The Gentle Author’s Next Dead Pubs Crawl
Celebrating yesterday’s glorious announcement by the Geffrye Museum that – in response to the public outcry generated by readers of Spitalfields Life – they are planning to restore The Marquis of Lansdowne, which has stood on the corner of Geffrye St since at least 1838, rather than seek to demolish it – I set out upon another of my dead pubs crawls, ranging beyond Spitalfields to record a few examples for which the future is less hopeful.
The Grave Maurice, Whitechapel Rd (1723-2010)
The Lord Napier, Whitechapel Rd (1878-1983)
The Black Bull, Whitechapel Rd (1812-2006)
The Sun has set recently in the Bethnal Green Rd (1851-2013)
The Ship, Bethnal Green Rd (1856-2000)
The Artichoke, Jubilee St (1847-2001)
Lord Nelson, Buross St (1869-2005)
Mackworth Arms, Commercial Rd (1858-1984)
Kinder Arms, Little Turner St (1839-1904)
The Crown & Dolphin, Cannon St Row (1851-2002)
The Old Rose, The Highway (1839-2007)
The Old Rose is the last fragment of the notorious Ratcliff Highway
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a coaching inn called The Artichoke until 1738
The Marquis of Lansdowne, in Cremer St since 1838 and now to be restored by the Geffrye Museum.
You may like to read about how The Marquis of Lansdowne was saved
The Pub That Was Saved By Irony
D-day for The Marquis of Lansdowne
or my other other pub crawls
The Gentle Author’s Next Pub Crawl
Joginder Singh, Shoe Maker
Observe these two handsome portraits of Joginder Singh taken in Bethnal Green in January 1968 and note his contrasted demeanour and clothing. In one, he wears western garb and is accompanied by the accoutrements of the modern business man, a telephone and an umbrella, while in the other he wears traditional clothing and is accompanied by a bamboo screen, a plant and a decorative table with a book. These pictures speak eloquently of the different worlds that Joginder inhabited simultaneously, as a Sikh living in Princelet St.
Nearly thirty years after Joginder’s death, his son Suresh spoke to me recently about his father’s life. In spite of the poor living conditions that his family endured in Princelet St and the racism he suffered, Suresh recalls the experience of growing up there affectionately and the family photographs which accompany this interview confirm his fond memories of a happy childhood in a crowded house in Spitalfields.
“My dad came to this country in 1949 from Nangal Kalan Hashiarpur in the Punjab. He came to Princelet St in Spitalfields and we’ve lived there ever since. He couldn’t read or write. He was a shoe shine at Liverpool St Station for twenty-one years and then he became labourer until he dropped dead in 1986 at fifty-six. My dad was tall and strong and, when they lined them all up in the village, it was decided he should be the one to go to Britain. They all said to dad, ‘Come on, let’s go!’ and he was one of the first over. All the men came first, so mum didn’t came over until 1952. My dad came by plane but she came by boat from Bombay and it took six months. She couldn’t read or write either.
My dad was a Pacificist, so he didn’t want to go in the army like my uncles who were in the Bombay Engineers. He was of the old school, he was influenced by the Naxolites, Trotskyites who came in to the Punjab from Communist China, and my dad used to hide them in the field. He didn’t like the religion or the materialism of Sikhism.
He was a shoe maker. He knew how to kill a cow, strip the hide, dry it and make shoes. He was of the lowest caste, an untouchable – because the cow was a sacred creature. He came to Spitalfields with just a satchel with shoe polish in it. When dad got here, he wore a turban and couldn’t get a job. So he went to a friend in Glasgow who said, ‘I’ll tell you how to get a job.’ He took off my dad’s turban and shaved his head, and my dad came straight back to Spitalfields and got a job at once.
