Widow’s Buns At Bow
It is Good Friday and time for another Hot Cross Bun to go in the basket at the Widow’s Son in Devons Rd, Bow, as part of the East End’s most-celebrated Easter tradition. Festivities reach their climax at 3pm, so be sure to get there in plenty of time!
Baked by Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath
On Good Friday, what could be more appropriate to the equivocal nature of the day than an event which involves both celebration of Hot Cross Buns and the remembrance of the departed in a single custom – such is the ceremony of the Widow’s Buns at Bow.
A net of Hot Cross Buns hangs above the bar at The Widow’s Son in Bromley by Bow, and each year a sailor comes to add another bun to the collection. And this year I was there to witness it for myself, though – before you make any assumption based on your knowledge of my passion for buns – I must clarify that no Hot Cross Buns are eaten in the ceremony, they are purely for symbolic purposes. Left to dry out and gather dust and hang in the net for eternity, London’s oldest buns exist as metaphors to represent the passing years and talismans to bring good luck but, more than this, they tell a story.
The Widow’s Son was built in 1848 upon the former site of an old widow’s cottage, so the tale goes. When her only son left to be a sailor, she promised to bake him a Hot Cross Bun and keep it for his return. But although he drowned at sea, the widow refused to give up hope, preserving the bun upon his return and making a fresh one each year to add to the collection. This annual tradition has been continued in the pub as a remembrance of the widow and her son, and of the bond between all those on land and sea, with sailors of the Royal Navy coming to place the bun in the net every year.
Behind this custom lies the belief that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday will never decay, reflected in the tradition of nailing a Hot Cross Bun to the wall so that the cross may bring good luck to the household – though what appeals to me about the story of the widow is the notion of baking as an act of faith, incarnating a mother’s hope that her son lives. I interpret the widow’s persistence in making the bun each year as a beautiful gesture, not of self-deception but of longing for wish-fulfilment, manifesting her love for her son. So I especially like the clever image upon the inn sign outside the Widow’s Son, illustrating an apocryphal scene in the story when the son returns from the sea many years later to discover a huge net of buns hanging behind the door, demonstrating that his mother always expected him back.
When I arrived at the Widow’s Son, I had the good fortune to meet Frederick Beckett who first came here for the ceremony in 1958 when his brother Alan placed the Hot Cross Bun in the net, and he had the treasured photo in his hand to show me. Frederick moved out from Bow to Dagenham fifteen years ago, but he still comes back each year to visit the Widow’s Son, one of many in this community and further afield who delight to converge here on Good Friday for old times’ sake. Already, there was a tangible sense of anticipation, with spirits uplifted by the sunshine and the flags hung outside, ready to celebrate St George next day.
The landlady proudly showed me the handsome fresh 2011 Hot Cross Bun, baked by Mr Bunn of Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath who always makes the special bun each year -” fabulous buns!”declared Kathy, almost succumbing to a swoon, as he she held up her newest sweetest darling that would shortly join its fellows in the net over the bar. There were many more ancient buns, she explained, until a fire destroyed most of them fifteen years ago, and those burnt ones in the net today are merely those few which were salvaged by the firemen from the wreckage of the pub. Remarkably, having opened their hearts to the emotional poetry of Hot Cross Buns, at the Widow’s Son they even cherish those cinders which the rest of the world would consign to a bin.
The effect of the beer and the unseasonal warm temperatures upon a pub full of sailors and thirsty locals rapidly induced a pervasive atmosphere of collective euphoria, heightened by a soundtrack of pounding rock, and, in the thick of it, I was delighted to meet my old pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief. “I’m not here for the buns, I’m here for the bums!” he confided to me with a sip of his Corvoisier and lemonade, making a lewd gesture and breaking in to a wide grin of salacious enjoyment as various Bow belles, in off-the-shoulder dresses, with flowing locks and wearing festive corsages, came over enthusiastically to shower this legendary rascal with kisses.
I stood beside Lenny as three o’ clock approached, enjoying the high-spirited gathering as the sailors came together in front of the bar. The landlord handed over the Hot Cross Bun to widespread applause and the sailors lifted up their smallest recruit. Then, with a mighty cheer from the crowd and multiple camera flashes, the recruit placed the bun in the net. Once this heroic task was accomplished, and the landlady had removed the tinfoil covers from the dishes of food laid out upon the billiard table, all the elements were in place for a knees-up to last the rest of the day. As they like to say in Bromley by Bow, it was “Another year, another Good Friday, another bun.”
Peter Gracey, Nick Edelshain and Roddy Urquhart raise a pint to the Widow’s Buns.
Tony Scott and Debbie Willis of HMS President with Frederick Beckett holding the photograph of his brother placing the bun in the net in 1958.
Alan Beckett places the bun on Good Friday, 4th April 1958.
The Widow’s Son is the local for my pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief.
