At The Spitalfields Nativity Procession
There was no doubt whatsoever that the Christmas season had arrived in Spitalfields last week when a procession of characters from the nativity story advanced up Brick Lane accompanied by all the pupils of Christ Church School singing carols. Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien & I arrived at the school just as the final preparations were taking place.
In the hallway, school governors, members of the parent-teachers’ association and any other adults that could be recruited were changing into colourful biblical costumes. They were joined by the pupils, some of whom had been assigned specific roles in the drama and other who had opted for generic nativity outfits. Once we were all gathered in the yard at the front of the school, there was just time for a group photo before the unlikely procession set off up Brick Lane, singing carols enthusiastically to dispel the grim atmosphere of damp and cold.
The curry touts were astonished by this unexpected demonstration of seasonal goodwill and resisted their natural impulse to offer meal deals and free beers to Mary & Joseph, on the their way to Bethlehem via Brick Lane. In fact, the first destination was the Spitalfields City Farm where the holy couple were to acquire a donkey for Mary to ride on their journey. Although legend has it that farm animals gain the power of speech on Christmas Eve, the pig at the City Farm grew impatient and joined in loudly with the carol-singing last week, much to the delight of the school children.
After readings telling the nativity story and more carols, and once Mary had put on her safety helmet and was securely mounted upon Bayleaf the donkey, we were all set to continue on our Christmas pilgrimage around Spitalfields. The attenuated procession stretched the length of Allen Gardens, offering great amusement to passengers on the East London Line gawping in delight from the train windows as they sped by.
We crossed Brick Lane again and followed the perimeter wall of the Truman Brewery to emerge onto Commercial St. Passing along the side of Spitalfields Market down Lamb St, the procession entered Bishop’s Sq just as it was thronging with office workers at lunchtime. The line of singing children led by a donkey had come to invade the adult workaday world, as harbingers of the approaching festive season – they had come to remind everyone that in less than two weeks everything must stop for Christmas.
The procession assembles at Christ Church School
Advancing up Brick Lane
Arriving at the Spitalfields City Farm
Jasmin as Mary, with Mhairi from Spitalfields City Farm and Bayleaf the donkey
Mary-Jane played the drum with Eleanor on accordion
Hamza, Josh and Kevin as the three kings
Setting out from the farm
Joseph & Mary advancing along Buxton St
Janzaib as the angel
Photographs copyright Colin O’Brien
You may also like to read about
Spitalfields Nippers At Broadway Bookshop
Your last chance to hear me talking about Horace Warner’s Spitalfields Nippers this year is at Broadway Bookshop in Broadway Market, Hackney, next Wednesday 17th December at 7pm, when I shall be showing the photographs and reading biographies of the children in the pictures. This event is free and tickets can be reserved by emailing books@broadwaybookshophackney.com
“Adelaide Springett in all her best clothes” photographed by Horace Warner c. 1900
Adelaide Springett was born in February 1893 in the parish of St George-in-the-East, Wapping. Her father, William Springett came from Marylebone and her mother Margaret from St Lukes, Old St. Both parents were costermongers, although William was a dock labourer when he first married. Adelaide’s twin sisters, Ellen and Margaret, died at birth and another sister, Susannah, died aged four. Adelaide attended St Mary’s School and then St Joseph’s School. The addresses on her school admissions were 12 Miller’s Court, Dorset St, and then 26 Dorset St. In 1901, at eight years old, she was recorded as lodging with her mother at the Salvation Army Shelter in Hanbury St. Adelaide Springett died in 1986 in Fulham aged ninety-three, without any traceable relatives, and the London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Social Services Department was her executor.
Click here to order a copy of SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS by Horace Warner
You may also like to read about
Upon The Subject Of The Spitalfields Nippers
Lizzie Flynn & Dollie Green by Horace Warner
Annie & Nellie Lyons by Horace Warner
Wakefield Sisters by Horace Warner
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries Of London II
It is my delight today to publish these splendid plates from Volume II of Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London, from the seventeenth century copy in the archive of the Bishopsgate Institute
Images photographed by Alex Pink & reproduced courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at
Wilfred Owen At Shadwell Stair
When I published my pictures of Wapping Stairs this week, a reader reminded me of Wilfred Owen’s enigmatic poem of 1918, Shadwell Stair, sending me back to the river to take this photograph for you
Wilfred Owen (1893 -1918)
Shadwell Stair in 1937
Shadwell Church
The Prospect of Whitby
Shadwell Church seen from the entrance to Shadwell Basin
You may also like to read about
Nevio Pellicci At New Spitalfields Market
Nevio Pellicci goes in search of Maris Piper
“This is my dad’s old car,” explained Nevio Pellicci as he drove Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie & me through Bethnal Green before dawn on Monday morning, “I just use it now for these market trips” – and he patted the dashboard affectionately in remembrance of Nevio Pellicci senior. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Nevio drives over to the New Spitalfields Market to buy fresh vegetables for his celebrated family-run cafe in the Bethnal Green Rd which has been in business since 1900.
