David Prescott Of Commercial St
David standing outside 103 Commercial St in the mid-sixties
David Prescott was not at all surprised to see the empty space behind the Fruit & Wool Exchange when he returned to Spitalfields last week, because he used to play football in the empty parking lot there in the sixties before the construction of the multi-story car park which has just been demolished. Growing up in the large flat above the market at 103 Commercial St, with school and the family business nearby, David had run of the neighbourhood and he found it offered an ideal playground.
One day in the sixties, David leaned out of the window and made his mark by spraying painting onto a flower in the terracotta frieze upon the front of the nineteenth century market building. Astonishingly, the white-painted flower is still clearly discernible in Commercial St half a century later, indicating the centre of David’s childhood world.
No wonder then that David chose to keep returning to his home territory, working in the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market until it closed in 1991. These days, he is amazed at the changes since he lived and worked here but – as long as the white-painted flower remains on Commercial St – for David, Spitalfields remains the location of his personal childhood landscape.
“Albert, my grandfather, ran fruit & vegetable shops down in Belvedere, and he used to come up to Spitalfields Market with his horse and cart to buy produce. So my father ‘Bert and his brother Reg decided to start a business in a little warehouse in Tenterground. Upstairs, there were prostitutes and men in bowler hats would come over from the City and look around, circumspect, before going upstairs.
They traded as R A Prescott, which was the initials of the two brothers, Reginald & Albert, but also my grandfather’s initials – which meant they could say they had been going over a hundred years already. They started in Spitalfields in 1952 but, when I was born in 1954, my father took the flat over the market at 103 Commercial St opposite the Ten Bells. Mickey Davis, who ran the shelter at the Fruit & Wool Exchange during the war lived in the flat below, but he had died in 1953 so we just knew his wife and two daughters.
I went to St Joseph’s School in Gun St and I loved it because all my friends lived nearby, in Gun St and Flower & Dean St, and I went to the youth club at Toynbee Hall. I used to walk through the market and everyone knew me – and since my sister, Sylvia, was six years older, they always teased – asking, ‘Where’s your sister?’
We never locked the doors except when we went to bed at night. One day, we came home and found a woman asleep in the living room and my dad sent her on her way. I used to climb up out from our flat and take my dog for a walk across the roof of the market, until the market police shouted at me and put up barbed wire to stop me doing it. Our mums and dads didn’t know what we were up to half the time. We made castles inside the stacks of empty wooden boxes that had been returned to the market.
I remember there was was a guy with a large bump on his head who used to shout and chase us. It would start on Brick Lane and end up in Whitechapel. There was another guy with a tap on his head and one who was shell-shocked. These poor guys, it was only later we realised that they had mental problems.We threw tomatoes, and we put potatoes on wires and spun them fast to let them fly.
In 1966, me and my pal Alan Crockett were in ‘The London Nobody Knows.’ They said, ‘Do you want to be in a film? We want you to run down the street and pile into a fight.’
My dad died of lung cancer when I was fifteen in 1969, but my mum was able to stay on in the flat. He got ill in April and died in August in St Joseph’s Hospice in Mare St. I left school and went to work with my uncle. By then, Prescotts had moved over to 38 Spital Sq. They weren’t part of the market, they supplied catering companies with peeled potatoes and they bought a machine to shell peas and were the first to offer them already podded. I worked with my elder brother Michael too, he set up on his own at 57 Brushfield St, but then he moved to Barnhurst in Kent and bought a three bedroom house. I became a van boy at Telfers, I used to leave home at half past two in the morning to get to Greenwich where they had a yard, by three to start work.
In 1972, we left the flat in Spitalfields and moved to a house in Kingston, and I worked for Hawker Siddley – they trained me as an engineer. But I missed the market so much, I had to come back. I got a job with Chiswick Fruits in the Fruit & Wool Exchange and then I went back to Prescotts. I was working at the Spitalfields Market in 1991 when they moved out to Leyton, but it was’t the same there and, by 2000, I’d had enough of the market. In those days, you could walk out of one job and straight into another. I must have had thirty to forty jobs.“
R A Prescott of 38 Spital Sq
David as a baby at 103 Commercial St in 1955
David at five years old at his brother Michael’s wedding in Poplar in 1959
David with his mum, Kathleen, playing with the dog in the yard at the back of the market flat
David’s sister Sylvia, who went to St Victoire’s Grammar School in Victoria Park
David is centre right in the front row at St Joseph’s School, Gun St
In 1966, David and his pal Alan Crockett were in ‘The London Nobody Knows.’ This shot shows Alan (leading) and David (behind) running down Lolesworth St.