A Widow’s Son of Bromley by Bow
by Harold Adshead
A widow had an only son, The sea was his concern, His parting wish an Easter Bun Be kept for his return. But when it came to Eastertide No sailor came her way To claim the bun she set aside Against the happy day. They say the ship was lost at sea, The son came home no more But still with humble piety The widow kept her store. So year by year a humble bun Was charm against despair, A loving task that once began Became her livelong care. The Widow’s Son is now an inn That stands upon the site And signifies its origin Each year by Easter rite The buns hang up for all to see, A blackened mass above, A truly strange epitome Of patient mother love.
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Victory For East End Preservation Society!
On the eve of the Easter Holiday, it fills me with great delight to announce that the old terrace in Whitechapel, comprising the last fragment of the nineteenth century Pavilion Theatre complex, has been saved from demolition – thanks to a campaign that began in these pages and was taken up by the members of the East End Preservation Society and the readers of Spitalfields Life.
In response to the numbers of objections received, Tower Hamlets Council have withdrawn their application for demolition in order to explore new options, which means that although the future for this terrace remains undecided it has been rescued from destruction – and below I outline its historic and cultural significance.
3-13 Vallance Rd
In January, when I was writing about the artist Morris Goldstein who lived at 13 Vallance Rd, I was reminded of the distinctive quality of this unusual Victorian terrace in Whitechapel. Despite all the changes since World War II, these old shops have survived and the exoticism of their architecture with its strange mixture of styles fascinates me – as it does many others for whom the terrace is also a landmark in this corner of the East End, where so few old buildings remain to tell the story of what once was here.
In fact, I realised these tatty shopfronts and ornate facades have always spoken to me, but it was only then that I discovered the nature of the story they were telling. The florid decoration was no whim upon the part of the architect but reflected their association and direct proximity to the adjoining Pavilion Theatre which opened here early in the nineteenth century, at first presenting nautical dramas to an audience from the docks and later becoming a Yiddish theatre to serve the Jewish population in Whitechapel.
Commanding the southern extremity of Vallance Rd, this terrace is almost the last fragment to remind us of the history of one of the East End’s most ancient thoroughfares, linking Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. Built in 1855, the vast and forbidding Whitechapel Union Workhouse once stood a few hundred yards north. In common with most of the nineteenth century buildings in this corner of what was known as Mile End New Town, it has long gone – swept away during the decades following the last war, leaving the streetscape fragmented today. Old Montague St, leading west to Commercial St and formerly the heart of the Jewish commerce in the East End, was entirely demolished.
Even Whitechapel Rd, which retains good sweeps of historic buildings – many of which are now under restoration as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund project – suffered major post-war casualties, including a fine eighteenth century terrace west of the London Hospital that was demolished in the seventies. Yet there was one building of great importance of which the loss went seemingly unnoticed -The Pavilion Theatre, a favourite resort for East Enders for nearly one hundred and fifty years before it was demolished in 1961.
The New Royal Pavilion Theatre opened in 1827 at the corner of Whitechapel Rd and Baker’s Row (now Vallance Rd) with a production of The Genii of the Thames, initiating its famous nautical-themed productions, pitched at the the maritime community. In 1856, the theatre burnt down and its replacement opened in 1858, boasting a capacity of three-thousand-seven-hundred, which was a thousand more than Covent Garden and included the largest pit in London theatre, where two thousand people could be comfortably accommodated.
‘The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – as it was announced – boasted a wide repertoire including Shakespeare, opera (it became the East London Opera House in 1860) and, of course, pantomime. It gained a reputation for the unpretentious nature of its patrons, with one critic remarking “there is a no foolish pride amongst Pavilion audiences, or, as far as we could see, any of those stupid social distinctions which divide the sympathies of other auditoriums.”
In 1874, the Pavilion was reconstructed to the designs of Jethro T. Robinson, a notable theatre architect who designed two other East End theatres. both of which are now lost – the Grecian Theatre in Shoreditch and the Albion in Poplar, that was oriental in style. It was this rebuilding of the Pavilion which included the construction of a new terrace on Baker’s Row with interwoven Moorish arches evoking the Alhambra. The theatrical design of these buildings, with decorated parapets, panels and window surrounds, and the integration of side entrances to the theatre suggest the authorship or influence of J. T. Robinson himself.
In its later years, the Pavilion became one of the leading theatres in London, offering Yiddish drama, but as tastes changed and the Jewish people began to leave, the audience declined until it closed for good in 1934. In ‘East End Entertainment’ (1954) A. E. Wilson recalls a final visit to the old theatre before it closed.
“Once during the Yiddish period I visited the theatre. What I saw was all shabbiness, gloom and decay. The half-empty theatre was cold and dreary. The gold had faded and the velvet had moulted. Dust and grime were everywhere. And behind the scenes it was desolation indeed. The dirty stage seemed as vast as the desert and as lonely. I realised that there was no future for the Pavilion, that nothing could restore its fortunes, that its day was over.”
