John Allin, Artist
Gun St, Spitalfields
John Allin (1934-1991) began painting while serving a six month prison sentence for minor theft, and achieved considerable success in the sixties and seventies with his vivid intricate pictures recalling the East End of his childhood. There is a dreamlike quality to these visions in sharp focus of an emotionalised cityscape, created at a time when the Jewish people were leaving to seek better housing in the suburbs and their culture was fading from those streets which had once been its home.
Returning from National Service in the Merchant Navy, Allin worked in the parks department planting trees, later as a swimming pool attendant and then as a long distance lorry driver – all before his conviction and imprisonment. After discovering his artistic talent, he devoted himself to painting and won attention with his first exhibition in 1969 at the Portal Gallery, specialising in primitive and outsider art. In 1974, he collaborated with Arnold Wesker on a book of reminiscence, “Say Goodbye: You may never see them again” in which he reveals an equivocation about the East End. “I saw it as a place where people lived, earned their living, grew up, moved on … they had dignity … I like painting the past with dignity…” he said in an interview with Wesker, “but what they’ve done to the East End is diabolical! They’ve scuppered it, built and built and torn down and torn out and took lots of identity away and made it into just a concrete nothing… But people go on, don’t they? Eating their eels and giving their custom where they’ve always given their custom … Funny how people can go on and take anything and everything.”
Like Joe Orton in the theatre, Allin’s reputation as an ex-con fuelled his reputation in newspapers and on television but he found there was a price to pay, as he revealed to Wesker, “You know how I started painting don’t you? In prison! Well, when I come out the kids at school give my kid a rough time … the silly bloody journalists didn’t help. ‘Jail-bird becomes painter!’ You’d’ve thought I’d done God knows what … I mean the neighbours used to say things like ‘Look at ‘im! Jail-bird and he’s on telly! Ought to be sent back inside the nick!’ I was the oddity in the district, the lazy fat bastard that paints. Give me a half a chance and I’d move mate.” In fact, Allin joined Gerry Cottle’s Circus, touring as a handyman to create another book, “John Allin’s Circus Life” in 1982.
Although he was the first British recipient of the international Prix Suisse de Peinture Naive award in 1979, the categorisation of Outsider or Primitive artist is no longer adequate to apply to John Allin. Twenty years after his death, his charismatic paintings deserve to be recognised as sophisticated works which communicate an entire social world through an unapologetically personal and emotionally charged visual vocabulary.
Spitalfields Market, Brushfield St.
Great Synagogue, Brick Lane.
Jewish Soup Kitchen, Brune St.
Christ Church School, Brick Lane.
Heneage St and Brick Lane.
Rothschild Dwellings, Spitalfields.
Whitechapel Rd.
Christ Church Park, Commmercial St.
Wentworth St.
Fashion St with gramophone man in the foreground..
Churchill Walk.
Young Communist League rally, corner of Brick Lane and Old Montague St.
Hessel St.
Snow Scene.
Anti-Fascist Rally at Gardiners’ Corner, 1936.
Cole’s Chicken Shop, Cobb St.
Factory Workers.
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Easter Flowers at St Dunstans
Sarah Edwards, Vera Hullyer & Maureen Gilbert, the flower ladies of St Dunstans
Last year, when Vera Hullyer told me about the Easter display which is the climax of the year in floral arrangement at St Dunstans, Stepney, I knew I had to return and see it for myself. And, arriving in the octagonal parish room at the rear of the church on Maundy Thursday, I discovered Vera and her long-time collaborators, Sarah Edwards and Maureen Gilbert, surrounded by fresh cut flowers and greenery, rather in the manner of those three nymphs frolicking in Botticelli’s painting of the harbingers of Spring.
“I used to help Joyce Graham, until she got too old to do it, and then it was handed over to me,” admitted with Vera with a self-deprecatory laugh and wielding a sprig of Hornbeam freshly picked in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park that morning, confessing, “I’ve been doing it at least twenty years.” Although Vera, Sarah and Maureen do Christmas decorations and regular displays every Friday in the church for forty weeks of the year, they were in agreement that Easter was “the big thing,” and a sense of excitement pervaded.
Reflecting the season, the colours were green and white with highlights of pale yellow, with cut flowers supplied by Joanne the florist of the Roman Rd and greenery from the gardens ands parks of the East End. “The lilies are donated in memory of people and the list of names is placed on the altar.” explained Vera, to underline the gravity of the conception and lifting yet another vase to carry through to add to the epic display at the Altar of Repose in the south aisle. As we stood in front of the magnificent array of flowers, the vividness of their living quality emphasised by the ancient stonework of the church, Vera explained the iconography of her display which represents the Garden of Gethsemane and is complemented by candles, lit to burn through the night watch by parishioners until Good Friday, when the flowers are removed from the church to be brought back on Easter Day as a representation of the Garden of Remembrance.
