Charles Spurgeon’s Street Traders
Charles Spurgeon the Younger, son of the Evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon, took over the South St Baptist Chapel in Greenwich in the eighteen-eighties and commissioned an unknown photographer to make lantern slides of the street traders of Greenwich that he could use in his preaching. We shall never know exactly how Spurgeon showed these pictures, taken between 1884 and 1887, but – perhaps inadvertently – he was responsible for the creation of one of the earliest series of documentary portraits of Londoners.
Champion Pie Man – W.Thompson, Pie Maker of fifty years, outside his shop in the alley behind Greenwich Church
Hokey-Pokey Boy – August Bank Holiday, Stockwell St, Greenwich
Knife Grinder – posed cutting out a kettle bottom from a tin sheet
Rabbit Seller
Toy Seller – King William St outside Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Ginger Cakes Seller – King St, near Greenwich Park
Sweep
Shrimp Sellers – outside Greenwich Park
Crossing Sweeper (& News Boy) – Clarence St, Greenwich
Sherbert Seller – outside Greenwich Park
Third Class Milkman – carrying two four-gallon cans on a yoke, King William’s Walk, Greenwich
Second Class Milkman – with a hand cart and seventeen-gallon churn
Master Milkman – in his uniform, outside Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Chairmender – Corner of Prince Orange Lane, Greenwich
Kentish Herb Woman – Greenwich High Rd
Muffin Man
Fishmongers
Try Your Weight – outside Greenwich Park
Glazier
News Boy (& Crossing Sweeper) – delivering The Daily News at 7:30am near Greenwich Pier
Old Clo’ Man – it was a crime to dispose of infected clothing during the Smallpox epidemics of the eighteen-eighties and the Old Clo’ Man plied a risky trade.
Blind Fiddler – outside Crowders’ Music Hall Greenwich
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Adam Dant’s Map Of Shoreditch Old & New
It is my delight to publish Adam Dant‘s map illustrating the evolution of Shoreditch through the ages
1. Iron Age Man establishes a track along what is now “OLD STREET”.
2. Christian Roman Soldiers worship at the source of the river Walbrook, now St Leonards.
3. Sir John de Soerditch rides against the French Spears alongside The Black Prince.
4. Jane Shore, a goldsmith’s daughter & lover of Edward IV dies in “a ditch of loathsome scent.”
5. “Barlow” the archer is given the dubious title “Duke of Shoreditch” by Henry VIII.
6. Christopher Marlowe murders the son of a Hog Lane innkeeper, he escapes prosecution.
7. Plague burials take place at “Holywell Mound” by the Priory of St John the Baptist at Holywell.
8. Queen Elizabeth I on passing by medieval St Leonards is “Pleased by its Bells.”
9. The sweet water of “The Holywell” is spoilt by manure heaps of local nursery gardens,
10. James Burbage’s sons Cuthbert & Richard dismantle “The Theatre” in two to four days & transport it to the South bank of the Thames where it is rebuilt as “The Globe”.
11. William Shakespeare enjoys a “bumper” at an inn on the site of the present “White Horse.”
12. Local Huguenot weavers riot for three days protesting against & burning “multi-shuttle looms”.
13. Thomas Fairchild, a gardener, donated £25 to St Leonards for an annual Whitsunday sermon titled “Wonderful Works of God in creation” or “On the certainty of resurrection of the dead proved by certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of creation.”
14. Militia are called from the Tower to quell four thousand Shoreditch locals rioting against cheap Irish labour being used to build the new George Dance tower of St Leonards.
15. Large lumps of masonry fall onto the congregation during a service at the collapsing old St Leonards.
16. The Huguenot speciality “fish & chips” appear at Britain’s first fish & chip shop on Club Row.
17. The many murders & muggings at Holywell Mount lead to it being levelled.
18. Local theatres such as The Curtain sink to become “no more than sparring rooms.”
19. Brick Lane takes its name from local brickfields, occasional location of furtive criminality.
20. Visitors to James Fryer’s land at Friar’s Mount wrongly assume a monastery stood there.
21. Joe Lee, the local horsewhisperer, coaxes improved productivity from working donkeys.
22. “Resurrection Men,” notorious body snatchers pinch recent interred corpses from St Leonards, some coffins in the crypt are found to contain bricks instead of bodies,
23. Four thousand people are dispossessed as Bishopsgate Goods Yard replaces streets around Swan Lane & Leg Alley.
24. Mary Kelly’s funeral procession leaves St Leonards amidst huge crowds. The poor victim of Jack the Ripper is given a second funeral at her own catholic cemetery.
