Happy Families
On Twelfth Night, when we celebrate the Feast of Misrule on the last day of Christmas and all the decorations come down, I dug out these gleefully grotesque picture cards from an old parlour game to amuse you – and to celebrate the old trades and small family businesses which were once part of the East End. Happy Families – A Most Diverting Game for Juveniles, Beautifully Coloured & Made at the Spear Works, Enfield, England.
You may also like to take a look at
The Bridges of Old London
Traffic from Covent Garden Market crosses Waterloo Bridge, c. 1924
London owes its very existence to bridges, since the location of the capital upon the banks of the Thames was defined by the lowest crossing point of the river. No wonder that the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society collected this edifying series of pictures of bridges on glass plates to use in their magic lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute.
Yet until the eighteenth century, the story of London’s bridges was solely that of London Bridge. The Romans created the first wooden crossing of Thames close to the current site of London Bridge and the settlement upon the northern shore grew to become the City of London. When the Saxons tried to regain the City from the Danes in the eleventh century, they attached ropes to London Bridge and used their boats to dislodge the piers, thus originating the myth celebrated in the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down.”
The first stone London Bridge was built by Peter de Colechurch in 1209 and lasted over six hundred years, surviving the Great Fire and numerous rebuildings of the houses and shops that clustered upon its structure. When traffic upon grew too crowded in 1722, a “keep left” rule was instated that later became the pattern for all roads in this country and, by 1763, all the houses were removed to provide extra clearance. Then, in 1831, John Rennie’s famous bridge of Dartmoor granite replaced old London Bridge until it was shipped off to Arizona in the nineteen-sixties to make way for the current concrete bridge, with its centrally heated pavements and hollow structure that permits essential pipes and cables to cross the Thames easily.
After London Bridge, next came Putney Bridge in 1726 and then Westminster Bridge in 1738 – until today we have a line of bridges, holding the north and south banks of London together tightly like laces on a boot. The hero of London’s bridges was unquestionably John Rennie (1761-1821) who pioneered the combination or iron and stone in bridge building and designed London Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge, although only the Serpentine Bridge remains today as his memorial.
Even to the seasoned Londoner, there is something unfailingly exhilarating about sitting on top of a bus, erupting from the narrow city streets onto one of the bridges and discovering yourself suspended high above the vast River Thames, it is one of the definitive experiences of our city.
Tower Bridge took eight year to construct, 1886 -1894
Tower Bridge with barges, c. 1910
St. Paul’s Cathedral from Southwark Bridge, c. 1925
Southwark Bridge, c. 1925
Old wooden bridge at Putney, 1880. The second bridge to be built after London Bridge, constructed in 1726 and replaced by the current stone structure in 1886.
On Tower Bridge, 1905.
Tower Bridge, c. 1910
John Rennie’s London Bridge of 1831 viewed from the waterside, c. 1910
London Bridge, c. 1930. Sold to Robert Mc Culloch in 1968 and re-assembled in Arizona in 1971.
The former bridgekeeper’s house on Tower Bridge, c. 1900
Wandsworth Bridge by Julian Tolme, c. 1910 (demolished in 1937)
Waterloo Bridge, c. 1910. The increased river flow created by the demolition of old London Bridge required temporary reinforcements to Waterloo Bridge from 1884.
Waterloo Bridge, c. 1910
Under an arch of Waterloo Bridge, c. 1910
View under Waterloo Bridge towards Hungerford Bridge, Westminster Bridge, & Palace of Westminster, c. 1910
Westminster Bridge, c. 1910. The third bridge, built over the Thames after London and Putney Bridges, in 1739-1750. The current bridge by Thomas Page of 1862 is painted green to match the leather seats in the House of Commons.
Westminster Bridge, c. 1910
Westminster Bridge, c. 1910
Hammersmith Bridge with Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race, 1928. Dixon, Appleby & Thorne’s bridge was built in 1887.
Battersea Bridge, c. 1910 Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s bridge was built in 1879.
Battersea Bridge from waterside, c. 1910
Blackfriars Bridge, c. 1910
Cannon St Railway Bridge, c. 1910. Designed by John Hawkshaw and John Wolfe-Barry for the South Eastern Railway in 1866.
