In Narrow St, Limehouse
Charles Dickens’ godfather Christopher Huffam lived and ran his sailmaking, blockmaking and chandlery business from a substantial house in Newell St, next to St Anne’s Limehouse. Huffam adored his godson, declaring the boy a prodigy, tipping him half a crown on his birthday and encouraging him to dance and perform comic songs upon the kitchen table – and also, it is said, upon the bar at The Grapes. In the company of his godfather, Dickens first explored Shadwell and Limehouse, engendering a lasting fascination with these teeming waterside regions that he returned to throughout his writing life, both in fiction and journalism.
It is a landscape that I came to know through Dickens’ writing even before I visited it for myself and, in spite of all the changes, when I walk through Shadwell and Limehouse today, I cannot dispel his vision of this distinctive area of London. So, after riffling through some bookshelves, I set out to see what I could photograph of Dickens’ imaginative perspective in these riverside streets.
“Shadwell Church! Pleasant whispers of there being a fresher air down by the river than down by the Docks, go pursuing one another playfully, in and out of the openings in its spire. Gigantic in the basin just below the church looms my Emigrant Ship… two great gangways made of spars and planks connect her with the wharf, and up and down these gangways, perpetually crowding to and fro and in and out, like ants, are the Emigrants. Some with cabbages, some with loaves of bread, some with cheese and butter, some with milk and beer, some with boxes beds and bundles, some with babies – nearly all with children.” – The Uncommercial Traveller, Bound for the Great Salt Lake. In July 1863, Dickens visited a Mormon mission of 895 emigrants on board a ship in Shadwell Basin.
“I found myself on a swing bridge, looking down on some dark locks in some dirty water. Over against me, stood a creature remotely in the likeness of a young man with a puffed sallow face, and figure all dirty and shiny and slimy, who may have been the youngest son of his filthy father, Thames, or the drowned man about whom there was a placard on the granite post like a large thimble that stood before us. ‘A common place for suicide?’ said I, looking down at the locks. ‘Sue?’ returned the ghost with a stare. ‘Yes! And Poll. Likewise Emily. And Nancy. And Jane.'” – The Uncommercial Traveller, All the Year Round. In January 1860, Dickens visited the Wapping Workhouse for female paupers.
One day everyone will be chalking about it
“The wheels rolled on, and rolled on down by the Monument and the Tower, and by the Docks, down by Ratcliffe, down by where the accumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher ground..” Our Mutual Friend, Gaffer Hexham’s Abode,1864.
“Down by the river’s bank in Ratcliffe, I found the Children’s Hospital established in an old sail loft or storehouse, of the roughest nature, and on the simplest means. There were trap-doors in the floors where goods had been hoisted up and down, inconvenient bulks and beams and awkward staircases perplexed my passage through its wards, but I found it airy, sweet and clean. In its seven and thirty beds I saw but little beauty, for starvation in the second or third generation takes a pinched look, but I saw the sufferings of infancy and childhood tenderly assuaged.” New Uncommercial Samples, A Small Star in the East, 1868.
“Look at the marine store dealers, in that reservoir of dirt, drunkenness and drabs – thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and pickled salmon, Ratcliffe Highway. Here the wearing apparel is all nautical. rough blue jackets with mother -of-pearl buttons, oilskin hats, coarse checked shirts, and large canvas trousers, that look as if they were made for a pair of bodies, instead of a pair of legs, are the staple commodities. In the window are a few compasses, a small tray containing silver watches in clumsy thick cases, and tobacco boxes, the lid of each ornamented with a ship or an anchor. A sailor generally pawns or sells all he has before he has been long ashore.” Sketches by “Boz,” Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People, 1836.
“Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to let some wandering monster of a ship come roaming up the street like a stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water, on approaching Captain Cuttle’s lodgings, was curious. It began with the erection of flagstaffs as appurtenances to public houses, then came the slop-sellers’ shops. These succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then came rows of houses, with little vane-surmounted masts.” Dombey and Son, 1848.
“Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep in Limehouse Hole, among the riggers, and the mast, oar, and block makers, and the boat builders, and the sail lofts, as in a kind of ship’s hold stored full of waterside characters, some no better than himself, some very much better, and none much worse.” Our Mutual Friend, Pleasant’s Mysterious Vision, 1864.
“Past Limehouse Church, at the great iron gate of the churchyard, he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the great tower spectrally resisting the wind, and he looked at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead in their winding sheets, and he counted nine tolls of the church bell.” Our Mutual Friend, Think it Out, John Proudfoot, 1864.