Christmas at 103 Commercial St in 1967
David’s mother Kathleen and his father ‘Bert on holiday in 1968
David stands on the far right at his sister Sylvia’s wedding at St Anne’s, Underwood Rd, in 1964
David leaned out of his window and sprayed paint onto this flower in 1964
Looking south across the Spitalfields Market
Spitalfields Market empty at the weekend
Spital Sq after the demolition of Central Foundation School
The Flower Market at Spitalfields Market
From the roof of Spitlafields Flower Market looking towards Folgate St
Clearing out on the last day of the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market in 1991
David stands in the Spitalfields Market today beneath the window that was once his childhood bedroom
You may also like to read about
At Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club
Spitalfields Life contributing photographer, Lucinda Douglas-Menzies became fascinated by the Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club while out walking in the park. Over successive Sundays, her interest grew as she went back to watch the regattas, meet the members and learn the story of the oldest model boat club in the world, founded in 1904. Her photographic essay records the life of this society of gentle enthusiasts, many of whom have been making and racing boats on this lake for generations, updating the designs and means of propulsion for their intricate craft in accordance with the evolution of maritime vessels over more than a century. Starting on Easter Sunday, the club holds as many as seventeen regattas annually.
“Meet you at ten o’clock Sunday morning at the boating lake!” was the eager response of Norman Lara, the chairman, when Lucinda rang to enquire about his club. “On the morning I arrived, a group of about a dozen model boat enthusiasts were already settled in chairs by the water’s edge with a variety of handmade boats on display.” explained Lucinda, who was treated to a tour of the clubhouse by Norman. “We are very lucky, one of the few clubs to have this. Tower Hamlets are very good to us, they keep the weeds down in the lake and last year we were given a loo.” he said, adding dryly, “It only took a hundred years to get one.”
Meanwhile, the members had pulled on their waders and were preparing their vessels at the water’s edge, before launching them onto the sparkling lake. Here Norman introduced Lucinda to Keith Reynolds, the club secretary, who outlined the specific classes of model boat racing with the precision of an authority, “There are five categories of “straight running” boats. These include functional, scale boats (fishing boats, cabin cruisers, etc), scale ships (warships, cruise boats, liners,merchant ships, liners, merchant ships – boats on which you could sustain life for more than seven days), metre boats (with strict rules of engine size and length) and – we had to create a special category for this one – called “the wedge,” basically a boat made of three pieces of wood with no keel, ideal for children to start on.” In confirmation of this, as Lucinda looked around, she saw children accompanied by their parents and grandparents, each generation with their boats of varying sophistication and period design, according to their owners’ experience and age.
Readers of Model Engineering Magazine were informed in 1907 that “the Victoria Park Model Steam Boat Club were performing on a Saturday afternoon before an enormous public of small boys who asked, ‘What’s it go by mister?'” It is a question that passersby still ask today, now that additional racing classes have been introduced for radio controlled boats with petrol engines and even hydroplanes.
“We have around sixty members,” continued Keith enthusiastically, “but we could with some more, as a lot don’t sail their boats any longer, they just enjoy turning up for a chat. It’s quiet today, but you should come back next Sunday to our steam rally when the bank will be thick with owners who bring their boats from all over. Some are so big they run on lawn mower engines!”
It was an invitation that Lucinda could not resist and she was rewarded with a spectacle revealing more of the finer points of model boat racing. She discovered that “straight running,” which Keith had referred to, is when one person launches a boat with a fixed rudder along a course (usually sixty yards long) where another waits at the scoring gates to catch the vessel. The closer to a straight course your boat can follow, the more points you win, defined by a series of gates around a central white gate, which scores a bull’s-eye of ten points if you can sail your boat through it. On either side of the white gate are red, yellow and orange gates each with a diminishing score, because the point of the competition is to discover whose boat can follow the truest course.
