The Gentle Author’s Party at Christ Church
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More Hop Picking Pictures
Celebrating Hop Picking Season and the opening of the new Truman’s Brewery today, it is my pleasure to publish more favourite Hop Picking Pictures selected from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Hopping was hard work, yet it was an opportunity for the whole family to enjoy time together with plenty of high jinks, drinking and even the potential for romance.
Taken in September 1958 at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent. Sitting on the bin is Miss Whitby with Patrick Mahoney, young John Mahoney and Sheila Tarling (now Mahoney) – Sheila & Patrick were picking to save up for their engagement party in October
Maryann Lowry’s Nan, Maggie ,on the left with her Great-Grandmother, Maryann, in the check shirt in the hop gardens, c.1910
Having a rest in hop gardens at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1966. In the back row are Mary Brownlow, Sean Locke, Linda Locke, Kate Milchard, Chris Locke & Margie Brownlow with Kevin Locke and Terry Locke in front.
Margie Brownlow & her Mum Kate Milchard at Whitbreads Farm in Beltring, Kent in 1967. These huts were two stories high. The children playing outside are – Timmy Kaylor, Chrissy Locke, Terry Locke, Sean Locke, Linda Locke & Kevin Locke.
Chris Locke, Sally Brownlow, Linda Brownlow, Kate Milchard, Margie Brownlow, Terry Locke & Mary Brownlow at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1962
Johnno Mahoney, Superintendant of the Caretakers on the Bancroft Estate in Stepney, driving the “Mahoney Special” at Five Oak Green in 1947
The Clarkson family in the hop gardens in Staplehurst. Gladys Clarkson , Edith Clarkson, William Clarkson, Rose Clarkson & Henry Norris.
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
Kate Fairclough, Mrs Callaghan, Mary Fairclough & Iris Fairclough at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1972
A gang of Hoppers from Wapping outside the brick huts at Stilstead Farm, Tonbridge, Kent with Jim Tuck & John James in the back. In the middle row the first person on the left is unknown, but the others are Rose Tuck, holding Terry Tuck, Rose Tuck, Danny Tuck & Nell Jenkins. In the front are Alan Jenkins, Brian Tuck, Pat Tuck, Jean Tuck, Terry Taylor & Brian Taylor.
Nanny Barnes, Harriet Hefflin, “Minie” Mahoney & Patsy Mahoney at Ploggs Hall Farm
In the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent in the late forties. Alfie Raines, Edie Cooper, Margie Gorst & Lizzie Raines
The Day family from Kirks Place, Limehouse, at Highwoods Farm in Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Annie Smith, Bill Daniels, Pearl Brown & Nell Daniels waiting for the measurer in the Hop Garden at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent
On the common outside the huts at at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent – you can see the oasthouses in the distance. Rita Daniels, Colleen Brown, Maureen Brown, Marie Brown, Billy Daniels, Gerald Brown & Teddy Hart , with Sylvie Mason & Pearlie Brown standing.
The Outram family from Arbour Sq outside their huts at Hubbles Farm, Hunton, Kent. Unusually these were detached huts but, like all the others, they made of corrugated tin and all had one small window – simply basic rooms, roughly eleven feet square
Janis Randall being held by her mother Joyce Lee andalongside her is her father, Alfred Lee in a hop garden, near Faversham in September 1950
David & Vivian Lee sitting on a log on the common outside Nissen huts used to house hop pickers
Gerald Brown, Billy Daniels & Dennis Woodham in the hop gardens at Gatehouse Farm near Brenchley, Kent, in the fifties
Nelly Jones from St Paul’s Way with Eileen Mahoney, and in the background is Eileen’s mum, “Minie” Mahoney. Taken in the fifties in the Hop Gardens at Ploggs Hall Farm, between Paddock Wood and Five Oak Green.
At Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent
Ploggs Hall Farm Ladies Football Team. Back Row – Fred Archer, Lil Callaghan, Harriet Jones, Unknown, Unknown, Nanny Barnes, Liz Weeks, Harriet Hefflin, Johnno Mahoney. Front Row – Doris Hurst Eileen Mahoney & Nellie Jones
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
The Outram and Pyburn families outside a Kent pub in 1957, showing clockwise Kitty Tyrrell, Mary Pyburn, Charlie Protheroe, Rene Protheroe, Wag Outram, Derek Protheroe in the pram, Annie Lazel, Tom Pyburn, Bill Dignum & Nancy Wright.
