Julian Woodford, Author & Digital Flâneur
It is my pleasure to introduce the first of four features this week written by Julian Woodford, celebrating the publication of his biography of East End gangster & corrupt magistrate, Joseph Merceron, The Boss of Bethnal Green. Today, Julian explains how this came about, describing himself with characteristic self-deprecation as a ‘digital flâneur.’
Publishing an author’s first book is a proud moment for any publisher but I am especially pleased to publish The Boss of Bethnal Green because it fills an important gap in the history and, consequently, in the perception of the East End. Too often, the poverty and inhuman housing conditions of the nineteenth century are seen as phenomena that arose naturally here, yet they were imposed by those in power seeking their own gain and Joseph Merceron was perhaps more responsible than any other individual for this human catastrophe.
The Boss of Bethnal Green is a timely cautionary tale, reminding us of the destructive power that one charismatic yet brutal and corrupt politician can wield. You need not look far within the recent politics of Tower Hamlets, or within contemporary national and international politics to find contenders that fit this description in our own age.
Click here to reserve one of the last tickets left for The Boss of Bethnal Green launch this Thursday 3rd November at the Hanbury Hall or email piccadilly@waterstones.com to book a free ticket for Julian Woodford’s lecture at Waterstones Piccadilly next Tuesday 8th November.
Julian Woodford by George Woodford
You may already have read my account of how The Boss of Bethnal Green came to be written but, in publication week, I wanted to introduce myself and explain how my biography of Joseph Merceron came to its serendipitous and symbiotic relationship with Spitalfields Life Books as publisher.
I suspect I was one of the very first readers of Spitalfields Life. By coincidence, the very same week The Gentle Author began to write on 26th August 2009, I returned to my City career after taking a break to write The Boss of Bethnal Green, spending four years immersed in the history of the East End. At that time, I was setting up @HistoryLondon as a means of spreading the word about my writing, so I was scouring the internet for material relating to Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. Imagine my delight when Spitalfields Life cropped up – partly because it covered some of the same topics I had written about, such as the silk-weaving Huguenots of the eighteenth century, but more generally because it gives a heart-warming insight into the community of Spitalfields today.
Quickly, I became hooked and subscribed to the daily email from The Gentle Author. As an early riser, I soon learned that the email arrives shortly after 6am, and acquired the habit of eager anticipation while the kettle boils and then reading it as I drink my early morning cuppa. It never occurred to me that seven years later I might be reading my own words!
When The Gentle Author wrote a post about the annual visit by the pupils of Parmiter’s School to honour the grave of Peter Renvoize at St Matthew’s Bethnal Green, I got in touch – beginning a closer relationship with Spitalfields Life that resulted in the offer to publish The Boss of Bethnal Green. This past year has been a whirlwind of activity as my manuscript was shepherded into shape by the distinguished editor Walter Donohue and then – by what miracles! – transformed by genius book designer David Pearson into the stunning cloth-bound volume that is published this week.
Of course, I have heard stories of how painful the publishing process can be for an author but I must candidly admit to having enjoyed every minute of it. I had also been warned that there was nothing quite like that moment when all the years of research and writing are converted into a physical thing of great beauty with a life all of its own. But I was still taken aback when The Gentle Author presented me theatrically with the first printed copy of my book in its trademark brown paper bag (courtesy of Gardners Market Sundriesmen) so that I might fondle and caress it like a new-born baby.
Despite having completed a full-length book, I must admit to feeling a certain trepidation when The Gentle Author asked me to write a few short pieces to publish in publication week. Such a hard act to follow! What should I write about? And not least, how on earth would I find the time? After due consideration, I have chosen three stories that exemplify how I love to explore London’s history and which I hope will communicate how easy it is now to use the internet to connect random paths across time through London in real and virtual life.
I am captivated by Baudelaire’s idea of the flâneur, wandering aimlessly through the streets, diverted hither and thither at whim or by a chance observation:
“The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world…Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.”
Charles Baudelaire, ‘The Painter of Modern Life,’ Le Figaro, 1863
Walter Benjamin developed Baudelaire’s notion further, describing the flâneur as ‘the essential figure of the modern urban spectator, an amateur detective and investigator of the city.’ Benjamin’s description works for me. London – ‘the Great Wen,’ as William Cobbett memorably named it – with its sheer size and two thousand years of history, is the flâneur‘s dream city.