My dad was not selfish, he was good to everybody. He brought lots of people over, nephews and cousins, and he’d pick people up in the street and bring them home. The Environment Health tried to close our house down because we had fifty people living in it. The Council said, ‘We’ll close this place, it’s full of bedbugs and fleas and you piss in a bucket. How can you live like this? It’s a slum.’ I was born in Mile End Hospital and I had TB at the age of ten because of the number of people that lived in our house. It’s a four storey house and, eventually, he bought it for two grand and I still live there today.
A lot of my friends at school were in the National Front but they thought I was OK because I spoke Cockney. In 1972, the National Front sold their newspapers in Brick Lane and, in 1977, when punk happened I became the first Pakistani Punk, so I attracted a lot of racist attention. I played drums for Spiz Energy on their single ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ that made it to number sixty in the Rough Trade vinyl chart. I was so bullied at Daneford School, I got a lot of ‘Paki-bashing’ abuse. I wasn’t terribly macho, I was a quiet boy who was interested in architecture and I went on to study it at University College London. Then I became a NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) and now I am principal of a school in Southwark that teaches NEETs.
Eddie Stride, Rector of Christ Church was my best mate. I remember Mary Whitehouse, Cliff Richard, Malcolm Muggeridge and Lord Longford all popping in to the Rectory at 2 Fournier St.
Other Sikhs moved out to Ilford, East Ham and Southall, but my father wanted to stay here in Spitalfields, he didn’t want to go. They said to him, ‘How can you live among Muslims and Jews?’ and he said, ‘At least they don’t gossip!’ I don’t know why my dad stayed in Spitalfields. He lived next to the synagogue and the church – Spitalfields was multicultural and I think that’s what he loved.
We still go to the Punjab every year, dad bought so much land over there, he lived in a slum here so he could send every penny back to buy fields and farms in the Punjab.”
Joginder’s photographs of his trip home to the Punjab in 1972
Joginder’s brothers were in the Bombay Engineers
In Princelet St, 1972 – “Sometimes my father got the urge to dress up and be a Sikh”
Suresh and his cousin Sarwan Singh, 1968
Suresh, 1972
Chinnee Kaulder
Chinnee Kaulder & Joginder Singh, 1968
Pomegranates At Leila’s Shop
Now is the season for pomegranates. All over the East End, I have spotted them gleaming in enticing piles upon barrows and Leila’s Shop in Calvert Avenue has a particularly magnificent display of glossy red Spanish ones. Only a few years ago, these fruit were unfamiliar in this country and I do remember the first time I bought a pomegranate and set it on a shelf, just to admire it.
My father used to tell me that you could eat a pomegranate with a pin, which was an entirely mysterious notion. Yet it was not of any consequence, because I did not intend to eat my pomegranate but simply enjoy its intriguing architectural form, reminiscent of a mosque or the onion dome of an orthodox church and topped with a crown as a flourish. This was an exotic fruit that evoked another world, ancient and far away.
As months passed, my pomegranate upon the shelf would dry out and wither, becoming hard and leathery as it shrank and shrivelled like the carcass of a dead creature. A couple of times, I even ventured eating one when my rations were getting low and I was hungry for novelty. It was always a disappointing experience, tearing at the skin haphazardly and struggling to separate the fruit from the pithy fibre. Eventually, I stopped buying pomegranates, content to admire them from afar and satiate my appetite for autumn fruit by munching my way through crates of apples.
Then, last year, Leila McAlister showed me the traditional method to cut and eat a pomegranate – and thus a shameful gap in my education was filled, bringing these alluring fruit to fore of my consciousness again. It is a simple yet ingenious technique of three steps. First, you cut a circle through the skin around the top of the fruit and lever it off. This reveals the lines that naturally divide the inner fruit into segments, like those of an orange. Secondly, you make between four and eight vertical cuts following these lines. Thirdly, you prise the fruit open, like some magic box or ornate medieval casket, to reveal the glistening trove of rubies inside, attached to segments radiating like the rays of a star.
