Spitalfields Life

In June, I am publishing the definitive collection of over two hundred photographs of John Claridge’s EAST END. We need a couple more readers to invest £1000 to support production of this important book. Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you can help and I will send you further information. You can also assist publication by clicking here to pre-order a signed copy for £25.

Groundsman, E.15 (1965)

“This is the groundsman at the Memorial Ground where I played football aged ten in 1954.”

When John Claridge went back ten years later to the pitch near West Ham Station where he played football as a child, he found the groundsman was just as he remembered, with his cardigan and tie, and he took the photograph you see above. There is a dignified modesty to this fine portrait – a quality shared by all of those published here – expressed through a relaxed demeanour.

John’s subjects present themselves to his lens as emotionally open yet retaining possession of themselves, and this translates into a vital relationship with the viewer. To each of these people, John was one of their own kind and they were comfortable being photographed by him. And, thanks to the humanity of John’s vision, we have the privilege to become party to this intimacy today.

Kosher Butcher, E2 (1962) – “The chicken was none too happy!”

Brewery, Spitalfields (1964) Clocking in at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane.

Lady with Gumball Machine, Spitalfields (1967) – “She came out of her kiosk and asked, ‘Will you photograph me with my gumball machine?'”

Saveloy Stall, Spitalfields (1967) – “It was a cold day, so I had two hot dogs.”

Whitechapel Bell Foundry, E1 (1982) Established in 1598, where the Liberty Bell and Big Ben were cast.

Rag & Bone Man, E13 (1961) – “Down my street in Plaistow, there were not many cars about – all you could hear was the clip-clop of the horse on the wet road.”

Shoe Repairs Closed Saturday, Spitalfields (1969) – “I asked, ‘Why are you open on Saturday?’ He replied, ‘I was just busy.'”

Spice, E1 (1976) – “Taken at a spice warehouse in Wapping.  The smells were fantastic, you could smell it down the street.”

Portrait, Spitalfields (1966) – “This is a group portrait of friends outside of their shop. The two brothers who ran the shop, the lady who worked round the corner and the guy who worked in the back.”

Anglo Pak Muslim Butcher, E2 (1962)

Butchers, Spitalfields (1966) -“I had just finished taking a picture next door, when this lady came out with a joint of meat and asked me to take her photograph with it.”

Fishmongers, E1 (1966) Early morning, unloading fish from Grimsby.

Beigel Baker, E2 (1967) -“After a party at about four or five in the morning, we used to end up at Rinkoff’s in Vallance Rd for smoked salmon beigels.”

Newsagent, Spitalfields (1966) -“I said, ‘Shame about Walt Disney dying, can I take your picture next to it?’ and he said, ‘Alright.'”

Selling Shoes, Spitafields (1963) – “My dad used to tell me what his dad told him, ‘If you’ve got a good pair of shoes, you own the world.'”

Strudel, E2 (1962) – “You’ll like this, boy!’ I had just taken a photograph outside this lady’s shop. I said, ‘I think your window looks beautiful.’ and she asked me in for a slice of apple strudel. It was fantastic!  But she would not accept any money, it was a gift. She said, ‘You took a picture of my shop.'”

Number 92, Spitalfields (1964)

Tubby Isaac’s, Spitalfields (1982) – “Aaahhh Tubby’s, where I’ve had many a fine eel.”

Junkyard Dog, E16 (1982) – “I was climbing over the wall into this junkyard.  All was quiet, when I noticed this pair of forbidding eyes – then I made my exit.”

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

You may also like to take a look at

John Claridge’s East End

Click here to pre-order your signed copy of John Claridge’s EAST END for £25

Please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you are willing to invest £1000 in publishing a handsome hardback of John Claridge’s East End photographs

On 2nd June, I am publishing the definitive collection of over two hundred photographs of John Claridge’s EAST END. Please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you are willing to invest £1000 to help me publish this important book and I will send you further information. You can also support publication by clicking here to pre-order a signed copy for £25.

