So Long, Lennie Saunders
I publish my profile of Lennie Saunders today as a tribute to a celebrated East Ender, native of Padbury Court and lifelong member of the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club who died last week on 6th August at the fine age of ninety-four
If you were regularly around Arnold Circus on a Sunday morning in recent years, you may very likely have seen Lennie Sanders upon his regular pilgrimage, coming on the 67 bus from Stamford Hill to sit upon the first bench on the left beneath the bandstand, the one donated by the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club. He was born ninety-four years ago in Padbury Court nearby, close to where his wife Annie grew up on the Boundary Estate, and, when they first married, they lived in Cookham Buildings where their son Roy was born. Lennie confided to me that it consoled him – once Annie and Roy were no longer alive – to return to Arnold Circus on Sunday and sit in quiet contemplation of those years which brought him so much happiness.
“My mother was a very religious woman and she used to bring her friends back from church for sandwiches on a Sunday evening,” Lennie informed me, introducing his story, “But my father was quite the opposite, he used to come home when the pub shut on Sunday night and say, ‘You lot, out!”
As we walked over to Padbury Court (known as Princes Court when Lennie was growing up as the youngest of nine) he paused constantly to point out all the things that existed for him but which were no longer there. “I used to know everybody but now I am a foreigner here,” he declared to me, breaking from his reverie,“Everyone I knew has moved to Stamford Hill.”
“I’m always happy when I’m here, because I feel as if I am back home.” Lennie continued, regaining his absorption as we turned the corner from Brick Lane into Padbury Court, halting for a moment of devotion at the site of the terrace on the north side where he grew up, demolished half a century ago. Further along, where the road becomes Gibraltar Walk, and passing the old furniture workshops, we came to the junction with the Bethnal Green Rd where the event took place which Lennie considered to be the turning point in his childhood.
“We were skylarking at the water fountain and someone pushed me and my arm went underneath me and broke. They carried me to the Mildmay Mission who said they couldn’t do anything, so my father took me in a taxi to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, where they were going to cut it off,” Lennie related, rolling his eyes for effect and twisting his arm to demonstrate what happened, “but my father asked his governor, Mr Jackson at the compositing works,”They’re talking about cutting my son’s arm off!” And Mr Jackson sent his surgeon, he said, ‘He’ll patch it up.'”
“To be honest, I never knew my mother because she died when I was eight,” Lennie revealed with a shrug – moving on unexpectedly – and outlining the lengthy rehabilitation that preoccupied his attention in those years. A process compounded by the subsequent discovery that the accident had affected his hearing, which kept Lennie out of school for four years. “When my mother died, my father had a bad heart attack and couldn’t work no more,” Lennie added under his breath, amplifying the nature of the circumstances and lowering his eyelids in regret.
Then, one night in 1932, everything changed for Lennie when met his pal, Willy Greenhough, in the street and he said, “Where are you going? There’s this Jewish boys’ club, but they don’t bar anyone so we could go along there and get some cocoa.” It was a highly significant cup of cocoa because it led to membership of the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club and a circle of friendships that Lennie enjoyed for the rest of his life. “The only reason they dropped the word ‘Jewish’ from the name was because Mosley and his fellows used to come along and smash their windows – so they took it off,” Lennie explained to me wryly before asserting gravely, “The Jew and the Gentile were always very close in Bethnal Green.”
As it turned out, Lennie’s rehabilitation encouraged a love of sport and very soon he was leading the boys of the club in nightly runs down to Trafalgar Sq and back. “If they wasn’t very fit, I would let them wait at St Paul’s and join us again on the way back,” he confessed with an indulgent grin, “I was always a very fit boy.” Leaving school, Lennie went to work as one of more than a hundred Western Union messenger boys based in Great Winchester St in the City of London, which further exercised his athletic ability. “Mostly we delivered round the Stock Exchange, but sometimes we had to cycle to Shepherd’s Bush,” he recalled gleefully. In fact, Lennie played football and cricket at professional level for Clapton Orient, the club that became Leyton Orient. “My doctor kept going on about having my arm straightened, but I refused – I never made it a handicap.” he confirmed.
Much to Lennie’s regret, his poor hearing prevented him joining the Navy when the War came along and so, unable to enlist, he worked as glazier and then in demolition upon bomb sites, staying in London throughout the blitz. Memorably, he took his wife-to-be Annie Hiller up to the West End to see a film only to return to Shoreditch to discover an unexploded bomb was stuck in the chimney of the wash house on the Boundary Estate. “Annie couldn’t go home, so I took her back to Princes Court to meet my father for the first time,” Lennie confessed. In 1942, they were married and moved into Cookham Buildings where their son Roy was born two years later.
“I started cab-driving in 1946. My brother-in-law said ‘You already have the Knowledge from when you were a messenger boy.’ When I began, the cab was open, so you had to wear a hat and a big coat in winter. I did it for fifty-five years until I retired in 2000.” Lennie told me. It was in 1951, when Roy was ten, that the family moved to a two bedroom flat in Stamford Hill, where Lennie lived alone after Roy left home and Annie died, yet where seventy people attended his ninetieth birthday party.