Once this simple exercise is achieved, it is easy to remove the yellow pith and eat the tangy fruit that is appealingly sharp and sweet at the same time, with a compelling strong aftertaste. All these years, I admired the architecture of pomegranates without fully appreciating the beauty of the structure that is within. Looking at the pomegranate displayed thus, I can imagine how you might choose to eat it one jewel at a time with a pin. It made me wonder where my father should have acquired this curious idea about a fruit which was rare in this country in his time and then I recalled that he had spent World War II in the Middle East as a youthful recruit, sent there from Devon at the age of nineteen.
Looking at the fruit opened, I realised I was seeing something he had seen on his travels so many years ago and now, more than ten years after he died, I was seeing it for the first time. How magical this fruit must have seemed to him when he was so young and far away from home for the first time. They call the pomegranate ‘the fruit of the dead’ and, in Greek mythology, Persephone was condemned to the underworld because of the pomegranate seeds that she ate yet, paradoxically, it was the fabled pomegranate which brought my youthful father back to me when he had almost slipped from my mind.
Now, thanks to this elegant method, I can enjoy pomegranates each year at this time and think of him.
“its intriguing architectural form, reminiscent of a mosque or the onion dome of an orthodox church and topped with a crown as a flourish”
First slice off the top, by running a sharp knife around the fruit, cutting through the skin and then levering off the lid.
Secondly, make radiating vertical cuts through the skin following the divisions visible within the fruit – between four and eight cuts.
Thirdly, split open the pomegranate to create a shape like a flower and peel away the pith.
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Leila’s Shop, 15-17 Calvert Avenue, London E2 7JP
You may also like to read my other stories about Leila’s Shop
Vegetable Bags from Leila’s Shop
Barn the Spoon at Leila’s Shop
From Spitalfields To Sheerness
Naval Terrace, Sheerness Dockyard
On a drizzly afternoon in autumn, it could easily have been a melancholy experience to visit the derelict church and old terraces that comprise the last fragments of the Georgian dockyard at Sheerness, if it were not for the fact that they are currently under restoration thanks to the bold initiative of the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust.
Following the Napoleonic wars, Sheerness Dockyard was built to a grand triangular masterplan by the great engineer John Rennie the Elder in the eighteen-twenties. Completed in 1830, it remained in use by the Royal Navy until 1960 when it was turned over to commercial use with the loss of thousands of jobs, devastating the local community and wiping out part of the town. Today, Sheerness is the country’s largest port for motor imports and very little of Rennie’s dockyard survives apart from the residential quarter. Only a scale model of 1820 exists as testimony to the former realisation of Rennie’s vision.
Sold off to developers at the end of the last century, the terraces were left to decay and the church was burnt out in 2001. But, when plans to build blocks of flats collapsed in 2010, the Spitalfields Trust was able to step in and buy the four acre site with the assistance of a loan from the Architectural Heritage Fund and a handful of brave investors who took on individual properties. Since then, the fine houses which – apart from one original resident – were empty for decades, have been repaired by their new owners, removing the accretions of the twentieth century and restoring the landscaping of the original design.
Edward Holl and his successor George Ledwell Taylor were the architects responsible for executing Rennie’s designs, and the terraces at Sheerness have a familiar quality as if they had been transplanted from Canonbury or Camden Town. The proximity of the container port with its great cranes looming enforces this sense of surrealism yet, unexpectedly, the utilitarian designs of different centuries sit side-by-side in unlikely harmony.
Built to house the principal officers of the dockyard and their families, these buildings are characterised by an austere elegance and graceful proportion, with subtle distinctions of social hierarchy reflected in their construction. This is undemonstrative architecture and, upon entering, you are aware of generous spaces with plenty of light, use of quality materials and considered detailing throughout.
