At Pellicci’s Party
I could not resist publishing my account of Pellicci’s Party, which always takes place early on the morning of Christmas Eve, as a reminder to any readers who may wish to join this year’s celebration
Rodney Archer gives his rendition of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’…
Even a storm engulfing the East End before Christmas did not discourage me from rolling out of my bed and along the Bethnal Green Rd to the celebrated E.Pellicci before nine in the morning with the hope of witnessing Rodney Archer perform “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” The golden glow of the cafe interior shone like a beacon through the gloom as I arrived to be greeted by the Christmas crib with the baby Jesus, angels and shepherds, all just visible through the steamed-up window. Once inside, I joined Rodney at the corner table where he was conscientiously studying the lyrics in advance of his big moment.
Even though the volume of custom was depleted on account of the filthy weather, Nevio Pellicci was not discouraged. He understood that what we lacked in numbers we gained in emotional solidarity as fellow refugees from the storm. And so, taking the initiative in the role of host that is his birthright and which he fulfils so superlatively, he handed out the carol sheets. Striking the metal chimney upon the boiler for the hot water with a spoon, Nevio drew the cafe to order, causing the two tables of families with children to look up with especial eagerness from their fried breakfasts – as he led the assembly in a spirited rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
Photographer Colin O’Brien arrived in the midst of the carol, an expression of wonderment spreading across his face as he stepped from the chilly street into the cafe. And then, it was Rodney Archer’s moment. He stood and sang all the verses of his chosen carol, articulating the lyrics with a practised eloquence, and the entire cafe joined in with “You’d better watch out, you’d better beware, because Santa Claus is coming to town…” Visibly relieved to sit down again during his applause, “I didn’t sleep all night,” he confessed to me wiping the perspiration from his brow, “And now it’s over.”
Yet the concert party was just about to change gear, as the members of the Tower Hamlets Environmental Services Team arrived at the same moment as members of the London Late-Starters Orchestra came in for for breakfast, as they always do when practising in the rehearsal room across the road. Gina Boreham stood up and gave a elegantly modulated performance of “When you’re young at heart,” which brought the cafe to a standstill and then followed it with a soulful version of “When the hangover strikes.”
By now, things were going with quite a swing which prompted Nevio Pellicci to bring out his wedding photos and Maria and her crew to emerge from the kitchen bedecked in tinsel. “When I was a kid, all the stallholders from the market used to come in for hot toddies at this time of year,” Nevio recalled fondly, thinking back to years past, “And I used to get lots of Christmas presents.” Colin O’Brien took the rare opportunity to capture all the Pellicci team in one picture which prompted Nevio to say, “That’s the Christmas card sorted for next year!”
By this time, the rain had relented and it was just growing light outside. There was time for a last collective rendition of “Silent Night” before all realised that – once we had exchanged seasonal greetings – it was the moment to disperse upon our respective Christmas errands, while the saner residents of the East End were yet to stir from their slumbers.
The renowned baritone voice of Nevio Pellicci led the carols.
Gina Boreham
Magda and Maria
“I didn’t sleep all night and now it’s over.”
Silva, Maria, Tony, Nevio, Kinga & Magda
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
E.Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 0AG
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Christmas Ravioli At E Pellicci
Maria Pellicci, The Meatball Queen of Bethnal Green
Nevio Pellicci at New Spitalfields Market
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
Val Perrin’s Empty Brick Lane
At Shoreditch Station, looking through to Brick Lane
In this final selection from Val Perrin‘s superb pictures of Spitalfields taken between 1970-72, and published now for the first time, I have focussed on his atmospheric photography of the deserted streets, recording the sense of abandonment and dereliction which prevailed at that time.
Cheshire St
Brick Lane
Sclater St
Hanbury St
Brushfield St
Photographs copyright © Val Perrin
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More Of Val Perrin’s Brick Lane
It is my pleasure to present a second selection of Val Perrin‘s fascinating and evocative photographs of Brick Lane Market, taken between 1970-72 and published today for the very first time.