In the past decade, the digitisation of dusty primary records and rare and ancient books, previously held only in specialist archives, means we can now all be ‘digital flâneurs,‘ able to explore the streets and decades of London’s past, following chance connections between people, places and things, without even having to rise from the kitchen table.
Follow Julian Woodford on twitter @historylondon and discover his blog at HistoryLondon, Transmitting gobbets of London’s past
Le Flâneur by Paul Gavarni, 1842
Charles Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat, c.1862
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In Search of the Boss of Bethnal Green
The Return of Parmiter’s School
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF THE BOSS OF BETHNAL GREEN FOR £20
Henry Silk’s East End Still Lifes
Today I am delighted to preview the forthcoming exhibition of Henry Silk’s East End Still Lifes at Abbott & Holder in Museum St, WC1, opening Thursday 17th November. These lucid paintings recall Magritte and Braque, yet they also possess a modest tenderness that is unique to Henry Silk.
In 1930, basketmaker and artist Henry Silk sits alone in his sparsely furnished room in Rounton Rd in Bow surrounded by few personal possessions. He glances in the mirror and realises that he is no longer young. Yet the pair of medals from the Great War laid on the table remind him how lucky he is to be alive.
He wakes in the camp bed in the early morning and the empty green room is flooded with light as dawn rises over the rooftops of the East End and washing flaps on the line. Weaving baskets suits a contemplative nature and, when Henry returns from the kitchen with a cup of tea, he sits at the table with the pink cloth and studies the objects upon the surface in the morning sunlight.
The forms and colours of these familiar things fascinate him. His pipe, his purse and his pocket knife that he carried for years are as commonplace to him as his own hands. Each day, Henry paints a picture to catalogue his personal possessions, comprising the modest landscape of his existence. It is a whole life in a handful of paintings.
Henry Silk and his sister
Paintings reproduced courtesy Abbott & Holder
HENRY SILK at ABBOTT & HOLDER, 30 Museum St, WC1A 1LH, opens 17th November
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Henry Silk, Basket Maker & Artist
Of all the painters that comprised the East London Group, I rate none more highly than Henry Silk and today David Buckman, author of the authoritative history From Bow to Biennale : Artists of The East London Group, profiles this remarkable artist in advance of the forthcoming exhibition at Abbott & Holder opening 17th November
At his Uncle Abraham’s basket shop in Bow
Which of the members of the members of the East London Group of painters most closely embodied what the Group stood for ? There are many advocates for Archibald Hattemore, Elwin Hawthorne, Cecil Osborne, Harold & Walter Steggles, and Albert Turpin – all painters from backgrounds that were not arty in any conventional sense who became inspired by their teacher John Cooper, the founder of the Group. Yet for some, the shadowy figure of Henry Silk, creator of highly personal and poetically understated images, is pre-eminent.
Silk’s talent was quickly recognised as far away as America, even while the Group was just establishing itself in the early thirties. In December 1930, when the second Group show was held in the West End at Alex. Reid & Lefevre, the national press reported that over two-thirds of pictures were sold, listing a batch of works bought by public collections. The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times revealed that, in addition to British purchases, the far-away Public Gallery of Toledo in Ohio had bought Silk’s ‘Still Life’ for six guineas.
American links continued when, early in 1933, Helen McCloy filing an insightful survey of the group’s achievements for the Boston Evening Transcript, judged Silk to have “the keenest technical sense of all the limitations and possibilities of paint.” Coincident with McCloy’s article, Hope Christie Skillman in the College Art Association’s publication Parnassus, distinguished Silk as “perhaps the most original and personal of the Group,” finding in his works such as The Railway Track, The Platelayers, The Tyre Dump and The Wireless Set, “beauty where we were taught not to see it.”