25. Oliver Twist is said to have resided in Shoreditch. Many other unfortunate children arrive each morning at The White St Child Slave Market seeking work.
26. So many unruly pavement-side street vendors populate Shoreditch High St that a regular uniformed Street Keeper is employed.
27. Horse drawn trams add to the general commotion bustle and smell of the High Street.
28. Cats meat sellers, watercress hawkers & dog breeders all cram into the Old Nichol’s filthy tenements.
29. Sir Arthur Arnold, head of the LCC main drainage committee is commemorated at Arnold Circus.
30. For decades the chalk horse on Bishopsgate Goods Yard is redrawn by unknown local artist.
31. Enthusiastic Anarchists hoping to bring political awareness to the Old Nichol proletariat through their Boundary St printing operation find the task “like tickling an elephant with a straw.”
32. Artist, Lord Leighton calls the interior of Holy Trinity, Old Nichol St, “The most beautiful in England.”
33. Arthur Harding’s memories of his slum boyhood, “van dragging” etc are recalled in “East End Underworld.”
34. Arthur Morrison pens his slum tale “Child of the Jago” following Reverend Jay’s invitation to the Old Nichol.
35. The chapel dedicated to Shakespeare on Holywell Lane is destroyed by a WWII bomb.
36. Syd’s Coffee Stall, now Hillary Caterers, is saved from destruction during an air raid as two parked buses shelter it from a bomb blast. Thomas Austen’s medieval chancel window is less fortunate.
37. Novelist Arthur Machen identifies a “leyline” running through the mystic ancient earthwork Arnold Circus.
38. King Edward VIII officially inaugurates Boundary Estate from a platform on Navarre St.
39. The Red Arrows pass over the bandstand en-route once more to the Queen’s Birthday.
40. Protestors eventually force the closure of Club Row animal market, once home to dogs, parrots, pigeons and the occasional lion cub.
41. Navarre St is used as a playground by children who carve their names into the brickwork.
42. Artist, Ronald Searle visits Club Row animal market to illustrate Kaye Webb’s “Looking at London.”
43. The resident Bengali flute player of Arnold Circus is often heard across the Boundary Estate on warm Summer evenings.
44. The IRA bomb which explodes on Bishopsgate disturbs the rats in Shoreditch who emerge in large numbers from the drains,
45. The great train robbers plan their notorious crime upstairs in The Ship & Blue Ball, Boundary St.
46. Jeremiah Rotherham demolishes the Shoreditch Music Hall for another warehouse.
47. Joan Rose‘s father proudly displays his fruit & vegetables on Calvert Avenue whilst she is sent to buy more bags at Gardners Market Sundriesmen.
48. Every type of vacuum cleaner bag is sold by “Zammo from Grange Hill’s dad” at Shoreditch Domestics on Calvert Avenue.
49. The failed Suicide Bus Bomber is seen by security camera leaving the No 26 at Shoreditch.
50. Mono-recording virtuoso, Liam Watson strides past Shoreditch’s “Elvisly Yours” souvenir shop en-route to legendary Toe-rag recording studios in French Place.
Maps copyright © Adam Dant
You may like to take a look at Adam’s other maps of Shoreditch
Map of Shoreditch in the Year 3000
Map of Shoreditch as the Globe
A Petition To Save The Bell Foundry
Bell by Rob Ryan
Today the East End Preservation Society launches a petition to Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport to SAVE THE WHITECHAPEL BELL FOUNDRY which is due to shut forever in May after five centuries in the East End.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN
“We the undersigned wish to publicly register our very serious concern about the imminent loss of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
Bells have been made continuously in Whitechapel since the 1570s. The business has been on its present site since the mid 1740s. It is one of just two remaining bell foundries in Britain, and the foundry is reportedly the oldest manufacturing company in the UK.