The decline of the Pavilion had been slow and painful. After the theatre closed in the thirties, it was simply left to decay after plans to transform it into a ‘super cinema’ failed to materialise. Bomb damage in the war and a fire meant that when a team from the London County Council’s Historic Buildings Division went to record the building in 1961, they found only a shell of monumental grandeur. After the theatre was finally demolished in 1961, the northern end of the terrace was also demolished leaving just number 13 (the former Weavers Arms Pub) and the battered row that has survived to this day.
Until last week, when Tower Hamlet Council withdrew their application for demolition after the huge number of objections from members of the East End Preservation Society and readers of Spitalfields Life, this last fragment of the Pavilion Theatre complex – numbers 3-11 Vallance Rd was under threat of imminent demolition. Responding positively to public opinion, the Council is now considering a more sympathetic proposal incorporating this much-loved terrace. The new proposal has been rendered by local conservation practice Jonathan Freegard Architects, commissioned by the Spitalfields Trust, and it retains the buildings as part of a mixed-use scheme delivering housing, retail and office space.
In the spirit of high theatrical farce, the Council’s consultant wrote of these buildings in Vallance Rd in the 2013 Heritage Report, accompanying the former application for demolition, that ‘… [they] do not contribute to the character or appearance of the Conservation Area,’ directly contradicting the Council’s earlier Conservation Area Appraisal of the area in 2009 which outlined the following priority for action – “Encourage sympathetic redevelopment of gap sites west of Vallance Rd and secure restoration of 3-11 Vallance Rd.”
Thus it gives me great pleasure to report to you that in the true classical tradition of comedy, justice and sanity have prevailed and this particular drama is one that promises a happy ending.
5 & 7 Vallance Rd, showing decorative window surrounds and parapet (Alex Pink)
9 & 11 Vallance Rd. With its decorative central panel, number 9 leads through to a courtyard where the theatre’s carpentry workshop once stood (Alex Pink)
3 Vallance Rd with original shopfront (Alex Pink)
Looking north over Vallance Rd (left) and Hemming St (right), 1957 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Whitechapel Union Workhouse in Vallance Rd, at junction with Fulbourne St, 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Whitechapel Union Workhouse, Vallance Rd 1913 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Corner of Vallance Rd and Hereford St, 1965 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Bricklayers Arms, Vallance Rd and Sale St, 1938 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St and Black Lion Yard, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St and Kings Arms Court, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Old Montague St looking east with Pauline House under construction, 1962 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
The first Royal Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel, 1856 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1867, nautical drama was a speciality at the Pavilion (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1854 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1835 – note reference to gallery entrance in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd) (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1856 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1833 (East London Theatre Archive)
Playbill 1851 (East London Theatre Archive)
The Great National Theatre of the Metropolis’ – the rebuilt Pavilion, 1858
Plan of the Pavilion in eighteen-seventies showing how the houses in Baker’s Row (Vallance Rd) are integrated into the theatre
The Pavilion as a Yiddish theatre in the thirties
Pavilion Theatre facade on Whitechapel Rd, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Auditorium of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Pit and stage at Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Fly tower of Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Back wall of the Pavilion Theatre, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
17-29 Vallance Rd, showing the large scene doors entrance and gallery entrance beyond, all integrated into the terrace, 1961 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)
Sketch of the elevation of the Oriental Theatre, Poplar High St, by Jethro T. Robinson, 1873 – note usage of the arch-within-an-arch motif as seen in the Vallance Rd terrace
First sketch by Tim Whittaker, Director of the Spitalfields Trust, proposing courtyard housing behind the terrace which reflects the local vernacular of Whitechapel
Proposal by Jonathan Freegard Architects for restoration of the terrace with a new yard at rear
South-westerly view of proposal by Jonathan Freegard Architects
Rear view of proposal by Jonathan Freegard Architects
New photographs of Vallance Rd Terrace © Alex Pink
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The East End Preservation Society
The Launch of The East End Preservation Society
Return To Long Forgotten London
The six volumes of Walter Thornbury’s London Old & New, filled with richly detailed engravings, prove irresistible to me for compelling visions of a city I barely recognise. Published in the eighteen-seventies, they evoke a London that had passed away at the beginning of the century and contrast this with the recent wonders of the Victorian age which prefigure the city we know today.