Silk’s early life is obscure. He was an East Ender, born on Christmas Day 1883, who worked as a basket maker for an uncle, Abraham Silk, at his workshop and shop in the Bow Rd. Fruit baskets were in great demand then and men making baskets became features of Silk’s pictures. “He used to work for three weeks at basket-making and spend the fourth in the pub,” Group member Walter Steggles remembered, describing Silk’s erratic work and drink habits. Yet Steggles also spoke of Silk with affection, admitting “He was a kind-hearted man who always looked older than his years.”
Silk was the uncle of Elwin Hawthorne, one of the leading members of the group, and lived for a time with that family at 11 Rounton Rd in Bow. Elwin’s widow Lilian – who, as Lilian Leahy, also showed with the group – remembered Silk as “generous to others but mean to himself. He would use an old canvas if someone gave it to him rather than buy a new one.” This make-do-and-mend ethos was common among the often-hard-up Group members when it came to framing too. Cooper directed them to E. R. Skillen & Co, in Lamb’s Conduit St, where Walter Steggles used to buy old frames that could be cut to size.
During the First World War, the young Silk was already sketching. Even on military service in his early thirties, during which he was gassed, he would draw on whatever he could find to hand. By the mid-twenties, he was attending classes at the Bethnal Green Men’s Institute and exhibited when the Art Club had its debut show at Bethnal Green Museum early in 1924. The Daily Chronicle ran a substantial account of the spring 1927 exhibition, highlighting Henry Silk, the basket maker, whose paintings depicted “Zeppelins and were bought by an officer ‘for a bob.’”
Yorkshireman, John Cooper, who had trained at The Slade, taught at Bethnal Green and, when he moved to evening classes at the Bow & Bromley Evening Institute, he took many students with him including George Board, Archibald Hattemore, Elwin Hawthorne, Henry Silk, the Steggles brothers and Albert Turpin. They were members of the East London Art Club that had its exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in the winter of 1928, part of which transferred to what is now the Tate Britain early in 1929. These activities prompted the series of Lefevre Galleries annual East London Group shows throughout the thirties, with their sales to many notable private collectors and public galleries, and huge media coverage.
Henry Silk was a prolific artist. He contributed a significant number of works to the Whitechapel show in 1928, remained a significant exhibitor at the East London Group-associated appearances, showed with the Toynbee Art Club and at Thos Agnew & Sons. Among his prestigious buyers were the eminent dealer Sir Joseph Duveen, Tate director Charles Aitken and the poet and artist Laurence Binyon. Another was the writer J. B. Priestley, Cooper’s friend, who over the years garnered an impressive and well-chosen modern picture collection. Silk was also regarded highly by his East London Group peers, Murroe FitzGerald, Hawthorne’s wife Lilian and Walter Steggles, who all acquired works of his.
As each of the East London Group artists acquired individual followings as a result of the annual and mixed exhibitions, the Lefevre Galleries astutely organised solo shows for several of them. Elwin Hawthorne, Brynhild Parker and the brothers Harold & Walter Steggles all benefited. Yet, in advance of these, in 1931 Silk had a solo show of watercolours at the recently established gallery Walter Bull & Sanders Ltd, in Cork St. The small exhibition was characterised by an array of still lifes and interiors. Writing in The Studio magazine two years earlier, having visited Cooper’s Bow classe, F. G. Stone noted that Silk often saw “a perfect design from an unusual angle, and he has a Van Goghian love of chairs and all simple things.”
Cooper urged his students to paint the world around them and Silk met the challenge by depicting landscapes near his home in the East End, also sketching while on holiday in Southend and as far away as Edinburgh. Writing the foreword to the catalogue of the second group exhibition at Lefevre in December 1930, the critic R. H. Wilenski said that French artists were fascinated by the “cool, frail London light.” and many asked him “what English artists have made these aspects of London the essential subject of their work.” He responded, “The next time a French artist talks to me in this manner I shall tell him of the East London Group, and the members’ names that I shall mention first in this connection will be Elwin Hawthorne, W. J. Steggles and Henry Silk.”
Even after the East London Group held its final show at Lefevre in 1936, Henry Silk continued to show in the East End, until his death of cancer aged only sixty-four on September 24th 1948.