THE DRINK, E14 1964

John Claridge claims he is not a drinker, but I was not entirely convinced once I saw this magnificent set of beer-soaked pictures that he lined up on the bar, exploring aspects of the culture of drinking and pubs in the East End. “I used to go along with my mum and dad, and sit outside with a cream soda and an arrowroot biscuit,” John assured me, recalling his first childhood trips to the pub,“…but they might let you have a drop of brown ale.”

Within living memory, the East End was filled with breweries and there were pubs on almost every corner. These beloved palaces of intoxication were vibrant centres for community life, tiled on the outside and panelled on the inside, and offering plentiful opportunities for refreshment and socialising. Consequently, the brewing industry thrived here for centuries, inspiring extremes of joy and grief among its customers. While Thomas Buxton of Truman, Hanbury & Buxton in Spitalfields used the proceeds of brewing to become a prime mover in the abolition of slavery, conversely William Booth was motivated by the evils of alcohol to form the Salvation Army in Whitechapel to further the cause of temperance.

“When I was fifteen, we’d go around the back and the largest one in the group would go up to the bar and get the beers,” John remembered fondly, “We used to go out every weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’d all have our suits on and go down to the Puddings or the Beggars, the Deuragon, the Punchbowl, the Aberdeen, the Iron Bridge Tavern or the Bridge House.” Looking at these pictures makes me wish I had been there too.

Yet the culture of drinking thrives in the East End today, with hordes of young people coming every weekend from far and wide to pack the bars of Brick Lane and Shoreditch, in one non-stop extended party that lasts from Friday evening until Sunday night, and stretches from the former Truman Brewery up as far as Dalston.

Thanks to John’s sobriety, we can enjoy a photographic pub crawl through the alcoholic haze of the East End in the last century – when the entertainment was homegrown, the customers were local, smoking and dogs were permitted, and all ages mixed together for a night out. Cheers, everybody!

A SMOKE, E1 1982. – “There was a relaxed atmosphere where you could walk in and talk to anybody.”

THE CONVERSATION, E1 1982. – “Who is he speaking to?”

DARTBOARD, E17 1982. -“I used to be a darts player, just average not particularly good.”

SINGING,  E1 1962. -“She’d just come out of the pub…”

THE MEETING, E14, 1982. -“You don’t know what’s going on. There’s a big flash car parked there. Are they doing a piece of business?”

SLEEP, E1 1976. – “They used to club together and get a bottle of VP wine from the off-licence, and mix it with methylated spirits.”

BEERS, E1 1964. – “This is Dickensian. You wonder who’s going to step from that door. Is it the beginning of a story?”

ROUND THE BACK, E3 1963.

DOG, E1 1963. -“Just sitting there while his master went to get another pint of beer.”

EX-ALCHOHOLIC, E1 1982. – “He lived in Booth House and seemed very content that he had pulled himself out of it.”

LIVE MUSIC, E16 1982. -“It was a cold winter’s day and raining, but I had to get this picture. Live music and dancing in a vast expanse of nothing?”

THE BEEHIVE, E14 1964. – “She never stopped giggling and laughing.”

THE SMILE, E2 1962. -“He said, ‘Would you like me to smile?’ He was probably not long for this world, but he was very happy.”

IN THE BAR, E14  1964. -“I’d just got engaged to my first wife and she was one of my ex-mother-in-law’s friends. Full of life!”

THROUGH THE GLASS, E1 1982. -“I think the guy was standing at the cigarette machine.”

THE CALL, E16 1982. -“Terry Lawless’ boxing gym was above this pub. It looks as if everything is collapsing and cracking, and the shadows look like blood pouring from above.”

WHITE SWAN, E14 1982

LIGHT ALE, 1976 -“Four cans of light ale and he was completely out of it.”

CLOSED DOWN, Brick Lane 1982.

