Chamber Music for a Wood Turner
A century ago, the streets and byways of Shoreditch and Hoxton resounded to the din of cabinet makers and wood turners, pursuing their trades in the furniture industry that was once the primary occupation in these neighbourhoods, but which has almost vanished entirely now.
Yet Stephen Massil has found a means to bring back the melody of the furniture makers to Shoreditch, and celebrate their endeavours, by commissioning a piece of chamber music from Nicola LeFanu to mark the centenary of his father William Massil, a wood turner. And this new work is to receive its world premiere next Thursday 21st June, performed by the Heath Quartet with young bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, as part of the Spitalfields Music Summer Festival.
Stephen’s grandfather Hyman Massil was a wood turner who came to Britain in 1905 from Azarich in Byelorussia and found his first job in London at Franklin & Goldberg in the Hackney Rd, just a hundred yards from St Leonard’s, Shoreditch, where the music will be performed next week. Today, the premises of Franklin & Goldberg has become The Spindle Shop, and readers may remember my interview with Maurice Franklin, the wood turner who was born above the shop in 1920 and, miraculously, is still working there today.
By 1912, Hyman Massil had his own workshop round the corner in Coronet St where his brother Morris worked alongside him as “H & M Massil, Woodturner & Twister,” the latter referring to the barley-sugar table legs and spindles for staircases they made. In the late twenties, Hyam ‘s son William Massil joined the business and by then, as well as turnings for local furniture makers, they provided columns and finials for the elaborate cases used by the high quality clockmakers of Clerkenwell. William expanded the company, moving to larger premises in Hoxton St before the war and eventually to Marshmoor near hatfield in Hertfordfordshire in the post-war years, securing the British patent for the production of bowling pins in the nineteen fifties, at a time when there was a boom in bowling alleys. It was an extraordinary transition from traditional wood-turning into the modern era.
Becoming an authority in his field, William wrote a history of the largely unrecorded furniture trade as it left the East End, “Immigrant Furniture Workers in London 1881-1939 and the Jewish Contribution to the Furniture Trade,” published in 1997. “My father could go to exhibitions of furniture and identify which individuals made each piece,” Stephen told me in wonder, confirming of his father’s expertise. A man of culture, William took Stephen to concerts as a child and even arranged performances for young refugee musicians during the days of the Cold War. This passion for music made it a natural choice for Stephen to commission a work in his father’s memory.
“He was a Chippendale man, a mahogany and walnut man, but he was interested in modern furniture too.” recalled Stephen, revealing that William liked to listen to twentieth century composers as well as to Schubert and Mozart, and elucidating his wish that Nicola LeFanu’s commission should sit comfortably with classical pieces in a programme. “We are a Jewish family, Nicola LeFanu is of Huguenot descent, and we are premiering the work in St Leonard’s, so in other words it is a proper mixture for the area,” he continued enthusiastically, “I hope the piece will commemorate a life in Shoreditch and the way that different cultures go to make up a place.”
Finally – “I haven’t heard the work yet, ” Stephen admitted to me with a sly grin of anticipation, “How the composer puts furniture into the music is her problem.”
Stephen Massil sits upon the bench in the grounds of the Geffrye Museum, originally placed there in 2002 by his father William Massil to commemorate his grandfather Hyman Massil who first came to Shoreditch as a wood turner in 1905.
William Massil, Wood Turner (1912-2004)
The Massil Master Pin, perfected by William Massil – the bowling pin that made his fortune.
Shoreditch Church where Nicola LeFanu’s piece commemorating William Massil will be premiered.
To find out more and book tickets for the concert click here.
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Philip Marriage’s Spitalfields
On the corner of Gun St & Brushfield St, 1967
In Spitalfields, the closure of the Truman Brewery in 1989, and the moving of Fruit & Vegetable Market in 1991 and the subsequent redevelopment of the site in 2002, have changed our neighbourhood so rapidly that even the recent past – of the time before these events – appears now as the distant past. Time has mysteriously accelerated, and we look back from the other side of the watershed created by these major changes to a familiar world that has been rendered strange to us.