Witnessing this contest, Lucinda realised that – just like still water concealing deep currents – as well as having extraordinary patience to construct these beautiful working models, the members of the boat club also possess fiercely competitive natures. This is the paradox of sailing model boats, which appears such a lyrical pastime undertaken in the peace and quiet of the boating lake, yet when so much investment of work and ingenuity is at stake (not to mention hierarchies of individual experience and different generations in competition), it can easily transform into a drama that is as intense as any sport has to offer.
Lucinda’s photographs capture this subtle theatre adroitly, of a social group with a shared purpose and similar concerns, both mutually supportive and mutually competitive, who all share a love of the magic of launching their boats upon the lake on Sundays in Summer. It is an activity that conjures a relaxed atmosphere – as, for over a century, walkers have paused at the lakeside to chat in the sunshine, watching as boats are put through their paces on the water and scrutinising the detail of vessels laid upon the shore, before continuing on their way.
Photographs copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Old Mother Hubbard & Her Wonderful Dog
Courtesy of Jemmy Catnach of Catnach Press, it is my pleasure to publish this early nineteenth century shaggy dog tale of the devoted Mother Hubbard – believed to be by Sarah Catherine Martin
You may also like to read about
Libby Hall, Collector of Dog Photography
Hop Picking Photographs
Follwing my profile of Roy Wild, Hop Picker, it is my pleasure to publish this selection of favourite Hop Picking photographs from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Traditionally, this was the time when East Enders headed down to the Hop Farms, embracing the opportunity of a breath of country air and earning a few bob too.
Bill Brownlow, Margie Brownlow, Terry Brownlow & Kate Milchard, with Keith Brownlow & Kevin Locke in front, at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1958. Guinness bought land at Bodiam in 1905 and eight hundred acres were devoted to hop growing at its peak.
Julie Mason, Ted Hart, Edward Hart & friends at Hoathleys Farm, Hook Green, near Lamberhurst, Kent
Lou Osbourn, Derek Protheroe & Kate Day at Goudhurst Farm
Margie Brownlow & Charlie Brownlow with Keith Brownlow, Kate Milchard & Terry Brownlow in front at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1950
Mr & Mrs Gallagher with Kitty Adams & Jackie Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1959
Jackie Harrop, Joan Day & George Rogers at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Mag Day (on the left at the back) in the hop gardens with others at Highwood’s Farm, Collier St, in 1938
Pop Harrop at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Sarah Watt, Mrs Hopkins, Steven Allen, Ann Allen, Tom, Albert Allen & Sally Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1943
Harry Watt, Tom Shuffle, Mary Shuffle, Sally Watt, Julie Callagher, Ada Watt & Sarah Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Harry Watt, Sally Watt, Sarah Watt holding Terry Ellames in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1957
Harry Ayres, a pole puller, in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Emmie Rist, Theresa Webber, Kit Webber & Eileen Ayres in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Kit Webber with her Aunt Mary, her Dad Sam Webber and her Mum, Emmie Ris,t in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Harry Ayres with his wife Kit Webber in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent.
Richard Pyburn, Mag Day, Patty Seach and Kitty Gray from Kirks Place, Limehouse, in the hop gardens at Highwoods Farm, Collier St, Kent
The Gorst and Webber families at Jack Thompsett’s Farm, Fowle Hall, Kent in the forties
Kitty Waters with sons Terry & John outside the huts at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1952
Mr & Mrs Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, with their grandchildren in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1958
Sybil Ogden, Doris Cossey, Danny Tyrrell & Sally Hawes near Yalding, Kent
John Doree, Alice Thomas, Celia Doree & Mavis Doree in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
Bill Thomas & his wife Annie, in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
The Castleman Family from Poplar hop picking in the twenties
Terry & Margie Brownlow at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam in Sussex in 1949
Alfie Raines, Johnny Raines, Charlie Cushway, Les Benjamin & Tommy Webber in the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent
Lal Outram, Wag Outram & Mary Day on the common at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent in 1955
Taken in September 1958 at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent. Sitting on the bin is Miss Whitby with Patrick Mahoney, young John Mahoney and Sheila Tarling (now Mahoney) – Sheila & Patrick were picking to save up for their engagement party in October
Maryann Lowry’s Nan, Maggie ,on the left with her Great-Grandmother, Maryann, in the check shirt in the hop gardens, c.1910
Having a rest in hop gardens at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1966. In the back row are Mary Brownlow, Sean Locke, Linda Locke, Kate Milchard, Chris Locke & Margie Brownlow with Kevin Locke and Terry Locke in front.