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

You may also like to take a look at

John Claridge’s East End

On 2nd June, I am publishing the definitive collection of over two hundred photographs of John Claridge’s EAST END. Please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you are willing to invest £1000 to help me publish this important book and I will send you further information. You can also support publication by clicking here to pre-order a signed copy for £25.

Commercial Cafe, Commercial Rd  1965

“This was one of those places you could just pop in from the cold and warm up,” photographer John Claridge recalled affectionately while contemplating this beloved cafe of yesteryear, “I love the front of it – it was just beautiful, especially the typography. The window above the curtain used to get all steamed up. It was very welcoming, you know, and it was was gorgeous to come in and have a nice cup of tea.”

In this set of photographs, John shows us his collection of cherished East End cafes, accompanied by some random portraits of people that you might expect to meet in them. “Everywhere you went, you would find a cafe where you could go in and get a bacon sarnie and a cup of tea,” he told me ,“they were not fancy restaurants but you could always rely on getting a cuppa and a sandwich.” In John’s youth, the East End was full of independently-run cafes where everyone could afford to eat, and his pictures celebrate these egalitarian and homely places that were once centres for the life of the community.

“You don’t have to build things up, you just show people the beauty of what is.” John assured me, neatly encapsulating his modest aesthetic which suits these subjects so well.

Pepsi, Narrow St 1963 – “I just love these graphics, and when you see it you hope it’s not going to go.”

Boxing managers at Terry Lawless’ Gym, E16 1969.

Windsor Cafe, 1982.

Windsor Cafe, 1982 – “As I walked past the Windsor Cafe, I looked back and saw ‘Snack Bar or Cafe.’ Genius!”

The Wall, 1961 – “We were all seventeen. At weekends we’d go down Southend. Peter on the left, his sister was going out with Georgie Fame.”

7Up, Spitalfields 1967.

Michael Ferrier, Breaker’s Yard, E16 1975 – “He looks like the artful dodger.”

Alfie Ferrier, Breaker’s Yard, E16 1975 – “Michael’s father was sitting inside the hut with his little wood-burner, where he had his cup of tea and a cigarette.”

Victory Cafe, Hackney Rd 1963 – “This was very early, they’d just delivered the sack of potatoes.”

Ted, Cheshire St 1967 – “This made me laugh, it’s his wardrobe in the background hanging there. It’s as if he’s about to burst into song or something!”

Scrap, Brick Lane 1966.

78b, Spitalfields 1967 – “You remember the lady in the kiosk? This is her with her friend.”

Spitalfields 1963 – “Just a chap standing with his eyes closed. He looked content and I didn’t want to disturb him.”

Father Bill Shergold, founder of 59 Club, at Southend – “I met him at the 59 Club to say hello. And someone wanted me to do a portrait  for a charity thing, so I said, ‘Absolutely, we’ll get him down to Southend.'”

Cafe under a railway arch, E1 1968.

Isle of Dogs, 1970s – “This couple with the four kids lived in that tiny caravan. I did this picture for a charity to make people aware of poor living conditions.”

Hot Pies, E2 1982 – “It makes you think twice whether you would eat one of their hot pies.”

Under the Light, Puma Court, Spitalfields 1970 – “Two of my ex-brother-in-laws with Santi, a Spaniard who became a squash champion – we were on the way to the pub. Keith was working at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane at the time and I had a studio in the City, so I said, ‘I’ll meet you after work for a drink.'”

Dog, Wapping – “This was taken for anti-litter campaign and the headline was ‘You foul the pavement more than he does.'”

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

You may also like to take a look at

John Claridge’s East End

On 2nd June, I am publishing the definitive collection of over two hundred photographs of John Claridge’s EAST END. Please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you are willing to invest £1000 to help me publish this important book and I will send you further information. You can also support publication by clicking here to pre-order a signed copy for £25.

In Silvertown, 1964

These atmospheric photographs of the Thames by John Claridge offer a unique vision of the working river that was once a defining element of the East End. Within living memory, the busiest port in the world was here yet today barely a trace of it remains. And John’s pictures, mostly taken when he was a mere kid photographer, capture the last glimmers of the living docks.“My dad’s friends were saying that the docks were going down, so I was aware of that and I just wanted to grab hold of it,” John told me.