Throughout our walk, Lennie cradled a bag of two cheese beigels which he had bought that morning in Brick Lane. Completing his story, he revealed that an old friend had recognised him in the crowd and called out to him, a recurring event on those Sunday visits to the market. “I get off the bus at Shoreditch High St, and I walk through Brick Lane and then back up towards Bethnal Green, and I go down my street, Padbury Court,” he recounted – as much to himself as to me – recapping our journey that morning.
Lennie & I shook hands at the top of Brick Lane before he went to catch the 67 bus for his return journey. “I’ll be alright, I’ll take it slowly,” he reassured me, taking one last affectionate look around, “I’ll go home and eat my beigels.”
Lennie Sanders
Lennie’s father Basil (he called himself George) with his dog Nobby in the garden of 7 Padbury Court.
Lennie’s mother Ellen wore an apron of sacking but put on a white one for this picture.
The north side of Padbury Court (known as Princes Court then) where Lennie was born in 1922.
Lennie in Padbury Court – the northern side was demolished over fifty years ago.
Lennie was the youngest, here aged four in 1926 photographed with (clockwise) Bunny, Eddie, George & Jess in the back garden of 7 Princes Court.
The family in 1928, Lennie stands at the centre aged six.
Lennie (in the white shirt) camping with the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club, 1936.
Lenny is number 87 in the club cross-country team.
Lennie at Cookham Buildings where he lived when he was first married and his son Roy was born.
Lennie and Annie with their son Roy in 1944.
Lennie Sanders, Cab Driver (1922-2015)
Read my other Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club Stories
Maxie Lea MBE, Football Referee
At the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club 86th Annual Reunion
Closed House Weekend
Stop The Blocks is staging a Closed House Weekend as a means to draw attention to the catalogue of contested sites in the East End. The aim is to highlight how public space is being closed for private profit, how new housing is excluding the majority of people, and the devastating effect this is having. If you would like to know more, join tomorrow’s walking tour meeting on Saturday 8th August at Whitechapel Station at 11am.
Click on this map to enlarge and print it out
Arnold Circus & The Boundary Estate
The Boundary Estate was the first Council housing estate in England and is Grade II listed. As well as being beautiful, it was designed so that every flat would receive sunlight at forty-five degrees to its windows, and the spaces between blocks are generous and the rooms are light. This contrasts with much of today’s high-density housing with its dark, single aspect apartments and poor standard of outside space. The Estate’s residents were behind the recent major improvements to the Circus, its gardens and bandstand.
The Balfron Tower
Built as Council housing, designed by Erno Goldfinger in 1963 and made a Grade II listed building in 1996, Balfron Tower is now being sold off by Poplar Housing & Regeneration Association. Current long-term residents are being forced to sell and moved out while the famous block is being fetishised in a sixties-style marketing campaign to attract private owners. The circumstances at Balfron Tower are a prime example of how social restructuring is devastating London’s working-class communities. Another layer of social division was added when artists renting emptied properties were co-opted tacitly into PR for the sell-off – a process that has become known as ‘art wash.’ For more information – Balfron Social Club
Bethnal Green Gas Holders
Soon nothing will stand on the banks of the canals and waterways to connect us with the East End’s industrial past as luxury apartments gain hold. Tower Hamlets and English Heritage have refused to protect and list the historic No.2 and No.5 Gas holders designed with classical detailing by Joseph Clark in 1886 and 1889, giving this part of the canal its strong character. For more information – East End Waterways Group
Bishopsgate Goodsyard
The proposed development is a faceless mega-complex of luxury residential towers that will cast giant shadows over the surrounding communities, stealing their light and giving nothing back to Shoreditch, Spitalfields & Brick Lane. Since 2002, the public has been excluded from the big plans for this public land, leased by Hammerson & Ballymore from owners Railtrack. ‘More Light More Power’ seeks to regain control, to promote inspirational and innovative development of the Goodsyard, with well-designed mid-rise buildings that offer liveable, affordable housing and small business workspace. It needs to be commercially viable, yet integrated with the surrounding neighbourhoods. For more information – More Light More Power
Chapman House, Bigland St, Shadwell
After he reported dangerous conditions at the nineteen-apartment block in Shadwell where he has lived for twenty-five years, Michael James’ landlord tried to evict him twice. After consulting a solicitor, it transpired Michael was an assured tenant but his landlord responded by increasing his rent by 70% – presumably to force him out by alternative means. In a desperate bid to stay in his home, Michael James contacted the Rent Assessment Committee, who, after inspecting the dilapidated flat, ruled only a 0.4% increase was merited. The landlord, a charity that owns around seventy properties and pays no tax, faces a six-figure repair bill following council inspections. Michael James now speaks out to encourage others to stand up to rogue landlords. For more information – Tower Hamlets Renters
Chrisp St Market, Poplar
‘Save Chrisp St Market’ is campaigning to inform local residents and traders about the proposed ‘regeneration’ of Chrisp St Market by Poplar Housing & Regeneration Association (HARCA). The plans include ‘luxury’ housing and stores, at the expense of shops and accommodation affordable for local people. Traders will be booted out for the period of redevelopment, or longer – if they cannot afford the increased rents. Traders say they have been left in the dark about the future of the market. Save Chrisp St intends to do their own consultation in parallel with Poplar HARCA’s, by going door-to-door asking people about what they would like to see for the area. So far, many people have said they want the market to be improved, but not at the cost of their ability to live there. Save Chrisp St are working to make sure that the community has a proper voice. For more information – Save Chrisp St Market
Cremer St Studios, Hoxton
In May, more than one hundred and thirty artists artists in Cremer St Studios were told by their studio provider, ACAVA, to sign a letter stating “I confirm my full support for the proposed redevelopment of the property” or be forced out of the building in months. The owners are D & J Simons of Hackney Rd and the developers are Regal Homes who have submitted a pre-planning application to Hackney Council to demolish all existing buildings on the site for a mixed-use development – including a twenty-storey tower block.