Entrance to the Clerkenwell tunnel
Hackney, looking towards the church in 1840
Columbia Market, Bethnal Green
Crown & Sceptre Inn, Greenwich
St Dunstan-in-the-East
Kensington High St in 1860
Primrose Hill in 1780
The Tower subway under the Thames
Bunhill Fields
Red Cow Inn, Hammersmith
Chelsea Bun House in 1810
River Fleet at St Pancras in 1825
Rotunda in Blackfriars Rd, 1820
Somers Town Dust Heaps in 1836
The Old Cock Tavern, Westminster
Seven Sisters in 1830
Highgate Cemetery
Magnetic Clock at Greenwich
Great Equatorial Telescope in the Dome at Greenwich
Searle’s Boatyard at Bankside, 1830
Bridgefoot, Southwark in 1810
Sights of old Hackney 1. Br0ok House 1765 2. Barber’s Barn 1750 3. Shore Place 1736
Izaak Walton’s River Lea 1. Ferry House 2. Tottenham Church from the Lea 3. Tumbling Weir 4. Fishing Cottage 5. Tottenham Lock
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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At St Botolph’s Church Hall
If you want to know the story of the splendid pair of statues of schoolchildren upon the front of the former School House at St Botolph’s in Bishopsgate, Reg the Caretaker is your man. “When this was a school, these statues used to be coloured – the children repainted them each year – and, recently, we sent them away for a whole year to get all the layers removed,” he explained to me with a sigh. “When they came back, people tried twice to nick them, so then we put them inside but the Council said, ‘They’re listed,’ and we had to send them away again for another year to get replicas cast.”
Old photographs show these figures covered in gloss paint and reduced to lifeless mannequins, yet these new casts from the originals – now that the paint has been removed – are startlingly lifelike, full of expression and displaying fine details of demeanour and costume. The presence of the pair in their symmetrical niches dramatically enlivens the formality of the architecture of 1820 and, close up, they confront you with their implacable expressions of modest reserve. Quite literally, these were the model schoolchildren for the generations who passed through these doors, demure in tidy uniforms and eagerly clutching their textbooks. Their badges would once have had the image of a boy and a sheep with the text, “God’s providence is our inheritance.”
“It’s Coade stone – the woman died with the recipe, but now they’ve rediscovered it again,” added Reg helpfully and – sure enough – upon the base of the schoolboy are impressed the words “COADE LAMBETH 1821.” Born in Exeter in 1733, Eleanor Coade perfected the casting process and ran Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory from 1769 at a site on the South Bank, until she died in 1821 aged eighty-eight – which makes these figures among the last produced under her supervision. Mrs Coade was the first to exploit the manufacture of artificial stone successfully and her works may still be seen all over London, including the figures upon Twinings in the Strand, the lion upon Westminster Bridge and the Nelson pediment at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
Reg took me inside to show me St Botolph’s Hall, lined two years ago with oak panelling of 1725 from a demolished stately home in Northamptonshire, where the two original statues peer out from behind glass seemingly bemused at the corporate City functions which commonly occupy their school room now. The Bishopsgate Ward School was begun in 1820 by Sir William Rawlins, a Furniture Maker who became Master of the Worshipful Company of Upholders and Sheriff of the City of London. In twenty years as Treasurer, he had lifted the institution up from poverty and it opened on 1st August 1821 with three hundred and forty pupils, of whom eighty needy boys and girls were provided with their uniforms.
“They used to be the other way round,” admitted Reg mischievously, indicating the pair of figures on the exterior, “their eyes used to meet but now they are looking in opposite directions.” Yet, given all the changes in the City in the last two centuries – “Who can blame the kids if their eyes are wandering now?” I thought. It was a sentiment with which Reg seemed in accord and which the enterprising Mrs Coade exemplified in the longevity of her endeavours too. “I should have retired fourteen years ago but I don’t like sitting indoors and couldn’t stand all that earlobe bashing,” he confessed to me, “I like to be outside doing something.”
In St Botolph’s Churchyard, Bishopsgate – Schoolroom and Sir William Rawlins’ tomb
Original figure coated in layers of paint
Modern replica now in place upon St Botolph’s Hall
Original figure coated in layers of paint
Modern replica now in place upon exterior of St Botoolph’s Hall
With layers of paint removed, the original figures now stand inside the hall
Reg the Caretaker at St Botolph’s
Coade stone Nelson pediment at Greenwich
Archive photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Philip Lindsay Clark’s Sculptures in Widegate St
At The Velho & Alderney Rd Cemeteries
Lilacs at Alderney Rd Cemetery
A warm afternoon in April is a poignant time to visit cemeteries and remember the long dead, when the new grass is flourishing, fresh and green, and the scent of spring flowers hangs in the air. Yesterday, I spent a contemplative few hours exploring the Velho Sephardic Cemetery in Mile End, which is Britain’s oldest Jewish cemetery, opened in 1657, one year after the readmission of the Jews to this country in 1656, and the nearby Alderney Rd Ashkenazi Cemetery which has inscriptions dating from 1697.
A gothic door in an old wall opens to reveal the Velho Cemetery, sequestered from the public gaze just yards from the Mile End Rd. In 1657, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, a Portuguese merchant, and Simon de Cacares, an Amsterdam-born merchant, leased an orchard plot on this site next to an inn called The Soldier’s Tenement for fourteen years at an annual rent of ten pounds, which was about ten times its market value. Yet, in spite of the financial opportunism of landowner Henry Clowes, the Jewish community was treated with respect by many others – as reflected in the tolling of church bells from Aldgate and along the Whitechapel Rd when bodies were carried out here from the City of London.