“ The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of dropsical appearance, had long settled into state of hale infirmity. In its whole construction, it had not a straight floor and hardly a straight line, but it had outlasted and clearly would yet outlast, many a better trimmed building, many a sprucer public house. Externally, it was a narrow lop-sided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon the other as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden veranda impending over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all…” Our Mutual Friend, Cut Adrift, 1864.
Dickens in Shadwell & Limehouse – Spitalfields Life will be hosting a walk in the footsteps of Charles Dickens on Easter Monday 9th April at 3pm from St Georges in the East, visiting locations described in his novels and journalism. The walk will take approximately an hour and a half, and conclude at the historic riverside pub The Grapes.
Booking is essential and numbers are limited, so please email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to sign up. Tickets are £10.
You may also like to read about
Charles Dickens at Park Cottage
Charles Dickens In Spitalfields
Charles Dickens in Spitalfields 2 – The Silk Warehouse
Charles Dickens in Spitalfields 3 – In the Streets
Charles Dickens in Spitalfields 4 – The Silk Weavers
Charles Dickens in Spitalfields 5 – The Young Artist
The Brick Lane Temperance Association
Joanna Moore’s Drawathon
Spitalfields Life Contributing Artist Joanna Moore did this drawing of the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery on Thursday afternoon. It was the thirteenth of fifteen drawings that she did to commission last week as part of an epic two day drawathon to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society – in commemoration of her grandmother Christine Brock who died of the disease last year. “London blessed me with sunshine and warm temperatures, as if summer had arrived early.” said Joanna introducing her spirited drawings that she executed on the streets, travelling between each location by bicycle, “I had not quite prepared for just how gloriously bright and colourful it would be, and as a result I set out inspired and ambitious, and attacked my sheet of paper with every hue in my watercolour box … and couldn’t quite stop.”
Day one, 8:00am, Wednesday. The Shell Building – I was drawing against the sun, so I was glad I brought sunglasses! Though a very simple building, the Shell Centre always looks incredibly elegant against the river, a giant monument.
Day one, 9:30am, Wednesday. View from Waterloo Bridge – Another bridge, another bright bright drawing. At this time of the day, the City is thrown into extremes of light and shade, so the cityscape is somewhat blurred but I tried to pick out shapes from the shadows and sunlight reflecting on glass. There was so much to take in and the wind was up, blowing my hair all over the place, and I sketched quickly.
Day one, 11:00am, Wednesday. Middle Temple Gardens – Always fairly quiet, save for legal suits and wigs going back and forth, and the odd tourist. Found a lovely spot on a bench overlooking Middle Temple to see this Magnolia tree in full bloom. I love how the pinks offset the deep red of the old brickwork. I sat here and ate my picnic in the beautiful gardens before braving Fleet St…
Day one, 1:00pm, Wednesday. Hoares Bank – A classical building, made tricky by busy traffic and buses constantly stopping in front of me. The sun started to make me light-headed by now, so I sought the shade.
Day one, 2:30pm, Wednesday. The Prudential Assurance Building – A great Victorian building, and I had never seen it so bright and red. I hid in the shade opposite and considered how funny it was that my mum used to work here before I was born. I was desperate to spend longer here, as the architecture and ornamentation is so over-the-top, but time pushed me on so I could only do my best to sketch in every arch. The afternoon was getting me tired, and even though a large mocha Frappuccino delivered a caffeine and sugar hit, I feared the whipped cream made me even sleepier.
Day one, 3:45pm, Wednesday. St Brides Church – This wonderful Wren church is neatly slotted into the City fabric and tucked off Fleet St, which makes it tricky to find the best location to draw. So I ended up sitting cross-legged in the middle of Fleet St outside the Express Building and had City workers tripping over me. Once again, the sun was so bright that the shadows were extreme, and London’s Portland stone became shades of purple and blue.
Day one, 5:00pm, Wednesday. The Blackfriars Pub – Getting very tired now and after another session on a street corner (literally next to road works for new Blackfriars station) my eyes were dry and my lungs tight. Thankfully, this request just happened to be my favourite pub in London, so I pushed through and rewarded myself with a half of ale.
Day one, 6:00pm, Wednesday. St Paul’s from One New Change – My friend Mandy was so keen to sponsor me for a good cause that she completely forgot to tell me what to draw. Now she has moved to Australia, so I picked her a classic London scene. I have many grumblings about this new shiny shopping centre, but the view from the top is exceptional. Up in the air, my lungs were cleared and I was invigorated by the sharpness of the sun, cutting through streets and creating a halo around the monumental cathedral.