Such was my immediate reaction, casting my eyes over Philip Marriage’s beautiful photographs when they arrived in an envelope in the post recently, and which I have the pleasure of publishing for the first time today. Between 1967 and 1995, Philip visited Spitalfields regularly taking photographs, after discovering that his ancestors lived here centuries ago. And the pictures which are the outcome of his thirty-year fascination comprise a spell-binding record of these streets at that time, taken by one on a personal quest to seek the spirit of the place.
“I worked in London from 1959 to 1978 and, for the first ten years, I commuted from Enfield to Liverpool St Station. So I was aware of Spitalfields from that time, though my real interest started when I discovered that my great-great-grandfather was a silk weaver at 6 Duke St, Old Artillery Ground. And I found records of others sharing the Marriage (then French Mariage) surname in the area as far back as 1585.
My job – as a graphic designer and later Design Manager – for HMSO Books (the former government publishers) was based on Holborn Viaduct so I was near enough to Somerset House, the Public Records Office and the Guildhall Library to undertake family history research in my lunchtime. In the autumn of 1967, I visited Spitalfields with my camera for the first time to see if I could locate any of the places associated with my family. In those days colour print film was expensive and I mostly took transparencies, but later Ilford brought out a cheap colour film for a pound a roll which provided twenty small colour prints and each negative returned mounted in 2×2 cardboard mounts – quite novel, but affordable.
When I married in 1968 and moved to Hertfordshire, my family history researches came to an end. Then, in 1978, my job took me to Norwich where I’ve remained since. However, I occasionally found myself in London and, if time permitted whilst waiting for the Norwich train, I always nipped out of Liverpool St Station and down Brushfield St for a brief reminder of my favourite places.”
Crispin St, 1985.
Spital shop, 1970.
Parliament Ct, 1986.
H.Hyams, Gun St, 1970.
Corner of Fashion St & Brick Lane, 1979.
Fashion St, 1979.
Toynbee St, 1970.
The Jolly Butchers, Brick Lane, 1985.
The Crown & Shuttle, Norton Folgate, 1987.
Boundary Passage with The Ship & Blue Ball, 1985.
The Carpenter’s Arms at the corner of Cheshire St & St Matthew’s Row, 1985.
Brick Lane, 1985.
Tour in Hanbury St, 1985.
Corner of Wentworth St & Leyden St, 1990.
Brushfield St, 1990.
Mosley Speaks, 1967.
Fournier St, 1985.
Corner of Quaker St & Grey Eagle St, 1986.
Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, 1985.
E. Olive Ltd, Umbrella Manufacturers, Hanbury St, 1985.
E. Olive Ltd, Umbrella Manufacturers, Hanbury St, 1985.
Corner of Lamb St & Commercial St, 1988.
Brushfield St, 1990.
Spitalfields Market, 1986.
Brushfield St, 1985.
Gun St, 1985.
Brushfield St, 1985.
Christ Church, Spitalfields, 1985.
Photographs copyright © Philip Marriage
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At Sweet & Spicy
If you ever stood in Brick Lane, baffled by the array of curry houses and harangued by the touts, and wondered “Where do the locals eat?” then seek out Sweet & Spicy down on the corner of Chicksand St, where proprietor Omar Butt works conscientiously from eleven until eleven every day, in this celebrated Spitalfields institution opened by his father Ikram Butt in 1969. Established originally as a cafe, Sweet & Spicy was only the third curry house to open on Brick Lane and, such is the popularity of its menu, it has remained largely unchanged through all this time.
Come for lunch or dinner. You will meet Omar Butt, tall with lively dark eyes and a stature that befits an ex-wrestler, yet modest and eager to greet customers. Chose your food at the counter, let Omar stack up your tray, then take your place in the cafeteria-style dining room at the back, lined with posters reflecting the Butt family’s involvement in wrestling over generations, and enjoy your meal in peace and quiet.