Today, you step into a large walled space approaching the size a of football pitch, with slabs placed in neat lines, yet overturned in places by trees sprouting and overgrown with thick grass and bluebells. Almost all the stones have lost their inscriptions, worn away over time, with just a few images discernible and enough lettering to distinguish Hebrew and Portuguese, reflecting the continental origins of many of those buried here.
An unmarked area contains the remains of plague victims from 1665 and 66, while the high levels of child mortality demanded that infants were buried in closely-packed rows of three foot graves. Between 1708 and 34, six hundred and thirty children were buried here, almost half of all those interred in that period. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Jewish population in London had grown to between six and seven hundred, with around five hundred Sephardim but, testifying to significant numbers of Ashkenazim, Benjamin Levy purchased adjoining land in Alderney Rd in 1696 for an Ashkenazi Cemetery. And the Velho itself was superseded in the eighteenth century by the Nuevo Cemetery, occupying land to the east purchased in 1724.
Entering the gate in the wall in Alderney Rd, you enter another of the East End’s secret sacred places and the atmosphere is quite different from the Velho. In this smaller, more domestic enclave sheltered by tall trees, you discover elaborate table tombs surrounded by vertical stones, like lines of broken teeth, erupting from the recently cut grass where lilac and fruit trees bloom. A twentieth century monolith lists those famous in death and a handsome warden’s cottage both reflect the recent care expended upon this site, which received burials until 1852 and where the devout still attend regularly to light candles for the most worthy of the departed.
Yesterday, the warmth of the sun and the depth of the shade rendered both cemeteries as welcoming tranquil places – where grief and sadness and loss have ebbed away, and the peace that is unique to the grave prevails.
The door to the Velho Cemetery
Tomb of David Nieto – born in Venice, he came to London be Rabbi at Bevis Marks Synagogue and established the first Jewish orphanage in 1713
Plaque of 1684 commemorates the laying of the foundation stone of the boundary wall
Entrance to Alderney Rd Cemetery
Tomb of Samuel Falk, the Cabbalist who died in 1782 and was known as the “Baal Shem of London”
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On The Buses With Colin O’Brien
The restored prototype RT1 of 1939 in Piccadilly Circus
A magical time warp appeared to manifest itself in London yesterday, when Saturday shoppers were surprised by buses of past eras – many more than sixty years old – arriving unexpectedly, as if conjured from the ether, to whisk them away to the West End. In fact, it was a celebration of seventy-five years of the classic RT London bus organised by the London Bus Museum, in which fifty vintage vehicles returned to service for one day, offering free rides to all.
The buses gathered at the Ash Grove Depot next to London Fields before departure, so Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I put on our anoraks and joined the happy throng of enthusiasts, mesmerised by the return of these beautiful historic buses, polished to perfection for this special day.
Unquestionably, the star attraction was the original prototype of the RT1 which first entered service on route 22 between Putney Common and Homerton on 9th August 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of World War II. The RT1 marked the culmination of a programme to design the ultimate London bus, featuring the latest in construction and engineering for passenger and crew comfort. Now fully restored to its former magnificence, it led the fleet from the depot out into the London streets yesterday.
Colin & I hopped aboard and made our way upstairs, and we discovered that we were upon a trip into memory. The checkerboard velvet upholstery, the wind-down windows, wooden floors, the cream paintwork, the “Push Once” bell and the “Do Not Spit” sign were all powerfully evocative of another time. But before we could contemplate further, the bus departed with that once-familar ding-ding of the bell and we enjoyed a smooth ride with just the occasionally rocky patch, whenever the bus lurched round corners, swinging around like one of those stage coaches of old.
Our great delight from the top deck was to observe the expressions of wonder and joy appear upon the faces of vaguely-bored Londoners at bus stops, astonished at the unexpected arrival of these glossy chariots from another age, skinnier and with rounder corners that our contemporary buses, and embellished with colourful advertisements from the past.
At Piccadilly Circus, we hopped off again and positioned ourselves strategically upon a traffic island so that Colin might photograph the old buses as they came through, standing out with decorative flourish like swans upon the river. We waited for hours, searching the distant traffic expectantly to capture the trophy shots you see below.
In spite of all the changes, these charismatic buses still looked entirely at home upon the streets. Held in great affection by Londoners, they are interwoven with the identity of the city itself and their descendants still ply the same routes every hour of the day and night – but we were overjoyed to see the return of the much-loved ancestors, reminding us of our collective past and reclaiming their old routes for a day.
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
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Blogs Spawned
One of the great joys of recent years has been teaching courses encouraging others to write blogs. Without exception, the participants always come up with wonderful ideas and here are just a handful of favourites that have been spawned as a result. The next course HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ will be held in Spitalfields on 10th & 11th May.