Serpentine Bridge, 1910. Designed by John Rennie in the eighteen-twenties.
Westminster Bridge, c. 1910
On Hammersmith Bridge, c. 1910
Victoria Embankment, c. 1910
London Bridge, c. 1910
Glass slides copyright © Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at
The High Days & Holidays of Old London
An Acquisition At Midwinter
Over all the years I have frequented the Spitalfields Antiques Market every Thursday, I have succeeded in buying almost nothing, tempering my acquisitive tendencies by writing the stories of more than two hundred stallholders instead. Yet I made the grievous error of walking through the market in the late afternoon of the last trading day before Christmas, calling in to exchange greetings with some of the traders, including my pal Bill. While I was passing the time in idle chatter, I picked a up a smooth prehistoric stone axe head from Bill’s stall, cradling it in my palm absent-mindedly. How well it sat there in my hand.
The axe head was of British origin and approximately five thousand years old, Bill informed me. It certainly was a handsome piece of granite that I held, deep slate-blue, finely worked and veined with subtle lines. Immediately, by running your finger along the sharp edge and by clutching the smooth curves, you were in contact with all those numberless others who held it and appreciated it, going right back to the one who made it. This was not an axe designed for use but to demonstrate the painstaking skill of the maker, and of value as a gift or token of high status. This axe had always been prized and I could not resist prizing it myself, as I found my fingers closed naturally over it. I always wanted one.
Fortunately, I never carry any significant amount of cash, just to avoid finding myself in such a situation, and when Bill quoted the price, I found it quite easy to put the axe back on the stall. In every direction, the traders were packing up and heading through the dark market for Christmas. “What would be you best price?” I heard myself asking, surprised at my own audacity yet relieved when this sum was also beyond reach. The business was settled and I would leave the axe, yet Bill could see my disappointment.
“You’ve done a lot for this market,” he admitted to me, thinking out loud.“I am very proud to have put you in the book of Spitalfields Life, Bill,” I countered, “You always have the best things. Your stall is the heart of the market.” In my innocence, I wanted to compensate Bill for not buying the axe but I did not consider what the outcome might be. “I’m sure you’ve brought me more business,” he declared in agreement, holding out the axe in my direction, “You can have it for forty quid, if you like.”
I had got caught up in something that I had not intended but I did not think too much, I said, “Yes.” And thus it was that the five thousand year axe head became mine to cherish for always.
Through the days of Christmas, I have carried it in my pocket as a talisman to protect me against the wintry darkness. There is a paradoxical intimacy that I feel with whoever made my axe, since I can share their delight in pure sculptural form without ever knowing anything else. Whoever made this axe is lost in the all-enveloping darkness of history, in a time thousands of year before Christmas – yet I am sure they enjoyed a winter celebration too. Like us, they recognising the moment in the year when the length of days changes and, in spite of some grim months to come, we are moving forward irreversibly towards summer again.
Bill who sold me the Prehistoric Axe in the Spitalfields Antiques Market
This is my pal Bill, a dignified market stalwart who deals in coins, whistles, gramophone needles, souvenir thimbles, magic lantern slides, trading tokens, small classical antiquities and prehistoric artifacts. “I sell quite a few things, but on a low margin because it’s more interesting to have a quick turnover.” he admitted to me, speaking frankly, “I’m here more for enjoyment really – quite a few friends I’ve made over the years. I was a shy person before, but it’s made me confident having a stall. I’ve become an optimistic person.” Bill comes to Spitalfields each week with all his stock in a backpack and large suitcase – practical, economic and an incentive to sell as much as possible.
(Pen portrait originally published July 22nd, 2010)
Photograph of Bill copyright © Jeremy Freedman
You may also like to read about
At The Shops With Tony Hall
Tony Hall loved shops as much as he loved pubs, as you can see from this magnificent array of little shops in the East End that he captured for eternity, selected from the thousand or so photographs which survive him, and published here for the first time today.