Sweet & Spicy offers a simple menu of the essential curry dishes which are complemented by two house specialities, popular since 1969. Halva puri with chana (spicy chickpeas) which Omar describes as the “Pakistani breakfast,” – traditionally the food of wrestlers who, he says, were characteristically “big rough men that ate halva all day.” Omar makes the halva personally twice a week at Sweet & Spicy, exactly as it is done in the halva shops of Pakistan where they also display the same wrestling posters that he has on his wall. And the warm halva makes a very tasty counterpoint to the spicy chana – sweet and spicy, just as the name over the door promises. Most customers pop in for the famous kebab roll – his other speciality – a shish kebab served in a deep-fried chapati with onions and chili sauce. A snack to suit all tastes for just two pounds. “It has so many dimensions of flavour that people really like,” waxes Omar, his eyes gleaming with culinary pride.
There is an appealingly egalitarian quality to this restaurant where anyone can afford to eat, where Omar oversees every aspect of the food with scrupulous care and where people of all the races that live in Spitalfields can meet in a relaxed environment, unified by their love of curry – honestly cooked, keenly priced and served without pretensions. Twice a day, Sweet & Spicy fills up with the lunch and dinner rush, but drop by late morning for a Pakistani breakfast, or visit in the afternoon, and you will discover Omar taking a well-deserved break to read his newspaper and eager to chat. With an understated authority, he presides over a unique community hub that has evolved naturally, offering a refuge of calm and civility amidst the clamour of Brick Lane.
“I used to come here at six years old. I guess I was be the youngest busboy on Brick Lane, serving and clearing tables for quite a few years. My family have always been involved in wrestling. My grandfather Allah Ditta, he was professional wrestler in Pakistan and my uncle, Aslam Butt, was National Champion. I have done international freestyle wrestling and I’ve tried very hard at an Indian style where you wrestle in a sand pit. I have travelled and wrestled in America, here and in Pakistan.
I studied business after I left school and then I came to work here full -time at twenty-four years old. I am a self-taught cook and I taught myself how to cook everything. Each morning I do a little cooking when I arrive and then I spend the rest of the day upstairs serving customers. It’s important to me, to attend to everything. For a restaurant to have long life-cycle, the owner has to be able to cook as well.
We open seven days a week and I am here seven days, from eleven in the morning until eleven at night. It’s been non-stop lately because of the economic situation. No-one likes a recession, but it shows you what you are capable of. Before, I didn’t know that I was able to work seventy hour weeks, but it is possible. I have a wife and two kids and I live on the Isle of Dogs but, because I have spent so much of my time on Brick Lane, it’s like I live here as well.
We were always a cafe, whereas the others became restaurants serving English customers but here it has always been a mixed clientele. People used to come for snacks after the visiting the Naz cinema next door and we served the machinists working in the clothing factories. We have a long loyal gallery of locals. It’s a cosmopolitan place. Today I had an Asian sea captain who first came forty years ago, Bengali businessmen, a table of Cubans, and some born and bred East Enders who have been coming all their lives. We run the business off our regular customers. I often get young men who say their father brought them here as a child. There’s something about this place, it’s a father and son place.”
One of Omar’s collection of wrestling posters. His uncle and grandfather were champions in Pakistan.
In the cool of the curry house in the afternoon.
Sweet & Spicy’s celebrated £2 kebab roll – the burrito of Brick Lane.
Halva with puri £1.45 – traditionally the food of wrestlers. Served hot with chana as ‘the Pakistani breakfast.’
Faraz
Sweet & Spicy, 40 Brick Lane, London E1, 6RF.
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The Battle for London’s Markets
Today I am republishing this piece that I wrote for The Guardian last week, which many readers may not have seen yet.
Billingsgate Market 1809 (click to enlarge)
In recent years, the term “marketplace” has become increasingly used to refer only to economic transactions, yet for the people of London the market has always been something more – an arena of possibility and a place of cultural exchange, bound up with the identity of the city itself since its earliest origins.