The George Tavern, Commercial Rd
The George Tavern is an historic public house, and celebrated art and music venue. The Halfway House tavern upon this site is mentioned in the writing of Dickens, Pepys & Chaucer. Owner, Pauline Forster, has been shortlisted for an Historic England Angel Award in recognition of her achievement in restoring the building. Meanwhile, Tower Hamlets Council put the future of The George in jeopardy by granting permission to Swan Housing to build six flats adjoining the pub. Save the George Tavern is mounting a legal challenge. For information contact – The George Tavern
The Holland Estate, Spitalfields
The Holland Estate is a nineteen-twenties brick-built estate in Spitalfields. The registered social landlord, EastEnd Homes, propose to demolish it and destroy a thriving diverse community of over six hundred people to make way for primarily-private, high-rise development. Residents do not want this and a petition signed by over 70% of residents, a motion passed by the resident-led Estate Management Board and a unanimous motion passed by Tower Hamlets Council have all been against the demolition. But EastEnd Homes are ploughing on with their redevelopment plans regardless. Residents have decided to take things into their own hands to make it clear that demolition of these blocks is unwanted. Instead, they are campaigning for EastEnd Homes to refurbish their buildings, as originally agreed when the estate was handed over by Tower Hamlets Council in 2006 — a promise they have repeatedly broken. For more information – Bernard, Brune & Carter Residents
The Joiners Arms, Shoreditch
The Joiners Arms opened as a queer pub in 1997 and swiftly established a reputation as a welcoming, diverse and at times hedonistic venue. The property owners closed it in January 2015 and it remains shuttered and empty, awaiting unspecified development (strongly rumoured to involve demolition and a luxury apartment tower block). The Friends of the Joiners Arms is campaigning to re-open the venue – transforming it into London’s only cooperatively-owned-and-managed Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer/Intersex/Asexual Community Centre, keeping the late-license pub at its heart. They have already won Asset of Community Value status (which gives them a chance to bid if the owners decide to sell) but the fight continues to demand that the Joiners Arms be given back to the queer community to run, providing space for life, love and liberty. For more information – The Joiners Arms
The London Chest Hospital, Bethnal Green
The London Chest Hospital opened in 1855 to treat tuberculosis sufferers. As well as gaining an international reputation for the treatment of heart and lung disease, the hospital has cared for servicemen exposed to poison gas in the First World War and air raid victims in the Second World War. In April 2015, Barts & the London NHS Trust shut the hospital, moved its services to Bart’s Hospital and put the site up for sale. The Trust is currently in negotiations with a buyer. No planning permission has been granted but the site has been earmarked as offering “significant potential for residential development.” You can see the marketing brochure here www.essentia.uk.com (search “chest” and click on brochure). Tower Hamlets Green Party is launching a campaign to prevent this historic site becoming another soulless development of luxury homes. They want to ensure that whatever happens to the hospital, the site continues to be used for a purpose that has the needs of the borough’s residents at its heart.
The London Fruit & Wool Exchange, Spitalfields
The Fruit & Wool Exchange was formerly home to two hundred small businesses, for which office space is sorely lacking in the capital. Developers Exemplar are demolishing it, including the Gun pub, and the entire office development has already been leased to a single international law firm. Mayor of London Boris Johnson forced this on Tower Hamlets, overruling the unanimous vote of the planning committee twice. He claimed it would “regenerate the area with thousands of new jobs and contribute to the wider economy of London” yet the soulless corporate architecture will deaden the lively streetscape of Spitalfields for decades to come.