“I’m up at five-fifteen and at the cafe by six,” Nevio explained lightly, revealing that he had been working even before we set out that morning,”When I was a boy, my mum used to wake me at four-fifteen and I’d just roll over, but my dad used to switch the lights on. He was of the old school, he was a grafter. You always had be doing something, that’s how he prepared you for life ahead.”
We sped through the empty East End streets towards Leyton, where the nocturnal wholesale market was just winding down after a night’s trading. Once we drove through the security gates, Nevio’s first port of call was Johnny Bates – known as the Legend – a tall man with a shock of white hair, whose role goes by the arcane name of Cartminder. In other words, Johnny keeps an eye on Nevio’s car and makes sure his market purchases are safe when they are delivered to the car by the Porters. “I bring him a piece of bread pudding sometimes,” Nevio confided to me, “Not too often mind you, I don’t want to spoil him.”
Leaving the dark of the car park, we entered the vast market hall that stretched away into the distance with a bewildering array of stands displaying enough vegetables to feed a city, stacked up in tall metal towers. Nevio knew what he was looking for and went straight for the spring greens at Ernest Hammond, where he is a familiar customer – enough to be welcomed liked a long-lost relative by the fellows behind the desk. The current Mr Hammond informed me he is sixth generation in this family business, the oldest in the market.
When I looked around, Nevio was off searching among the produce, since the greens were merely the overture to his essential quest – for potatoes to make the chips for which Pelliccis are famous throughout the capital.“Mum won’t use anything else but these!” he announced, holding up a sack of Maris Piper in triumph.
“We used to get our veg delivered,” Nevio confessed to me, rubbing his hands in glee as we strode through the cavernous hall together, “But I prefer to come here, you get to see what you are buying and you save a lot of money.” Next stop was Aberdeen Stanton, third generation traders in the market. “This is where I get 95% of my stuff,” Nevio assured me with a proprietorial smile, “If they haven’t got it, they’ll find it for me.”
“I’m in and out in no time, I get everything and I’m back to the cafe,” admitted Nevio, once he had run through his list. But, since Sarah & I were there, he agreed to take a stroll around, and we were drawn by the pungent aroma of Christmas trees, which put Nevio in the seasonal spirit, encouraging him to buy four decorative wreaths – one for his mother Maria, one for his wife Nicola, and one each for his sisters Anna and Bruna.
Our last destination was Dino’s Cafe, that was formerly in Crispin St, Spitalfields, and moved here in 1991. “I used to come in here when I was bunking off school,” Nevio whispered to me. Taking a moment to shake hands with Ernesto Fiori, the proprietor, and greet Jim Olney, the paper bag seller from Donovans, we carried off cups of tea to drink on our way. As we were leaving, I met Keith Edwards, a Porter of forty-eight years standing – “I’ve Porters in my family in the London markets going back over a hundred years,” he told me.
Before I could pursue the conversation with Keith, we were outside in the sunrise as Porter, Terry Holt, arrived with Nevio’s order – delivered at the car where Johnny Bates was waiting. Terry boasted fifty-one years in the job. “I had three uncles down here as Porters in 1963,” he informed me proudly. Johnny Bates, thirty years a Cartminder, was not to be outdone –“My grandfather worked in Spitalfields Markt when he was eight years old and when the Market closed in the morning, he walked up through Quaker St, under the arches, whistling and then his mother came out the house with a piece of toast and his schoolbooks for him, and off he went to school.” After this disclosure, I knew why Johnny is known as ‘the Legend.’
We were chilled to the bone and, lacking the inborn vitality of market traders, Sarah & I were happy to be back in the warm at Pelliccis in Bethnal Green eating a hot breakfast. It had been an adventure, but for Nevio it happens three nights a week, every week, as a prelude to a day’s work in the cafe. The lengths some people will go to for fresh vegetables are astonishing.
Spring greens from Ernest Hammond
Lawrence
Ernest Hammond, six generations in the family business
Nevio with Ernesto Fiori of Dino’s Cafe
Nevio with Keith Edwards, Porter
Jim Olney, right, celebrated paper bag salesman
Nevio with Johnny Bates, legendary Cartminder
Terry Holt senior and Terry Holt junior – both Porters
Nevio’s order for Pelliccis Cafe
Delivering the fresh veg at Pelliccis
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
E.Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, E2 0AG
You may like to read my other Pellicci stories
Christmas Ravioli At E Pellicci
Maria Pellicci, The Meatball Queen of Bethnal Green
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
Gustave Doré’s East End
I have been thinking about Gustave Doré lately, as the freezing miasma of winter descends upon the city and I struggle to negotiate the excited crowds thronging in the busy streets. Gazing upon the teeming masses in the flickering half-light outside Liverpool St Station, I see his world where deep shadows recede into infinite gloom and I succumb to its terrible beauty.