You can download hop picking booklets published by Tower Hamlets Community Housing
Readers are invited to the opening of the New Truman’s Brewery, 2-3 Stour Rd, Hackney Wick, E2 2NT, today Saturday 14th September 2pm – 10pm with Opening Ceremony at 4pm
You may also like to take a look at
Hop Picking Pictures
Celebrating Hop Picking Season and the launch of the new Truman’s Brewery this week, it is my pleasure to publish this selection of favourite Hop Picking Pictures from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Traditionally, this was the time when East Enders headed down to the Hop Farms, embracing the opportunity of a breath of country air and earning a few bob too.
Bill Brownlow, Margie Brownlow, Terry Brownlow & Kate Milchard, with Keith Brownlow & Kevin Locke in front, at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1958. Guinness bought land at Bodiam in 1905 and eight hundred acres were devoted to hop growing at its peak.
Julie Mason, Ted Hart, Edward Hart & friends at Hoathleys Farm, Hook Green, near Lamberhurst, Kent
Lou Osbourn, Derek Protheroe & Kate Day at Goudhurst Farm
Margie Brownlow & Charlie Brownlow with Keith Brownlow, Kate Milchard & Terry Brownlow in front at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1950
Mr & Mrs Gallagher with Kitty Adams & Jackie Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1959
Jackie Harrop, Joan Day & George Rogers at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Mag Day (on the left at the back) in the hop gardens with others at Highwood’s Farm, Collier St, in 1938
Pop Harrop at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Sarah Watt, Mrs Hopkins, Steven Allen, Ann Allen, Tom, Albert Allen & Sally Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1943
Harry Watt, Tom Shuffle, Mary Shuffle, Sally Watt, Julie Callagher, Ada Watt & Sarah Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Harry Watt, Sally Watt, Sarah Watt holding Terry Ellames in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1957
Harry Ayres, a pole puller, in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Emmie Rist, Theresa Webber, Kit Webber & Eileen Ayres in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Kit Webber with her Aunt Mary, her Dad Sam Webber and her Mum, Emmie Ris,t in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Harry Ayres with his wife Kit Webber in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent.
Richard Pyburn, Mag Day, Patty Seach and Kitty Gray from Kirks Place, Limehouse, in the hop gardens at Highwoods Farm, Collier St, Kent
The Gorst and Webber families at Jack Thompsett’s Farm, Fowle Hall, Kent in the forties
Kitty Waters with sons Terry & John outside the huts at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1952
Mr & Mrs Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, with their grandchildren in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1958
Sybil Ogden, Doris Cossey, Danny Tyrrell & Sally Hawes near Yalding, Kent
John Doree, Alice Thomas, Celia Doree & Mavis Doree in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
Bill Thomas & his wife Annie, in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
The Castleman Family from Poplar hop picking in the twenties
Terry & Margie Brownlow at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam in Sussex in 1949
Alfie Raines, Johnny Raines, Charlie Cushway, Les Benjamin & Tommy Webber in the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent
Lal Outram, Wag Outram & Mary Day on the common at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent in 1955
Sally Watt’s Hop Picker’s account book from Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
You can download hop picking booklets published by Tower Hamlets Community Housing
Readers are invited to the opening of the New Truman’s Brewery, 2-3 Stour Rd, Hackney Wick, E2 2NT, this Saturday 14th September 2pm – 10pm with Opening Ceremony at 4pm
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First Brew at the New Truman’s Brewery
When Truman’s Brewery closed in Brick Lane in the last century after brewing there continuously since 1666, there was a widespread recognition that the soul of the place had been diminished – which makes it a great joy for me to announce the glorious news to you today that Truman’s Beer is back brewing in a new brewery in the East End.
Contributing Photographer Simon Mooney & I were privileged to be the first to visit the New Truman’s Brewery and join Master Brewer, Ben Ott, as he set the whole thing in motion again, using yeast from the old brewery that has been cryogenically preserved at the National Yeast Bank in Norwich for decades.
As I turned the corner in Hackney Wick at seven on that misty morning of early autumn, the unmistakeable whiff of a brewery caught my attention, even before it came into sight, and when I entered the brewery itself I was greeted with clouds of vapour emanating from the plant. Emerging from the humid haze to meet me, as if he had materialised like a sorcerer out of the ether, Ben was ready to undertake the seven-to-eight hour sequence of alchemical transformation from raw ingredients into the forty barrels of golden nectar which comprise a day’s brewing.