Begun by St Dunstan himself in 952, St Dunstans is the second oldest building in Tower Hamlets after the Tower of London and was once the parish church for entire borough, standing today both as a reminder of the East End’s distant rural past and of its relationship with the sea – as the mariners’ church, it still flies the red ensign today. Whilst I had been admiring the ladies’ handiwork. the dignified churchwarden Julian Cass hovered in the background and he took this moment, while the floral display received its finishing touches, to suggest I might like to accompany him up the tower.
Through an ancient lancet wooden door and up a narrowing stone staircase, we climbed. First, we came to the loft looking down onto the nave where the nineteenth century nativity figures spend the year, awaiting the next advent. Then we entered the cosy den that is the ringers’ room where Julian and his colleagues convene each Thursday for bell practice. Here were the painted boards recording peals of old. Here was a working model of a bell in its frame made by an apprentice at the bell foundry. Here were portraits of nineteenth century bell ringers. Here was a sign that read, “Do not swing the bells until the clock hammers been barred off and chiming mechanism released.”
Above, we entered a dusty chamber with an ancient lapboarded shed which contained the clock of 1805, now powered by electricity. As a reminder of when it was wound weekly, another arcane sign remains here, “Albert? Make sure you take the winding handle off the clock before leaving.” On the top floor, Julian and I clambered like spiders within the metal web of the bell frame where the legendary bells of Stepney hang, – cast in Whitechapel in the era of the Napoleonic Wars – before we emerged onto the tower roof, with views through the haze across the expanse of the East End to Canary Wharf in one direction and the City in the other, where once there was just fields.
For over a thousand years, Easter has been celebrated here at this modestly proportioned old stone church, and when I returned around midnight, I found it in darkness, save the candles illuminating the display at the Altar of Repose with a pale glow, in contrast to the rays of the full moon casting the nave in a cool blue light. Spring flowers glowed by candlelight that burned through the small hours while parishioners undertook their silent watch and the dawn rose over the East End on another Easter, welcoming the change of season after the long winter.
These nineteenth century nativity figures are stored away in the loft until next Christmas.
Julian Cass, church warden, in the ringers’ chamber in the tower.
The clock cupboard in the tower.
The church clock was made in Clerkenwell in 1805.
This graffiti on the door of the clock cupboard was written so long ago that no-one knows who Albert and Lawrie were.
The famous bells of Stepney were cast in Whitechapel during the era of the Napoleonic wars.
Looking towards Canary Wharf from the tower.
The finished display, with lilies paid for by parishioners in memory of their loved ones.
During the night’s vigil from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday.
Paschal candle ring by Maureen Gilbert.
Vera Hullyer
Full moon over St Dunstans on Maundy Thursday.
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The Historic Cakes of Spitalfields
No doubt you have read of the historic houses in Spitalfields, of the historic church and the famous old market? Now – thanks to Fiona Atkins and her daughter Jenny at Townhouse in Fournier St – I am able to tell you about the historic cakes of Spitalfields. And the great beauty of this investigation into the baking of past times is that, rather involving the painstaking restoration of crumbling old piles, it can be accomplished in the kitchen where, with a little experimentation, the cakes can be baked afresh.
Naturally, I was eager to volunteer myself as a research assistant, in the conscientious pursuit of this endeavour, by offering my services in tasting the historic cakes once they were lifted, newly baked, from the oven.
“I bought a collection of manuscript recipe books in a sale in Whitby.” explained Fiona Atkins, an Antique Dealer by profession, revealing the origin of her interest as she laid a selection of treasured booklets from different eras and of different sizes upon the table. Manuscript recipe books were handmade miscellanies, often meticulously handwritten, collecting together recipes and other useful household lore for future reference, and today these documents survive as intimate evocations of the domestic life of our forebears. Fiona considers herself lucky to have amassed her small library, before the American institutions began buying up all those that came onto the market, in recognition that these manuscript recipe books exist as rare historical records of the lives of women who left no other trace. “So then I became interested in cookery books,” continued Fiona with a philosophical shrug “and I came across John Farley’s ‘The London Art of Cookery, 1783’, recipes from the London Tavern in Bishopsgate – and I had no idea he was here!”
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, The London Tavern – on the west side of Bishopsgate at its southern-most extremity – was the principal destination for dining in the City, catering for as many as five hundred at a time, and when John Farley, the ambitious head cook, published ‘The London Art of Cookery,” he initiated the familiar modern trend of a chef producing a book which promotes his restaurant. Farley achieved great success with his cookery book running to many editions and it was a comprehensive volume, listing produce through the seasons and proposing menus for every month, as well as offering advice on culinary poisons, sustenance for the sick and recipes for seafarers.
Yet, pursuing her researches further as her collection grew, Fiona Atkins discovered that John Farley was unscrupulous as well as ambitious, lifting most of his recipes directly from earlier cookery books, specifically Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy”of 1747 and Elizabeth Raffald’s “The Experienced English Housekeeper” of 1769. Farley took recipes from both these writers and simply altered the first and last sentences of each.