BUG WOMAN – ADVENTURES IN LONDON
Because a community is more than just people
Bug Woman is a slightly scruffy middle-aged woman who enjoys nothing more than finding a large spider in the bathroom. She plans to spend the next five years exploring the parks, woods and pavements within a half-mile radius of her North London home and reporting on the animals, plants and people that she finds there. She will also be paying close attention to the creatures that turn up in the garden and the house. She promises to post every week on a Saturday and more often if she can tear herself away from the marmalade making.
THE PERILS OF A MIDWINTER
When I got off the tube train at East Finchley Station this afternoon, I noticed a small, hunched shape on the platform. As I bent over for a closer look, I realised that it was a bumblebee, lying motionless on her back. As everybody else piled past on their way home, I wondered what to do. I couldn’t bear to think of people treading on her. What if she was still alive? So I picked her up and rested her in the palm of my hand. She looked substantial, but her weight barely registered. And then she moved, one of her legs groping into the air as if looking for something, anything to cling on to.
My bumblebee is a Queen, who has come out of hibernation too early because the weather has been so unseasonably mild. She has been unable to find any flowers to feed from, and has used up her last energy searching the desert of the station platforms for something to eat.
I cradle her in my hand all the way home. Once there, I put her onto a plate, and position her so that she can drink from a spoon filled with sugar-water, the closest substitute for nectar that I can make. I watch as her leg twitches, but gradually the movement becomes weaker. I fear that there is no hope for her.
The bee will not be the only creature to die – she has some ‘hangers-on’. I count four mites crawling through her fur, each the size and shape of a flaxseed. That’s a heavy burden for an insect to be flying around with. The mites live in bumblebee nests, and will attach themselves to the young queens, like this one. When an infested bumblebee lands on a flower, some of the mites will get off and wait for another bee to latch onto, as if changing buses. However, without the bee the mites won’t survive either.
Looking at the bumblebee closely, in a way that she would never allow if she was healthy, is both a privilege and a kind of impertinence. I notice, as I never did before, that her wings are like smoked glass, the ridged veins standing out and catching the light from my Anglepoise lamp. Her eyes are black, like twin coals in her alien face. She has little hooks on the end of each leg, rather than feet. There are bands of dirty yellow fur behind her wings but just behind her head there is the faintest shadow of gold, only discernible from a very particular angle.
As I watch, she is curling up, her antennae covering her face, her legs crumpled under her. I will leave her for a while, but I am sure that she is dead.
The other casualties, apart from the bee herself and her little team of parasites, are the eggs that she carries. She will have mated once last summer, when she first emerged from the nest as a fresh young queen. I imagine her flying to meet the male bees at the top of the lime trees where they leave their pheromones, a kind of sexual perfume, so that she can find them. Inside her will be the first of her fertilised eggs that, if things had been different, would have hatched into the first workers to support her nest. From this one female up to four hundred and fifty bumblebees would have been born, going on to pollinate countless thousands of plants. When any creature dies, however humble, however common, there is a ripple effect that spreads much wider than that little death.
A LONDON INHERITANCE
A Private History of a Public City
My father was born in London in 1928, lived in London throughout the Second World War and started taking photographs of the city from 1946 through to 1954. These show a city which had changed dramatically since the pre-war period and has changed, in many places beyond recognition, in the intervening years.
Through “A London Inheritance” I document my exploration of London using these photographs as a starting point. To try and identify the original locations, show how and why these have changed and how the buildings, streets and underlying topography of the city have developed. To guide me on this journey, I use my father’s original 1940 London Street Atlas, along with books, documents and notes collected over many years.
THE CHAIR REPAIR
Within my father’s photo collection, there are many photos of people across London. Whether as part of an overall location, or frequently the focal point of the photo.
This week’s post is from the later category. I have no idea where this was taken or who he is. Checking the photos on the negative strip either side of these photos, it is safe to assume they were taken in Central London – however I can find no clues within the photos as to a possible location. I am impressed by the good condition of his well polished shoes.
The close-up nature of the photo shows that he did not have a problem with my father taking his photograph. He carries on with his work with an obvious high degree of concentration and, I am sure, pride in his work. This type of scene would once have been very common on the streets of London, but was soon to be replaced by a throwaway consumer culture where everyday objects are cheaper to replace than to repair.
It would be good to know if that chair is still in use, somewhere in London.
http://alondoninheritance.com/
HERNE HILL STREET PIANO
Random Encounters in a Railway Walkway
The Herne Hill Piano sits in the entrance tunnel to our local station. I saw it one day plonked there with its lid open confidently displaying its stream of black and white keys – an invitation for contact like no other. And that is what this blog is about – the contact that this piano generates.
I began to notice how a piano in a public place changes the way people behave. It seemed to naturally encourage interaction and to see that happening in a screen orientated urban environment was fascinating. In a city like London people enjoy living here because it is exciting and diverse but the the city can also be isolating.