Day one, 7:30pm, Wednesday. Southwark Cathedral – Very tired now, and I hastened through the streets and across London Bridge to get to another cathedral before the light is lost. The garden here was shut by now and the market traders all packed up, but it mattered not as this view from the east end is one of my favourites. I love being raised so that I can draw both up and down the cathedral. The sunset cast the end of the church into purple shadows, apart from where it streamed through the south transept window. I had to work fast as the light faded minute by minute, which is very disorienting when you are drawing. By 8.30pm it was dark and I could no longer make any judgement, so I took my picture to a street light and in the yellow haze decided it was complete. I packed up and staggered back across the bridge, and eastwards home.
Day Two, 8:00am, Thursday Swiss Re Building – Another stunning sky. My sponsor Alex had just requested the Gherkin, but since he has been so generous with his commission and I love this view with St Andrew Undershaft, I chose to show the new against the old. The cleaners were out on the Gherkin, mesmerising to watch as, spiderlike, they worked their way up and down the glass on spindly wires.
Day two, 11:15am, Thursday. The Barbican – I spend a while getting lost, wandering around the strange beast that is this 1960s development. I love it even though it scares me rigid to draw. It is not a simple modernist building, but something giant and sculptural, a maze, a monument to post-war ambitions and hopes, yet still manages to be a humane, beautifully detailed environment. This drawing took a while to set up, as I fretted over the proportions, but then got absorbed by endless windows and the distinctive balconies. Thankfully, the bright sun was helpful in discerning shapes. But yesterday began to catch up with me, and I found I was already tired. Luckily, I happened to be chanced upon by my friend Louise – a fellow Princes Drawing School student – on her way to London Zoo to draw. A quick chat and the gift of a chocolate biscuit perked me up, and I hopped back on my bike.
Day two, 1:30pm Thursday. Wesley Chapel – I stop for lunch at Bunhill Fields, the beautiful graveyard for dissenters opposite the chapel. I hid in the shade for a while before I staked out the best place to draw the chapel and found myself back in the sun. I felt I had to include the man himself too, and I like the contrast of his sculpture against the characterful pollarded trees. Afterwards I was met by my parents – in town to see my progress – who rewarded me with a large iced coffee and more whipped cream. By this point, I became dizzy after too much time in the sun!
Day two, 5:15pm, Thursday. Christ Church, Spitalfields – Another regular feature of my drawings. I knew that Karen who commissioned this picture had a print of one of my drawings with a view from the front, so I decided she should have a side view. This shows the way it appears to shelter the rows of brick houses in the quiet street around it, while the busy Victorian market buildings in the bright sunlight – just a hop and skip across Commercial St – seem to exist in another world.
Day two, 7:00pm, Thursday. Former Gladding Bookshop, Whitechapel Rd – This was a request from Bob, whose ancestor once ran a bookshop on this busy street. This handsome Victorian building is a lucky survivor in an area where so much was destroyed by bombs. I pushed on with my drawing, driven by the knowledge that this is my last. I finished as the light started to fade and the traffic gathered pace. Across the road, the call to prayer was sounded from the East London Mosque, and I packed up my bike and was called home.
Drawings copyright © Joanna Moore
You may also like to take a look at other work by Joanna Moore
The Spitalfields Nobody Knows (Part One)
The Spitalfields Nobody Knows (Part Two)
Phil Maxwell on the Tube
This is unique among the hundreds of pictures that East End Street Photographer Phil Maxwell has taken on the tube in the last thirty years – since he appears, reflected in the glass with his camera. On this rare occasion, Phil felt confident to raise the camera from the position he usually holds it while on the tube, nursed between his legs, because his subject was so absorbed in the newspaper.
Over all this time, Phil Maxwell has perfected the trick of taking pictures without needing to look through the lens, allowing him to take these extraordinary covert photographs of unselfconscious people absorbed in their own worlds. “You have to become like a magician with the camera,” he revealed to me, “You have to know what the lens is seeing from every angle.”
This technique accounts for most of the pictures in this selection and explains the low point of view in many of them. “It’s good to photograph from low down, you see so much more,” Phil explained to me, “And it’s more challenging to the eye because we are all used to seeing at eye level.”
While Phil has been photographing the life of the London streets, taking pictures on the tube has proved a natural counterpoint, offering the opportunity to photograph Londoners in private within a public space.
“Photographing people on the tube encapsulates all the skills required for being a street photographer. You have to deal with the constantly changing light and be judging the correct exposure. You can go from Whitechapel to the West End and it’s like travelling from day to night. In this respect, I have always regarded the tube as very special photographic studio for Londoners because it has such dramatic changes in lighting, from 100% artificial lighting one minute then bright sunlight the next.
And just as you’ve got different moods in lighting, people show different aspects of themselves at different times of day. If you take a picture at night they might be joyful and laughing from the pub, but if you take picture in the morning you will encounter the silent mournful masses – I always consider myself lucky that I don’t have a nine to five job, and there’s the evidence. Passengers may be carrying briefcases or toolboxes, but when they walk into the tube it’s as if they walk into my photographic studio.