Once Jenny Atkins saw her mother lay these titles by John Farley, Elizabeth Raffald and Hannah Glasse upon the kitchen table in Fournier St, she was inspired to put the stolen recipes into practice and make manifest these enigmatic confections, as served in Spitalfields over two centuries ago. And when I visited Townhouse last week, I was greeted by the warm honey-sweet aroma of baking as I stepped through the door.
Already, there was an impressive array of cakes upon the table to greet me as I descended to the basement kitchen, hung with a collection of copper jelly moulds and old pans. “The most difficult part is the baking itself because our ovens are different,” admitted Jenny, cutting into the centre of a Fine Cake to discover if was cooked through. And although she concluded it needed more baking next time, the slice I enjoyed had a delicious fluffy texture reminiscent in colour and texture of panettone.
Jenny told me that the little buns upon a cake stand, sparkling in the morning sunlight, were French Biscuits.“What they call biscuits we call buns,” she informed me helpfully as I bit a tasty morsel from one of these cakes that had a subtle chewy crust, a little like that on a Madeleine, and a dense spongy interior which reminded me of a soft version of biscotti. Next, I moved on to the Little Plum Cakes which perversely do not contain plums but currants. These reminded me of the rock cakes that old ladies made for me as a child in Devon, yet they had a nuttier chewier texture and – stemming from an age before baking powder – to some they may seem a little heavy, while to others with a healthy appetite they might be satisfyingly substantial. Certainly, I did not require any lunch after my assiduous cake research that morning.
“The idea of cookery books was different then, they weren’t to teach how to cook but to give ideas to people who were clearly well-practised and knew what they were doing.” revealed Jenny – not an entirely inexperienced baker herself- as we sat surrounded by cakes on plates and stands. “I don’t think women used recipes in the way they do now, they read them once to glean ideas and they knew what to do,” she added, leafing through the old cook books and becoming absorbed by them.
It was my pleasure to participate in Jenny’s experiment, because it is apparent that frequent testing and informed judgement is required with these recipes. Just as cookery books were first compiled from manuscript recipe books, women copied recipes from cookery books back into their own personal manuscript books, each cook making the recipes their own – a process that is now mirrored as Jenny recreates these recipes under different circumstances to delight the taste of a different age.
So this is where your participation in this culinary investigation is required. You are all invited to come along to Townhouse in Fournier St, enjoy a light refreshment and contribute your own considered opinions upon the historic cakes of Spitalfields.
John Farley’s ‘The London Art of Cookery,’ recipes from the London Tavern in Bishopsgate, 1783.
French Biscuits – Take a pair of clean scales, in one scale put three new-laid eggs, and in the other the same weight of dried flour. Have ready the same weight of fine powdered sugar. First beat up the white of the eggs well with a whisk, till they be of a fine froth. Then whip in half an ounce of lemon candied peel cut very thin and fine, and beat well. Then, by degrees, whip in the flour and the sugar, then put in the yokes and with a spoon temper them well together. Then shape your biscuits on fin white paper with your spoon, and throw powdered sugar over them. Bake them in a moderate oven, not too hot, giving them a fine colour on the top. When they be baked, with a fine knife cut them off from the paper, and lay them up for use in dry boxes.
Fine Cake – Take a pound of butter beaten to a cream, a pound and a quarter of flour, a pound of sugar beat fine, a pound of currants, clean washed and picked and the yokes of six and the whites of four eggs. Beat them fine and mix the flour, sugar and eggs, by degrees, into the butter. Beat all well with both hands. Or you may make it thus – Take a pound of flour and a half pound of sugar, beat half a pound of butter with your hand, and mix them well together.
April’s menu at The London Tavern in Bishopsgate, 1783
Little Plum Cakes – Take half a pound of sugar finely powdered, two pounds of flour well dried, four yolks and two whites of eggs, half a pound of butter washed with rose water, six spoonfuls of cream warmed and a pound and half of currants unwashed, but picked and rubbed very clean in a cloth. Mix all well together, then make them up into cakes, bake them in a hot oven and let them stand half an hour till they be coloured on both sides. Then take down the oven lid and let them stand to soak. You must rub the butter well into the flour, then the eggs and the cream, and then the currants.
At the kitchen of Townhouse in Fournier St. The mould in the foreground is for biscuits.
Elizabeth Raffald’s “The Experienced English Housekeeper” of 1769.
Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy”of 1747.
Plate of The London Tavern courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Fiona Atkins’ collection of early cookery books and manuscript recipe books is currently on display at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, where visitors can partake of coffee and historic cakes baked by Jenny Atkins. You can also book to stay in the rooms above Townhouse by clicking here.
The Widow’s Buns At Bow
The ceremony of the Widow’s Buns is celebrated today in Bow, as it has been each Good Friday for as long as anyone can remember. Here is my account of last year’s event and if you get down there by three o’ clock this afternoon, you can witness this cherished East End ritual for yourself.