Photographs copyright © Val Perrin
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New Era Estate Is Saved
After months of uncertainty and in response to widespread public protest, yesterday a deal was done to transfer ownership of the New Era Estate in Hoxton from the disreputable Westbrook Partners, property developers who had been threatening rent hikes and mass evictions, to the Dolphin Sq Charitable Foundation which is committed to providing social housing. As we approach the season of goodwill, it is the best possible news in the East End and my friend Kitty Jennings, whose home in the New Era Estate is now secured, has plenty to celebrate this Christmas.
Kitty, Amelia (Doll Doll), Jimmy, Gracie & Patricia Jennings, Gifford St, Hoxton c.1930
One Sunday afternoon last summer, I walked over to Columbia Rd Market to get a bunch of flowers for Kathleen – widely known as Kitty – Jennings, who has lived in Hoxton since 1924. I found her in her immaculately tidy flat in the New Era Estate near the canal where for many years she lived with her beloved sister Doll Doll, whose ashes now occupy pride of place in a corner of the sitting room.
Once Barbara Jezewska, who grew up in Spitalfields and was Kitty’s neighbour in this building for seventeen years, had made the introductions, we settled down in the afternoon sun to enjoy beigels with salmon and cream cheese while Kitty regaled us with her memories of old Hoxton.
“Thank God we were lucky, we had a father who had a good job, so we always had a good table. There was not a lot of work when I was a kid, but we always got by. We were lucky that we always had good clothes and never got knocked about.
My father, Jim, he was a Fish Porter at Billingsgate Market and he had to work seven days. He was born in the Vinegar Grounds in Hoxton, where they only had one shared tap in the garden for all the cottages, and he was a friendly man who would help anyone. He left for work at four in the morning each day and came back in the early afternoon. We lived on fish. I’m a fish-mullah, I like plaice, jellied eels, Dover sole and middle skate. My poor old mum used to fry fish night and day, she was always at the gas stove.
I was born in Gifford St, Hoxton. There were five of us, four girls and one boy, and we lived in a little three bedroom house. My mother Grace, her life was cooking, washing and housework. She didn’t know anything else.
When my sister Amelia was born, she was so small they laid her in a drawer and we called her ‘Doll Doll.’ They put her in the Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital when she had rheumatic fever and she didn’t go to school because of that. She was happy-go-lucky, she was my Doll Doll.
One day, when she was at school, there was an air raid and all the children hid under the tables. They saw a man’s legs walk in and Doll Doll cried out, ‘That’s my dad!’ and her friend asked, ‘How do you recognise him?’ and Doll Doll said, ‘Because he has such shiny shoes.’ He took Doll Doll and said to the teacher, ‘My daughter’s not coming to school any more.’
I was dressmaking from when I left school at fourteen. My first job was at C&A in Shepherdess Walk but I didn’t like it, so I told my mum and left. I left school at Easter and the war came in August. After that, I didn’t go to work at all for five years. Then I went to work in Bishopsgate sewing soldiers’ trousers, I didn’t like that much either so I stayed at home.
Doll Doll and I, we used to love going to Hoxton Hall for concerts every Saturday. It cost threepence a ticket and there was a man called Harry Walker who’d sling you out if you didn’t behave. Afterwards, we’d go to a stall outside run by my uncle and he’d give us sixpence, and we’d go and buy pie and mash and go home afterwards – and that was our Saturday night. We used to go there in the week too and do gym and see plays.
On Friday nights, we’d go to the mission at Coster’s Hall and they’d give you a jug of cocoa and a biscuit, and the next week you’d get a jug of soup. It didn’t cost anything. We used to go there when we were hungry. In the school holidays, we went down to Tower Hill Beach and we’d cut through the market and see my dad, and he’d give us a few bob to buy ice cream.
