday In Stepney
Last year on Palm Sunday, the late Colin O’Brien & I visited St Dunstan’s to witness the procession
Every Easter, George & Dunstan, donkeys at Stepney City Farm enjoy an outing when they join the Parishioners of St Dunstan’s for the annual procession around the vicinity on Palm Sunday – and, last year, Photographer Colin O’Brien & I joined the enthusiastic throng on a cold and grey spring morning.
Walking down from Whitechapel, Colin & I followed Stepney Way, which was once a path across the fields used by worshippers when St Dunstan’s was the parish church for the whole of Tower Hamlets. St Dunstan founded it in 952 and it stands today as earliest surviving building after the Tower on this side of London.
At the old stone church, we discovered the wardens were eager to show us their ancient silver, a mace and a staff, with images of St Dunstan, the Tower and a Galleon referring to the days when this was the parish of seafarers. Once, all those who were born or died at sea were entered here in the parish register.
Curate Chris Morgan led off across the churchyard along the fine avenue of plane trees, swinging incense and followed by church wardens, sidesmen, George & Dunstan the donkeys, members of the parish and a solo trumpeter, with the Rector Trevor Critchlow bringing up the rear.
Anyone still nursing a hangover from Saturday night might have been astounded to be awoken by the sound of a heavenly host, and parted the curtains to discover this rag tag parade. Yet it was a serious commemoration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem in which the streets of Stepney became transformed into the Via Sacra for a morning.
They marched through the empty terraced streets, past the large development site, turned left at the curry restaurant, passing the pizza takeaway and the beauty parlour, before turning left again at the youth centre to re-enter the churchyard. Then there was just time to pet the donkeys before they filed into the church to warm up again and begin Sunday morning prayers. And this was how Easter began in Stepney.
St Dunstan with his metalworkers’ tongs on top of the seventeenth century mace
A galleon upon an eighteenth century staff is a reminder St Dunstan’s was the parish of seafarers
Tower of London upon the reverse of the staff
Sidesmens’ batons from the era of George IV
Julian Cass, Sidesman
Jenny Ellwood, Sidesperson, and Sarah Smith, Parish Clerk
Trevor Critchlow, Rector of St Dunstan’s
Curate Chris Morgan leads the procession
Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
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Royal Jubilee Bells At Garlickhythe
In the fourth of my series of the stories of Whitechapel Bells, I visit the Royal Jubilee Bells
If you should pass by St James Garlickhythe on a Thursday evening when the bellringers are practising between six-thirty and eight, you can be assured of hearing the Royal Jubilee bells echoing and resounding through the surrounding streets. As I arrived to join the ringers last week, the last steep-angled shafts of sunlight entered Sir Christopher Wren’s church, picking out ancient monuments from the gloom and highlighting the quaint lion and unicorn figures in their dying rays.
Ascending a narrow spiral staircase within the wall of the tower, I arrived in the tiny ringers’ chamber, whitewashed and carpeted in plum. Here the ringers stood in a ritualistic circle under the tutelage of Dickon Love, who is the Magus of bell ringing in the City of London and author of the authoritative Love’s Guide to Church Bells.
A certain shared understanding characterises these gatherings, as ringers share a common quality of implacable concentration while engaged in their task. They are concentrating on maintaining the physical task of rhythmic pulling and catching, yet remaining alert to the actions of their fellows too. Observing this activity, watching the ropes bobbing and listening to the bells overheard proved a mesmeric experience.
For me, there is magic in the sound of bells. It is music in which – to my inexperienced ear – its several instruments seem to merge and divide, even as you are aware of their sound coruscating in the air around you.
During practice, I climbed up to the floor above the bells – attired with ear protectors – to observe them in action through a metal grille. Peering from a darkened room at the brightly-lit spectacle of the vast gilt beasts wagging their long red tongues did not disappoint. At first, I was alarmed that the ancient wooden floor shifted with their vibrations, almost as if I were on a boat. Placing a hand upon the rough stonework wall confirmed that it too was moving. Yet I was assured this movement confirmed my safety – since the sheer weight of the tower ensured its stability, while the tensile quality of its timber floors and flexibility of its stone walls held together by lime mortar prevented it cracking.
After practice, Dickon took me into the belfry to admire the eight Royal Jubilee bells cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry at close quarters. They were first played from a barge that led the Water Pageant upon the River Thames on 2nd June 2012 before they were installed in St James Garlickhythe later that summer. As the one who conceived and oversaw the commissioning and realisation of this grand conception, Dickon is justly proud of his achievement which is recorded by the text ‘Dickon Love put us here’ upon the F Double Sharp bell. Upon our descent from the tower, Dickon revealed he was celebrating his birthday next day but also – and perhaps more importantly – he commenced his ringing career on the eve of his thirteenth birthday, making him thirty-four years a bellringer that night.