Doré signed a contract to spend three months in London each year for five years and the completed book of one hundred and eighty engravings with text by Blanchard Jerrold was published in 1872, entitled London – A Pilgrimage. Although he illustrated life in the West End and as well as in the East End, it is Doré’s images of the East End that have always drawn the most attention with their overwhelming sense of diabolic horror and epic drama, in which his figures drift like spectres coalesced from the ether.
In Bishopsgate
In Wentworth St, Spitalfields
Riverside St
In Bluegate Fields
A City Thoroughfare
Inside the Docks
In Houndsditch
Turn Him Out, Ratcliff
Warehousing in the City
Billingsgate Early Morning
Off Billingsgate
Refuge – Applying For Admittance
Brewer’s Men
Hay Boats On The Thames
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to read about
Wapping Stairs
Wapping Old Stairs
I need to keep reminding myself of the river. Rarely a week goes by without some purpose to go down there but, if no such reason occurs, I often take a walk simply to pay my respects to the Thames. Even as you descend from the Highway into Wapping, you sense a change of atmosphere when you enter the former marshlands that remain susceptible to fog and mist on winter mornings. Yet the river does not declare itself at first, on account of the long wall of old warehouses that line the shore, blocking the view of the water from Wapping High St.
The feeling here is like being offstage in a great theatre and walking in the shadowy wing space while the bright lights and main events take place nearby. Fortunately, there are alleys leading between the tall warehouses which deliver you to the waterfront staircases where you may gaze upon the vast spectacle of the Thames, like an interloper in the backstage peeping round the scenery at the action. There is a compelling magnetism drawing you down these dark passages, without ever knowing precisely what you will find, since the water level rises and falls by seven metres every day – you may equally discover waves lapping at the foot of the stairs or you may descend onto an expansive beach.
These were once Watermen’s Stairs, where passengers might get picked up or dropped off, seeking transport across or along the Thames. Just as taxi drivers of contemporary London learn the Knowledge, Watermen once knew the all the names and order of the hundreds of stairs that lined the banks of the Thames, of which only a handful survive today.
Arriving in Wapping by crossing the bridge in Old Gravel Lane, I come first to the Prospect of Whitby where a narrow passage to the right leads to Pelican Stairs. Centuries ago, the Prospect was known as the Pelican, giving its name to the stairs which have retained their name irrespective of the changing identity of the pub. These worn stone steps connect to a slippery wooden stair leading to wide beach at low tide where you may enjoy impressive views towards the Isle of Dogs.
West of here is New Crane Stairs and then, at the side of Wapping Station, another passage leads you to Wapping Dock Stairs. Further down the High St, opposite the entrance to Brewhouse Lane, is a passageway leading to a fiercely-guarded pier, known as King Henry’s Stairs – though John Roque’s map of 1746 labels this as the notorious Execution Dock Stairs. Continue west and round the side of the river police station, you discover Wapping Police Stairs in a strategic state of disrepair and beyond, in the park, is Wapping New Stairs.
It is a curious pilgrimage, but when you visit each of these stairs you are visiting another time – when these were the main entry and exit points into Wapping. The highlight is undoubtedly Wapping Old Stairs with its magnificently weathered stone staircase abutting the Town of Ramsgate and offering magnificent views to Tower Bridge from the beach. If you are walking further towards the Tower, Aldermans’ Stairs is worth venturing at low tide when a fragment of ancient stone causeway is revealed, permitting passengers to embark and disembark from vessels without wading through Thames mud.
Pelican Stairs
Pelican Stairs at night
View into the Prospect of Whitby from Pelican Stairs
New Crane Stairs
Wapping Dock Stairs
Execution Dock Stairs, now known as King Henry’s Stairs
Entrance to Wapping Police Stairs
Wapping Police Stairs
Metropolitan Police Service Warning: These stairs are unsafe!
Wapping New Stairs with Rotherithe Church in the distance
Light in Wapping High St
Wapping Pier Head
Entrance to Wapping Old Stairs
Wapping Old Stairs
Passageway to Wapping Old Stairs at night
Aldermans’ Stairs, St Katharine’s Way
You may also like to read about
Madge Darby, Historian of Wapping
Whistler in Wapping & Limehouse