When Thomas Rowlandson was commissioned to draw the human figures onto Augustus Pugin’s architectural plates of Covent Garden Market and Billingsgate Market as part of the Microcosm of London in 1809, he delighted in the sharp contrast between the human idiosyncrasies of the traders and the uniform classical architecture of the new buildings that sought to contain the markets. This tension, between the essentially chaotic nature of markets and those who would like to control them, persists to our own day.
Within the last month, we have seen the abolition of the licensed porters of Billingsgate Market by the City of London Corporation acting with the support of the fish traders, who were eager to replace them with cheaper, unregulated labour. Yet the dramatic irony of this action only became apparent a few days later, when the traders themselves were given notice on their leases in the market by the City Corporation.
Now, as the fish porters consider whether to accept employment under poorer conditions, the traders have to ask themselves where their businesses are going to be in two years’ time. Both parties must be nursing bruised emotions and contemplating recent events in the light of the traditional honour code of markets, in which each man is only as good as his word.
The events at Billingsgate follow a pattern established when Covent Garden Market moved from central London to Vauxhall in 1979 – the loss of porters’ rights prior to transition to a new building and then redevelopment of the former premises into a shopping mall or corporate offices. The City of London Corporation has a plan to create a one-stop market for meat and fish at Leyton in east London, alongside the New Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market that relocated there in 1991. And the human costs, such as those suffered by the porters at Billingsgate, are incidental to their grand scheme.
By purely following an economic imperative, the authorities miss the wider cultural function of markets. Aside from the cultural loss to the city, it ignores our need for alternative places to buy fresh produce that might counteract the dominance of the supermarkets – not just a marginal concern as Britain struggles with an obesity crisis. I cannot walk through Covent Garden today without my heart sinking at the sight of all the chain stores. There is an undeniable sense that the authentic life of the city has gone.
While these inner-city markets may no longer be effective as wholesale operations, they would be an asset to London if the buildings could operate as retail food markets, allowing smaller suppliers to offer a greater choice of fresh produce direct to the customer. We need only to look to the European continent to see how large food markets can be retained successfully at the heart of the city. The novelty and appeal of supermarkets is long gone and, if there is a street market nearby, you can readily be assured of better quality produce at a keener price.
In the East End of London, there has always been an understanding that if all else fails, if you cannot get a job, if you cannot afford to rent a shop, you can always sell things in the market – and, even if you have nothing to sell, you can always find things in the street and sell them. In fact, some of the largest chains such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer had their origin in these modest circumstances. And it is here at the boundary of the City, in what has historically been London’s market district, that the battle for the life of London’s markets is being played out at street level.
The battle for London’s markets is not yet lost. Tower Hamlets council unexpectedly refused permission for the demolition of the London Fruit & Wool Exchange in Spitalfields recently, obstructing redevelopment into corporate offices and a shopping mall. And, in another heartening initiative, the independent shopkeepers and small traders of east London are currently banding together to launch a union – the East End Trades Guild – to fight for their survival in the face of avaricious landlords courted by chain stores who would like to create another Covent Garden.
By their very nature markets are contingent, and the history of London records many legendary lost markets that are long gone, from the forum of Londinium, through to Shepherd Market and Haymarket off Piccadilly in the 18th century, Clare Market in the 19th century and Caledonian Market in the 20th century. As manifestations of human resourcefulness, markets will always be with us and I put my faith in the ingenuity of the street traders to elude control and enliven the metropolis with their presence, because markets are the place where commerce becomes culture. They are the soul of our city.
Covent Garden Market 1809
Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Click here to see the article on The Guardian website along with a film and comments.
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Even More Trade Cards of Old London
After publishing selections of trade cards that might have been found in the eighteenth century by rummaging in a hypothetical drawer, searching down the back of a hypothetical sofa, looking under a hypothetical bed, or discovered beneath the hypothetical floorboards, it is my pleasure to show this further selection that I happened upon in the pockets of a hypothetical coat.
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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More Trade Cards of Old London
Signs, Posters, Typography & Graphics
E2, 1962
“It could almost be a metaphor of the East End, parts of it were hanging in tatters but it was a beautiful tapestry of things that had been,” said photographer John Claridge, talking fondly of this picture of a posters peeling from a door from 1962. One of a set – first published here today – of photos of signs, posters, typography and graphics that John took in the East End during the sixties when he was in his teens and twenties.