Margie Brownlow & her Mum Kate Milchard at Whitbreads Farm in Beltring, Kent in 1967. These huts were two stories high. The children playing outside are – Timmy Kaylor, Chrissy Locke, Terry Locke, Sean Locke, Linda Locke & Kevin Locke.
Chris Locke, Sally Brownlow, Linda Brownlow, Kate Milchard, Margie Brownlow, Terry Locke & Mary Brownlow at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1962
Johnno Mahoney, Superintendant of the Caretakers on the Bancroft Estate in Stepney, driving the “Mahoney Special” at Five Oak Green in 1947
The Clarkson family in the hop gardens in Staplehurst. Gladys Clarkson , Edith Clarkson, William Clarkson, Rose Clarkson & Henry Norris.
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
Kate Fairclough, Mrs Callaghan, Mary Fairclough & Iris Fairclough at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1972
A gang of Hoppers from Wapping outside the brick huts at Stilstead Farm, Tonbridge, Kent with Jim Tuck & John James in the back. In the middle row the first person on the left is unknown, but the others are Rose Tuck, holding Terry Tuck, Rose Tuck, Danny Tuck & Nell Jenkins. In the front are Alan Jenkins, Brian Tuck, Pat Tuck, Jean Tuck, Terry Taylor & Brian Taylor.
Nanny Barnes, Harriet Hefflin, “Minie” Mahoney & Patsy Mahoney at Ploggs Hall Farm
In the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent in the late forties. Alfie Raines, Edie Cooper, Margie Gorst & Lizzie Raines
The Day family from Kirks Place, Limehouse, at Highwoods Farm in Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Annie Smith, Bill Daniels, Pearl Brown & Nell Daniels waiting for the measurer in the Hop Garden at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent
On the common outside the huts at at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent – you can see the oasthouses in the distance. Rita Daniels, Colleen Brown, Maureen Brown, Marie Brown, Billy Daniels, Gerald Brown & Teddy Hart , with Sylvie Mason & Pearlie Brown standing.
The Outram family from Arbour Sq outside their huts at Hubbles Farm, Hunton, Kent. Unusually these were detached huts but, like all the others, they made of corrugated tin and all had one small window – simply basic rooms, roughly eleven feet square
Janis Randall being held by her mother Joyce Lee andalongside her is her father, Alfred Lee in a hop garden, near Faversham in September 1950
David & Vivian Lee sitting on a log on the common outside Nissen huts used to house hop pickers
Gerald Brown, Billy Daniels & Dennis Woodham in the hop gardens at Gatehouse Farm near Brenchley, Kent, in the fifties
Nelly Jones from St Paul’s Way with Eileen Mahoney, and in the background is Eileen’s mum, “Minie” Mahoney. Taken in the fifties in the Hop Gardens at Ploggs Hall Farm, between Paddock Wood and Five Oak Green.
At Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent
Ploggs Hall Farm Ladies Football Team. Back Row – Fred Archer, Lil Callaghan, Harriet Jones, Unknown, Unknown, Nanny Barnes, Liz Weeks, Harriet Hefflin, Johnno Mahoney. Front Row – Doris Hurst Eileen Mahoney & Nellie Jones
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
The Outram and Pyburn families outside a Kent pub in 1957, showing clockwise Kitty Tyrrell, Mary Pyburn, Charlie Protheroe, Rene Protheroe, Wag Outram, Derek Protheroe in the pram, Annie Lazel, Tom Pyburn, Bill Dignum & Nancy Wright.