Me and Doll Doll, we stayed at home with my mum and dad. The other three got married but I didn’t want to. I couldn’t find anybody that I liked, so I stayed at home with mummy and daddy, and I was quite happy with them. When they got old we cared for them at home, without any extra help, until they died. We had understanding guvnors and, Doll Doll and I took alternate weeks off work to care for them.
Doll Doll and I moved into the New Era Estate more than thirty years ago. In those days, it was only women and once, when my neighbour thought her boiler was going to explode, we called the fire brigade. Doll Doll leaned over the balcony and called, ‘Coo-ee, young man! Up here!’
We never went outside Hoxton much when we were young, but – when we grew up – Doll Doll and I went to Florida and Las Vegas. I finally settled down and I didn’t wander no more. I worked as a dressmaker at Blaines in Petticoat Lane for thirty-five years, until it closed forty years ago and I was made redundant.”
Doll Doll, Kitty and their mother Grace
Kitty in her flat in Hoxton
Doll Doll
Kitty places fresh flowers next to Doll Doll’s ashes each week
Kitty at a holiday chalet in Guernsey, 1960
Kitty Jennings with her friend and neighbour of sixteen years, Barbara Jezewska
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Remembering AS Jasper’s ‘A Hoxton Childhood’
Val Perrin’s Brick Lane
Photography has been a lifetime’s hobby for Val Perrin. Yet it is apparent from this selection of his pictures of Brick Lane Market, taken between 1970-72 and published here for the first time today, that he possesses a vision and ability which bears comparison with the Magnum photographers whose work he admired at that time.
While studying Medicine at University College, London, Val visited East End markets with members of the University Photographic Club, but Brick Lane drew his attention. Over the next two years, he returned alone and with fellow students, with whom he shared a flat in West Dulwich, to document the vibrant market life and surroundings of Brick Lane.
Born in Edgware, Val moved to live near Cambridge in 1976 and now photographs mainly wildlife and landscapes, but the eloquent collection of around a hundred photographs he took of Brick Lane in the early seventies comprises a significant and distinctive record of a lost era.
Photographs copyright © Val Perrin
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Friederike Huber, Book Designer
Friederike Huber by Patricia Niven
You may not be aware that there is a common sensibility which links four out of the five books I published in the past eighteen months. It is that of Designer, Friederike Huber, who has been responsible for devising the formats, and selecting and sequencing the pictures in each of these photography titles superlatively. Yet the irony of Friederike’s work is that she hopes you will not notice it at all.
Fred – as she is affectionately known by everyone that works with her – has taught me that it makes all the difference in the world how you place photographs in order. While most photographers will admit they cannot select their own images, Fred has an infallible eye which tells her which pictures to pick and how to arrange them. When you look at the books she has designed, it appears natural, even inevitable, which picture follows another in sequence and which picture is small and which is large. When all these decisions are made correctly, the book flows like a piece of music and the balance of pictures and white space, modulated by the turning pages, becomes something greater than the sum of its parts.
Such is Fred’s talent that I never make any prescriptive brief, I simply ask her to design a book that is the best manifestation of the material in hand and I know she will produce something wonderful. Apart from Spitalfields Nippers, in each case there was a living photographer with a collection of pictures and it was Fred who worked with Colin O’Brien, Phil Maxwell and Bob Mazzer to arrive at the ideal selection of their photographs. This is why these books all turned out so distinctive and so different from each other, because the form and style of each book reflects the diverse visions of the respective photographers – and thus is also testimony to Fred’s remarkable lack of ego.
Obviously, none of these compliments are in any way influenced by the fact that Fred always has a plate of delicious Portuguese pastries on her table whenever I go to a meeting at her house with a photographer. Once I have made the introductions, I leave them to it. I get the treat of seeing the cover and sample pages but – for the most part – I am not party to the intimate emotional drama of photographer and editor, and this suits me very well because the photographers are in expert hands and I know the outcome will be exemplary.
These days Fred works upon a continuous chain of commissions at home, in the modest house and garden that she shares with her two daughters, designing books in a small room off the living room while family life revolves around her. Curious to learn how she became one of the most-respected Book Designers, I paid Fred a visit recently and she talked to me about the evolution of her work, while I ate Portuguese pastries.