Baked by Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath
On Good Friday, what could be more appropriate to the equivocal nature of the day than an event which involves both celebration of Hot Cross Buns and the remembrance of the departed in a single custom – such is the ceremony of the Widow’s Buns at Bow.
A net of Hot Cross Buns hangs above the bar at The Widow’s Son in Bromley by Bow, and each year a sailor comes to add another bun to the collection. And this year I was there to witness it for myself, though – before you make any assumption based on your knowledge of my passion for buns – I must clarify that no Hot Cross Buns are eaten in the ceremony, they are purely for symbolic purposes. Left to dry out and gather dust and hang in the net for eternity, London’s oldest buns exist as metaphors to represent the passing years and talismans to bring good luck but, more than this, they tell a story.
The Widow’s Son was built in 1848 upon the former site of an old widow’s cottage, so the tale goes. When her only son left to be a sailor, she promised to bake him a Hot Cross Bun and keep it for his return. But although he drowned at sea, the widow refused to give up hope, preserving the bun upon his return and making a fresh one each year to add to the collection. This annual tradition has been continued in the pub as a remembrance of the widow and her son, and of the bond between all those on land and sea, with sailors of the Royal Navy coming to place the bun in the net every year.
Behind this custom lies the belief that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday will never decay, reflected in the tradition of nailing a Hot Cross Bun to the wall so that the cross may bring good luck to the household – though what appeals to me about the story of the widow is the notion of baking as an act of faith, incarnating a mother’s hope that her son lives. I interpret the widow’s persistence in making the bun each year as a beautiful gesture, not of self-deception but of longing for wish-fulfilment, manifesting her love for her son. So I especially like the clever image upon the inn sign outside the Widow’s Son, illustrating an apocryphal scene in the story when the son returns from the sea many years later to discover a huge net of buns hanging behind the door, demonstrating that his mother always expected him back.
When I arrived at the Widow’s Son, I had the good fortune to meet Frederick Beckett who first came here for the ceremony in 1958 when his brother Alan placed the Hot Cross Bun in the net, and he had the treasured photo in his hand to show me. Frederick moved out from Bow to Dagenham fifteen years ago, but he still comes back each year to visit the Widow’s Son, one of many in this community and further afield who delight to converge here on Good Friday for old times’ sake. Already, there was a tangible sense of anticipation, with spirits uplifted by the sunshine and the flags hung outside, ready to celebrate St George next day.
The landlady proudly showed me the handsome fresh 2011 Hot Cross Bun, baked by Mr Bunn of Mr Bunn’s Bakery in Chadwell Heath who always makes the special bun each year -” fabulous buns!”declared Kathy, almost succumbing to a swoon, as he she held up her newest sweetest darling that would shortly join its fellows in the net over the bar. There were many more ancient buns, she explained, until a fire destroyed most of them fifteen years ago, and those burnt ones in the net today are merely those few which were salvaged by the firemen from the wreckage of the pub. Remarkably, having opened their hearts to the emotional poetry of Hot Cross Buns, at the Widow’s Son they even cherish those cinders which the rest of the world would consign to a bin.
The effect of the beer and the unseasonal warm temperatures upon a pub full of sailors and thirsty locals rapidly induced a pervasive atmosphere of collective euphoria, heightened by a soundtrack of pounding rock, and, in the thick of it, I was delighted to meet my old pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief. “I’m not here for the buns, I’m here for the bums!” he confided to me with a sip of his Corvoisier and lemonade, making a lewd gesture and breaking in to a wide grin of salacious enjoyment as various Bow belles, in off-the-shoulder dresses, with flowing locks and wearing festive corsages, came over enthusiastically to shower this legendary rascal with kisses.
I stood beside Lenny as three o’ clock approached, enjoying the high-spirited gathering as the sailors came together in front of the bar. The landlord handed over the Hot Cross Bun to widespread applause and the sailors lifted up their smallest recruit. Then, with a mighty cheer from the crowd and multiple camera flashes, the recruit placed the bun in the net. Once this heroic task was accomplished, and the landlady had removed the tinfoil covers from the dishes of food laid out upon the billiard table, all the elements were in place for a knees-up to last the rest of the day. As they like to say in Bromley by Bow, it was “Another year, another Good Friday, another bun.”
Peter Gracey, Nick Edelshain and Roddy Urquhart raise a pint to the Widow’s Buns.
Tony Scott and Debbie Willis of HMS President with Frederick Beckett holding the photograph of his brother placing the bun in the net in 1958.
Alan Beckett places the bun on Good Friday, 4th April 1958.
3 pm, Good Friday, 22nd April 2011.
The Widow’s Son is the local for my pal Lenny Hamilton, the jewel thief.
A Widow’s Son of Bromley by Bow
by Harold Adshead
A widow had an only son, The sea was his concern, His parting wish an Easter Bun Be kept for his return. But when it came to Eastertide No sailor came her way To claim the bun she set aside Against the happy day. They say the ship was lost at sea, The son came home no more But still with humble piety The widow kept her store. So year by year a humble bun Was charm against despair, A loving task that once began Became her livelong care. The Widow’s Son is now an inn That stands upon the site And signifies its origin Each year by Easter rite The buns hang up for all to see, A blackened mass above, A truly strange epitome Of patient mother love.