The tube has become a very special and hallowed place for me. I’d be going from an assignment photographing a senior politician and I’d get on the tube, and I’d have as many as twenty frames left that I’d use taking pictures. If you look at my negatives, you’ll see that at one moment I am photographing Tony Blair and the next minute Mrs Smith sitting opposite me on the tube, which for me is much more interesting and enjoyable because politicians are totally plastic. It is a great joy to get on the tube, I always carry my camera with me and I always take pictures. You never know who’s going to get on and sit opposite.
People’s behaviour changes on the tube, almost as if they’ve gone into the operating theatre. Their breathing slows down and they go off and daydream, which suits me very well because they don’t realise what I’m doing when they’re on another planet.”
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/39431919 w=600&h=480]
Photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell
You can watch a film of Phil Maxwell’s tube photos by clicking here
and see more of Phil Maxwell’s work here
Manny Silverman, Tailor
Manny Silverman, aged nine in 1941
Manny Silverman has a lucky ticket. It is a bus ticket numbered 9999, punched with a single hole to indicate the destination as Brick Lane and it dates from Manny’s childhood, growing up in Bacon St in the nineteen forties. Until this day, Manny keeps the ticket as a talisman, and, “I’ve been very lucky,” Manny assured me several times while he was telling me his story. Yet while it is apparent that Manny has enjoyed good fortune in his life, it soon became clear there were other forces than simply good luck at work in shaping Manny’s destiny.
Diminutive of build with delicate hands, weary eyes, and a gracious deferential style, Manny wears his history lightly. Fastidiously groomed and neatly dressed, he picked me up from the station at East Finchley in his two seater open-topped Mercedes. At home, Manny produced photocopies of his birth certificate, his indenture papers as an apprentice, his medal for performing King John, his letter offering a directorship of Moss Bros and – of course – his lucky bus ticket. Speaking of the ups and downs of his life, Manny was neither apologetic nor swanky, instead his tone was that of wonder at how it has all turned out.
“I was born in Mother Levy’s Nursing Home in Whitechapel in January 1932. My parents had only come from Lithuania a few months before, so I arrived just in time. My father Abraham was a tailor and my mother was Altke, known as Ettie, and I had a younger sister, Lilli. At first, we lived in Myrdle St, and then we moved to Bacon St where I spent my childhood. We shared two rooms, the four of us, and in the winter the pipes froze and when the spring came they burst. We had no running water and the toilet was in the yard. Each week, we used to go the Hare St (now Cheshire St) public baths and pay one penny to have a wash.
When I saw those baths, years later from first class carriage of a train coming into Liverpool St Station, I thought, ‘You’ve been lucky somewhere along the line.’ If you are the child of first generation immigrants, the first thing they want you to have is a trade that you can carry, because if you can sew or cut hair then you always have the opportunity to make money at your finger tips. And I thought, ‘Here I am, after all this time, still doing the same thing, even if they don’t ask me to sew a suit anymore.’
I only spoke Yiddish when I went to school in Wood Close at the age of four, and my schooling was limited because I was evacuated several times during the war. At twelve, I overcame the shyness that is still with me, braved the blackout, and made my way along to join the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club in Chance St. My first experience was seeing Maxie Lea and I made lifelong relationships there, not necessarily friends, but when we meet up it is as if time has stood stood still. I was never athletic but really good at drama and when we entered the London Federation of Boys’ Clubs contest, all the members came along to support us. At seventeen, I won a medal for playing King John and I’ve still got the script. I also got a good crit for my performance as Cassius, I always played heavies.
After I left school in 1946, at the age of fourteen, I was overseen by the Jewish Board of Guardians. My father had been ill for a while and they were helpful to me when he died. Harry Moss, Chairman and Managing Director of Moss Bros, was one of the patrons of the Boys Club. (They started as Moses Brothers but decided that ‘Moss Bros’ sounded better than ‘Moses Bros.’) He said to me, ‘Look, you can join us in our workshop in Covent Garden.’ In those days, Moss Bros still did bespoke tailoring and they had six cutters.
At twenty-one, I got itchy feet and left on good terms, on the understanding I could come back. And then, when Monty Moss who produced our plays at the Boys’ Club got engaged, I dropped in to wish him congratulations and he said, ‘You’re not working?’ He took me into Harry Moss’ office, and I told them I didn’t want to be a tailor anymore, so Harry said, ‘Start work as a porter in the secondhand department.’ The business had begun in the 1850s with Old Moses, who bought unredeemed pledges of suits and sold them in Kings Cross and Covent Garden, wheeling a barrow between both places. In the secondhand hand department, I recorded what I thought the suits were worth alongside what they had been bought for and in no time, Harry Moss said, ‘Will you do a bit of buying for me?’ I saw a lot of opportunities for the company that no-one else could see.