This is the foundry that made Big Ben in 1858, the world famous US Liberty Bell and many many more. The foundry is set to close at the end of March, and its contents sold at auction..
We are very concerned that we will lose not only specialized jobs and skills, but that this type of business and trade is part of the historic essence of our towns and cities. How is Britain allowing this national treasure to slip through our fingers?”
Photograph copyright © Shahed Saleem
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Click here to join the East End Preservation Society
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Philip Cunningham’s Pub Crawl
Shall we join Photographer Philip Cunningham for a pub crawl around the East End a generation ago? It starts at Phil’s local, The Three Crowns in Mile End Rd, very convenient for a quick pint when he was living in his grandfather’s house in Mile End Place in the seventies.
Ada & Polo, 1973
“When we moved to Mile End Place in 1971 our local pub, The Three Crowns, was just round the corner. We would go there often. Everyone used to go to the pub in those days, it was almost an extension of home. The Three Crowns was pretty rough.
It was run by a Jewish lady called Ada. Her elderly father helped behind the bar and she had a young Palestinian barman known as ‘Toffee.’ There was another barman, known as ‘Polo,’ who had a terrible stammer yet was very popular. And they all lived together above the pub.
There was a small snug in the middle of The Three Crowns which was highly sought after. It held about six people and was like being in your own private room. If it was occupied, you kept an eye out and, when it became vacant, you would run in quickly and take it.
One night, while I was drinking with my pal ‘John Boy,’ we were both potless and decided to pool our money, but found we did not have enough for another drink so we put it in the slot machine instead. To our amazement, we won the jackpot! Ada was not happy. She stormed over and unplugged the machine. She usually knew when the machine was about to give up the jackpot and would have it for herself. We spent all our winnings in her pub but, if Ada gave you a withering look, you knew you’d upset her.
There was a gambling club, The 81 Club, two doors away and people would often run in and hand Ada a bundle of notes, which she would stuff in her apron pocket. I think she was some type of banker. Ada made the best beef sandwiches I ever tasted. She was a fabulous character surrounded by other characters at The Crowns, real solid people that lived hard lives and knew who they were.
When Ada retired, The Three Crowns was taken over by Terry (known as ‘Turksie’) & Brenda Green. Terry had been a Docker and he and Brenda had a lot of work done on it, I believe out of his severance pay. I became friends with Terry’s brother, Jimmy. We would wander round the borough together and he would tell me tales of the old days, and van dragging – jumping on the back of a moving goods wagon and pulling off packages.
The Three Crowns was a successful pub but Terry & Brenda left to live in Portugal. The picture of Jimmy, the unnamed photographer and John the Fruit was taken just before they left. I cannot remember the photographer’s name but he told me I should buy a Zenza Bronica camera, which I did and have been using it ever since.
After the Greens’ departure, The Three Crowns changed entirely and the deafening music drove us away. The new tenants did not stay long and the place went down the tubes. When I returned years later, I was shocked to see that the fabulous tiled mural of the ‘field of the cloth of gold’ which adorned the entrance had been smashed up. Someone had tried to remove it from the wall but with the most destructive consequences. Only half the mural was left and the rest had been replaced by rendered cement. I doubt if they even got a single intact tile. It was the most pointless greedy vandalism.
I loved the East End, rough, tough, and mad – there was an energy about the place, but I think the East End I knew has mostly gone.” – Philip Cunningham
Jimmy, Terry & Brenda Green at The Three Crowns 1983
Jimmy Green, Unnamed Photographer & John The Fruit at The Three Crowns 1983
Interior at The Three Crowns 1983
The Three Crowns, Mile End Rd, 1983
The Queen’s Head, York Sq, Stepney, 1983 (Recently sold to property developers)
The former Lord Napier, Whitechapel -‘The Lord Napier was never a pub in my time’ 1979
Formerly The Laurel Tree, Brick Lane, c.1985
‘I have never been into The Florist Arms in Globe Rd but I am determined to visit because I am told it is good fun’ c.1983
‘The Waterman’s Arms was just next to the school I was teaching in on the Isle of Dogs and I went in quite a lot. It was once owned by Daniel Farson and Shirley Bassey would come and sing there.”