Gesturing to his magnificent array of gleaming new steel vessels stretching up to the ceiling, Ben explained that he was sluicing the lines with fresh water prior to mashing – the process by which malted grains are soaked to create a dark liquid ‘wort.’ At my feet, the floor was awash with drainage from the system as, from above, the golden grain cascaded down into the hot water of the mash tun, releasing a sweet porridge-like aroma into the steamy atmosphere. Once the grain was soaked, sparging began – rinsing hot water through the mash to create a whirl and, once it was time to run off the wort from the tun – three hours later – it was very pleasant to drink a glass of this warm sweet pungent liquid that, in brewer’s lore, is considered a universal panacea warding off all illness.
Ben took me up to the grain store, reaching excitedly into sacks of barley, rye and wheat, and producing handfuls of malted grain, toasted to different tones from pale golden to chocolate brown, and we chewed thoughtfully upon the dry husks comparing the subtle distinctions of flavour. Then he unsealed tinfoil bags of hops, inviting me to stick my nose deep inside and inhale, contrasting earthy citrus aromas of flowers grown in different locations. “It’s a fantastic hop, I could smell it all day,” confessed Ben, holding up a cherished specimen. Despite his generous temperament, sparkly eyes and cheeky quiff, it is obvious that Ben is a man driven by a passion and, even as he supervised the work of the day, I was aware of his intense mental activity, holding the entire brewing process in his mind, and weighing all the infinite variables of the day’s brewing, even the effects of the weather. The New Truman’s Brewery is in Ben Ott’s mind as much as it in the temporal world.
By then, it was time for the wort to be transferred to the enormous copper, standing upon metal legs in the centre of the brewery like a lunar module, and, once the liquid came to the boil inside, it was ready for the addition of hops – requiring Ben to climb up a step ladder and open a hatch in the top of the vessel to drop in the hop flowers that contribute such a distinctive fragrant aroma to the brew.
Hours passed and the sun moved round the sky to shine in through the huge doors, sending sparkling reflections of light from the watery floor dancing around the vast space, as Ben strode around with Sandro, his fellow Brewer, in the narrow passages between the steel cylinders, turning levers and checking the progress of his creation critically. At the rear were fermentation tanks containing the product of his previous days’ brewing and, as we opened each of the hatches to peer inside, the yeast was at a different stage of its work – from complete stillness in one to vibrant bubbling life in another.
“It has a lot to do with chemistry,” Ben admitted to me when I asked him to assess his role, “But you’ve got to go deep to create a new beer, I sat here for months to work out what I would do. You need artistry, and I’ve created something new – Truman’s Keeper – based upon a recipe brewed by Trumans’s in 1880, ninety-nine years before I was born.”
Once the day’s brew had cooled, it would be stored in one of these vessels and the yeast added last of all. After three to four days of fermentation, it would be chilled down for a further two days before the beer was ready to be put into casks. Upon the other side of the brewery, Caldwell, the Brewery Assistant was already filling steel firkins from a long hose attached to one of the fermentation tanks containing a brew from last week.
Thus, the whole process was underway, and Truman’s Brewery is producing beer to quench the thirst of the East End once more. Throughout London, the signage from the former brewery survives upon innumerable pubs, yet it was proclaiming the name of Truman’s Beer in empty words until this week – when they all regain their meaning once again – because Truman’s is back, Truman’s is real again and Truman’s is here to stay.
Photographs copyright © Simon Mooney
Readers are invited to the opening of the New Truman’s Brewery, 2-3 Stour Rd, Hackney Wick, E2 2NT, this Saturday 14th September 2pm – 10pm with Opening Ceremony at 4pm
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Tony Jack, Chauffeur at Truman’s Brewery
Leo Giordani, K C Continental Stores
Leo Giordani wraps up my Parmesan
Leo Giordani is eighty years old and has not had a holiday in twenty-two years, yet he is the picture of vitality and good humour. In his delicatessen in the Caledonian Rd, you discover a constant stream of loyal customers many of whom have been coming for three decades to exchange banter in Italian and cart off delicious salami, ham, sausages, olives, cheese, pasta, bread, wine and oil sold at his exceptionally reasonable prices. Clean shaven in collar and tie, and sporting an immaculately-pressed white coat, Leo stands with his hands clasped like a priest – surveying the passing world with a beatific smile.