In the following years, I was made production director, deputy managing director, chief executive, and unemployed – replaced by a member of the Moss family. After forty years with the company, I found myself in my mid-fifties, out of work with a young family and a large mortgage. Some friends of mine asked me to join them and in 1987 we bought Norman Hartnell, the Royal Couturier, which was in administration, with a view to relaunch it. We made worldwide news and employed Marc Bowham from Dior as designer on the principle that if he brought 10% of his clientele with him, we would have a success. But we ran out of cash and that was the end of that. Since 1985, I have been working as an expert witness in the fields of criminal negligence and insurance claims. I say to people, ‘I will never tell you what you want to hear, but – whatever I advise you to do – I will always explain.’ This is how I operate.
I left the East End when I moved to East Finchley in 1969. I always admired the scarlet geraniums outside this house and when it came on the market I was lucky enough to be able to buy it. I try to go back to the East End, with my son who is in his forties, once a year. He says, ‘Dad, I already know where you went to school.’ But I do like to go back, I’m an unashamed romantic, when it comes to the past. It’s not just to look at where I came from, it’s part of who I am. You can’t not be what you are, and I was a cockney.”
Manny Silverman’s lucky bus ticket to Brick Lane.
Manny at his Bar Mitzvah in 1945.
Manny learns tailoring at fourteen years old.
Manny won a medal for playing the lead in Shakespeare’s “King John” at seventeen.
Manny in the swinging sixties.
Manny was Chief Executive of Moss Bros from 1980 to 1987.
Manny bought Royal Couturier Norman Hartnell in 1987
Manny (Emmanuel) Silverman
Read my other Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club Stories
Maxie Lea MBE, Football Referee
At the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club 86th Annual Reunion
Tom & Jerry’s Life in London
This frontispiece was intended to illustrate the varieties of “Life in London,” from the king on his throne at the top of the column to the lowest members of society at the base. At the centre are the protagonists of the tale, Tom, Jerry & Logic, three men about town. Authored by Pierce Egan, their adventures proved best sellers in serial form and were collected into a book in 1820, remaining in print for the rest of the century, spawning no less than five stage versions, and delineating a social landscape that was to prove the territory for both the fictions of Charles Dickens and the commentaries of Henry Mayhew.
Accounts of the urban poor and of life in the East of London are scarce before the nineteenth century, and what makes “Life in London” unique is that it portrays and contrasts the society of the rich and the poor in the metropolis at this time. And, although fictional in form, there is enough detail throughout to encourage the belief that this is an authentic social picture.
The characters of Tom, Jerry & Logic were loosely based upon the brothers who collaborated upon the illustrations, Isaac Richard & George Cruickshank, and the writer Pierce Egan, all relishing this opportunity to dramatise their own escapades for popular effect. Isaac Richard & George’s father had enjoyed a successful career as a political cartoonist in the seventeen-nineties and it was his sons’ work upon “Life in London” that brought the family name back into prominence in the nineteenth century, leading to George Cruikshank’s long term collaboration with Charles Dickens.
Jerry Hawthorn comes up from the country to enjoy a career of pleasure and fashion with Corinthian Tom, yet as well as savouring the conventional masquerades, exhibitions and society events, they visit boxing matches, cockpits, prisons and bars where the poor entertain themselves, with the intention to “see a ‘bit of life.” It is when they grow weary of fashionable society, that the idea arises to see a “bit of Life” at the East End of the Town.” And at “All Max,” an East End boozer, they discover a diverse crowd, or as Egan describes it, “every cove that put in an appearance was quite welcome, colour or country considered no obstacle… The group was motley indeed – Lascars, blacks, jack-tars, coal-heavers, dustmen, women of colour, old and young, and a sprinkling of the remnants of once fine girls, and all jigging together.” In the Cruikshanks’ picture, Logic has Black Sall on one knee and Flashy Nance upon the other while Jerry pours gin into the fiddler and Tom carouses with Mrs Mace, the hostess, all revealing an unexpectedly casual multiracial society in which those of different social classes can apparently mix with ease.
Situated somewhere between the romps of Fielding, Smollet and Sterne and prefiguring Dickens’ catalogue of comic grotesques in “Pickwick Papers,” the humour of “Life in London,” spoke vividly to its time, yet appears merely curious two centuries later. By the end of the nineteenth century, the comedy had gone out of date, as Thackeray admitted even as he confessed a lingering affection for the work. “As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed clean away…” he wrote, reserving his enthusiasm for the illustrations by the Cruikshank brothers – which you see below – declaring,“But the pictures! Oh! The pictures are noble still!”