Waterman’s Arms, c.1984
‘The Wentworth in Eric St was an OK pub but it always reminded me of my dealings with the District Surveyor, which was depressing’ 1980
‘I went into the Duke of York a lot as friends of mine lived in Antill Rd’ c.1980
‘The Oxford Arms in Milward St behind the London Hospital was always full of nurses and medics, very popular’ c.1984
‘The Old Globe in Globe Rd was a disaster in my time. The loud music they played could probably have been heard on the moon. There was always massive overspill onto the pavement and, in the morning, the entire area was covered in broken glass. It was a young people’s pub.’ 1979
The Bell, Middlesex St, c.1985
‘The Railway Tavern in Grove Rd was a nice pub and played a lot of jazz in my time’ c.1984
The Beehive, Commercial St, Spitalfields – seen from Christ Church yard
‘I thought The Old King’s Head was on Burdett Rd but I can’t find a trace of it, yet I do remember from my two visits that it was a nice pub’
‘The Lion in Tapp St was one of the grottiest pubs I’ve been into. If it still exists, I hope it’s changed. There were holes in the lino and the floor was sticky with beer. The beer was good but not much else.’ c.1985/6
‘The Three Suns in Aldgate had elaborate brickwork on it, but I could never understand this panel. It seemed to have something to do with a Shakespeare play.’ c.1986
‘I only went into the Forty Fives in Mile End Rd once with my friend Grahame, the window cleaner. We wanted to have a drink in every pub from The Three Crowns to the Whitechapel Art Gallery, but I don’t think we made it.’ 1985/6
‘The Albion in Bethnal Green Rd was one of my favourite pubs’
The Red Cow, Mile End Rd, 1986
Photographs copyright © Philip Cunningham
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Philip Cunningham’s East End Portraits
More of Philip Cunningham’s Portraits
A Drink At The Hoop & Grapes
David Milne, curator at Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St, took me along to the Hoop & Grapes in Aldgate for a drink yesterday, revisiting a special haunt that he was introduced to by Dennis Severs back in the nineteen eighties.
We walked together from Spitalfields up through Petticoat Lane until we arrived at the busy junction in Aldgate where traffic careers in every direction.“This was the major road in and out of London and it would always have been as full of people as it is now.” said David, as he peered down the road towards Whitechapel, wrinkling his brow to imagine centuries of travellers, before fixing his gaze directly across the road at three of the last remaining timber frame buildings surviving from before the fire of London. The central building, squeezed between its neighbours like a skinny waif sat between two fat people on a bus, was the Hoop & Grapes.
It is the oldest licensed house in the City, built in 1593 and originally called The Castle, then the Angel & Crown, then Christopher Hills, finally becoming the Hoop & Grapes – referring to the sale of both beer and wine – in the nineteen twenties. The first impression when you turn your back on the traffic to enter, is of the appealingly crooked Tudor frontage with sash windows fitted in the seventeen twenties at eccentric angles, and of two ancient oak posts guarding the entrance, each with primitive designs of vines incised upon them.
Stepping through the heavy door patched together over centuries, the plan of the narrow house is still apparent even though the partition walls have been removed. A narrow passageway ran ahead down the left of the building with small rooms leading off to the right, a structure which is revealed today by the placing of the beams in the ceiling and the bulges in the wall where the fireplaces in each room have been sealed up. Opening to your left is the bar, where the premises have expanded into the next house and to the back is flagged floor next to the largest chimney breast in a space that was a kitchen in the sixteenth century.
David and I enjoyed the privilege of access to the cellar where the landlady led us through a sequence of narrowing brick vaults built in the thirteenth century, until we reached the front of the building where she pointed out an old iron hook in the ceiling, held back by a lead catch. “No-one knows what this was for,” she admitted, prompting David to look down at his feet where a metal cover was set into the floor.“There was a well beneath,” he said, speculating,“the Aldgate pump was not far from here and the water table is high.” Then the landlady released the hook to hang vertical and it hung directly over the centre of the cover, perfect for hauling up a bucket. We all exchanged a smile of triumph at solving the puzzle, and stood together to appreciate this rare medieval space, essentially unchanged since Elizabeth I met Mary Tudor fifty yards away at Aldgate in 1553.