While the transformation of Kings Cross and its environs has taken place around him, Leo and his shop have remained unchanged – and all the better for it. His red front door matches his hand-made three-dimensional wooden lettering, spelling out “K C Continental Stores” upon the fascia, which contrasts elegantly with the eau de nil tiles at ground level. Note the charming old glass advertisements for Brooke Bond Tea and PG tips before you step over the sunburst doormat into Leo’s realm.
On the right and left, are glass-fronted cabinets displaying packets of pasta in every variety you could imagine. On the counter, sit freshly-made sausages and ravioli and mozzarella, while the walls behind are lined with shelves crammed with cans and bottles displaying brightly coloured labels in Italian. Straight ahead is a chilled cabinet of cheese while to the left is a chilled cabinet of salamis and suspended above all this are rails hung with a magnificent selection of hams and sausages.
Taking avantage of the wooden chair, strategically placed for weary customers, I settled down to observe the drama as Leo greeted everyone personally and customers grew visibly excited at all the enticing smells and colours of the delicacies on offer – and, in between all this, Leo told me the story of his beautiful shop.
“I opened Kings Cross Continental Stores on 1st October 1964, so I have been here forty-nine years. I came from Italy with my wife Noreena to work as waiters at the Italian Embassy but, after three years, the Ambassador went off to America so we stayed here. We knew about food but it took us a long time to learn how to run the shop and speak the language as well. I’ve always been very respectful with my customers, because you have to be good with them if you want them to come back. In those days, it was different here – better, because there were more shops, two fish shops, three greengrocers and a butcher. We had everything and now there’s nothing.
There were plenty of Italians living here, Keystone Crescent was all Italian then, but the old people died and the young people moved away. My customers used to be more Italian than English, but now I get more English than Italian – yet the English know more about this food than the Italians these days.
I have run this shop myself all these years, though sometimes my wife helped out with serving, cleaning and doing everything else that needs to be done. I get in here at nine each morning and I close at six because I’m not young anymore. For the last ten years, we have lived in Muswell Hill but I stay upstairs above the shop during the week while my wife is back in Muswell Hill picking up our grandchildren from school. Every night, I cook and wash-up for myself, and it’s a bit hard but I can make simple things like spaghetti.
If I retired and watched television, I would not be myself. I don’t like to do nothing – I prefer working. The business has always been good here, but we are working for the Council now – they are my landlords, so I pay rent and Council Tax to them. We’ve got plenty of customers and we make money but, in recent years, there’s been nothing left after we paid the bills. We took a lot of money at Christmas yet my son, who works for Barclays, did my accounts and he said, ‘You’ve got nothing left.’ I’ll go on for another year and then retire. I really enjoy this job even if it is hard work and I’d feel sorry for my customers if I retired.”
In spite of Leo’s threats of retirement, I think he will be there for as long as he can, so I encourage you to pop over to K C Continental Stores next time you are passing through. Leo can make you a sandwich of Parma ham or salami in ciabatta and reminisce about old Kings Cross. And I recommend you pick up some delicious fresh Italian sausages, olives and parmesan – as I did – while you are there, too.
Rails hung with a magnificent selection of hams and sausages
Leo’s red front door matches his hand-made lettering, spelling out “K C Continental Stores”
“the English know more about this food than the Italians these days…”
Photographs copyright © Bob Mazzer
Kings Cross Continental Stores, 26 Caledonian Rd, N1 9DU
Bob Mazzer’s Porn Pilgrimage
Bob Mazzer outside Abcat Cinema Club in the Caledonian Rd
I met photographer Bob Mazzer at Kings Cross Station recently and we set out through the streets on a porn pilgrimage to discover the location of the sleazy cinema where he worked as a projectionist more than thirty years ago. Surveying the first terrace we came to in York Way, Bob speculated that the cinema he worked at might have been where the new shops are, but we decided to walk further to explore and, before long, we arrived at the Caledonian Rd.
Here we came across the Abcat Cine Club and Bob stopped in his tracks, shocked to realise that this was the cinema where he had worked. In spite of all the changes in Kings Cross, it still existed. A businessman walked past us and entered the discreet frontage and then, as we approached, the ticket seller from behind the front desk came out to enjoy the afternoon sun. A senior gentleman with cropped white hair and a pink face, he put his cup of tea down on the traffic bollard on the corner and lit a cigarette.