National Barge Travellers Association
NBTA is a volunteer organisation providing support and advice for boat dwellers without permanent moorings. The boater population is increasing, in part caused by the housing crisis, as more people are forced to find survival alternatives. Despite having the money needed to provide sufficient facilities, the Canal & River Trust (CART) is removing facilities in some areas and creating permanent moorings that are unaffordable to the majority. The boater community is under threat as CART makes it more difficult to live on the water. Every year, NBTA supports boat dwellers who are unfairly evicted and their boats seized, including people that are disabled, elderly or ill. For more information – National Barge Travellers’ Association
Norton Folgate
On 21st July, Tower Hamlets’ planning committee unanimously refused permission for British Land to demolish more than 70% of buildings they hold in the Elder St Conservation Area in Spitalfields primarily to build offices on a site owned by the Corporation of London. Led by the Spitalfields Trust, the campaign has gained support London-wide and five hundred people held hands around the buildings on 19th July to demand re-use not demolition. Although the result shows people-power in action, the battle for Norton Folgate is not over yet. For more information – Save Norton Folgate
no.w.here, 316-318 Bethnal Green Rd
For ten years no.w.here has worked in Tower Hamlets as a community project, open artist platform and film laboratory built on the historical legacy of the London Filmmakers Co-operative. Run by cultural workers who place value on education, resistance, collaboration and free expression, no.w.here’s long standing work and projects are under threat from property developers. Vital in its community, no.w.here does not view displacement by billionaires or the destruction of communities as a natural evolution. For Closed House Weekend, you are invited to visit no.w.here’s lab and community project space where they seek to exchange know-how, experience, support and possibility. For more information – no.w.here
Olympic Legacy Land
The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) now makes all the planning decisions inside this new Mayoral boundary, part of the four ‘legacy’ boroughs. This ex-Tower Hamlets land includes waterways and areas of industrial heritage in Fish Island near Hackney Wick, where affordable workspace and historic buildings are under threat. Very few people are aware that ‘Olympic Legacy’ planning decisions take place in LLDC offices in Stratford. Developers were allowed to stake out their territory early on in the Olympic process and the LLDC is allowing pitifully-low levels of affordable housing in the new developments. For more information – East End Waterways Group
One Commercial St, Aldgate
One Commercial St has been a focus of the ‘poor doors’ protests which highlight new developments built with two entrances, one for private owners and another for occupants of social housing. Thus property agents can reassure prospective buyers that their doors will not be shared by lesser mortals. In Stratford, a development by Galliard was proudly marketed as “fully private – no social housing.” Now Galliard proposes 0% social housing in their new development on the former West Ham Ground in Newham.
Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital, Bethnal Green
On the developer’s hoardings, ‘bagel lady’ brandishes a signifier of East End authenticity to her glossed lips. Invented by the marketing department, she is an idealised future tenant of the Tower Hamlets/Hackney border. Campaigns to save the old hospital failed and demolition has left only one façade, one brick deep. Recently in Hackney, the Haggerston Estate, Tony’s Café, Spirit’s Shop, The Four Aces & Dalston Lane, have all gone, even though successful activism reinvigorated some housing associations. Doubtless, these areas needed help and change, but who is benefitting from the changes which are been enacted? Why must residents buy, not rent? What is a true definition of ‘affordable housing’? Can we preserve historic buildings and communities? Is bagel lady the heir apparent in the property-owning monocultural future of East London? For further information – I Am Not A Village
Robin Hood Gardens
Tower Hamlets Council failed to maintain this unique sixties estate and allowed Swan Housing to plan its demolition for a faceless new scheme called Blackwall Regeneration. Consultation with the residents was weighted in favour of that aim, but an independent survey of residents found 80% of people wanted refurbishment, not demolition. The estate of 231 homes comprising Robin Hood Gardens was built by Alison & Peter Smithson and notable present-day architects including Lord Rogers are asking for it to be listed.
The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel
The Royal London is the largest hospital in Europe, costing £1.1bn to build, but thanks to the Private Finance Initiative agreement that funded it, will cost the taxpayer £7.1 billon over the next forty years. The repayment terms are so crippling the Royal London is currently running a £93m deficit, which explains why the lights on the top floors are never lit – Barts cannot afford to fit them out and use them. Meanwhile, staff shortages are pushing overworked doctors and nurses to walk out and waiting lists to increase, but Innisfree and construction firm Skanska will continue to collect fat profits for another thirty-five years – unless the hospital goes bankrupt, which technically it already is. Then it would pass into their private hands.
Sainsbury’s Tower/ Collingwood Estate, Whitechapel
Whitechapel Masterplan was pushed through by Tower Hamlets Council in 2013 with little public awareness. Crossrail is central to the suburbanisation of the area and Sainsbury’s wants to double the size of the supermarket and build six hundred new homes on its roof with a thirty-three-storey tower. While the area desperately needs more genuinely affordable housing, Sainsbury’s – owner of the land – is offering a pathetic 10%, despite Tower Hamlets’ target of 35%. For more information – Whitechapel Masterplan
Shoreditch Towers
Many are unaware there are three giant towers looming over the southern tip of Hackney, two with planning permission already.
1. Fifty-storey ‘Principal Place’ is being built on Bishopsgate, north of Liverpool St Station and next to the former Light Bar. For more information – Principal Place
2. Forty-storey residential skyscraper, ‘Bard Tower’ has planning permission on Curtain Rd upon the site of the Curtain Theatre where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first presented.
3. Thirty-storey tower proposed by a New York hotel chain at 201-207 Shoreditch High St on the site of Majestic Wine and Chariots Sauna is currently in planning. For more information search application no. 2015/2403 in planning pages at www.hackney.gov.uk
Spitalfields Market
In 2002, campaigners warned that the Corporation of London’s demolition of half the Market to construct offices was the start of an incursion beyond the City’s boundary, into places that the Corporation began to call the ‘City Fringe.’ Following the Market’s redevelopment, large increases in shop rents severed its connection with the local community and developers Hammerson sold it off, moving on to the Bishopsgate Goodsyard. 35,000 people signed a petition opposing demolition of Spitalfields Market during a long campaign.