“As a child, from my bedroom in Plaistow, I could see the lights of the docks at night and I used to go to sleep listening to the sound of the horns on the Thames whenever there was fog, which was quite often. You could smell the river if the wind was blowing in the right direction. A lot of the men in my family worked down the docks. My father took me down to the dock gate when he worked for the New Zealand Shipping Company – and I used to go out with my camera at weekends, or any spare time I had, to take pictures. I went out to see what was going on, I reacted to what was there and, if I saw something, I photographed it. It was instinctive, I never thought I was documenting. I had a need to take pictures, it was as natural as breathing.”

John’s photographs convey the epic nature of the docks where once thousands worked to unload vast ships bringing cargos from distant continents, a collective endeavour upon a grand scale. Yet these are personal pictures and, for this reason John has included few people, even if their presence is always tangible. “You can put yourself and your emotions into the photograph if there’s nobody in it,” he confided to me, “These pictures were for myself. I was interested in the quality of the light which was magnificent. Because of the bends of the river, you got it coming in all directions and in each place it was different.”

As a youngster, John was able to get everywhere, creeping through side alleys, climbing over walls, even setting out in a tiny inflatable dinghy on the river, but sometimes, he would just walk right in through the main entrance.“I’d go through the dock gate,” he confessed, “It was much more of an innocent time – I should have got a pass, but I’d just say, ‘I’m doing photographs’ and they’d say, ‘On you go.’ As a kid you could get anywhere.” If you observe the shifting point of view in these pictures, you can see that some are taken from the Thames beach, some from John’s dinghy at water level while others are taken looking down from walls and bridges, where he had climbed up.

The majestic image above was taken in the dawn light in Silvertown in 1964, when John climbed onto the dock wall to photograph the huge cargo ship that had just arrived, and waited for the sun to rise before he took his picture. As a consequence, the vessel filling the background looks like a phantom fading in the first light of day. There is an equally fascinating distinction between the foreground and background in the photograph below, also taken over the dock wall in Silvertown in 1964. The ships in the background appear ethereal as if they were a mirage too, about to vanish. In John’s vision, the docks are haunted by their own disappearance, and the incandescent dreamlike ambiance of his pictures – often taken through fog or mist rising from the river – places them in a pictorial tradition of the Thames which includes Whistler and Turner.

Yet beyond their breathtaking quality as photography, John Claridge’s elegiac photographs of the Thames are special because they are taken by one who grew up with the river and knew the culture of the docks intimately. As he admitted to me, speaking of the river and his relationship with it, “It’s not something you discover, it’s always been there – it’s part of you who you are.”

“I climbed over the dock wall to take this picture in New Canning Town. You never expect it to go and then all of a sudden it’s gone.” 1964

Old warehouses in Silvertown, 1982.

Dock wall, Isle of Dogs, 1982.

In Poplar, at the very end of the docks, 1982. “You can see how quiet it is.”

1962, a crane driver takes a break for a fag in Silvertown.

From the river, 1962

Inside the docks in Canning Town, 1968.“As soon as the containers moved down to Tilbury, you saw it winding down.”

Near Stratford, from road bridge with the canal in the foregound, 1960.

Limehouse, 1972.

At water level, Wapping, 1964.

A lighter in Wapping, 1963

Warehouses in Wapping, 1965

In a tributary at Canning Town, 1962

Near St Katherine Dock, 1960. “It was all open then, you could walk around.”

Chemical works near Bow, 1965.

Looking into the dock from a bridge, Silvertown, 1982. “There may have been some manufacturing left but the dockland was dead.”

Winter light downriver, 1982

Near Silvertown, with one of the bridges across the dock in the background, 1966.

A lighter in Wapping, 1961.