Lowest life in London – Tom, Jerry & Logic amongst the unsophisticated sons & daughters of nature in the East.
The Royal Exchange – Tom pointing out to Jerry a few of the primest features of life in London.
A Whistling Shop – Tom & Jerry visiting Logic “on board the fleet.”
Tom, Jerry & Logic “tasting” wine in the wood at the London Dock.
White Horse Cellar, Picadilly – Tom & Logic bidding Jerry “Good bye.”
Jerry “beat to a standstill” Dr Please’ems’ prescription.
Tom & Jerry “masquerading it” among the cadgers in the back slums.
“A shilling well laid out” – Tom & Jerry at the exhibition of pictures at the Royal Academy.
Tom, Jerry & Logic backing Tommy, the ‘sweep at the Royal Cockpit.
Tom, Jerry & Logic in characters at the Grand Carnival.
Symptoms of the finish of “some sorts of life” – Tom, Jerry & Logic in the Press Yard at Newgate.
Life in London – Peep ‘o day boys, a street row. the author losing his “reader.” Tom & Jerry showing fight and Logic floored.
The “ne plus ultra” of Life in London – Kate, Sue, Tom, Jerry & Logic viewing the throne room at Carlton Palace.
Tom & Jerry catching Kate & Sue on the sly, having their fortunes told.
Jerry’s admiration of Tom in an “assault” with Mr O’Shannessy at the rooms in St James’ St.
Tom introducing Jerry & Logic to the champion of England.
The art of self-defence – Tom & Jerry receiving instruction from Mr Jackson.
Tom & Jerry larking at a masquerade supper at the Opera House.
Tom & Jerry in trouble after a spree.
Jerry in training for a “swell.”
Tom & Jerry taking blue ruin after the spell is broke up.
Images courtesy © Bishopsgate Insitute
You may like to look at these other sets of pictures by George Cruikshank
Jack Sheppard, Thief, Highwayman & Escapologist
So Long, Charlie Burns
As a tribute to East End legend Charlie Burns who died yesterday, aged ninety-six, I am republishing my interview with the grand old man of Brick Lane from May 2010.
You may not have seen Charlie Burns, the oldest man on Brick Lane, but I can guarantee that he has seen you. Seven days a week, Charlie, who is ninety-four years old, sits in the passenger seat of a car in Bacon St for half of each day, watching people come and go in Brick Lane. The windscreen is a frame through which Charlie observes the world with undying fascination and it offers a deep perspective upon time and memory, in which the past and present mingle to create a compelling vision that is his alone.
For a couple of hours yesterday, I sat in the front seat beside Charlie, following the line of his gaze and, with the benefit of a few explanations, I was able to share some fleeting glimpses of his world. The car, which belongs to Charlie’s daughter Carol, is always parked a few yards into Bacon St, outside the family business, C.E. Burns & Sons, where they deal in second hand furniture and paper goods. Carol runs this from a garden shed constructed inside the warehouse, and lined with a rich collage of family photographs, while Charlie presides upon the passage of custom from the curbside.
Many passersby do not even the notice the man in the anonymous car who sits impassive like Old Father Time, taking it all in. Yet to those who live and work in these streets, Charlie is a figure who commands the utmost respect and, as I sat with Charlie, our conversation was constantly punctuated by a stream of affectionate greetings from those that pay due reverence to the king of Bacon St, the man who has been there since 1915.
The major landmark upon the landscape of Charlie’s vision is a new white building on the section of Bacon St across the other side of Brick Lane. But Charlie does not see what stands there today, he sees the building which stood there before, where he grew up with his brothers Alfie, Harry and Teddy, and his sister, Marie – and where the whole family worked together in the waste paper merchants’ business started by Charlie’s grandfather John in 1864.
“We lived on this street all our life. We were city people. We all grew up here. We were making our way. We were paper merchants. We all went round collecting in the City of London and we sold it to Limehouse Paper Mills. There was no living in it. Prices were zero. Eventually we went broke, but we still carried on because it was what we did. Then, in 1934, prices picked up. We were moving forward, up and up and up. We carried on through the war. We never stopped. This was my life. We used to own most of the houses in this street. They were worth nothing then. They couldn’t give them away.”
Once the business grew profitable, the family became involved in boxing, the sport that was the defining passion of the Burns brothers, who enjoyed a longstanding involvement with the Repton Boxing Club in Cheshire St where Tony Burns, Charlie’s nephew, is chief coach today.