At fifteen years old, John went to work in advertising at McCann Erickson where he encountered the inspiring figure of designer Robert Brownjohn, who had once been a pupil of Moholy-Nagy and famously created the opening credits for ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘From Russia With Love.’ “It opened up my eyes to how people communicate and the beauty of typography.” John confided, “You’re surrounded by it and you’re brought up with it, but people like Robert Brownjohn take it to another level.”
Today, John describes these photographs as coming from ‘the time when my eyes were opened,’ yet he admits he was ‘always interested in what’s not intentional,’ and these pictures all delight in the incidental visual humour and poetry of the human condition – whether a former chapel selling light bulbs that offered ‘batteries recharged,’ or a damaged poster for the mass X-Ray of 1966 that resembled a pair of lungs. “I’m still excited by them,” he confessed to me, “My work in advertising was about solving other people’s problems, but these pictures are the outcome of personal feelings.”
“People used to ask me why are you photographing that?” recalled John in amusement. Eastenders have always had the knack of communication, and it was John’s gift to see the beauty in the urban landscape through the marks made by those personalities that created it.
E1, 1964.
E1, 1961.
E 14, 1966. “The poster looks like a pair of lungs.”
E9, 1964.
E1, 1969. “Bertrand Russell looking at the end of the world – the window is like a mushroom cloud.”
E13, 1959. “I used to go with my mum to Queens Rd Market on Saturday morning to get a few bits and pieces.”
E1, 1968. “My mum and dad read the Stratford Express.”
E1, 1967. “There were quite a few of these around.”
E15, 1962. “The Two Puddings was a brilliant pub.”
E14, 1970. “It reminded me of ‘Soylent Green’, the science fiction movie with Edward G. Robinson.”
E7, 1966.
E1, 1964. “The corrugated iron looks like it’s melting, or like a painting of corrugated iron.”
E1, 1967.
E2, 1963.
E2, 1965. “This lettering is not professional, but very human.”
E13, 1960. “Like stepping onto a stage.”
E7, 1968.
Cable St E1, 1962.
E1, 1964. “Boys used to say ‘No rubbish here,’ when they were selling in the street.”
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
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A Walk With Clive Murphy
On Saturday, I enjoyed the privilege of accompanying Clive Murphy – the distinguished oral historian and writer of ribald rhymes – on a stroll around Spitalfields visiting some of his favourite haunts. He emerged from his red front door, having descended the stairs from his flat above the Aladin restaurant on Brick Lane where he has lived since 1974, sporting a raffish brown fedora and raincoat, and we headed directly to his usual morning destination, Nude Espresso in Hanbury St.
“It’s the best cafe I know because you don’t meet English people, only Australians and New Zealanders. They’re all so young and fresh and not at all buttoned-up,” Clive explained enthusiastically, as we were seated at a prominent table. And I felt like James Boswell accompanying Samuel Johnson, as the great raconteur let loose his celebrated gift for rhetoric, causing everyone in the small cafe to crane in attention. “I tried to congratulate them on their vocabulary, in the use of ‘titillate’ on the board outside, but then they informed me the actual wording was “open ’til late.'” Clive informed me with a sly smile of self-deprecation.“I remember when they opened and I was the only customer. The owner is Dickie Reed and the food and the coffee are good, and I do hand it to him, because he started here with nothing and now he’s got this place and a roastery and another one in Soho.” said Clive, continuing his eulogy, and only breaking off as a plate of complimentary muffins was placed in front of him.
Then we popped round to Grenson shoes next door where Martha Ellen Smith, the manager, has been working on a linocut portrait of Clive. Despite his uncertainty about the likeness, I gave the picture my approval and congratulated Martha on capturing the spirit of the man. “A friend of mine who spends all day drinking and watching porn says I am becoming a cantankerous old git,” confessed Clive, turning vulnerable suddenly as we left the shop, and requiring vigorous persuasion on my part to convince him of the lack of veracity in such an observation.