Introductions were made and we struck up a conversation with this amiable chap, who even remembered some of the people that Bob had worked with at the cinema, so many years ago. But then he interrupted our chat abruptly and ran off in a different direction, disappearing inside a shopfront labelled “Oscars” in a side street, and leaving his teacup on the bollard. Minutes later, he returned and apologised, revealing that Oscars was a gay cinema and it was his job to sell tickets for both the Abcat Cine Club and Oscars, hence the necessity to stand on the street corner where he could see people approaching either venue.
Naturally, once the famous Abcat Cine Club which was the object of Bob’s porn pilgrimage had been discovered, I was intrigued to learn more of his brief career in the sex industry and graciously he obliged by telling me the whole story.
“When I answered an advert in the Evening Standard for an 8mm film projectionist, I knew I wasn’t going to be working at the Odeon Leicester Sq but in some seedy joint. I was curious to know what that sleazy twilight world was like and I felt that my years at art school had been sufficient preparation for becoming a projectionist showing blue movies.
I had been living in rural Wales, but my mother died so I moved back to London to be with father in the flat at Woodberry Down and I needed a way to make a living. I was quite upfront with him about it and he didn’t seem to mind. As a result of my job at the Abcat Cinema Club, I was able to equip myself with a dark room and it ramped up my photography, giving me freedom to do what I wanted to do. What I liked about the job was the shifts, you either worked six until ten or two until six. The hours suited me and I must have been getting eighty pounds a week. I was very comfortable for a year and put money away to buy camera equipment. Up ’til then I had no money, but now I was paid cash in hand so I could to take my friends out for dinner and pay for their taxis home. Suddenly, I found I had a lot of friends who wanted to visit me at work and some were even feminists.
I remember it being quite a cosy little scene. I sat in the projectionist’s booth and there were two projectors, and you projected through a hole in the wall. The place held about fifty people, but I never looked through the hole in the wall, so I have no idea what went on. I can remember the first film I saw, it was Scandavian. It was an education for me because I had never seen anything like that before. I was staggered. It was a Swedish film about a mother and a daughter on a sexcapade in London, there were even shots of them in Trafalgar Sq and I’m sure someone cracked a joke about Nelson’s Column.
There were two people working at the cinema, the projectionist and the doorman – you were never there on your own in case there was a problem. It was relatively tame at Kings Cross and the year I worked there was uneventful, nothing ever happened. Then I was transferred to Paddington to the Office Cinema Club where I was much more on the front line, and I had to man the desk and project the films all on my own. Paddington was rougher than Kings Cross in a strange way.
There was no frontage, just a big sign saying the Office Cinema Club and you went through a doorway between two shops, up the stairs and along a passage, to where I sat at a desk in front of a window with a view down Praed St. From this desk, I could take the money and then step up onto a platform to work the projectors, and I had a TV to watch while the customers were watching the films. One day, a smart business man came in, wearing a pin stripe suit and with a buxom woman upon each arm, I don’t know what he was up to and I didn’t spy. Upstairs, there was a gay cinema than ran on a cassette system, so I rarely needed to go up there. Occasionally, I had to sweep up and discovered things I’d rather not see.
The place got raided by the police from Paddington Green Station every few months and the films would get confiscated. I’d ring the boss and say, ‘We’ve been raided again,’ and he’d bring round new films and open up again. We ended up in court where they projected the films in the courtroom in front of the jury. The barrister stood up and said, ‘This is insanity, it’s a club and it’s private,’ and we got off. It was nice to see the law made an ass of, even if it was little scary. The whole relationship between the police and the people who ran the cinema was a comedy.
I was sitting at my desk one day and the telephone rang, and it was a woman asking if her son was there. This young lad would shuffle up the stairs and, in those days, if anyone looked over eighteen you let them in. His mother was phoning up to find out if he was there and she was relieved when she knew where he was. She just wanted to know that he was safely at the Office Cinema, sitting watching blue movies. It happened a couple of times.
Then I got held up and that was it. I was sitting minding my own business when I heard the door go downstairs but I didn’t look up, and then I felt the cold steel of a gun at my head. I looked up and there were these two guys, a black guy and a white guy. It was obvious what was going on. The white guy set about taking money and projectors and films while I was led into the loo by the black guy who had a knife and he tied me up with blue garden twine. It was slippy and I could have undone it but I was scared. I thought, ‘Is this where I end my days, dead in the toilet of a blue movie cinema?’ Not a nice end, and I’d just met the girl of my dreams who is now my wife.