Upstairs, the landlady pointed out the site of a listening tube, centuries old yet covered over when a speaker system was fitted recently. This tube enabled whoever was in the cellar to hear what was spoken in the bar and vice versa. David believes it was used in the days of Oliver Cromwell by the landlord, who was in the pay of the authorities, to eavesdrop upon conspirators who chose this pub just outside the City gate for illicit liaisons, and there is no doubt that – thanks to the sparse renovations – once you have been here for a while you can begin to imagine the picture.
We sat down at the quiet corner table next to the crooked window with our drinks. “Dennis and I had this way of looking at things and making it more than it is,” confessed David to me with a contemplative affectionate smile “and that’s what we called ‘the theatre of life’. I used to come and visit him, and we’d go for walks around Spitalfields and end up here for a pint. We were looking for what remains – the signposts to the great City of old – the street that ran down to the City of London was full of houses like this. We would sit here and create a story about the merchants who lived in these ancient houses.”
In this no-man’s land between the City and Whitechapel, the Hoop & Grapes is a reliably peaceful place to go where just a few commuters drop in for a pint and tourists rarely appear – because it does not readily declare its history. Yet time gathers here in the stillness of this modest Tudor building – constructed atop a medieval foundation with eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century accretions – while the world rushes past as it always has done.
Through his house in Folgate St, Dennis Severs’ reinvented the way that historic buildings are presented. When David Milne came here with Dennis Severs thirty-five years ago, all that was in the future, and today more than fifteen years after his death, David is one of those who maintains Dennis Severs’ creation. “He was a remarkable man,” confided David, as we took our leave of the Hoop & Grapes, “and now this place is a signpost to my past with him.”
David Milne first came here with Dennis Severs thirty-five years ago
The thirteenth century cellars
An ancient hook above the well in the cellar
Two venerable oak posts carved with vines guard the door, and sash windows added in the seventeen twenties sit within a crooked sixteenth century structure
An insurance plate from 1782 still adorns the frontage
The three sixteenth century timber frame houses in Aldgate, predating the fire of London which came within fifty yards. The house on the right was refaced in brick in the eighteenth century
Archive photograph of the Hoop & Grapes courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Sandra Esqulant at the Golden Heart
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A Shirt By Frank Foster
The shirt Frank Foster made for me
Frank Foster was the shirtmaker to the stars. Among other luminaries, he made shirts for Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and John Lennon, so you can imagine my astonishment and delight that Frank Foster made a shirt for me. The one you see above.
Yet for a long time I did not think that I would be the lucky recipient of such a treat, even though Frank offered to make a shirt for me when I first visited his workshop with photographer Colin O’Brien to undertake the interview which you can find elsewhere in these pages. I had to admit that his price of £175 for a top quality handmade shirt cut-to-fit was beyond my budget, so Frank insisted that he would do it as a gift as long as I wrote about it. This seemed like an extremely good deal to me, and Frank said that he would make one for Colin too.
A few weeks later, I went back to be measured by Frank and to choose a shirting fabric that I liked. It was a lustrous off-white with woven stripes in mid-grey, alternating between a zig-zag and five fine parallel lines. I chose this because it reminded of those designs for papers by Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious printed by the Curwen Press. I have always thought that grey and white make an attractive combination.
Frank presented me with a tiny pair of scissors that he produced from his desk drawer which had ‘David & John Anderson Ltd’ engraved on them. He explained this was the name of a cotton mill in Glasgow that closed down in 1979 and from which he acquired a number of old bolts of fine shirting woven in the nineteen-thirties. The fabric I had chosen was one of these.
I left Frank’s basement workshop and walked up Pall Mall in a state of excited anticipation that day. Then fate intervened. My friend Colin O’Brien died unexpectedly which entirely cast a shadow over the proposition. Yet I steeled myself and returned a few months later to ring Frank’s bell, only to be frustrated by lack of any reply. A week after came the news that Frank Foster had died at ninety-three years old. I had just missed seeing him again by a matter of days and this compounded my sadness over the loss of Colin. In these circumstances, my notional shirt sank into insignificance as a frippery and I let go of any disappointment, recognising how privileged I had been to interview Frank and record his story.