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Pearly Portraits
Photographer James Pearson-Howes did these beautiful portraits of the Pearly King & Queens and Novelist Sarah Winman, author of “When God Was a Rabbit” went along to meet the Pearlies on behalf of Spitalfields Life.
“Saturday morning in Covent Garden and low grey cloud deposits rain in torrents upon streets still warm from a previous day’s sun. I stand under cover, a little cold now, and waiting – waiting for the first sight of my storytellers, to hear tales of charitable lives, and to hear about a way of life that was born in 1875 in the heart of a thirteen year old orphan boy called Henry Croft. But the rain thumps down and the crowds thin and even a performer’s rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ cannot warm our disappointed spirits. But just as I turn to go, just when I think that the weather has won, as if on cue those swollen clouds retreat and a sunburst falls upon the square catching the glorious sway of twenty thousand pearl buttons in its golden light, in a moment, dare I say it, bordering the divine.” – Sarah Winman
Arthur Rackley, Pearly King of Upminster
I’ve been a Pearly for thirty-two and a half years. My sister-in law Marie was born a Pearly Princess and she married my brother Jim in 1970. All three of us lived together, and when my brother died in 1980, she turned to me and said, “I’ve lost my Pearly King.” I said, “Never mind, I’ll carry on where he left off,” and for the next seven years I had a Pearly apprenticeship.
She was a Victorian lady. If she said, “Stand still,” she meant “Stand Still.” It was a regimental beginning, but a good beginning. I listened to the older members in those early days, learnt to build a story. By the time Marie passed away in 1987, she had given me a very good start.
I’ve always been with charity-minded people. My mother was a good neighbour and wherever she was wanted, she would go. My family gave me a good grounding and that’s what it’s all about. My father was a very busy man – a motor fitter from 1920-1930. I never saw a lot of him, but everyone spoke highly of him. At dinner time we’d sit down and they’d be plenty of cross-chat as we learnt what one another of us was doing. Today, children don’t get that sort of grounding. No one knows what their children are up to.
You haven’t asked me my age. Well, I’m eighty-seven, so obviously I’ve had a lot of life experience, and whenever I can pass that on, I do. I’m very proud to have met most of the royal family. My sister-in-law used to go and visit the Queen Mum, and once she took her niece’s baby with her. The Queen Mum gave the baby a biscuit and it got crumbs everywhere. The Queen Mum said, “Never mind, I’ve got a couple of hoovers here,” pointing to the dogs.
I’ve got a good memory and I like to be on my own and think back over my life. I am very busy. What am I doing now? Making a magazine rack for a friend.
I am known not only as a Pearly King, but known as someone who would help anyone.
Carole Jolly, Pearly Queen of Crystal Palace and Freeman of the City of London
I was elected to be a Pearly Queen thirty-five years ago. It means so much to me. It’s about the helping, the doing good : making a difference. It takes up a lot of time, but I’m delegating a lot more now – especially with the Jubilee year. We’re asked to go everywhere really: old people’s homes, hospices, schools – we talk about the Pearly history and traditions, or sing a lot of old London songs. Those songs bring smiles and flickers of memory back to people with dementia or Alzheimer’s, and that means so much.
My proudest moment was in the old days, when we were in the ‘Association’. They used to put on a charity ball and we had quite a run of royalty attend. At one we had Princess Alice, she was a lovely royal and I had the honour of looking after her. I presented her with a carved plaque of her husband and she was thrilled, had tears in her eyes.
This is my life, my entertainment. This is my family.
Patrick Jolly, Pearly King of Crystal Palace and Freeman of the City of London.
I was elected forty years ago in 1972. I used to run a judo club for kids where I met Fred Hitchin who was the Pearly King of Westminster. He took an interest in what I was doing. The club was struggling through lack of funds but over two years we started to go from strength to strength, and our club was chosen to represent Lewisham by the Mayor. Fred then asked me to become a Pearly King. I said, “No! You won’t get me walking around like that!” Two years of persistence and I put up me hands up.
I haven’t looked back. It’s been amazing. It means everything to me. I’ve achieved things I thought I’d never achieve. I’ve met and helped so many people.One of my proudest moments was in the eighties, we put on a Charity Ball at Chelsea Town Hall and Princess Anne attended. It was great. And then in the nineties, I met her again. I was at St James’s Palace with my eldest grand-daughter Stephanie. Princess Anne came down the line and was introduced to my grand-daughter and then she looked at me and said, “I believe we’ve met before. Chelsea.” I thought, “She remembered me!” It gave me such a buzz.