What I found exciting about the piano was that it gave permission for face to face personal interaction and permission to experience this diversity. By the piano, people talk to ‘strangers.’
The area around it becomes like a front room without walls. It is a natural community maker in the gentlest, most-unassuming way. And I wanted to tell people about that and decided to make a film about it – so this blog is a companion to the film.
I promise to post a piano story every week and look forward to hearing yours.
ANTHONY
Anthony was the first person that got asked these two questions – How did you get into playing the piano ? and Why do you like playing the Herne Hill piano?
Anthony said, “I got into music when I heard it on video games – the backing tracks, I wasn’t financially stable, so I got myself a cheap keyboard and some books and learned to read sheet music and compose.”
He taught himself initially by ear to play the music he heard on video games – classical, soul, jazz. Then he taught himself to read music and is now at college learning to compose music for video games. He plays beautifully.
“That what I just played was one of my compositions. That’s what I do now, I decided to make a career out of i , I compose music for games. I’m studying it now, i’ts a passion.”
[youtube BS9gclfqfO8#t nolink]
THIS IS FIFTY
Turning fifty and looking for role models who can show me how to do it with style and grace
Over the last eighteen months, I have been on the move. My elder son has started at university in Scotland and my younger son is busy planning his gap year in the States. Having spent the last ten years on my own ‘gap year,’ I have recently remarried and moved into a working vicarage. In the process, I have acquired a whole new set of roles as well as a beautiful step-daughter whose love trials have taken me back to my own eighteen-year-old self.
In the midst of these shifting life plates, I have experienced my own deep murmurings. I have turned fifty.
In the move, I came across a photograph of my teenage self in one of those boxes that I hadn’t opened in years. It was taken at my debutante party – my ‘coming out’ party – at the yacht club in Vero Beach on the east coast of Florida in the nineteen seventies. I am sitting beside my grandfather. While I glance self-consciously to my right, maybe a little anxiously, my grandfather stares straight ahead, on top of his game, like a mafia boss contemplating a hit. It touches me.
When I was turning from a girl into a young woman there were social conventions and peer group expectations. There were grown-ups to dodge my way around and also to help me negotiate my way through. There was the promise of adventure and there was lovely day-dreaming. There were parties.
But now, standing on another threshold, I face an unknown future with few signposts. And the places to which I have always gone for inspiration – the films and magazines and fantasy characters that played such a key role in the creation of my younger self – have simply disappeared. They have dried up. I feel bereft.
What does it mean to be newly married again at this age? What do I take with me and what do I need to let go? Who now are my role models and my muses?
I am still a little anxious, looking over my shoulder for clues. Only now the girl in front of the mirror at eighteen stands there at fifty. Maybe less wilful, she is still wondering what lies ahead.
I want to open up a new conversation with my younger self in order to reconnect with how I got to where I am today. To make sure that she comes along with me. I don’t want to loose the spirit of the girl inspired by adventures of Huckelyberry Finn, or the teenager with her Singer sewing machine who spent hours making creations more inspired by Cosmo Cover girls than Simplicity patterns – much to my parents’ horror.
In these get-ups I created at fifteen for my lanky hollyhocks body, just coming into flower, certainly nobody ever thought I would end up a vicar’s wife. Least of all me.
I’ve been playing all my life. But do I have to stop? Can I still play the romantic lead in my own life? Where do I look for inspiration and guidance?
TINSMITHS CUTTINGS
Interesting things we’ve stumbled on and want to share
WHAT DO HAIRDRESSERS DO ALL DAY?
On being asked why he became a hairdresser, Mervyn Parnell is liable to give one of two answers. Either: “I was good at art, I could draw and I knew I was creative. I could have gone to art college but it was full of ‘hippies’ not people like me, so I thought that hairdressing would allow me to be creative and earn a living.” The other answer is “I was a 5’2” lad with buck teeth, so I figured that going into an industry which had loads of girls and not too many heterosexual men working in it, that I would be bound to pull.”
I’m not sure which answer is true. In any case, Mervyn started as a Saturday boy in a salon near his family home in Gloucester in his early teens, he was cutting hair at fifteen and had is own client list at sixteen. “No one ever taught me, there was one chap John Phelps who ran another salon and had been a world champion, we just used to talk about cutting hair – which sounds a bit sad – but he’s the only person that I learned anything from.”
A girlfriend and job brought Mervyn to Ledbury at the beginning of the eighties. “I remember getting off the bus with a Mohawk haircut wearing bondage trousers and I thought ‘What the heck am I doing here?’ Mervyn has continued to be one of Ledbury’s more stylish residents with a collection of more than sixty vintage Levi jeans, twenty-five Levi jackets from the forties & fifties, Pendleton shirts and 1948 -1956 suits it can be said that Mervyn is more into clothes than most “It just smacks of laziness, dressing badly.”
In 1986, Mervyn opened the Cutting Club, with a distinctly mid-century feel and an educational selection from Mervyn’s extensive collection of northern soul, fifties and sixties R&B and roots, and rockabilly music playing. The salon has been busy since the day it opened.