“Somehow or other, we got into boxing and then we were running the Bethnal Green Men’s Club and then we took a floor in a pub. We were unstoppable. We used to box the Racing Men’s Club. We used to box at Epsom with all the top jockeys. We made the Repton Boxing Club. I was president for twenty years and I took them to the top of the world. When we joined there was only one boy in the club. (He still comes over and sees me.) We built them up, my brothers, myself and friends. They all done a little bit of boxing.
We had some wonderful boxers come here. They were all poor people in them days, they were only too glad to get into something. We used to take all the kids with nothing and get them boxing. They played some strokes but they never did anything bad. Everything we done was for charity. We were young people and we were business people and we had money to burn.
All of the notorious people used to come to our shows at the York Hall. We had the Kray brothers and Judy Garland and Liberace. I remember the first time I met Tom Mix, the famous cowboy from the silent films. We met all the top people because this was the place to be. I had a private audience with the Pope and he gave me a gold medal because of all the work we did for charity.”
You would think that the present day might seem disappointing by contrast with vibrant memories like these, but Charlie sits placidly in the front seat of the parked car every day, fascinated by the minutiae of the contemporary world and at home at the centre of his Bacon St universe.
“This place, years ago, was one of the toughest places there was, but one of the best places to be.” he announced, and I could not tell if Charlie was talking to himself, or to me, or the windscreen, until he charged me with the rhetorical question, “Where else can you go these days?” I was stumped to give Charlie a credible reply. Instead, I peered through the windscreen at the empty street, considering everything he had said, as if in expectation that Charlie’s enraptured version of Bacon St might become available to me too.
Charlie reminded me again,“We were paper merchants. We were moving forward.”, as he did several times during our conversation, recalling an emotional mantra that had become indelibly printed in his mind. It was an incontestable truth. We were King Lear and his fool sitting in a car beside Brick Lane. Becoming aware of my lone reverie, Charlie turned to reassure me. “I’ll get some of the boys round for a chat and we’ll go into it in depth,” he promised, with quiet largesse, his eyes glistening and thinking back over all he had told me,”This is just a little bit for starters”.
Charlie Burns in his customary location in Bacon St, August 2011.
On the wall of Carol’s shed, in the yellowed photo at the centre, taken in Bacon St in 1951, you can see Charlie’s brothers Alfie and Teddy, with Charlie on the right.
The Burns family in 1951, with Charlie again in the right.
The redoubtable Carol Burns in her shed with the photo of her Uncle Tony, president of the Repton Boxing Club, being honoured by the Queen.
Charlie’s good friend and neighbour Asad Khan sent in this photo of the two of them together.
Painting the portrait of Charlie Burns on Bacon St last August.
You may also like to read about
Last week, I invited Richard Ince (6th generation umbrella maker of James Ince & Sons), Henry Jones (4th generation dairyman of Jones Brothers) and Paul Gardner (4th generation paper bag seller of Gardners Market Sundriesmen) along to the Bishopsgate Institute for a chit chat about family businesses in Spitalfields. Colin O’Brien took their portraits.
I’m Paul Gardner, a fourth generation paper bag man and scale repairer. My business started in 1870 in Spitalfields and it was my great grandfather – James Gardner, that began it, and he carried on until he died, when my grandfather, Bertie, went into the business. He was sent to the Western Front in 1917 and got called off the train because he was one of the only people who could do scales repairs in the area, and it saved him. He carried on until my dad, Roy, came into the business in the 1940s, he was in the Elite Air Arm in the Second World War. Slowly we diversified into selling paper bags, carrier bags, and things like that, shop sundries really. My dad carried on in the shop until 1968 when he died at forty-two and my mum had to run the shop and leave us to get ready to go to school by ourselves – until 1972, when I took over.
It was something I wanted to do really. On the first day of my school holidays, my mum said to me, “You’ll have to go up to the shop,” and that was it. I think she asked me, “Do you mind working the first Saturday? Just working six days a week to start with?” I said “Alright” and I was doing it for twenty-six years. I used to get to the shop at half five but I finished by one o’clock so that wasn’t too bad. It was always entertaining up there, you had all sorts of different characters coming in the shop. When the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market moved to the Hackney Marshes it was a big worry how we would continue, but slowly the area has improved for me in the last few years with lots of little markets opening up. I do want to carry on as long as I can because its something I’ve done all my life. And the other thing is that most of my customers are my friends now.
My name’s Henry Jones of Jones Brothers Dairy. My grandfather, Henry, started it in 1877. He came from the family farm in Borth, near Aberystwyth. They were cow keepers and they drove the cows up from Wales and kept them around the Barbican area, milked them and then bottled the milk and actually delivered it around the City and East End. My grandmother was Sarah and they had thirteen children and all lived beside Middlesex St, in Stoney Lane. They actually lived behind the business and you can appreciate how difficult it is to keep cows, run a business, deliver milk and have thirteen children.