Thorpe Bay
St James’ Rd, Old Ford
Old Houses, Bow (Walter Steggles Bequest)
My Lady Nicotine
Snow (Walter Steggles Bequest)
Still Life (Walter Steggles Bequest)
Basket Makers (Courtesy of Dorian Osborne)
Boots, Polish and Brushes
The Bedroom
Bedside chair (Courtesy of Dorian Osborne)
Hat on table, 1932 (courtesy of Doncaster Museum)
The view from 11 Rounton Rd, Bow, photographed by Elwin Hawthorne
HENRY SILK at ABBOTT & HOLDER, 30 Museum St, WC1A 1LH, opens 17th November
You may also like to read David Buckman’s other features about the East London Group
The Alphabet Of Lost Pubs D-G
Rather a classy selection this week, including plenty of dukes and earls, as we travel from D-G in the second part of my series of The Alphabet of Lost Pubs. This phantom pub crawl is presented in collaboration with Heritage Assets who work in partnership with The National Brewery Heritage Trust, publishing these historic photographs of the myriad pubs of the East End from Charrington’s archive for the first time.
The Dartmouth Arms, 162 Bidder St, Canning Town, E16 (Opened 1816, rebuilt 1939, closed 2013 and now a nightclub)
The Dew Drop Inn, 22 Brydges Rd, Stratford, E15 (Opened prior to 1874, closed in 2011 and is now demolished)
The Duke of Edinburgh, 17 Jultand Rd, Plaistow, E13 (Opened prior to 1872 and closed in 2010)
The Duke of Gloucester, 26 Seabright St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened prior to 1839 and now demolished)
The Duke of Gloucester, 154 Pitfield St, Hoxton, N1 (Opened prior to 1834 and now demolished)
The Duke of Lancaster, 21 John St, Kinsgland Rd, E2 (Opened prior to 1872 and now demolished)
The Duke of Sussex, 94 Goldsmith’s Row, Haggerston, E2 (Opened prior to 1842, now called The Albion)
The Duke of Wellington, 63 Brady St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened prior to 1859, closed in 2002 and demolished in 2008)
The Dunstan Arms, 50 East Rd, City Rd, N1 (Opened prior to 1839 and now demolished)
The Durham Arms, 24 Stephenson St, Canning Town, E16 (Opened prior to 1855, badly damaged by enemy action on 20th March 1941, reopened 2nd December 1948, closed in 2015 and now open again)
The Eagle, 157 Chobham Rd, Stratford, E15 (Opened prior to 1859 and open today)
The Earl Amhurst, 19 Amhurst Rd, Hackney (Opened prior to 1870 , demolished in 2004 and now an office block)
The Earl of Aberdeen, 118 Bridport Place, Hoxton, N1 (Opened prior to 1856 and now demolished)
The Earl of Beaconsfield, 211 Grange Rd, Plaistow, E13 (Opened prior to 1878, damaged by enemy action on 6th January 1941, reopened on 20th June 1941, closed 2002 and demolished 2007)
The Earl of Essex, 107 Sceptre Rd, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened prior to 1891 and now demolished)
The Essex Brewery Tap, 2 Markhouse Rd, Walthamstow (Opened prior to 1859, closed in 2006 and now a fitness club)
The Ferndale, 40 Cyprus Place, Beckton, E6 (Opened prior to 1886, closed 2006 and now residential)
The Old Five Bells, 535 Old Ford Rd, E3 (Opened prior to 1826 and now demolished)
The Fleetwood Arms, 85 Pritchards Rd, Hackney Rd, E2 (Opened prior to 1869 and now demolished)
The Flower Pot, 43 Old Bethnal Green Rd, E2 (Opened prior to 1872, rebuilt 1908 and now offices)
The Forester, 15 Arline St, Hackney Rd, E8 (Opened prior to 1872 and now demolished )
The Fountain, 86 Jamaica St, Stepney, E1 (Opened prior to 1848, closed 1934 and now demolished)
The Fountain Tavern, 436 Mile End Rd, Stepney, E1 (Opened prior to 1833, changed name to La Luna in 2004 and demolished in 2010)
The Fox, 81 Boleyn Rd, Stoke Newington, N16 (Opened 1866, demolished 1938)
The Freemasons’ Tavern, 61 Howard Rd, Stoke Newington, N16 (Opened 1866, demolished 1959)
The Gardeners Arms, 103 York Hill, Loughton (Opened prior to 1848 and open today)
The George & Dragon, 13 Beech St, Cripplegate, EC1 (Opened prior to 1796 and now demolished)
The Gibraltar Tavern, 28 Gibraltar Walk, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened prior to 1750 and now demolished)
The Gladstone, 129 St Leonards Walk, Poplar, E14 (Opened 1869, closed 1962 and now demolished)