“My working day starts at 7.30 in the morning and ends at 7.30 in the evening, I have more than twenty clients a day and I can’t wait to get a pair of scissors in my hands.”
“So you like what you do?” “Absolutely – I like to create and change, I like cutting hair and I really like the people that I work with, in twenty-eight years I’ve never had a cross word with any of my stylists.”
There is no computer in the salon or in Mervyn’s life and no mobile phone either, this seems to be an aesthetic choice as much as anything. “I struggle with technology, I’m just not interested, I prefer things which are crafted with a hand and heart.” And fashion as a concept is difficult for him too. “I like style not fashion, I like a good hair cut where you can see it’s a whole exercise in shape, not to be dressed.”
Mervyn and I go back a long time. He first cut my hair when I was fourteen, it is a haircut which is etched in my memory because until that day my hair had been long, straggly – and mainly scratched back into a ponytail and found under a riding hat – but the sleek sharp bob that Mervyn gave me made me aware of a whole new world of possibilities!
THE SUMMER HOUSE YEARS
Once a week on a Tuesday, I’m going to tell you about my retirement experiences. Don’t be fooled by the somewhat bucolic title, there’s a lot of stuff going off even if most of it is in my head.
The bald facts of the matter are that I’m going to retire in just over a month. I have been thinking about what I want my world to be like – we control freaks think in those terms – what I want it to be. Problem is, I have not much in the way of an idea what I want ‘it’ to be. When you tell people you’re going to retire their immediate and, I suppose, predictable response is – what are you going to do?
I need to be creative, think laterally, work out what works. Important when, like me, you have no passion, no firm hobby to fall back on or extend. So this is my challenge and the challenge of this blog, to report my progress from said Summer House.
FIRST VALENTINE’S DAY AFTER RETIREMENT
Call me a romantic old fool – You’re a romantic old fool! – but I can’t let Valentine’s Day go by without some recognition and I wouldn’t have let it go by this far, had it not been for the fact that it was a day of mixed fortunes. Let’s start with the downside. It was the day, some time ago, not realising the significance of the date, we had chosen to have the pups ‘done’. On the most love-oriented day of the year our puppies love life was to be brought to an abrupt and permanent end. This was how the day began, dropping them off at the vets in full knowledge of the pain they were about to suffer through castration. Archie, mild-mannered Archie went straight for the vet, he knew you see. We were upset when we got outside. In fact some tears were shed – mine.
Then – pulling ourselves together – we thought, well we’ve got a day to ourselves. A very rare event. So we had better make the most of it and it is Valentine’s Day. So, being the romantic old fool that I am, I decided to take Mrs Summerhouse for a little luxury shopping and a celebratory meal. No expense spared, yes, of course, my love, you may have the bacon sandwich and a large mug of tea of your choice. Go ahead, spoil yourself, live a little. We were sitting in a cafe in Leeds Market, a place overflowing with romantic ambiance. I, myself, chose the bacon and egg sandwich, no point skimping on such a day as this. The puppies would have wanted us to have a good time, we reasoned.
For dessert, I walked to the next stall and bought three Twix bars for a pound. Yes, I know I spoil her and do you know she refused half a bar – a whole finger – said it was too soon after the bacon sandwich? But, “My love,” I reasoned, “That’s what happens with dessert. It comes more or less straight after the excellent first course and while you have some of your liquid refreshment – in this case a mug of tea – left.”
I love Leeds Market. We took full advantage – two sirloins and two fillet steaks for ten pounds – beat that. A new watchstrap for three pounds. Then outside where my lucky Valentine bought two pairs of gloves – one for each evening dress, although I’m not sure woolly mitts are de rigeur these days. Then there were the light bulbs, four of them. No matter the expense, this was life in the fast lane. I bought a Freddy King CD for a fiver. My romanticism knew no bounds, I even allowed a man to give Mrs Summerhouse a single red rose on my behalf of course.
Of course, there was a price to be paid for all this fun. Isn’t there always? After a romantic day out, we went back to pick up the pups. And a sorry sight they were, very subdued, although Archie managed to attack the vet before he left. Smart boy, that Archie!
He, the vet, had put those ridiculous lampshades on them – to stop them licking their wounds, he explained (and biting his hand off). We took them off as soon as we got home. The pups were delighted but it meant we had to watch them carefully to ensure that, now they could, they didn’t lick themselves and hence open up their wounds.
They did manage to share a little of our meal – the prawn vol-au-vent and the duck l’orange went down well. So well that it took their little minds off licking themselves for a while. But, after the meal, the practicality of our choice to remove the lampshades became clear. It meant we stayed up all night. We slept on the sofas and, as we tossed and turned, our minds ran fondly over the day. Who would have thought that, at our age, Valentine’s Day could be so full of romance.
http://thesummerhouseyears.com/
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