Then I received an unexpected phone message early this year from Frank’s daughter Sam to say that my shirt was in the workshop, awaiting a fitting. Frank had made my shirt! All this time, it had been waiting for me. I called back immediately and Frank’s wife Mary answered. ‘Shall I come down tomorrow?’ I asked. I wish you would,‘ she answered.
Even though only one sleeve had been completed and the collar was yet to be added, it was immediately apparent that the shirt fitted perfectly. Two weeks later, I collected my finished shirt and I wear it now for the first time as I write these words. What a curious experience to wear a shirt that fits my body for the first time in my life. It is more substantially made with a sturdier collar and cuffs, stronger seams and more robust buttonholes than any shirt I ever had before. It also has long tails, so it can never come untucked from my waist.
Mary and her daughter Sam welcomed me to Frank’s workshop, newly spring-cleaned and organised from when I first visited. I was overjoyed to learn they are going to carry on the business, for the sake of their many long term customers and for anyone else who might like a Frank Foster shirt. Mary revealed that she joined Frank as a seamstress at fifteen years old and, after fifty-three years of working alongside him, she is more than qualified to continue his work.
‘Wear it lots,’ said Mary with a smile, as she handed me the beautiful shirt folded up in a bag. I certainly will. And now that she has the pattern, I shall start saving up for another one.
Frank Foster Shirts, 40 Pall Mall, St James, London, SW1 5JG
No appointment is necessary, just ring the bell between 11am and 5pm any weekday
The scissors that Frank gave me – David & John Anderson Ltd
Frank Foster at his desk by Colin O’Brien
“The secret of making a good shirt is skill, patience and knowing about textiles. Every piece of cloth we sell is high quality. We charge £175 per shirt. If you want a silk shirt made out of fine quality Macclesfield silk, we charge you the same money as a cotton one. We’re not a greedy company – I’d like to be greedy but it’s not in my nature. Coming from a poor family, I know what money means.
I love making shirts, I can look at an individual and when I measure him, I can see all the problems and the build. So when you leave here, I’ll remember your build and how you stand and hold your head. That’s not me trying, it comes – I can’t tell you how. I remember fine details about people, their eye colour, and their hair, how it grows. It’s a strange thing, I suppose the eye becomes accustomed to noticing these things.
When someone comes in, first you measure the neck. You have to notice the space between the shoulder and the bottom of the ear. People with thin necks can take a deeper collar. People who are fat with a short neck need a collar that balances with the shirt. You then measure the front shoulder to see how wide that is and from there you go down to the half-chest, across the top of the chest. From there you go to the abdomen and then to the hips and then to the waist. We don’t use shirt tails, we cut shirts with square bottoms and side vents. Our shirt tails are very smart, especially when men like to disrobe in front of their females. Then you have to do the cuffs, and cuffs have to be measured according to wrists. Where watches are concerned, you have to make allowances for rich people who have bulky complicated watches. We then do what is called a ‘button gauntlet’ to enable rich men to have the choice – if need be – to have the choice of rolling their sleeves up. Workers don’t have button gauntlets because no-one gives them the choice or option to roll their sleeves.” – Frank Foster
Mary Foster by Colin O’Brien
Frank in his heyday
Frank with his wonderful collection of shirting
Mary and Frank with their daughter Sam
Frank shows off his hundred-year-old buttonhole machine
Frank fits James Caan for a formal shirt
Dear Frank, With appreciation of some wild shirts, Vidal Sassoon
Georgia Brown with Lionel Bart in a Frank Foster shirt
To Frank, Thankyou for the lovely shirts, sincerely Harry Secombe
Racing Driver, Jackie Stewart in a Frank Foster shirt
Ringo Starr wears a Frank Foster shirt while flying PanAm with Vivien Leigh
Peter Sellers in a Frank Foster shirt
Due to the you, I’m ‘in the shirt’ – Norman Wisdom
This shirt is flamboyant even by Frank’s standards
You may also like to read my original piece
Terry’s Tropicals
What better refuge from the hurly-burly of the Bethnal Green Rd, than to step into the sub-aquatic glow of Wholesale Tropicals (universally known as Terry’s Tropicals) and lose yourself in contemplation amongst the banks of illuminated fish tanks, as if you were taking a stroll upon the bed of a vast river in an exotic sunlit land? Here three generations of the Jones family work ceaselessly – Christmas not excepted – to maintain the population of up to ten thousand tropical freshwater fish that are their charge and their passion. Like those ethereal creatures which inhabit the depths, the family share a pallor evident of their lives tending fish in the gloom – where today, Jordan Jones, the youngest member pursues the never-ending feeding round that was begun by his grandfather Terry in 1961.