Peggy Scott, Pearly Queen of Highgate
I was elected to be a Pearly Queen five or six years ago, but I’d been doing voluntary work and charity work for thirty odd years previous. My motto is that you’ve got to give and take in this world, and always listen to someone – they’re often worse off than you and everyone’s got a tale to tell. I love life in general. I’m as nutty as a fruitcake, but if I can make one person smile a day, then I’m happy. It’s not the status of being a Pearly, I just love helping people. I’m a people’s people. You got buttons on, so what? If I had a tracksuit on I’d still be doing the same thing. I’ve got grandchildren and great-grandchildren and I’m proud of them all, and they are coming up in the world doing the same thing, and I’m bringing them up with the same ideals. Today people are too frightened. Too frightened to stop and talk. Too frightened to listen. Most people just want someone to talk to, that’s what I’ve found when I’ve been collecting.
It’s important that the East End traditions are kept alive. Our heritage and our values must not be forgotten. We’ve always looked after one another, family and friends, we’ve been brought up that way. I’m cut from nothing, but my mum was always there. She was a darling. I think she’s got wings on…
John Walters, Pearly King of Finsbury
I have been a Pearly King for about seven years now. My wife’s family were Pearly Kings and Queens in the Victorian times – they were Costermongers in Charlton Street Market, and her Nan was one of the old flower sellers of London. They had a shop called Cooper and Sons. My wife didn’t take up being a Pearly, but she encouraged me to do it. I used to sing in pubs and clubs years ago, but I gave it up because it got pretty rough back then and I thought I was a lover not a fighter.
It was then that the Pearly King of Smithfield said to me, “Why don’t you transfer your skills to the Pearly Kings and Queens?” So I did, and I never looked back.For about twenty-five years beforehand I had done charity work. Did a lot for Great Ormond Street and for the Anthony Nolan Appeal. I love doing things for children. A child being born today could be the answer to our prayers tomorrow. I work for the council and we did something for the Children’s Cancer Unit at St Bart’s Hospital. We walked from Archway to St Bart’s collecting money on the way. One of my most humbling moments was when we took that money on to the children’s ward and saw all those children happy and smiling, despite all they were going through.
Being a Pearly, well, it’s a tradition – a great London tradition. You’re representing your Borough, not just London, and the other Pearly Kings and Queens. You must behave as expected, give people time, treat people with respect. If you cut a Pearly’s heart in half it should have CHARITY written through it like a stick of Brighton Rock.
Larry Barnes ( May 16th 1926 – July 2nd 2011), late Pearly King of Thornton Heath and one of Variety Theatre’s last specialist acts.
Carole Jolly on Larry Barnes – “Larry was such a great character, a great entertainer. He came and did a job at a school fun day with Pat and me, and I’ll never forget it. Pat was asked to abseil down from the school roof. They hadn’t allowed for the weight of the buttons, and next thing we know, Pat’s hanging upside down and screaming, swinging around! He never did it again. Larry was also a magician and escapologist. He used to do an act called “Beat the Bomb”. Basically he had to escape from chains before the bomb exploded. I was on the timer. He only ever just made it. He was very knowledgeable. We loved his pipe. We miss him dearly.”
Pat Jolly on Larry Barnes – “I knew Larry in the 1960’s. I worked in Soho in a club and he’d pop in for a Guinness after a show. We lost contact for a bit, and then met up at a Pearly event with Roy Hudd. I asked Larry to be my ‘Pearly Pride’ – that’s a helper. Then he became a Pearly Consort, and then finally he became Pearly King of Thornton Heath. He was one of the few people who knew me, understood me. He always found the time to sit down and listen. Even in the darkest moments. We were life-long friends till the day he died.”
Arthur Rackley on Larry Barnes – “I often collected with Larry in Covent Garden. If it was cold, Larry would start up a song, and we’d both sing and move our feet to keep warm. He taught me this song two weeks before he died: (Tune of My Old Man) “My old man said nick what you can, And don’t get nobbled by the law. I copped a purse with a fiver in it, He said, “Good work, love, I’ll see you in a minute.” He grabbed some pyjamas, a crate of bananas, a dining set of polished chrome. I heard him holler when the Law felt his collar, So he won’t be coming home.”
Photographs copyright © James Pearson-Howes
Some of these Pearly Portraits are included in James Pearson-Howes’ new book British Folk II which can be obtained for just £10 including shipping by clicking here
Learn more about the Pearlies at the London Pearly Kings & Queens Sociey website www.pearlysociety.co.uk
Read my account of the Pearly Kings & Queens’ Harvest Festival
More of Tom & Jerry’s Life in London
Last week, I introduced you to Tom & Jerry and their “Life in London” of 1821 and this week – thanks to a second volume, “The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry & Logic” published in 1830 – I am able to show more escapades concluding their urban existence. Derived from the real-life adventures of George Cruikshank and his brother Richard, in league with the writer Pierce Egan, the first book had been a sensational success, producing multiple stage versions and innumerable imitations. As Egan put it, “We have been pirated, COPIED, traduced, but, unfortunately, not ENRICHED.”