“In 1991, I did a Foundation Course at what was then called the City Poly in Aldgate and I remember photographing ‘OPEN’ signs in shops Brick Lane that were closed down.
When I graduated in Graphic Design from Central St Martin in 1996, I worked for a lot of different design companies, but then I showed my portfolio to the Art Director at Random House and she gave me a cover to do, and I just continued doing covers for them until 1999 when I became designer for their Pimlico list. Doing book covers took over and I realised what a beautiful thing it is to create books. It was a really nice time and Will Sulkin was a good editor to work for.
I was still working freelance and in those days they had so much space that I could always go into the office and there was a spare desk and computer where I could work. I remember going in there and sitting at the keyboard with my daughter Lottie strapped to my chest. Between 1999 and 2005, I did a lot of covers but then I was approached by Mark Holborn to design the inside of a book and I worked closely with him on the Don McCullin books, In England, Southern Frontiers and In Africa. I learned so much from him about editing and sequencing. The books were supervised by him but I did the layout and design. It was about paying attention to the book as a whole, not just the cover and inside. That was when I discovered my love of doing photography books.
When I worked with Bob Mazzer on Underground, he brought prints of all his photographs and we spread them out on the floor. He said, ‘I don’t know what to do with all these pictures.’ So I said, ‘Let’s sort them by colour.’ We realised that a lot of the groupings coincided with the colours of the different tube lines and that structure carried through into the sequence of pictures in the book. Now with Colin O’Brien, I worked with two screens and had everything on the computer. In Colin’s Travellers Children in London Fields, I arranged the photographs so that a child who is in one picture is also there in the next, telling a story with the pictures. Phil Maxwell supplied me with hundreds of his pictures of Brick Lane in chronological order and we chose to arrange them in the book without any white space to evoke the intensity of images you encounter when you walk up Brick Lane.
I recognise a great responsibility to show the photographers’ work to the best advantage and I feel I get very close to these pictures. It’s very intense and I forget time while I am working. It’s like you want to extract the personality of the photographer and show that to the readers, and give them a way into this life and these photographs. Sometimes you can show a photographer things in their own work that they haven’t seen before. It’s about taking it away and giving it back, and I can see they need to really trust me – and I’m glad they do.
I take big care of things and I take a long time. I’m slow because you can’t rush these things.
It’s not a job for someone with a big ego.”
Fred Huber’s cover design for Travellers’ Children in London Fields
Fred Huber & Colin O’Brien at Aldgate Press by Alex Pink
Fred Huber’s cover design for Brick Lane
Phil Maxwell’s photograph which featured on the cover of his book
Double page spread from Brick Lane
Fred Huber’s cover design for Underground
Bob Mazzer’s photograph which featured on the cover of his book
Double page spread from Underground
Bob Mazzer’s pictures spread out on Fred’s living room floor
Fred supervises the printing of the cover for Underground at Butler & Tanner
Bob Mazzer & Fred Huber at Butler & Tanner by Arthur Mazzer
Fred Huber’s cover for Spitalfields Nippers
Fred Huber by Patricia Niven
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At The Christmas Eve Meat Auction
I am publishing my account of when Colin O’Brien & I went along to the Smithfield Christmas Eve Meat Auction as a timely reminder for those who have yet to bag a roast for the big day next week
The carnivores of London converged upon Smithfield Market, as they do every year for the annual Christmas Eve auction staged by Harts the Butcher. At ten in the morning, the rainy streets were almost empty yet, as I came through Smithfield, butchers in white overalls were wheeling precarious trolleys top-heavy with meat and fowls over to the site of the auction where an expectant crowd of around a hundred had gathered, anxiously clutching wads of banknotes in one hand and bags to carry off their prospective haul in the other.
Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien met me there. He grew up half a mile away in Clerkenwell during the nineteen fifties and, although it was his first time at the auction, he remembered his father walking down to Smithfield to get a cheap turkey on Christmas Eve more than sixty years ago. Overhearing this reminiscence, a robust woman standing next to us in the crowd struck up a conversation as a means to relieve the growing tension before the start of the auction which is the highlight of the entire year for many of stalwarts that have been coming for decades.
“You can almost guarantee getting a turkey,” she reassured us with the authority of experience, revealing she had been in attendance for fifteen successive years. Then, growing visibly excited as a thought came into her mind, “Last year, I got thirty kilos of sirloin steak for free – I tossed for it!”, she confided to us, turning unexpectedly flirtatious. Colin and I stood in silent wonder at her good fortune with meat.“We start preparing in October by eating all the meat in the freezer,” she explained, to clarify the situation. “Last night we had steak,” she continued, rubbing her hands in gleeful anticipation, “and steak again tonight.”
Yet our acquaintance was terminated as quickly as it began when the caller appeared in a blood-stained white coat and red tie to introduce the auction. A stubby bullet-headed man, he raised his hands graciously to quell the crowd. “This is a proper English tradition,” he announced, “it has been going on for the last five hundred years. And I’m going to make sure everybody goes away with something and I’m here to take your money.”
His words drew an appreciative roar from the crowd as dozens of eager hands were thrust in the air waving banknotes, indicative of the collective blood lust that gripped the assembly. Standing there in the midst of the excitement, I realised that the sound I could hear was an echo. It was a reverberation of the famously uproarious Bartholomew Fair which flourished upon this site from the twelfth century until it was suppressed for public disorder in 1855. Yesterday, the simple word “Hush!” from the caller was enough to suppress the mob as he queried, “What are we going to start with?”
The answer to his question became manifest when several bright pink loins of pork appeared as if by magic in the hatch beside him, held by butchers beneath, and dancing jauntily above the heads of the delighted audience like hand puppets. These English loins of pork were soon dispatched into the crowd at twenty pounds each as the curtain warmer to the pantomime that was to come, followed by joints of beef for a tenner preceding the star attraction of day – the turkeys! – greeted with festive cheers by the hungry revellers. “Mind your heads, turkeys coming over…” warned the butcher as the turkeys in their red wrappers set out crowd-surfing to their grateful prospective owners as the cash was passed hand to hand back to the stand.
It would not be an understatement to say that mass hysteria had overtaken the crowd, yet there was another element to add to the chaos of the day. As the crowd had enlarged, it spilled over into the road with cars and vans weaving their through the overwrought gathering. “I love coming for the adventure of it,” declared one gentleman with hair awry, embracing a side of beef protectively as if it was the love of his life, “Everyone helps one another out here. You pass the money over and there’s no pickpockets.”
After the turkeys came the geese, the loins of lamb, the ribs of beef, the pork bellies, the racks of lamb, the fillet steaks and the green gammon to complete the bill of fare. As the energy rose, butchers began to throw pieces of red meat into the crowd to be caught by their purchasers and it was surreal to watch legs of lamb and even suckling pigs go flying into the tumultuous mass of people. Finally, came tossing for meat where customers had the chance of getting their steaks for free if they guessed the toss correctly, and each winning guess was greeted with an exultant cheer because by then the butchers and the crowd were as one, fellow participants in a boisterous party game.
Just ninety minutes after it began, the auction wrapped up, leaving the crowd to consolidate their proud purchases, tucking the meat and fowls up snugly in suitcases and backpacks to keep them safe until they could be stowed away in the freezer at home. In the disorder, I saw piles of bloody meat stacked on the muddy pavement where people were tripping over them. Yet a sense of fulfilment prevailed, everyone had stocked up for another year – their carnivorous appetites satiated – and they were going home to eat meat.
As I walked back through the narrow City streets, I contemplated the spectacle of the morning. It resembled a Bacchanale or some ancient pagan celebration in which people were liberated to pursue their animal instincts. But then I realised that my thinking was too complicated – it was Christmas I had witnessed.
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
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