While the restoration and repair of these houses is in an advanced state with many new occupants in residence, the shell of George Ledwell Taylor’s Dockyard Church presents the next challenge. Dramatically combining iron and brick and possessing an impressive portico, it is a magnificent ruin at present, but the Trust intends to restore it as a community centre with spaces for small businesses to operate and as a home for the dockyard model of 1820.
Without this intervention, none of these important buildings would have had a future but, employing the skills honed in saving the old houses in Spitalfields more than thirty years ago, the members of the Trust are able to add them to the long list of over seventy buildings they have rescued since 1977.
Sheerness Dockyard under construction c.1826. The view looks south and shows the excavation of the Boat Basin in the foreground and the U-shaped Victualling Storehouse in the distance. This building was completed in 1826 to a design by Edward Holl but no longer survives.
John Rennie’s turning bridge with the Great Basin beyond, filled in shortly after the Naval Dockyard closed in 1961
The Great Basin under construction with the three eastern dry docks taking shape in the distance.
Captain Superintendent’s House undergoing restoration
Plan of the residential quarter showing the hierarchy of accommodation and the walled gardens and coach houses which survive at Naval Terrace.
View of the Captain’s Superintendent’s house c.1910
Entrance of the Captain’s Superintendent’s House
Hallway in Dockyard Terrace
Dockyard Terrace
The Police House
Dockyard Church seen from Regency Close
Interior of the Dockyard Church today
Naval Terrace and Dockyard Church c.1900
The plan is restore the church as a community centre with spaces for small businesses.
Interior of Dockyard Church c.1900
Naval Terrace
Dockyard Church and Naval Terrace portrayed upon a piece of Mauchlin ware, eighteen-eighties
Cadets pose in front of Naval Terrace c.1870
Sheerness Dockyard in the nineteen-seventies, looking west – with the terraces in the foreground
Archive images courtesy of Martin Hawkins
You may also like to read about the Spitalfields Trust’s restoration of Shurland Hall
The Gentle Author’s Next Lantern Show
Window cleaner & man with a wheelbarrow at Buckingham Palace
There are plenty of pictures of Buckingham Palace in the glass slide collection of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society used for lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute a century ago – no doubt employed to encourage patriotic sentiments in the audience.
But this is the one that interests me most, because of the man with the wheelbarrow walking past and the window cleaner perched so precariously upon the second floor window ledge. These individuals may have been merely incidental for the photographer but, to my eyes, they are the subject of the picture – revealing an unexpected glimpse of the people who maintained the facade of power.
Today, I publish photographs of the working people of London from the collection – in some rare examples they are the primary focus of the picture but, in many more, they are just caught unexpectedly by the camera in the midst of toil.
The publication of my Album gives me a wonderful excuse to stage live presentations of some of the photos of London I love the most and announcing these gives me the opportunity to publish more unseen glass slides from the collection.
Through coming weeks, I shall be undertaking a peregrination around London performing my magic lantern show at diverse venues. Next week’s stop is at Woolfson & Tay, an enterprising independent bookshop in Bankside SE1, and I look forward to seeing you there on Thursday night.
THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S MAGIC LANTERN SHOW
Thursday 7th November 7:00pm at Woolfson & Tay, 39 Bear Lane, Bankside, SE1
I will be showing 100 pictures – including selected glass slides from a century ago, telling the stories and counterpointing them with favourite photographs of the unexpected wonders of London today.
Tickets are £3 and reservable by calling o20 7928 6570 or you can buy them online here
Packing chocolates
Waiting outside the British Museum for a fare
Sweeping snow outside the Green Dragon
Minding an automated bakery
Packing tea
Guarding Parliament
Taking a break at the distillery
Selling papers in the gutter
Making a delivery to a bookshop in Wych St
Practising with the hoses
Minding the cart outside Drury Lane
Counting coins at the mint
Casting bells
Shepherding in Richmond Park
Minding the pumps in Canonbury
Wheeling the barrow through Parliament Sq
Cleaning the optician’s sign
Lugging the timber down Whitehall
Selling flowers in PIccadilly
Glass slides courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
The Lahori Chefs Of Whitechapel
Novelist Rosie Dastgir & Photographer Jeremy Freedman paid a visit to two Lahori restaurants in Whitechapel this week to meet the chefs and learn what makes their cooking distinctive.