As before, Tom (the urbanite), Jerry (the out-of-towner) and Logic (their senior academic pal) enjoy the life of men about town, discovering all that London has to offer, losing their trousers at the brothel, getting chased by a kangaroo at the zoo and exploring the subterranean magnificence of tunnels under the Thames – among many other colourful adventures. The stories are unprecedented for their closely observed accounts of the social life of the poor and, as in the first volume, a visit to the East End is a highlight of the narrative.
Our protagonists set out to visit Half Moon Tap, a public house celebrated for the boxers that gather there, reflecting Pierce Egan’s knowledge of the culture of boxing in the capital as the pre-eminent boxing writer of his day, reporting not merely on the sport itself but writing elaborate portraits of leading boxers. Egan was editor of “Boxiana, or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism” from 1812 until 1824, and his evocative description of the clientele at the Half Moon Tap (pictured below) speaks of first hand observation – “The wit of the stage, produced by numerous dragsmen taking their morning whets, frequently creates roars of laughter, the slang remarks of the commoners in tossing off their drams, and inquiries of the swells after the movements in the Sporting World, over their glasses of sherry make the thing not only complete, but a fine picture of real life in a peculiar point of view.”
In spite of the success, Egan chose to bring Tom & Jerry, and Logic’s adventures to a close, killing off Tom and Logic with unsentimental glee, yet permitting Jerry to return to the country and enjoy married life there – “Jerry was the picture of contentment, determined to profit by his experience, and to turn to a good account, for the benefit of himself and his family, the many hair-breadth escapes and dangerous adventures he had met with in his DAY & NIGHT SCENES of his LIFE IN LONDON.” We can only all hope that the same may be said one day of our own experiences of life in the capital.
Life in the East. At the Half Moon Tap – Tom, Jerry & Logic called to the bar by the Benchers. The John Bull Fighter exhibiting his cups and ‘the uncommonly big Gentleman’ highly amused by the originality of the surrounding group.
The Mistakes of a Night. The Hotel in an Uproar. Tom, sword in hand backed by a Petticoat – “False Alarm!” but no Ghost.
Logic’s slippery state of Affairs. A Random Hit! and the Upper Works of Old Thatchpate not insured. And the fat Knight enjoying the Scene laughing, like Fun, at Logic’s disaster.
Hawthorn Hall. Jerry at Home: the Enjoyments of a comfortable fireside. Logic all Happiness. Corinthian Tom at his Ease. The Old Folks in their Glory, and the ‘uncommonly big Gentleman’ taking forty winks.
The Hounds at a Standstill. Jerry enticed by the pretty Gipsy Girl to have his fortune told.
Logic’s Upper Storey but no Premises. Jerry’s Return to the Metropolis.
Strong Symptoms of Water on the Brain in the Floating Capital.
The Duchess of Do-Good’s Screen, an attractive subject to Tom & Jerry
How to Finish a Night, to be Up and dressed in the Morning. Tom awake, Jerry caught napping and Logic on the go.
Splendid Jem, once a dashing Hero in the Metropolis, recognised by Tom amongst the Convicts in the Dockyard at Chatham.
Logic visiting his old Acquaintances on board the Fleet, accompanied by Tom & Jerry to play a Match at Rackets with Sir John Blubber.
Jerry up, but not dressed! A miserable Brothel, his Pal bolted with the Togs. One of those unfortunate Dilemmas connected with Life in London, arising from the Effects of Inebriety.
The Burning Shame! Tom & Jerry laughing at the Turn-up between the ‘uncommonly big Gentleman’ and the Hero of the Roundyken under suspicious Circumstances.
The Money Lender. The ‘High-Bred One’ trying it on, to get the best of the Old Screw, to raise the Needful towards Life in London, accompanied by Tom, Jerry & Logic.
Popular Gardens. Tom, Jerry & Logic laughing at the Bustle and Alarm occasioned amongst the Visitors by the Escape of a Kangaroo.
Life on the Water. Symptoms of a Drop too much for the ‘uncommonly big Gentleman.’
Melancholy End of Corinthian Kate! One of those lamentable Examples of a dissipated Life in London.
The Death of Corinthian Tom
Images courtesy © Bishopsgate Institute
You may also like to see the first instalment of
and take a look at these other pictures by George Cruikshank
Jack Sheppard, Thief, Highwayman & Escapologist
Donald Rooum, Anarchist Cartoonist
Donald Rooum looks at ease in Angel Alley, Whitechapel – surrounded by images of his fellow Anarchists and Free Thinkers – in this hotbed of East End Radicalism which has been home to the Freedom Press since 1942, almost as long as Donald has been an Anarchist. Yet in spite of the fearsome reputation acquired by Anarchists, Donald possesses a quiet nature, almost unassuming, and he has not been on a demonstration since 1963 when he was framed by the police for having a brick in his pocket. A brick which the police inadvertently – and famously – forgot to plant. It amounted to a national scandal at the time. Since then, Donald prefers to stay at home and seek his political influence indirectly by working on his long-running cartoon series, leaving it to younger Anarchists to take to the street. As he explained to me, “Someone’s got to stay at home and mind the shop.” You have heard of the Armchair Socialist? At eighty-four years old, Donald is the Carpet Slipper Anarchist and he makes no apology for it.