The Golden Anchor, 221 St John St, Clerkenwell, EC1 (Opened prior to 1811, closed in 1919 and now demolished)
The Goldsmiths’ Arms, 1 Albion Buildings, St Bartholomew Close, EC1 (Opened prior to 1796, closed in 1921 and now demolished)
The Gosset Arms, 11 Gosset St, Bethnal Green, E2 (Opened prior to 1856, closed 1990 and now residential)
The Grange Tavern, 6 Richmond Rd, London Fields, E5 (Opened prior to 1866, demolished and replaced by flats in 2001)
The Green Dragon, 123 Well St, Hackney, E9 (Opened prior to 1732 and closed in 1956, now demolished)
The Grosvenor Arms, 33 Mountmorres Rd, Stepney, E1 (Opened prior to 1839, closed in 1944 and now demolished)
The Gunmakers Arms, 15 Eyre St Hill, Clerkenwell, EC1 (Opened prior to 1848 and open today)
The Gunmakers Arms, 51 Solebay St, Mile End, E3 (Opened prior to 1836 and now demolished)
Photographs courtesy Heritage Assets/The National Brewery Heritage Trust
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Paul Gardner 2/8
My pal Paul Gardner, fourth generation proprietor of Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen, Spitalfields oldest family business since 1870, is featured in this short film by Imogen Farrell, Joshua Kwan & Alice Lees
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Gardners Market Sundriesmen, 149, Commercial St, Spitalfields, E1
Follow Paul Gardner on twitter @gardnersbags
You may like to read my other stories about Paul Gardner & Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
At Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Joan Rose at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
James Brown at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
The Fish Plaice
This is the time of year when my thoughts turn to fish & chips, so I must take this opportunity to recommend my favourite establishment in the East End for such traditional fare, The Fish Plaice
Around three is a good time to visit the Fish Plaice in the Cambridge Heath Rd, between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green. By then the lunchtime rush is over and you have the chance of a leisurely chat with Andy & Nitsa, the couple who have run this place together since 1974 – as I did recently, when I took the opportunity to slip behind the counter and see life from the other side of the fish fryer. I discovered it was an ideal place to spend an afternoon on an occluded October day, watching the passersby with their noses set towards Whitechapel and greeting regulars who were seeking consolation in fish cakes and saveloys for a year that is not quite working out as it should.
Over time, all manner of private jokes and rituals have evolved here. “The police want to speak with you, Andy,” called Nitsa casually through the curtain of plastic ribbons when I arrived, as she had done countless times before. And then Andy came out and introduced himself with an eager smile, “I’m Andy, everyone knows me as Andy, my dad was Andy,” – just in case there was any confusion. And when Beryl, a regular customer of thirty-eight years standing, arrived with the greeting, “Got a fish cake?” and asking “Are the chips fresh?”, Andy turned aside with a twinkle in his eye and adopted a loud stage whisper, saying,“Give her the old ones, Nitsa! – which filled Beryl with speechless delight.
Be informed, this is not a fancy fish & chip shop. The decor has not been updated since they opened nearly forty-five years ago, yet this only adds to the appeal – because it is immaculately clean and cared for, which makes it a place where everyone feels welcome. “Look at this!” exclaimed Andy, taking his bare hand, and – inexplicably – reaching under the fish frier, before – alarmingly – appearing to rub it upon the floor and then – in a theatrical coup – holding it up jubilantly to reveal an entirely clean hand.
Andy knows as much about fish & chips as it is possible to know, because fish & chips are his culture and his life.“My father had a fish & chip shop in Salmon Lane and we lived over the shop.” he explained, “All the family were in fish & chips, my uncles all had shops. I used to clean potatoes first thing in the morning and help out again after school.”