Once you have enjoyed a turn around the magnificent aquatic display, it is time to meet the two Terrys, the father and son that run the place, holding court at the front of the shop with Archie, who comes in each day (and has his own chair next to the tanks of aquarium plants), on all subjects tropical fish related. “We are known as the cheeky chappies of the fishkeeping world because of the banter that goes on,” bragged Terry the younger, revealing, “I’ve been here twenty-five years with the old bugger, since the day I left school at sixteen,” and proud to inform me that they used to have eighty tanks in the back garden when he was a child and won multiple awards for breeding South American catfish. “We specialised in getting all the different types,” he informed me enigmatically, “We searched high and low.” Adding helpfully, “We still sell the red-tailed catfish – the king of the Amazon – capable of growing to a metre long.”
You can learn a lot just by hanging on the words of these wily specialists gathered at the counter, like always wear a pair of rubber gloves when changing the water for your electric eel, like many of the fish here are extinct in the wild due to pollution, like Africans are the most aggressive of freshwater fish and require caves at the rear of their tanks to escape when fights break out, like how you must always put piranhas together in pairs of either sex to avoid a blood bath, and how the African Tiger fish is the most lethal, on account of its articulated jaw lined with sharp teeth and propensity to grow to five feet long. I was shown a six-inch specimen currently available for seventy-five pounds – it may look as benign as a stickleback, but its precisely serrated fangs are framed by an expression of primeval antagonism.
“Fishkeeping is more keeping the water than keeping the fish,” confided Terry the younger later, turning philosophical in the back office as he revealed a trick of the trade, “If you can keep the water just right, clean and the correct temperature and pH, they more or less keep themselves.” Yet I was not convinced of Terry’s dispassionate posturing, watching him chuckle affectionately as the Koi carp came to suck the food off his fingers. “Can you have a relationship with a fish?” I queried, “Do they respond to you?” Terry blinked at me as if to discreetly conceal his surprise at my under-estimate of the sweet nature of his beloved creatures. “They recognise you if you gesture through the glass to them,” he informed me and, as he spread his fingers, caressing the air beside a tank, a whole shoal of little fish swam up to meet his shadow playfully and passed by, turning away with a flick of their tails in unison.
Once upon a time, Terry Jones senior, a native of Bethnal Green, made a fish tank at school, gluing the pieces of glass together and using a slate for the base, heated with night-lights burning beneath. Years later, when he completed National Service, he started out breeding tropical fish with a pal from the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Angling Club. When he began, there were twenty-five fish shops in the East End and now there are only two, but Terry persevered to create the phenomenon that is Wholesale Tropicals, drawing fish fanciers from as far as Fife. “Because we committed to something we do it properly, that’s why we work here seven days a week and all hours if necessary,” Terry junior assured me, as a loyal advocate of his father’s vision.
“I used to get home at eight each night, and then I’d be out in the shed with the seventy tanks I had there until midnight,” recalled Terry senior fondly, “- until the roof fell in, and I committed myself to building this extension ten years ago.” And he raised his eyes in pride at his creation, the serried rows of burbling tanks in aisles surrounding us. Standing there in one of the East End’s secret marvels – a temple devoted to the sublime wonders of the deep – beside the unassuming man who kept fifteen-inch piranhas for pets, the discreet genius behind the tropical fish shop that won every award going including the Practical Fishkeeping award for the Best Shop in the South of England, years running – I knew I was in the presence of a big fish.
Terry Jones who started the company in 1961
One of Bethnal Green’s most reclusive residents
Terry Jones, junior, with his beloved Koi
One of Bethnal Green’s most dangerous residents, the African Tiger fish
Terry caresses a cherished specimen of a South American catfish
Live locusts for sale off the shelf for the lizard-fanciers of Bethnal Green.
Archie, a regular customer, has a collection of three hundred goldfish, tropicals and toads at home
The two Terrys at work
The wall of fame