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

You may also like to take a look at

John Claridge’s East End

and read these other stories of the Thames

Colin Ross, Docker

Among the Lightermen

“Old Bob” Prentice, Waterman & Lighterman

Bobby Prentice, Waterman & Lighterman

Harry Harris, Lighterman

This week, we are featuring John Claridge’s East End photography from the sixties

On 2nd June, I am publishing the definitive collection of over two hundred photographs of John Claridge’s EAST END. Please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com if you are willing to invest £1000 to help me publish this important book and I will send you further information. You can also support publication by clicking here to pre-order a signed copy for £25.

Ross Bakeries, Quaker St, 1966

I am grateful to John Claridge for his prescience in taking these photographs because if I could travel back to the East End of half a century ago this is exactly what I should like to see – the local shops and the faces of the shopkeepers.

“I used to go to the shops with my mum every Saturday morning, and she’d meet people she knew and they’d be chatting for maybe an hour, so I’d go off and meet other kids and we’d be playing on a bombsite – it was a strange education!” John told me, neatly illustrating how these small shops were integral to the fabric of society in his childhood.“People had a pride in what they were selling or what they were doing” he recalled,“You’d go into these places and they’d all smell different. They all had their distinct character, it was wonderful.”

Although generations of the family were dockers, John’s father warned him that the London Docks were in terminal decline and he sought a career elsewhere. Consequently, even as a youth, John realised that a whole way of life was going to be swept away in the changes which were coming to the East End. And this foresight inspired John to photograph the familiar culture of small shops and shopkeepers that he held in such affection. “Even then I had the feeling that things were going to be overrun, without regard to what those in that society wanted.” he confirmed to me with regret.

As the remaining small shopkeepers fight for their survival, in the face of escalating rents and the incursion of chain stores, John Claridge’s poignant images are a salient reminder of the venerable tradition of local shops here that we cannot afford to lose.

Shop in Spitalfields, 1964.

C & K Grocers, Spitalfields, 1982 – “From the floor to the roof, the shop was stocked full of everything you could imagine.”

Cobbler, Spitalfields, 1969.

Flo’s Stores, Spitalfields, 1962 – “All the shops were individual then. Somebody painted the typography themselves here and it’s brilliant.”

Fruit & Veg, Bethnal Green 1961 – “I’d been to a party and it was five o’clock in the morning, but she was open.”

W.Wernick, Spitalfields, 1962.

Fishmonger, Spitalfields, 1965.

Corner Shop, Spitalfields, 1961 – “The kid’s just got his stuff for his mum and he’s walking back.”

At W.Wernick Poulterers, Spitalfields, 1962 – “She’s got her hat, her cup of tea and her flask. There was no refrigeration but it was chilly.”

Fiorella Shoes, E2, 1966 – “There’s only four pairs of shoes in the window. How could they measure shoes to fit, when they couldn’t even fit the words in the window? The man next door said to me, ‘Would you like me to step back out of the picture?’ I said, ‘No, I’d really like you to be in the picture.”

Bertha, Spitalfields, 1982 – “Everything is closing down but you can still have a wedding! She’s been jilted at the altar and she’s just waiting now.”

Bakers, Spitalfields, 1959 – “There’s only three buns and a cake in the window.”

Jacques Wolff, E13 1960 – “His name was probably Jack Fox and he changed it to Jacques Wolff.”

Waltons, E13 1960 – “They just sold cheap shoes, but you could get a nice Italian pair knocked off from the docks at a good price.”

Churchman’s, Spitalfields, 1968 – “Anything you wanted from cigarettes to headache pills.”

White, Spitalfields 1967 – “I saw these three kids and photographed them, it was only afterwards I saw the name White.”

The Door, E2 1960.

The Window, E16  1982 – “Just a little dress shop, selling bits and pieces. The clothes could have been from almost any era.”

Victor, E14 1968 – “There’s no cars on the road, the place was empty, but there was a flower shop on the corner and it was always full of flowers.”

Photographs copyright © John Claridge

You may also like to take a look at

John Claridge’s East End