“Sometimes, I used to get up at four and go with my dad to Smithfield Market to get chickens.” he continued fondly, “Then he’d take me down to Billingsgate Fish Market in the City where we’d meet all his brothers and uncles buying fish, and afterwards he’d take me for a good breakfast in a workmen’s cafe and we’d be back by seven in the morning.”
Yet before he opened up this shop with his wife Nitsa, Andy tried other careers. He trained in motor engineering, and became ladies hairdresser in Whitechapel, off Commercial St – “It was all slums down there in those days.” Next he became a driving instructor and worked at Plessey in electronics too. “You do some crazy stuff when you are young!” he informed me, in authoritative verdict upon these trivial early diversions before he settled down to a lifetime of fish & chips.
“All my family are in restaurants, but I had no clue about fish & chip shops until I met, Andy,” admitted Nitsa with a flirtatious laugh,“By now, we are a good team. When we come in the morning, we know exactly what to do and we do it in no time.”
“I do all the heavy stuff, filleting fish, mixing the batter and chipping, while Nitsa prepares the fryer,” added Andy, “She’s as quick as two people serving, three of my cousins came down to help out once and they couldn’t keep up with her.”
As will be self-evident by now, Andy & Nitsa have very high standards, priding themselves on the superlative quality of their fish & chips which are keenly priced. Nitsa fried me a piece of cod in batter with chips, and it was creamy with a good chewy batter. As I sat in the corner enjoying my late lunch, Andy explained The Fish Plaice is the closest fish & chip shop to the site of London’s first ever fish & chip shop, that opened in Cleveland Way – just round the corner – where Russian Jewish immigrants had the idea to serve both fried fish and chips together from the same shop in the nineteenth century.
“We like it,” admitted Andy, turning contemplative and catching Nitsa’s eye for a shared smile while I concentrated on my lunch, “We’ve been doing it so many years. We love it when when people come back, because it means they appreciated what they had.” All three of us sat together, enjoying the quiet of the afternoon in the empty shop and watching the ceaseless parade outside moving back and forth between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green.
“It’s a nice trade, fish and chips.” conceded Nitsa with a soulful smile, sitting with her arms crossed, casting her blue eyes around the shop where they spent the last forty-two years and speaking out loud to herself, “We are happy here. The people are very nice and most of the customers are our friends. You always ask after everybody’s families.”
Nitsa fries me a piece of fish in batter
Andy – “All my family were in fish & chips”
Nitsa, widely known amongst the customers as “Aunty” and “Mammy”
The Fish Plaice, 86 Cambridge Heath Rd.
Markéta Luskačová’s Street Musicians
Markéta Luskačová has been taking photographs in Spitalfields since 1975 and it is my great pleasure to present this selection of East End pictures from her new book, TO REMEMBER – London Street Musicians 1975-1990 which has an introduction by John Berger and is published next week with a launch and signing at Camden Arts Centre on Wednesday 2nd November from 7:30pm. All are welcome.
Brick Lane, 1978
Bishopsgate, 1980
Commercial St outside Christ Church, 1979
‘The first street musician I ever met was at the horse fair in the West of Ireland on a cold autumn day in 1973 – an old man playing a violin between the horses. It was like an epiphany. A few years later I started to live in London close to Portobello Rd Market. Street musicians played there frequently and the feeling of being in the presence of something precious stayed with me. The street musicians themselves were often quite lonely men, yet their music lessened the loneliness of the street, the people in it and my own loneliness.’ Markéta Luskačová
Commercial St outside Christ Church, 1987
Cheshire St, 1990
Cheshire St, 1982
Yard off Cheshire St, 1986
‘It takes me back eighty years to my childhood (in the thirties), when I was disturbed and spellbound by the street musicians I passed and stopped to listen to and watch. The word play had a double-sense for me. They played instruments or they sang in the street in the hope of getting money, survival money, from the passersby. And I played games in order to escape and feel that I was elsewhere.’ John Berger
Cheshire St, 1979
Cheshire St, 1976
Cheshire St, 1979
Cheshire St, 1979
Cheshire St, 1979
Photographs copyright © Markéta Luskačová
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