“A string of neon-lit curry and kebab houses line the streets of Whitechapel around Commercial Rd. These eateries are hidden gems, serving authentic Pakistani cooking that draws those pining for the nostalgic flavours of home, as well as a mixed crowd from East London, the City, Essex and beyond.
When my father went on pilgrimage to Mecca, driving all the way from Scotland to Saudi Arabia, he insisted on stopping off at one of these Lahore restaurants and the memory of such exquisite food drew him back years later, when he was dying of cancer. His time was running out, but the food reminded him of home and happier days.
It is all about the cooking. You will not find flock wallpaper or sound-muffling carpet in these establishments. Bring your own beer or wine – if you like – or sample one of the mango, salty or sweet lassies on offer.”
Mohammed Azeem, Chef at The Original Lahore Kebab House, Umberston St, E1
“You name it, I’ll cook it,” says Mohammed Azeem, reeling off a cornucopia of dishes, and he is not exaggerating. The menu is extensive and hugely popular, packing in a dedicated lunchtime crowd and hundreds of diners every evening.
It is a short commute to work for Mohammed Azeem who lives in Poplar, but his journey to this point began years ago, thousands of miles away in Lahore, Pakistan. He left his home town in 1987 at the age of nineteen, leaving behind six sisters, four brothers and his parents who worked on the land. He came here knowing nobody, with neither friends nor relatives to soften the landing. On the flight to London, he got chatting to another young Pakistani, but the two parted ways upon arrival. Wandering the streets of East London, he trudged along Commercial Rd and spotted the young man from his flight through the windows of the Original Lahore Kebab House where he was working.
Mohammed Azeem eagerly knocked on the glass and the two were reunited. By a twist of fate, it turned out that the man’s uncle was the owner of the restaurant and when Mohammed Azeem explained his desperate situation – alone and without work in a foreign city – the nephew came to his rescue. They were looking for a dishwasher at his uncle’s restaurant and would he be interested in the job? Mohammed Azeem took on the position immediately – it was a foot in the door. Within two months, he was learning how to make Shish Kebabs. Soon he was eager to try his hand using the clay ovens for Roti, Naans and all manner of Pakistani breads.
Today, he is the head chef with a team of cooks that he oversees. He shows me around the large, open plan kitchen and it is an awesome sight. Clay ovens belt out heat. Rows of Tupperware containers are lined up with turmeric, cumin, crushed garlic and ginger. Long, slender lamb kebabs sizzle on open grills over glowing coals. Everything is cooked freshly, Mohammed explains, starting from scratch each day. Nothing is made using shop-bought curry powder. Perish the thought. Nowadays, Mohammed Azeem does not miss home as much as he once did, in the days when he was a new arrival. “Being inside the restaurant,” he says happily, “it’s like I’m in Lahore – the atmosphere and everything.” I can see exactly what he means.
The restaurant is family for Mohammed Azeem. His boss’s auntie arranged his marriage with a bride here. His wife works at a fashion college in the area and his fifteen-year-old daughter attends the Mulberry School nearby. He is pleased with the education she is receiving. “Inshallah, she’ll do more studying,” he says, quietly positive about her latest interest in becoming a solicitor. “It doesn’t matter what she does,” he explains modestly, “so long as she is doing something good with her life.”
Two years ago, Mohammed Azeem managed to build himself a house in Lahore. An achievement that would be unthinkable for him in London. The house represents the realisation of a long and hard-earned dream and, each year, he takes his daughter back to Pakistan. It might be the place where he will eventually retire, but he has no firm plans yet. The kitchen beckons. And for now, the house is for much-anticipated annual summer holidays. “You can go for a visit,” he muses, “but you can’t stay there forever.”