Energised by caffeine, our spirits lifted as we strode off down Brick Lane when, to my amazement, I noticed another fellow coming towards us with the same mis-matched shoes as Clive – wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe – which I had been too polite to mention until then. In fact, it was a complete coincidence and, although they were unknown to each other prior to this meeting, both men explained it was because they had problems with ill-fitting shoes, becoming at once affectionate brothers of mis-matched footwear. Yet such is the nature of Brick Lane today, this could quickly become an emergent trend in international street style for summer 2012.
We arrived at Sweet & Spicy on the corner of Chicksand St, Clive’s favourite restaurant, where he has been coming regularly for curry since 1974. Here, in the cool of the peaceful dining room, we were greeted by proprietor Omar Butt, wrestler and boxer, who runs this popular curry house started by his father in 1969. Clive recommended the hot spicy lamb and the pilau rice with saffron to me, enquiring the secret of the rice from Omar who revealed the distinctive quality was in the use of raisins, almonds and butter ghee. Pointing out the weight-lifting posters on the wall, Clive informed me that Omar had been preceded by his brother Imran Butt who was “mad for bodybuilding.”
“We used to have useful things like a laundrette, an ironmonger and an electrical shop in Brick Lane,” announced Clive, turning morose as we retraced our steps, “now one half of it is arty-farty shops and the other half curry houses, and there’s nothing else.” Yet his complaint was cut short as we were greeted by the cheery Sanjay, Clive’s friend who works as waiter in the Aladin restaurant below his flat. “I told him I was going to the supermarket one day and he asked me to bring him a present, so I got him a packet of biscuits,” recalled Clive fondly, humbled by Sanjay’s open-heartedness, “it’s amazing what a packet of biscuits can do.”
Leaving Brick Lane, we turned down Buxton St towards the rear of the brewery where Clive lived for a year in the headmaster’s study of the derelict St Patrick’s School in 1972, when he first came to Spitalfields. “I had a hurricane lamp, a camp bed and a tea chest.” he said as we reached the threshold of the Victorian Schoolhouse, “There was only electricity three days a week and I had a single cold tap on the floor below. I was scared of the meths drinkers who sat outside on the step because I was all alone, I had never been in the East End before and I had never met meths drinkers before. But then three painters moved in and we became a colony of artists, until I was flooded out.”
“I think would have made a go of it anywhere,” acknowledged Clive, in a measured attempt to sum up his forty years in the East End, “I don’t think Spitalfields has been especially generous to me, except it was where I met my heroes Alexander Hartog, the tenor and mantle presser, and Beatrice Ali, the Salvation Army Hostel Dweller, and I am grateful because they were both absolute treasures.” These individuals became the subjects of two of the most memorable of Clive’s oral histories.
By now, a blustery wind had blown up in Buxton St. It had been accumulating all morning and caused me to run down the street more than once to retrieve Clive’s hat, but now it required him to hold his fedora in place with his left hand. Yet before we went our separate ways, heading for home, Clive presented me with a packet of liquorice allsorts that he had secreted in his raincoat pocket, and I was delighted to accept them as a souvenir of our walk.
Clive and antipodean friends at Nude Espresso.
Clive at Grenson Shoes with Martha and Nathan.
Martha Ellen Smith’s lino cut portrait of Clive.
The beginning of a trend on Brick Lane, Clive meets Mark who shares his taste in mis-matched footwear.
Clive with Omar Butt at Sweet & Spicy in Brick Lane where Clive has been dining since 1974.
Clive with his friend Sanjay, waiter at the Aladin Curry House, Brick Lane.
Clive at Old St Patrick’s School in Buxton St where he first lived in Spitalfields in 1972. – “I only had a hurricane lamp, a camp bed and a tea chest.”
Clive encounters a blustery corner in Buxton St.
Clive in his flat above the Aladin curry house on Brick Lane where he has lived since 1974.
Copies of Clive Murphy’s oral histories can be obtained from Labour and Wait and his ribald rhymes can be bought at Rough Trade East.
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