In the sixties and seventies when these pictures were taken, every street corner that was not occupied by a pub was home to a shop offering groceries and general supplies to the residents of the immediate vicinity. The owners of these small shops took on mythic status as all-seeing custodians of local information, offering a counterpoint to the pub as a community meeting place for the exchange of everybody’s business. Shopkeepers were party to the smallest vacillations in the domestic economy of their customers and it was essential for children to curry their good favour if the regular chore of going to fetch a packet of butter or a tin of custard, or any other domestic essential, might be ameliorated by the possibility of reward in the form of sweets, whether there was any change left over or not.
Yet, even in the time these photographs were taken, the small shops were in decline and Tony Hall knew he was capturing the end of a culture, erased by the rise of the chain-stores and the supermarkets. To the aficionado of small shops there are some prize examples here – of businesses that survived beyond their time, receptacles of a certain modest history of shopkeepers. It was a noble history of those who created lives for themselves by working long hours serving the needs of their customers. It was a familiar history of shopkeepers who made a living but not a fortune. Above all, it was a proud history of those who delighted in shopkeeping.
Photographs copyright © Libby Hall
Images courtesy of the Tony Hall Collection at the Bishopsgate Institute
Libby Hall & I would be delighted if any readers can assist in identifying the locations and subjects of Tony Hall’s photographs.
You may also like to read
Libby Hall, Collector of Dog Photography
and take a look at these other pictures of East End Shops
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part 5)
Celebrating the re-opening today, after the holidays, of E. Pellicci, 332 Bethnal Green Rd, it is my delight to publish Part Five of Colin O’Brien‘s Pellicci Portraits recording the regular customers at London’s best-loved family run cafe – in business since 1900 and still going strong. Newcomers are advised to try to memorise these faces, because you may be sat in front of one of them next week, and remember to ask, “Do you you come here often?”
Tommy Peel – “I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s every day since I was a little boy, more than sixty-nine years.”
Melanie Morroll – “I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s regularly for a few years now.”
Sam Way, Supermodel – “I first came to Pellicci’s last January and now I come every week.”
Alison Clare – “I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s once or twice a week for a few years.”
“The Handsome Glaswegian” George Rankin – “I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s for the last fifty-seven years, since I came down frae Glasgow in 1956.”
Sally Knight – “I’m an East Ender and I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s for fifteen years. I come for the fry-ups but I also come for the special benefits.”
Photographer Goswin Schwendinger – “I used to come daily when I first moved here because I knew no-one and this was my family.”
Jenni Johnston – “I am a student of English literature at Queen Mary College and this is my last day at Pelliccis because I’m going back to California tomorrow – but I like it better here!”
Ian Puddick – “I go for training at the Repton Boxing Club each Wednesday and I’ve been coming into Pelliccis with the guys every week for seven months.”
Anna Maybanks – “I’ve been coming regularly for maybe two and a half years. I used to work down the road, but now I am here to visit my friend – which is a good opportunity to come in to Pellicci’s because I miss it so much.”
“BBC Bob” Williams – “My mother brought me into Pellicci’s when I was five and now I’m sixty-five. Nevio used to sit on my lap when he was a little baby, and I remember when Maria first came here from Tuscany.”
Terry Martin – “I came to Pellicci’s for the first time thirty years ago and I’ve been a regular for the past twenty-five years.”
Jill Schweitzer – “My first time at Pelliccis, from San Francisco.”
Brian Kasserer – “I used to come to Pellicci’s quite frequently twenty years ago!”
Fozia Khalig – “I’ve been coming to Pellicci’s once a week since 2007, I’m an addict for Italian food.”
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
You may like to take a look at
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits ( Part One)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Two)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Three)
Colin O’Brien’s Pellicci Portraits (Part Four)
and read these other Pellicci stories
Maria Pellicci, The Meatball Queen of Bethnal Green
and see these other Colin O’Brien stories
Colin O’Brien’s Clerkenwell Car Crashes
Colin O’Brien’s Kids on the Street
Travellers’ Children in London Fields
Colin O’Brien’s Brick Lane Market
Vigil at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
“The in-between days are always quiet but I can’t seem to keep from the shop…”
Yesterday, I ventured from the house into the wet streets for the first time since Christmas Eve and, even at ten in the morning, the pavements were empty with many shops closed and few customers in those that were open. Yet I knew that Paul Gardner, the lone paper bag seller, would reliably be discovered sitting behind the counter at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen at this time of year, opening for business at six-thirty as usual while the rest of the world slept.