Weavers Fields, Bethnal Green
In 2003, a residents’ campaign stopped a tower being built on Weavers Fields, preventing encroachment and damage to the public park.
Drawings copyright © Lucinda Rogers
Click here for further information about CLOSED HOUSE WEEKEND organised by STOP THE BLOCKS
Copies of the map may be bought for £1 from the following outlets
Oxford House, Derbyshire St, Bethnal Green
Professional Development Centre, 229 Bethnal Green Rd
Jonestown Coffee, 215 Bethnal Green Rd
St Hilda’s East Community Centre, 18 Club Row
Leila’s Cafe, Arnold Circus
Rinkoffs Bakery, Vallance Rd
Fresh Cafe, 275 Whitechapel Rd
Broadway Books, Broadway Market
Ruth Franklin, Sculptor
Mr & Mrs
“It’s only in later life that you become interested in your family,” Ruth Franklin admitted to me when I visited her exhibition of sculpture CURLERS & CUTS in Whitechapel yesterday, “when you are young you want to rebel against them.” Over a century ago, Ruth’s grandparents on her mother’s side came from Russia and her grandparents on her father’s side came from Poland, and they all ended up in the East End where Ruth’s father, Alfred, was born in Leslie St in Mile End.
Alfred became a successful hairdresser and wigmaker in the West End and Ruth remembers her Russian-speaking granny, a seamstress who lived upstairs when Ruth was a child and taught her to swear in Russian. “It’s exciting to be creating work that celebrates my family,” Ruth announced as we stood surrounded by her sculptures, which are vivid and emotional evocations of her forebears’ professions.
“They came with nothing,” Ruth informed me as I leaned over to examine her intricately-wrought constructions, made from humble materials and recalling the tools and working practices of tailoring and hairdressing. The painstaking manufacture of some of these sculptures is a reflection of the care required to fashion clothing and hairstyles, and – inevitably – these objects take on anthropomorphic personalities. They remind us of the intimate nature of such endeavours, since the cut of clothes and styling of hair are the means by which we present ourselves to the world.
Equally, there is a childlike quality to the notion of making models of machines in paper, almost like toys, and of fabricating primitive dolls out of old tools, which imbues Ruth’s work with pathos. We come into the world with nothing and we leave with nothing but, in between, these people laboured with their hands to make others look their best and earn a modest living by it. Ruth Franklin’s tender sculptures honour those whose hard work delivered her into existence.
Sewing machine with dials (waxed architectural paper & thread)
Red sewing machine (waxed paper & thread)
Blue sewing machine (blueprint paper & thread)
Red thread sewing machine (mono-printed paper & thread)
Iron (waxed paper & thread)
Pink hairdryer (waxed paper & thread)
Grey hairdryer (waxed paper & thread)
Hairdryer (collage)
Hairdressing tools (waxed paper & thread)
Hairdressing tools, 2 (waxed paper & thread)
Hairdressing tools, 3 (waxed paper & thread)
Equipment (hair rollers, waxed paper, card & plastic)
The Salon (waxed paper, hair rollers, hand drill, wood & marking knife)
Tools for the salon (cotton reel, tools, brush & drill)
Tools for the salon, 2 (metal tools, brush & litho print)
Curling machine (metal tools, hair, roller & wooden sleeve board)
Manya (wooden sleeve board, waxed paper & cloth)
Alfy in May, mother’s brogue (paper & thread)
Ruth’s grandparents, Morris Frankel & Leah Passack in Margate, 1906
Artwork copyright © Ruth Franklin
Ruth Franklin’s exhibition CURLERS & CUTS is at Idea Store Whitechapel until Saturday 30th August
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Mr Pussy In The Dog Days Of August
The sagacious Mr Pussy
There is an exceptional hush upon the East End in August. The clouds hang heavy and the atmosphere is quiet, and my cat Mr Pussy divides his time between dozing on the bed and dozing under a bush. The pace of the city is stilled and Mr Pussy finds the climate conducive to resting.
Mr Pussy observes me with doleful eyes as I go about my daily tasks, too gracious to be overtly critical, yet he hopes that I might one day learn to appreciate the virtue of sitting peacefully for extended periods of time without other occupation, as he does. To this end, Mr Pussy waits patiently until a suitable opportunity when I am settled at my work before he approaches me. Arriving silently like a ghost, Mr Pussy reaches out a soft paw to stroke my forearm gently while I am writing, as a discreet gesture of companionship, drawing my attention without interrupting my activity.
Settling at my side and savouring the tranquillity of the hour, a purr of contentment emanates from him. And if my concentration should wander from my page, searching for a word or casting around to seek the direction of my thought, then I chance upon his hypnotic golden eyes, meeting my gaze with their fathomless depth and opalescent gleam. He has my attention. He has an infinite capacity for staring. He knows I am a neophyte and he is an expert at it. He knows I cannot resist succumbing to his superior mesmeric powers. He has me spellbound and I share his stillness. The house is empty and we are alone. We look at each other eye to eye, without blinking, to see who flinches first.