I said my farewells to the thirsty ringers at the top of Garlick Hill as they made haste to The Watling for refreshment and celebration, while I turned my own steps across the City towards Spitalfields.
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Filmed by Christopher Stocks
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Bex Shaw’s Shopfronts
Bex Shaw sent me these affectionate drawings of familiar East End shops (with a couple further afield), some rendered in ink and wash and others drawn on a computer, yet all celebrating the vernacular delights of traditional shopfronts
Rinkoff’s Bakery, Whitechapel, E1
“I have enjoyed drawing shopfronts and and market stalls since childhood, I have always liked looking at arrangements of things! I remember enjoying the huge piles of fruit and vegetables and the tiled doorstep of the local greengrocers when I was quite small. My great-grandfather was a sign painter and designer of shops, but it was from my granny who went to art school in the thirties that I learned my love of drawing. I am always drawn to the ways in which shopkeepers and stallholders place things, whether a deliberate aesthetic sense or the higgledy-piggledy delight of a pound shop.” – Bex Shaw
Chatsworth Rd Laundrette, Hackney, E5
Hunky Dory Vintage Clothes, Brick Lane, E1
Verdes, Brushfield St, Spitalfields, E1 (Recently moved to Fournier St)
Tatty Devine, Brick Lane, E1
The Foam Shop, Swanfield St, E2
The Hackney Draper, Chatsworth Rd, Hackney, E5
Joe’s Confectionery Stores, (now Deborah Woolf Vintage Clothes) Church St, Marylebone, NW8
The Blackbird Tearooms, 30 Ship St, Brighton
Drawings copyright © Bex Shaw
The Return Of The Widow’s Buns
I am delighted to report that the Ceremony of the Widow’s Buns is returning to The Widow’s Son in Devons Rd this Good Friday after moving to The Queen’s Head in York Sq in 2016, when the celebrated and historic pub in Bow closed and changed hands before reopening at the end of last year
London’s oldest buns photographed by London & Middlesex Archaeological Society in the 1940s
A net of Hot Cross Buns hangs above the bar at The Widow’s Son in Bromley by Bow and each year a sailor comes to add another bun to the collection. Yet no Hot Cross Buns are eaten in the ceremony, they are purely for symbolic purposes – left to dry out and gather dust and hang in the net for eternity, London’s oldest buns exist as metaphors to represent the passing years and talismans to bring good luck but, more than this, they tell a story.
On Good Friday, what could be more appropriate to the equivocal nature of the day than an event which involves both celebration of Hot Cross Buns and the remembrance of the departed in a single custom – such is the ceremony of the Widow’s Buns at Bow.
The Widow’s Son was built in 1848 upon the former site of an old widow’s cottage, so the tale goes. When her only son left to be a sailor, she promised to bake him a Hot Cross Bun and keep it for his return. But although he drowned at sea, the widow refused to give up hope, preserving the bun upon his return and making a fresh one each year to add to the collection. This annual tradition has been continued in the pub as a remembrance of the widow and her son, and of the bond between all those on land and sea, with sailors of the Royal Navy coming to place the bun in the net every year.
Behind this custom lies the belief that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday will never decay, reflected in the tradition of nailing a Hot Cross Bun to the wall so that the cross may bring good luck to the household – though what appeals to me about the story of the widow is the notion of baking as an act of faith, incarnating a mother’s hope that her son lives. I interpret the widow’s persistence in making the bun each year as a beautiful gesture, not of self-deception but of longing for wish-fulfilment, manifesting her love for her son. So I especially like the clever image upon the inn sign outside the Widow’s Son, illustrating an apocryphal scene in the story when the son returns from the sea many years later to discover a huge net of buns hanging behind the door, demonstrating that his mother always expected him back.
When I arrived at the Widow’s Son, I had the good fortune to meet Frederick Beckett who first came here for the ceremony in 1958 when his brother Alan placed the Hot Cross Bun in the net, and he had the treasured photo in his hand to show me. Frederick moved out from Bow to Dagenham fifteen years ago, but he still comes back each year to visit the Widow’s Son, one of many in this community and further afield who delight to converge here on Good Friday for old times’ sake. Already, there was a tangible sense of anticipation, with spirits uplifted by the sunshine and the flags hung outside.