Sally Watt’s Hop Picker’s account book from Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
You may also like to take a look at
Roy Wild, Hop Picker
Yesterday, I returned to visit my pal Roy Wild from Hoxton who formerly worked in the Bishopsgate Good Yard and he told me about his days hopping in Kent, more than half a century ago
There is Roy on the right with his left hand stuck in his pocket, to indicate the appropriate air of nonchalance befitting a street-wise man of the world of around twelve years old, on a hopping expedition with his family from Hoxton.
Roy went hop picking each year with this relations until he reached the age of eighteen and, at this season, he always recalls his days in Kent. Still in touch with many of those who were there with him in the hop fields in the fifties, Roy was more than happy to get out his photographs and settle down with a cup of tea with a drop of whisky in it, and tell me all about it.
“I first went hopping with my family in 1948 when I was ten or eleven. We went to Selling near Faversham in Kent. The fields were owned by Alan Bruce Neame of Shepherd Neame, and he would employ people to pick the hops which he sold to breweries. We all lined up on the last day and he would pay each of us in person.
Some Londoners went by train from London Bridge St, all waiting on the station and carrying all their stuff with them. We were very fortunate, dad’s brother Ernie, he had an asphalt company and had an open backed lorry, for which he made a frame for a rain canopy, and we all went down to hopping together – our family, Ernie’s family, also Renee’s sister Mary and her family. Ernie would drive down to Hoxton and pick us up at Northport St, with all our bits and pieces, our bags and suitcases with bed linen and that type of thing, and away we’d all go down to Faversham. We’d go at the weekend, so we could spend a day unpacking and be ready to start picking on Monday.
There was us hop pickers from London but Neame would also employ ‘home-dwellers,’ these were Kentish people. The accommodation they lived in was far superior to what we were subjected to. We were given no more than Nissen huts, square huts made of corrugated iron with a door and that was about all, no windows. It was very, very primitive. We washed in a bowl of water and the toilet was a hole dug in a field. My mother would take old palliasses down with us from Hoxton and they would be stuffed with straw or hay from the barn, and that would our mattresses. The beds were made of planks, very basic and supported upon four logs to prop them up off the floor. You’d put the palliasses on top of the planks and the blankets on top of that. The huts were always running alive with creepy-crawlies, so anyone that had a phobia of that wasn’t really suited to hop picking.
There was another room next to it which was half the size, this was our kitchen. My dad would take down an old primus stove for cooking. It was fuelled by paraffin and the more you pumped it up the fiercer the flame, the quicker the cooking. It was only a small thing that sat on a box. The alternative to that was cooking outside. The farmer would provide bundles of twigs known as ‘faggots,’ to fuel the fire and we would rig up a few bricks with a grill where we’d put the kettle and a frying pan. They’d literally get pot-black in the smoke.
We usually went from three weeks to a month hop picking, sometimes the whole of September, and you could stay on for fruit picking. When we first started, we picked into a big long troughs of sacking hanging down inside a wooden frame. They were replaced by six bushel baskets. The tally man would come round with a cart to collect the six bushel baskets and mark your card with how much you had picked, before carrying the hops away to the oasthouses for drying.
At the time, we were paid one shilling and sixpence a bushel. You’d pick into a bushel basket while you were sitting with it between your legs and when it was full, you’d walk over to the six bushel basket and tip it in. My dad was a fast picker, he’d say ‘Come on Roy, do it a bit quicker!’ All your fingers got stained black by the the hops, we called it ‘hoppy hands.’
If you had children with you, they would mess about. Their parents would be rebuking them and telling them to get picking because the more you picked, the more you earned. Some people could get hold of a bine, pull the leaves off and, in one sweep, take all the hops off into the basket. Other people, to bulk up their baskets would put all kinds of things in there. they would put the bines at the bottom of the six bushel basket and nobody would know, but if you got caught then you was in trouble. My dad showed me how to fill a six bushel basket up to the five bushel level and then put your arms down inside to lift up the hops to the top just before the tally man came round.