Almost imperceptibly, Mr Pussy begins to lower his lids and I do the same. I follow along, as his supplicant. Our eyelids move in sync and we are nodding off to sleep, it seems. I might enter the feline realm, if I did not open my lids again momentarily – only to discover that his eyes are open too. It is a moment of mutual recognition. Mr Pussy was testing the quality of my will, exploring my susceptibility to mental control. Mr Pussy observes me. Mr Pussy is implacable, yet he wants me to follow his example. Mr Pussy knows how to be. Mr Pussy keeps himself. Mr Pussy seeks to be calm. Mr Pussy is always present in the moment. Mr Pussy is sufficient.
Equally, Mr Pussy is curious of me and the intriguing nature of my existence that revolves around things other than eating and sleeping. I am the object of his scrutiny, Mr Pussy is studying me. Mr Pussy is an anthropologist, living among those who are subject of his fascination. Mr Pussy’s research methods are unconventional, he thinks he may gain knowledge by osmosis if he sleeps close to me or he may imbibe understanding by lapping up my bathwater.
Not always an entirely conscientious student, Mr Pussy likes to contemplate his findings at length. Mr Pussy likes to sleep on it, and he is a grand master in the art of somnolence. Mr Pussy knows how to behave in these dog days.
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Mr Pussy Gives his First Interview
Scything On Walthamstow Marshes
Raf Szafruga, heroic scyther
In celebration of Lammastide, which marks the beginning of the grain harvest, Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I went along to join the mowers wielding scythes on Walthamstow Marshes at the weekend. Although scything exists in the public imagination as a resolutely macho activity, we discovered a range of participants of both sexes and all ages eager to take up scythes and set forth onto the grasslands.
Devised by Kathrin Böhm & Louis Buckley, this is the third year of Community Hay Harvest upon the Lammas Lands, which were originally drained for agriculture in ancient times and exist now as one of the last areas of natural marshland in London, protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
In the nineteenth century, this became the location of conflict when the East London Waterworks illegally fenced off some of the marshes and, on 1st August 1892, several thousand local people turned out to take down the fences and reclaim the Common Land. William Morris, who was born and brought up in Walthamstow and knew these marshes as child, was instrumental in setting up the Commons Preservation Society in 1865 to protect land such as this, which has been in common ownership for centuries.
“We’ve hit one hundred!” declared scything expert Clive Leeke, who had been giving lessons, “more than one hundred local people have come to learn scything.” As the climax of the afternoon, the joyful scythers set off together in a line cutting rhythmically through the long grass under the wide sky and Clive explained that, in spite of the heat, he was not expecting see any perspiration. Scything is about having good technique and a sharp blade rather than physical strength, I learnt.
Nevertheless, it was obvious that Raf Szafruga from Poland made headway across the marshes far in advance of all the other mowers. Clive explained that, over the weekend, East Europeans who were blackberrying around the marsh came to join the scything and had no need of lessons. “They’ve never lost touch with the land, like we have,” he admitted to me with a grin and a shrug.
Yet as we turned our heads, we could see the line of mowers their working away across the marsh as they would have done before the railway came and it was remarkable how swiftly they had picked up these age-old skills. At the end of proceedings, Clive presented a Lammas loaf to the mower with best overall performance and style, and we all went away sunburnt and satisfied by a memorable summer afternoon on Walthamstow Marshes.
Scything Guru, Clive Leeke, teaches ‘Scything without tears’
Richard Williams – “I was born in the country but I have lived in London for thirty years”
Sharpening the blades with whetstones
Natalie Wood won the prize for the best windrow
Julian Weston – “Yesterday, I did my first scything and today I won a competition.”
Louis Buckley
Kathrin Böhm & her son Lawrence
Kathrin – “My heart is gladdened that so many people have come out to give it a try”
Kent & William Sturgis
Lammas loaf baked by Jojo Tulloh with flour ground in Hackney
Click on this group photo to enlarge
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
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Sheepshearing at Spitalfields City Farm
In City Of London Churchyards
In the churchyard of St Dunstan’s in the East, Idol Lane
If ever I should require a peaceful walk on a Sunday afternoon when the crowds are thronging in Brick Lane and Columbia Rd, then I simply wander over to the City of London where the streets are empty at weekends and the many secret green enclaves of the churches are likely to be at my sole disposal. For centuries the City was densely populated, yet the numberless dead in the ancient churchyards are almost the only residents these days.
Christopher Wren rebuilt most of the City churches after the Great Fire upon the irregularly shaped medieval churchyards and it proved the ideal challenge to develop his eloquent vocabulary of classical architecture. Remarkably, there are a couple of churches still standing which predate the Fire while a lot of Wren’s churches were destroyed in the Blitz, but for all those that are intact, there are many of which only the tower or an elegant ruin survives to grace the churchyard. And there are also yards where nothing remains of the church, save a few lone tombstones attesting to the centuries of human activity in that place. Many of these sites offer charismatic spaces for horticulture, rendered all the more appealing in contrast to the sterile architectural landscape of the modern City that surrounds them.