As the fourth generation in Spitalfields’ oldest family business, Paul cannot keep away from his shop which has operated from the Peabody Building in Commercial St since his great-grandfather James Gardner, the Scalemaker, opened up as one of the first tenants in 1870. Once upon a time, James peered through his window to the Royal Cambridge Theatre opposite – a vast music hall with a capacity of three thousand which filled the entire block, and where some claim Charles Chaplin made his stage debut – replaced in the nineteen thirties by Godfrey & Phillips Cigarette factory that stands today in the same location.
Through all these years, a Mr Gardner has sustained a routine of shop-keeping that, over more than a century has surpassed all others in the neighbourhood for its longevity. Thus, Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen has become the place where time has been measured out in scales and parcelled out in paper bags in Spitalfields.
At this season, when the clocks wind down before the momentum regains its pace in the New Year, Paul waits behind his counter in the empty shop, maintaining a conscientious vigil by choosing to be present lest a customer should come along. A seasoned professional at waiting, Paul sits ever-hopeful of custom and, in the normal run of things, his expectation is always fulfilled. Yet, at this time of year, he accepts that the vigil maybe without result, and so I went along to keep him company in the shop for the last hours of business at the end of the hundred and forty-second year of Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen.
“The in-between days are always quiet but I can’t seem to keep from the shop,” he admitted to me, “This week, it’s been a labour of love though, because I must confess I don’t like waiting. But then, it’s nice to come in and have a relaxed time. Last week, I didn’t even have a moment to write up my diary each morning.”
“I got up at four forty-five and left home to come here at five-thirty today.” he continued with a yawn, “I was delivering bags to the Beigel Bakery in Brick Lane at six-fifteen, they were pleased to see me but I suppose I’ve only had four or five customers since then.”
Until I arrived, Paul had spent the morning studying his copy of Classic Rock magazine with one eye upon his Ford Fiesta parked directly across the road. Whereas in the week before Christmas, there had been a line of people preventing me getting in the door, now I was able to settle down upon a pile of paperbags to pass the time quietly with Paul while we awaited the sole customer he was expecting – someone from the gift shop at the Tower of London was coming to collect an order of paper bags.
The novelty of the season was a pile of shapeless pieces of knitwear in assorted random colours beside the counter which provided us with a source of innocent amusement. “My mother broke her wrist and decided she was going to make herself useful by knitting coats for dogs,” Paul explained, flourishing one proudly, “All the dogs in Frinton already have them.”
“Thursday was a complete waste of time,” he announced in good-humoured frustration, returning to the theme of the moment as the silence of the season gathered around us again and we were brought back to waiting, “I don’t mind coming to work but I think I took ten pounds, I should have taken an extra day off. For once, I closed early and then this guy rang up to ask where I was!”
The telephone rang, shattering the calm of the empty shop. Could it be a customer on the hot-line demanding a vast bulk order of paper bags? “Bishopsgate 518” answered Paul expectantly, his constant mantra on lifting the phone, as the call was revealed to be Mr Sammy from the Beigel Bakery ringing to send his New Year Greetings. And then a skinny young Portuguese man with barely a word of English arrived with a trolley from the Tower of London giftshop. We stacked it up with the blue candy-striped bags that suit souvenirs from the Tower of London, and the Portuguese fellow found the language to explain that he was a Tottenham supporter before he wheeled off his barrow of bags through the falling rain.
It was past two now and with the last packet of bags despatched to the Tower, the working day ended at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen. We had overseen the passage of time. We shook hands, exchanging New Year Greetings and I left Paul to lock up and close the door on Spitalfields for another year. “I’m going to go to bed for an hour when I get home,” he informed me, suddenly energised with a gleam of mischeivous anticipation in his eye, “We’ve got some members of the Havering Youth Orchestra coming round. My son Robert plays the euphonium in it. And I’m going to be crashing the pots and pans at midnight, because I’m the leader of the pack.”
“Even at ten in the morning, the pavements were empty with many shops closed…”
“I ventured from the house into the wet streets for the first time since Christmas Eve…”
“All the dogs in Frinton have them already…” A new line for 2013 at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen, dog coats knitted by Paul Gardner’s mother.
Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen reopens at 6:30am on 2nd January 2013, 149 Commercial St, London E1 6BJ (6:30am – 2:30pm, Monday to Friday)
You may also like to read about
Paul Gardner, Paper Bag Seller
At Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
The Tombs of Old London
Monument to Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
What could be more uplifting in this festive season than a virtual tour of the Tombs of Old London, courtesy of these glass slides once used by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society for magic lantern shows at the Bishopsgate Institute? We can admire the aesthetic wonders of statuary and architecture in these magnificent designs, and receive an education in the history and achievements of our illustrious forbears as a bonus.
In my childhood, no Christmas was complete without a family visit to some ancient abbey or cathedral. Yet while – ostensibly – we went to admire the tree and the crib, our interest was always drawn by the stone tombs and ancient monuments which consistently offered more extravagant rewards for our attention than the seasonal fripperies. Thus it was that my fascination with mortality became intertwined with Christmas, even before my nearest and dearest began to slip away from me into their graves – until today I have no other members of my family left alive.
In recent years, several of my relatives died at this season – imbuing festivities since then with an inescapable grave resonance. First, my grandmother expired one Boxing Day and, ten years later, my mother died on 31st December just as the daylight was fading. Then, a few years ago, my oldest friend collapsed unexpectedly on Christmas Eve. Consequently, while others delight to whoop it up over the holidays, I prefer to seek peace. Let me confide, my enduring image of New Year’s Eve will always be that of the undertakers carrying my mother’s body from the house out into the darkness.
It is a human impulse to challenge the ephemeral nature of existence by striving to create monuments, even if the paradox is that these attempts to render tenderness in granite will always be poignant failures, reminding us of death rather than life. Yet there is soulful beauty in these overwrought confections and a certain liberating consolation to be drawn, setting our modest personal grief against the wider perspective of history.
Tomb of Sir Francis Vere, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Monument to William Wilberforce, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
Memorial to Admiral Sir Peter Warren, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
Monument to William Wordsworth in Baptistery, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
St Benedict’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
Chapel of St Edmund, Westminster Abbey, c.1910
Tombstone of Laurence Sterne, St George’s Hanover Sq, c.1910 – Buried, grave-robbed and reburied in 1768, subsequently removed to Coxwold in 1969 due to redevelopment of the churchyard.
Hogarth’s tomb, St Nicholas’ Churchyard, Chiswick, c.1910
Sir Hans Sloane and Miller Monuments in Old Chelsea Churchyard, c. 1910
Stanley’s Monument in Chelsea Church, c. 1910
Sanctuary at All Saint’s Church, Chelsea, c. 1910
Shakespeare’s memorial, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Colville Monument in All Saint’s Church, Chelsea, c. 1910
Tomb of Daniel Defoe at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, c. 1910
At the gates of Bunhill Fields, c. 1910
Tomb of John Bunyan, Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, c. 1910
North Transept of Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
North Ambulatory, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Ambulatory, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Monument to John Milton, St Giles, Cripplegate, c. 1910
Offley Monument, St Andrew Undershaft, c. 1910
Pickering Monument, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, c. 1920
Plaque, Christ Church, Newgate, 1921
Tombs in Temple churchyard, c. 1910
King Sebert’s Tomb, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Monument to Historian John Stow in St.Andrew Undershaft, c. 1910
Tomb of Edward III, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Queen Elizabeth I’s Tomb, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Monument to Charles James Fox, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Poets’ Corner with David Garrick’s Memorial, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Memorial to George Frederick Handel, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Monument to Francis Holles, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Tombstone of the Kidney family, c. 1910
Cradle monument to Sophia, Daughter of James I, Henry VII’s Lady Chapel, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Tomb of Sir Francis Vere, Chapel of St John the Evangelist, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Tomb of John Dryden, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Wellington’s Funeral Carriage, St Paul’s Cathedral,c. 1910
Robert Preston’s grave stone, St Magnus, c. 1910
Tomb of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey, c. 1910
Glass slides copyright © Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to take a look at
The High Days & Holidays of Old London