The landlady proudly showed me the handsome fresh Hot Cross Bun, baked by Mr Bunn of Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath who always makes the special bun each year -” fabulous buns!”declared Kathy, almost succumbing to a swoon, as he she held up her newest sweetest darling that would shortly join its fellows in the net over the bar. There were many more ancient buns, she explained, until a fire destroyed most of them fifteen years ago, and those burnt ones in the net today are merely those few which were salvaged by the firemen from the wreckage of the pub. Remarkably, having opened their hearts to the emotional poetry of Hot Cross Buns, at the Widow’s Son they even cherish those cinders which the rest of the world would consign to a bin.
The effect of several hours drinking beer upon a pub full of sailors and thirsty locals became apparent in the pervasive atmosphere of collective euphoria, heightened by a soundtrack of pounding rock, and, in the thick of it, I was delighted to meet my old pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief. “I’m not here for the buns, I’m here for the bums!” he confided to me with a sip of his Corvoisier and lemonade, making a lewd gesture and breaking in to a wide grin of salacious enjoyment as various Bow belles, in off-the-shoulder dresses with flowing locks and wearing festive corsages, came over enthusiastically to shower this legendary rascal with kisses.
I stood beside Lenny as three o’ clock approached, enjoying the high spirits as the sailors gathered in front of the bar. The landlord handed over the Hot Cross Bun to widespread applause and the sailors lifted up their smallest recruit. Then, with a mighty cheer from the crowd and multiple camera flashes, the recruit placed the bun in the net. Once this heroic task was accomplished, and the landlady had removed the tinfoil covers from the dishes of food laid out upon the billiard table, all the elements were in place for a knees-up to last the rest of the day. As they like to say in Bromley by Bow, it was “Another year, another Good Friday, another bun.”
Baked at Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath
Peter Gracey, Nick Edelshain and Roddy Urquhart raise a pint to the Widow’s Buns.
Tony Scott and Debbie Willis of HMS President with Frederick Beckett holding the photograph of his brother placing the bun in the net in 1958.
Alan Beckett places the bun on Good Friday, 4th April 1958.
3 pm Good Friday
My pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief, at home at The Widow’s Son
A Widow’s Son of Bromley by Bow
by Harold Adshead
A widow had an only son, The sea was his concern, His parting wish an Easter Bun Be kept for his return. But when it came to Eastertide No sailor came her way To claim the bun she set aside Against the happy day. They say the ship was lost at sea, The son came home no more But still with humble piety The widow kept her store. So year by year a humble bun Was charm against despair, A loving task that once began Became her livelong care. The Widow’s Son is now an inn That stands upon the site And signifies its origin Each year by Easter rite The buns hang up for all to see, A blackened mass above, A truly strange epitome Of patient mother love.
Archive photograph of buns courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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At The Jewish Soup Kitchen In Brune St
Originally established in 1854 in Leman St, the Jewish Soup Kitchen opened in Brune St in 1902 and, even though it closed in 1992, the building in Spitalfields still proclaims its purpose to the world in bold ceramic lettering across the fascia. These days few remember when it was supplying groceries to fifteen hundred people weekly, which makes Photographer Stuart Freedman’s pictures especially interesting as a glimpse of one of the last vestiges of the Jewish East End.
“After I finished studying Politics at university, I decided I wanted to be a photographer but I didn’t know how to do it,” Stuart recalled, contemplating these pictures taken in 1990 at the very beginning of his career. “Although I was brought up in Dalston, my father had grown up in Stepney in the thirties and, invariably, when we used to go walking together we always ended up in Petticoat Lane, which seemed to have a talismanic quality for him. So I think I was following in his footsteps.”
“I used to wander with my camera and, one day, I was just walking around taking pictures, when I moseyed in to the Soup Kitchen and said ‘Can I take photographs?’ and they said, ‘Yes.’ “I didn’t realise what I was doing because now they seem to be the only pictures of this place in existence. You could smell that area then – the smell of damp in old men’s coats and the poverty.”
For the past twenty years Stuart Freedman has worked internationally as a photojournalist, yet he was surprised to come upon new soup kitchens recently while on assignment in the north of England. “The poverty is back,” he revealed to me in regret,“which makes these pictures relevant all over again.”
Groceries awaiting collection
A volunteer offers a second hand coat to an old lady
An old woman collects her grocery allowance
A volunteer distributes donated groceries
View from behind the hatch
A couple await their food parcel
An ex-boxer arrives to collect his weekly rations
An old boxer’s portrait, taken while waiting to collect his groceries
An elderly man leaves the soup kitchen with his supplies
Photographs copyright © Stuart Freedman
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