I often visit St Olave’s in Mincing Lane, a rare survivor of the Fire, and when you step down from the street, it as if you have entered a country church. Samuel Pepys lived across the road in Seething Lane and was a member of the congregation here, referring to it as “our own church.” He is buried in a vault beneath the communion table and there is a spectacular gate from 1658, topped off with skulls, which he walked through to enter the secluded yard. Charles Dickens also loved this place, describing it as “my best beloved churchyard”
“It is a small small churchyard, with a ferocious, strong, spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than the life, wrought in stone … the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. Hence, there is attraction of repulsion for me … and, having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight.” he wrote in “The Uncommercial Traveller.”
A particular favourite of mine is the churchyard of St Dunstan’s in the East in Idol Lane. The ruins of a Wren church have been overgrown with wisteria and creepers to create a garden of magnificent romance, where almost no-one goes. You can sit here within the nave surrounded by high walls on all sides, punctuated with soaring Gothic lancet windows hung with leafy vines which filter the sunlight in place of the stained glass that once was there.
Undertaking a circuit of the City, I always include the churchyard of St Mary Aldermanbury in Love Lane with its intricate knot garden and bust of William Shakespeare, commemorating John Hemminge and Henry Condell who published the First Folio and are buried there. The yard of the bombed Christchurch Greyfriars in Newgate St is another essential port of call for me, to admire the dense border planting that occupies the space where once the congregation sat within the shell of Wren’s finely proportioned architecture. In each case, the introduction of plants to fill the space and countermand the absence in the ruins of these former churches – where the parishioners have gone long ago – has created lush gardens of rich poetry.
There are so many churchyards in the City of London that there are always new discoveries to be made by the casual visitor, however many times you return. And anyone can enjoy the privilege of solitude in these special places, you only have to have the curiosity and desire to seek them out for yourself.
In the yard of St Michael, Cornhill.
In the yard of St Dunstan’s in the East, Idol Lane.
At St Dunstan’s in the East, leafy vines filter the sunlight in place of stained glass.
In the yard of St Olave’s, Mincing Lane.
This is the gate that Samuel Pepys walked through to enter St Olave’s and of which Charles Dickens wrote in The Uncommercial Traveller – “having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight.”
Dickens described this as ““my best beloved churchyard.”
In the yard of St Michael Paternoster Royal, College St.
In the yard of St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall, Gresham St.
In the yard of St Mary Aldermanbury, Love Lane, this bust of William Shakespeare commemorates John Hemminge and Henry Condell who published the First Folio and are buried here.
In the yard of London City Presbyterian Church, Aldersgate St.
In the yard of Christchurch Greyfriars, Newgate St, the dense border planting occupies the space where once the congregation sat within the shell of Wren’s finely proportioned architecture.
In the yard of the Guildhall Church of St Benet, White Lion Hill.
In St Paul’s Churchyard.
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Roy Wild, Van Boy & Driver
Roy looking sharp in the fifties – “I class myself as an Hoxtonite”
The great goods yard in Bishopsgate is an empty place these days, home to a pop-up shopping mall of sea containers and temporary football pitches, but Roy Wild knew it in its heyday as a busy rail depot teeming with life and he still keeps a model of the Scammell Scarab that he once drove there as a talisman of those lost times.
A vast nineteenth century construction of brick and stone, the old goods yard housed railway lines on multiple levels and was a major staging point for freight, with deliveries of fresh agricultural produce coming in from East Anglia to be sold in the London wholesale markets and sent out again across the country. Today only the fragmentary Braithwaite arches of 1839 and the exterior wall of the former Bishopsgate Station remain as the hint of the wonders that once were there.
Roy knew it not as the Bishopsgate goods yard but in the familiar parlance of railway workers as ‘B Gate,’ and B Gate remains a fabled place for him. By their very nature, railways are places of transition and, for Roy Wild, B Gate won a permanent place in his affections as the location of formative experiences which became his rite of passage into adulthood.
“At first, after I left school at fifteen, I went to work for City Electrical in Hoxton and I was put as mate with a fitter named Sid Greenhill. One of the jobs they took on was helping to build the Crawley new town. We had to get the bus to London Bridge, take the train to East Croydon and change to another near Gatwick Airport – which didn’t really exist yet. It was a schlep at seven o’clock in the morning all through the winter, but I stuck it for eighteen months.
My dad, Andy, was a capstan operator for the London & North Eastern Railway at the Spitalfields Empty Yard in Pedley St off Vallance Rd, so I said to him, ‘Can’t you get a job for me where you work?’ He said, ‘There’s nothing going at the moment but I can get you a place at B Gate.’
In 1953, at sixteen and a half, I started as van boy for Dick Wiley in the cartage department at B Gate. The old drivers had worked with horses, they were known as ‘pair-horse carmen’ or ‘single-horse carmen’ and, in the late forties when the horses were done away with and the depot became mechanised, the men were all called in and given three-wheeled Scammell Scarabs and licences, no driving tests in those days. There was a fleet of two hundred of them at B Gate and although strictly, as van boys, we weren’t allowed to drive, we flew around the depot in them.