The adults were dedicated pickers because you had to buy food all the time and being there could cost more money than you made. There was a little store near us called ‘Clinges’ and further up, just past the graveyard, was another store which was more modern called ‘Blythes’, and next door to that was a pub called the ‘White Swan’ and that was the release for all the hop pickers. They all used to go there on Saturday and Sunday nights and there’d be sing-songs and dancing, before going back to work on Monday morning. It was the only enjoyment you had down there, except – if you didn’t go up to the pub – you’d get all the familes sitting round of a weekend and reminiscing and singing songs, round a big open fire made up of the faggots
We worked from nine o’clock until about four, Monday to Friday. The owner of the hop fields employed guys to work for him who were called ‘Pole Pullers,’ they had big long poles with a sharp knife on the end and when you pulled a bine, if it didn’t come down, you’d call out for a pole puller and with his big long pole he’d cut the top of it and the rest if it would fall down. When it was nearing four o’clock, they’d call out ‘Pull no more bines!’ which was what all the kids were waiting for because by this time they’d all had just about enough. A hop field can be one muddy place and if you’re in among all that with wellingtons on it can get pretty sticky. If it was ready to rain, the pole pullers would also go round and call ‘Pull no more bines.’ Nobody was expected to work outside in the rain. We dreaded the rain but we welcomed the pole pullers when they called out, because that was the day’s work done until the following morning.
We looked forward to going hop picking because it was the chance of an adventure in the country. It was just after the war and we’d had it rough in Hoxton. I was born in 1937 and I’d grown up through the war, and we still had ration books for a long time afterwards. I was a young man in the fabulous fifties and the swinging sixties. In the fifties, we had American music and Elvis Presley, and in the sixties the Beatles and British music. Hop picking was being mechanised, they had invented machines that could do it. So we grew away from it, and young men and young women had better things to do with their time.”
Roy stands in the centre of this family group
Renee Wild and Rosie Wild
Picking into a six bushel basket
Roy’s father Andy Wild rides in the cart with his brother Ernie
Roy’s grandfather Andrew Wild is on the far left of this photo
Roy is on the far right of this group
Roy sits in the left in the front of this picture
Rosie, Mary & Renee
Roy’s father Andy Wild with Roy’s mother Rosie at the washing up and Pearl
Roy’s mother, Rosie Wild
Renee, Mary & Pearl
Roy’s father Andy stands on the left and his Uncle Ernie on the right
Roy
Roy (with Trixie) and Tony sit beside their mother Rosie
Roy’s mother and father with his younger brother Tony
Roy stands on the right of this group of his pals
You may also like to read about
King Of The Bottletops At The Farm
For a second summer, Robson Cezar, widely known as King of the Bottletops has been artist-in-residence at Spitalfields City Farm, and so Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & I went along to see what he has been up to this year.
In recent weeks, visitors of all ages to the farm have been sorting bottle caps collected from the pubs of Spitalfields into all their separate colours, which Robson has supplemented by using a stick with a magnet on the end to harvest those left behind by the weekend revellers in Allen Gardens.
This summer, Robson has made a large house like those in Spitalfields, using six thousand bottle caps, which has been installed on the fence overlooking the children’s play area in Allen Gardens and twenty-six panels comprising the letters of the alphabet. All these works are currently on display at the farm and you are encouraged to make a visit and take a look for yourself.
Installing the bottletop house at the far
A Spitalfields house made of six thousand bottletops
The playground on Allen Gardens with the bottle top house in the background
Robson Cezar’s studio at the farm
Collecting discarded bottletops with a magnetic stick on Allen Gardens
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
Spitalfields City Farm, Buxton St, E1 5AR
You may also like to read about
Robson Cezar, King of the Bottletops
Barge Racing On The Thames Estuary
Barge racing season on the Thames Estuary
Crossing the marshes beyond Faversham at night, heading towards Oare Creek, my heart leapt in anticipation to see the mast of the Thames Sailing Barge Repertor outlined against the last fading light in a sky of gathering clouds. They were harbingers of a storm that woke me in my cabin with thunder and lightning, though when I woke next morning as the engine started up and the barge slid off down the creek towards the open sea, a shaft of sunlight descended through the skylight. Yet even this was short lived, with soft rain descending as we skirted the Kent Marshes towards the starting line of the Swale Sailing Barge Match.