I can still see the knife in his hand. I looked at his face and I thought it was interesting face with streamlined features. They left me unharmed and I untied myself. I waited ten minutes and then I made a phone call. The boss came round, and he thought it was an inside job and he sacked me. The same police who had raided us were now called in to investigate, and the boss called up a week later and said, ‘Bob, do you want to come back?’ But when I got the sack I thought, ‘That’s fine by me.'”
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The Ploys of Mr Pussy
Mr Pussy may appear self-possessed, yet he is circumspect. He keeps a keen eye upon the life of the household and no detail escapes his attention. In spite of his sufficiency, domestic harmony is essential to his peace of mind. Like those lonely watchmen who once patrolled the city at night, Mr Pussy monitors the premises and the residents. He loves routine. He seeks regular confirmation that the rhythm of life is stable and ensures that his place in the household remains constant. He desires equilibrium and he wants the world to be unchanging. He is the self-appointed guardian of the peace. He is assiduous and he sets an example. He is the model of poise and master of the subtle persuasion necessary to maintain the harmony he craves. He has his ways and means. He has ploys.
He wants me to be at home and stay at home. In his ideal world, I would not stray beyond the house and the garden. He does not. Everything he needs is here. This is the world. He cannot imagine what could be of interest beyond his personal utopia. Possessing a medieval mind-set, he thinks only the void lies beyond his known universe. Yet he is patient with my frequent absence. His ploy is to wait.
Assuming the role of a sentinel, he settles down in a vantage point to pass the hours until my return. Innumerable times, I have turned the corner and seen him there – a dark shape – waiting expectantly at the end of alley. He will lift his head at the moment of recognition and, as I walk towards him, he will leap up and run to meet me, rubbing against my legs in greeting. Then he will step aside to clear the path and let me go past, following along behind like an escort or a shepherd. He will not accompany me into the house at once. He likes to see me go inside and shut the front door, so that he may savour the long-awaited homecoming and be satisfied that all is well outside, before entering through his flap and following me upstairs.
A favoured vantage point of his is the first floor sill, where he presides from above, and, if he is not immediately visible upon my approach up the alley, then I know that, if I raise my gaze, it will be met by two golden eyes peering down at me inquisitively from the window. Upon entering the house, he will appear at the top of the stairs, stretching his stiff limbs from crouching upon the ledge and peering at me curiously to assess my mood.
If I should change into my slippers and settle in a chair at once to open letters or read, without paying him attention, he will coax me from my preoccupation. His ploy is to remove my slippers by curling up around them, gripping them in his claws, and pulling them off. He can achieve such an act with expert precision and, if I still do not acknowledge him, he can use his sharp claws to inflict jabbing pain as an eloquent indication of his frustration at my absence and my callous disregard of his existence. Yet events only rarely reach such a dramatic conclusion, since I have learnt to take the hint and lay aside the object of my attention, as soon as he curls up round my slippers.
Delighting in frequent catnaps at regular intervals, Mr Pussy will not tolerate me sleeping beyond dawn. He wants me to conform to his timetable. When his old ploy of scratching at my bed sheets grows too tiresome, I shut him out of the bedroom and ignore his cries. Then he will claw at the upholstered chair outside the door, knowing this will raise my ire. Yet I have found that if I lay a few sheets of paper upon the chair, he will accept this novelty as a concession, settling down upon the paper and granting me my wish to sleep uninterrupted for a few more hours.
Mr Pussy never sought for scraps at dinner until recently. He is not hungry – it is a ploy. If I indulge him, he rarely eats what I offer, he is satisfied merely to taste. He hopes that I can be taught to grant him this privilege as an automatic recognition of his status within the household, as one who has the right to participate in meals. Afterwards, he always licks his lips in delight at the curious flavours of human food and leaves the house directly to patrol the vicinity, reassured once more that his position is secure.
Thus Mr Pussy has his ploys and, thanks to his expert stewardship, peace is maintained and the world runs smoothly in our corner of Spitalfields.
Slumbering
Dreaming
Dozing
Awakening
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and take a look at
The Cats of Spitalfields (Part One)