Our round was Stoke Newington and we’d be given a ticket which was the number of your container and a delivery note of anything up to twenty-five destinations. Then we’d have lunch at a small goods yard at Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, and in the afternoon we’d do collections, picking up parcels and taking them back to B Gate, from where they’d be delivered by rail around the country.
I decided I wanted to work with George Holman, a driver who was known as ‘Cisco’ on account of his swarthy features which made him look Mexican. He was an East Ender like me, rough and ready, and always larking about. His round was Rotherhithe which meant driving through the tunnel and he was a bit of a lunatic behind the wheel. Each morning after the round, he would drop me off at my mum’s in Northport St for lunch and pick me up again at 2pm. One day, we had to go back through ‘the pipe’ as they called the tunnel in Mile End and he said to me, ‘You take it through the tunnel, you know how it works.’ I was only seventeen but I drove that great big truck through the tunnel without any harm whatsoever.
Next I went to work with Bill Scola, a driver from Bethnal Green – the deep East End. He used to do Billingsgate, Spitalfields, Borough, Covent Garden, Brentford and Nine Elms Markets. Bill was a rascal and I was nineteen by then. We were doing a bit of skullduggery and I was told that the British Transport Police were watching me, so I said to Bill, ‘Things are getting too hot,” and I left it alone completely.
Then, one day we were having breakfast with at least a dozen others at the table, including Sid Green who was in charge of Bishopsgate football team, in the new canteen at B Gate when the British Transport Police came in, pinned my arms against my side and lifted me out of the chair. I was taken across to Commercial St Police Station and charged with larceny. They told me I had been seen lifting goods into the van that weren’t on the parcels sheet, with the intention of taking and selling them. I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. What were they were alleging was a complete fabrication and I had witnesses. What they were accusing me of was impossible because I had just clocked in – my clocking in number was 1917 – and there was a least a dozen witnesses on my side, but nevertheless I was convicted. I look back on it with great regret even now.
I was taken to Newington Butts Quarter Sessions which was the nearest Crown Court and I received six months sentence, even though I had first class character witnesses. I was taken straight to Wormwood Scrubs but kept apart from the inmates as a Young Prisoner. I couldn’t believe it, this was a for a first offence. I was sent to East Church open prison on the Isle of Sheppey and given a third remission off my sentence for good behaviour. It was like a Butlins Holiday Camp and I came home after four months. After that I did a couple of odd jobs, but I was full of regret – because I loved the railway so much and I made so many friends there, and particularly because I had disappointed my dad. That was the end of me and the LNER.
Then I met this guy, Billy Davis, he and Patsy (Patrick) Murphy held up Luton Post Office, but the postmaster grabbed hold of the gun and they shot and killed him, and they both got twenty-five years. He told me he worked for the railway and I asked, ‘Which depot?’ He said, ‘London, Midlands & Scottish Railway in Camden, why don’t you apply?’ So I did, I went along to Camden Town and was interviewed and told them I’d never worked on the railway before. When I started there as a driver, they gave me a brand new Bantam Carrier with a trailer and my round was Spitalfields Market, and I was paid by tonnage. The more weight you pulled onto the weighbridge at the Camden Town LMS depot, the more you got earned.
I did it for some time and I always had plenty of fruit to take home to my mum. I got together with the Goods Agent’s secretary, he was the top man in the depot and I was on good terms with him too. I got very friendly, taking her out for more than a year, until one day she told me her boss wanted to see me in his office. He said to me, ‘I’ve got bad news – you never declared you were dismissed by LNER. Our security have run a check and they found it out. It’s gone above my head and I have to let you go. It’s all out of my hands.’ He told me he was sorry to see me go because of the amount of tonnage I brought in which was more than other driver.
I was only there eighteen months. It was the finest time of my life because of the camaraderie with all the other drivers. It was a lovely, lovely job and I made friends that I still have to this day.”
Roy Wild with a model of his beloved Scammell Scarab
Roy with a Scammell Scarab in British Rail livery
Colin O’Brien’s photograph of a Scammell Scarab tipped over on the Clerkenwell Rd, 1953
Roy gets into the cabin of a Scamell Scarab of the kind he used to drive at Bishopsgate goods yard
Roy’s father Andy worked as a Capstan Operator at Spitalfields Empty Yard at Pedley St off Vallance Rd
Roy Wild & lifelong pal Derrick Porter, the poet – “I came from Hoxton but he came from Old St”
Bishopsgate Station c. 1900
In its heyday the area of tracks at the goods yard was known as ‘the field’
Looking west, the abandoned goods yard after the fire of 1964
Looking east, the abandoned goods yard after the fire
The kitchens of the canteen at the goods yard
The space of the former canteen where Roy was arrested by the British Transport Police
Abandoned hydraulic lift for lifting vehicles at Bishopsgate goods yard
The remains of the records at the Bishopsgate goods yard
When Roy saw this photograph of the demolished goods yard, he said, “I wish I could have gone and taken one of those bricks as a souvenir.”
The arch beneath the white tarpaulin was where Roy once drove in and out as a van boy
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