Mohammed Ashok Ali, Chef at Lahore One Kebab Restaurant, 218 Commercial Rd, E1
Going behind the scenes of the small yet productive kitchen at Lahore One, I find the chef, softly-spoken Mohammed Ashok Ali, labouring over cauldrons of aromatic dishes. Pausing from his culinary duties, he tells me how he ended up here in East London, working as a chef. Born in Bangladesh, he came to England in 1999 with the help of his uncles who were living here. In those days, he was able to procure the necessary working visa which allowed him to find employment and send money home to his family.
Back in Bangladesh, he ran his own cash-and-carry corner shop. The idea of becoming a chef never occurred to him until he arrived in London, where it just so happened that they were looking for a chef at Lahore One and it was here that he began his new career, learning the art of cooking Pakistani food. He has been working here ever since and explains it is a matter of great pride for him when customers compliment him. No complaints at all, he beams, not even one.
What is it that makes the food on offer at Lahore One so distinctive from, say, the restaurants you find on Brick Lane? Mohammed explains that there are differences in cooking methods and spice preferences – for example, red chillies prevail in Indian food, whereas the green variety are preferred in Pakistani food. Yet it is something more fundamental – in Indian restaurants here, you will find dishes such as Vindaloo or Chicken Tikka Masala, created and adapted for English tastes. But authentic Pakistani food is about deeply-layered home cooking, based upon recipes and methods passed down through generations. As Ameer Anjum, son of the owner and current manager, points out – the food at Lahore One is rooted firmly in the home cooking of his Pakistani grandparents, aunts and uncles.
What does Mohammed miss about home? The chef admits that when he was a new arrival here, he yearned for his country and family very much, but now he has a family of his own here, a wife and two children, he is happily settled. Trips back to Bangladesh are infrequent – he has returned only three times since he first came. Yet he is content with his life and emphatic that this is his home now, with his family here in London where he is the proud chef at Lahore One.
Zulen Ahmed, Head Chef at Saffron, 53 Brick Lane
Abdul Tahid, Head Chef at Papadoms, 94 Brick Lane
Abdul Ahad Forhad, Curry Chef at Monsoon, 78 Brick Lane
You may also like to read Rosie Dastgir’s feature At The Lahore One Kebab Restaurant
Jeremy Freedman’s The Curry Chefs of Brick Lane are published in The Gentle Author’s London Album and an exhibition opens next Thursday evening, 7th November, at Suzzle Cakes, 47 Brick Lane, E1
The Gentle Author’s Dead Pubs Crawl
As the darkness closes in, it delights me to go on a dead pubs crawl around Spitalfields to pay my respects at former hostelries and listen for the clinking glasses of the phantom regulars. Yet to my surprise and joy, The Well & Bucket and The Crown & Shuttle have returned to vibrant life, convincing resurrections long after I had given up hope – which permits me to believe there may still be the possibility of life after death for other lost pubs in the neighbourhood.
The Ship & Blue Ball, Boundary Passage, where they planned the Great Train Robbery (1851-1994)
The Frying Pan, Brick Lane (1805-1991)
The Crown, Bethnal Green Rd (1869-1922)
The Britannia, Chilton St (1861-2000)
The Laurel Tree, Brick Lane (1813-1983)
The Well & Bucket, Bethnal Green Rd (1861-1989 & resurrected this year)
The Dolphin, Redchurch St (1835-2002)
The Jolly Butchers, Brick Lane (1839- 1987)
Knave of Clubs, Club Row (1735-1994)
Seven Stars, Brick Lane (1711-2002)
The Crown & Shuttle, Shoreditch High St (1861-2001 & resurrected this year)
Sir Robert Peel, Bishopsgate Without (1871-1957)
The Queen Victoria, Barnet Grove (1856-1993)
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