As we walked through the crowds in Whitechapel High St, Donald stopped occasionally to let clusters of people go by before advancing steadily along the pavement, keeping his body set in the direction he was going but turning his head slowly with independent motion, like a tortoise, taking in the life of the street around him. Arriving at his flat up six flights of stairs in an old yet well kept tenement in Stepney, Donald’s place looked as if he had moved in last week even though he has lived there fifteen years. Books spilled from the bookshelves that were the only furniture in his sparsely furnished dwelling and the drawing board where he continues to turn out his regular flow of cartoons was the sole focus of activity.
“I’ve only lived in London fifty-eight years, I came here in 1954 after I finished college in Bradford, qualifying as a commercial artist. I came to seek a job and I got one within a week in an advertising agency. I came to Holborn because the Anarchist Bookshop was there and I found lodgings close by. I stayed with a fellow Anarchist and then I was joined by a girl from Bradford. We took new lodgings together and stayed together for twenty-seven years and had four children, one of whom died at two years old. We lived in Gospel Oak and the children went to school in Camden.
I first visited London in 1944. There was a shortage of hop pickers, so there was a government scheme to get schoolboys to help with the harvest in Kent, and on my day off I came up to Speakers’ Corner and heard an Anarchist speak, and I was impressed with what he was saying. At that time, I had become disillusioned with the Communist League. My father was skilled mechanical worker and he had been a trade union organiser during the depression. He went to the union two evenings each week, one for the regular branch meeting and the other to hand out unemployment pay, until the war brought full employment.
Against my will, I was conscripted at age nineteen. My mother wouldn’t allow me to continue as a Conscientious Objector because she as being pressured by her sister. “You wouldn’t let him play with toy soldiers when he was a boy and this is the result” she said,“and now he’s frightened of being a soldier!” The truth is I was more frightened of my aunt than I was of the army. Because I was known to be an Anarchist, I was spared from posting abroad.
In 1963, I was on a demonstration against a visit by the King of Greece, when plain clothes policemen arrested eight people who happened to be in the crowd. They charged us all with carrying pieces of brick for use as weapons. The policeman who arrested me, Detective Sergeant Harold Challoner, said he found the brick in my pocket but he forgot to put it there and consequently forensics found no trace of a brick. Surely policemen are taught to make sure the evidence is as close to the truth as possible? I was acquitted and the others were found guilty but pardoned. Challoner was charged with conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice, and the other three policemen were found guilty while Challoner himself was declared mentally ill.
I only moved to the East End in 1997, but the Freedom Press acquired a printing press in Angel Alley since 1944 and I’ve been connected with them since I first moved to London in 1954. At first, I came down to the printers as a volunteer, wrapping bundles of “Freedom” in newspaper. They were printing letterpress then. It was run by anarchist Philip Sansom, and two people worked with him who had been there since they had been printing the “Jewish Express” before “Freedom” came along in 1942. When Freedom Press took it over, part of the deal was that Mr Narod, a rival printer who lent us the money, took all the Hebrew type so that he had a monopoly of it in the East End. Eventually, we paid a lot of money to have those old letterpress machines hauled off.
It wasn’t until quite late in my development that I became a cartoonist, though I had drawn cartoons at college and as a child. I sent six a week to the Daily Mirror at first, out of which they published two a fortnight, and the ones they didn’t publish I sent on to other publications like Private Eye. I started drawing a regular cartoon in “Peace News” in 1962 and I’ve done it ever since, on and off. I’ve drawn Wildcat in “Freedom” since 1980 and Sprite in “The Skeptic” since 1987. I don’t draw cartoons on spec anymore.
Now I am the grand old man of Freedom Press, because nobody else remembers anything any more than twenty years ago. When I was sixteen, I thought a free society would be easy to get. Now I don’t think things are going to be easy, but the civil rights movement has been good. There have been improvements. There’s no longer any law against homosexuality and no longer any corporal punishment in schools. There was an awful attitude that people who weren’t white were inferior. When I first came to London in 1944, I phoned up a boarding house and they asked me to come round in person, because there was a no coloureds policy. To me, Anarchism is an ethical stance, a point of view which regards coercion of any kind as wrong.”
Donald never told me that he edited “Freedom” for many years, that he became lecturer in typography at the London College of Printing, that he took an Open University Degree in Life Sciences and was elected a member of the Institute of Biology at eighty. Donald Rooum’s endeavours have spanned the political, the literary, the artistic and the scientific, yet it is in the levity of cartoons that he has found his ideal medium.
Donald Rooum, as a twenty-four year old art student in Bradford in 1952, painted by Frank Lisle.