Originally established by Henry Dodds in 1863, the annual Sailing Barge races that take place each summer around the Thames Estuary were once opportunities for commercial rivalry in the days when arriving first to pick up cargo meant winning the business. Their continuation in the present day manifests the persistence of the maritime culture that once defined these riverside communities. On Repertor, skipper David Pollock was assisted by three local gentlemen in his crew – Dennis Pennell, Brian Weaver and Doug Powell – who I believe would not be averse to being described as ‘sea dogs.’ Dennis and Brian went to school together in Faversham and all began their long nautical careers working on these Sailing Barges when they ran commercially – and today David enjoys the benefit of their collective knowledge.
An experienced skipper in his own right, David is a veteran of this race with several notable success and was eager to distinguish himself again this year. Picking up speed upon approaching the starting line, we were surrounded by a scattering of other brown-sailed Thames Sailing Barges and attended by a variety of traditional Thames sailing vessels including Smacks and Bawleys that have their own classes within the race. The sun broke through again, dismissing the tail-end of the rain and, even as we set out upon the green ocean, there was a line of Sailing Barges that extended ahead and behind us upon the sparkling water.
For an inexperienced sailor like myself, this was an overwhelming experience – deafened by the roar and crash of the waves and the relentless slap that the wind makes upon the sail, dazzled by the reflected sunlight and buffeted by the wind which became the decisive factor of the day. The immense force of the air propelled the vast iron hull, skimming forward through the swell at an exhilarating speed, yet required immense dexterity from the crew to keep the sail trimmed and manage the switch of the mainsail from one side to the other, accompanied by the raising and lifting of the great iron ‘leeboards’ – which serve as keels to prevent the flat bottomed barge capsizing while sailing upwind.
Thus, a routine was quickly established whenever David Pollock turned the vessel into the wind, calling “Ready about!” – the instruction to wind up the leeward leeboard and switch the mainsail from one side to the other. As soon as this was accomplished, David yelled “Let draw!” – the order to drop the leeboard on the opposite side and release the foresail. This ritual demanded a furious hauling of ropes and winding of the windlass, accompanied by the loud clanging of the iron tether as it slid along a pole that traversed the deck, known as the ‘horse.’ Meanwhile, wary passengers ducked their heads as the sail swung from one side to the other, accompanied by the sudden tilting of the entire deck in the reverse direction.
Before long, we were weaving our course among other Sailing Barges, running in parallel along the waves and slowly edging forward of our rivals, while in front of us some larger vessels were already pulling ahead in the strong wind. Running downwind, these vessels gained an advantage of speed and once we passed the buoy at the turning point of the five hour race, we gained the counter-advantage of manoeuvrability, tacking upwind. Yet by then it was too late to overtake those ahead, but it did not stop David and his crew working tirelessly as we zig-zagged back through the afternoon towards the Swale Estuary, taking sustenance of fruit cake and permitting distraction only from a dozen seals basking upon a sand bank.
Observing these historic vessels in action, and witnessing the combination of skill and physical exertion of a crew of more than eight, left me wondering at those men who once worked upon them, sailing with just a skipper, a mate and a boy.
On two past occasions when less wind prevailed, David and Repertor won the Swale Match, yet no-one was disappointed, making their way up Faversham Creek to the prize-giving on Saturday night at The Shipwrights’ Arms. With more matches to come before the end of the season, and after a strong performance in the Swale match, David Pollock and the crew of Repertor still had the opportunity of winning the Barge Championship – though, after my day on board, I can assure you that the joy of sailing such a majestic vessel was more than reward enough.
David Pollock, Skipper of Sailing Barge Repertor
Lady of the Lea, a smaller river barge designed for a tributary
Dennis Pennell – “I worked on the barges when I was still a boy….”
Brian Weaver – “I’m seventy-five and I started at nine, in the days when the Thames Barges still worked out of Faversham.”
Doug Powell – “I’ve been a sailor since I was thirteen.”
Return to Oare Creek
The day ended with prize-giving at The Shipwrights’ Arms, Faversham
Click here if you would like to take a trip on Thames Sailing Barge ‘Repertor’
You may also like to read about