When my grandfather passed away in 1921, he left my grandmother with five children under the age of six to bring up, as well as running the business. She did marvellously well and when she passed away in 1937, two hundred people went to Paddington station to see her off, because she was very good to the local community. She’s buried in Borth, same as my grandfather, back where our roots are.
The children each had shares, but my father Henry and one of his brothers bought the shares off the other siblings and that’s how the name changed to Jones Brothers. When my father and his brother went off to serve in the war and the girls ran the business, delivering the milk all around the city. After the war the brothers came back and, in 1968 when Stoney Lane was pulled down, we moved into the new shop, where we’ve been for forty-two years, in Middlesex Street. I’m fortunate my children follow in my footsteps – and I’m very proud, one of the proudest people around, that I’ve managed to keep my children involved.
I’m Richard Ince, sixth generation umbrella manufacturer. Circa 1800 or so, my ancestors came down from mid-Suffolk, round Cavendish way, moving to this part of town because silk was woven here and I imagine whalebone came off the docks – mainly out the front door, but maybe out the back door as well – for ladies’ carriage parasols.
Two or three Inces merged into James Ince & Sons, round about 1830. My father did all the research into the history and he just left me the umbrellas. So I do different research, buying old Ince umbrellas or finding some of the patents that my ancestors took out, I know of three. We had about half a dozen premises in Spitalfields including the one next door to the Bishopsgate Institute, plus we were based where Pizza Express are right next door and we were based in Norton Folgate too, I believe we were also in White’s Row at some point. But the biggest property was the corner of Spital Square, 298 Bishopsgate, where we were for about forty-eight years, manufacturing ladies umbrellas, gents umbrellas, what people call parasols these days but then were called garden umbrellas or sun umbrellas.
We had a big export trade through the NAAFI and Army and Navy Stores and organisations like that. We had a big staff, too up to about thirty people, but today I employ three, plus myself, and it’s been like that for the last fifteen years. Nowadays, we do niche work – umbrellas that perhaps you wouldn’t think of, flame retardant umbrellas for welders, lot of theatre props, film work. As Paul Gardner was saying, it’s never dull, every day’s different, and it’s always a challenge.
I’m fairly sure we’re two hundred years old. So we’re looking forward, but obviously we’re not sure what the next two hundred – no, next twenty years – will bring…
PAUL GARDNER: Two years!
RICHARD INCE: I think the biggest challenge will be staff, finding people who are interested in craft. We’re not a sweat shop, we pay proper money and you treat as you wish to be treated. That’s what my grandfather did and he drove the business through the war years.
HENRY JONES: I would say though it’s always difficult for an old business to come through. It is a success story – Spitalfields – without a doubt and it’s lovely to be involved in it, but if you’re a small trader, it’s very difficult because the rents are pushed up by the big companies coming in.
PAUL GARDNER: With me now, I’ve got Urban Outfitters and Tesco and Nandos more or less opposite me so that my last lease was quite hard to negotiate. I’m worried for the people in the Spitalfields Market, some of the rents for small shops are 90,000 pounds – it’s madness really. In Cheshire St, three shops moved out about a year ago and the places are still empty because they’re asking too much rent.
RICHARD INCE: I’m so surprised you’re still going, with respect Paul.
PAUL GARDNER: I know.
RICHARD INCE: It’s fantastic.
PAUL GARDNER: It’s a unique shop. You can get things off the internet, but once people come into my shop they find it different. It’s such a mess – you can hardly get in the door. It’s a selling point.
RICHARD INCE: But you know where it all is, don’t you? It’s organised chaos.
HENRY JONES: Do you sell predominantly paper still?
PAUL GARDNER: It’s gone full circle, I used to sell 50,000 carrier bags a week which were all plastic. I find that the people in the markets just go for the cheapest, but the shops now are going over to paper and I’ve had a few film companies, they buy them for extras in the films. I think there’s a film about Paul Raymond coming out in Soho …
HENRY JONES: Richard, you’re doing some umbrellas for films, aren’t you?
RICHARD INCE: We’ve done all the props for Singing in the Rain. Front three rows get wet, very wet apparently. We’ve done about four Harry Potter films with various props, Dumbledore’s Umbrella, Mrs McGonagall’s umbrella, Hagrid’s umbrella, background props…
PAUL GARDNER: That’s amazing, if you can do that.
RICHARD INCE: It’s being able to turn your hand to something no one else can do.
HENRY JONES: Something special?
RICHARD INCE: Indeed. We did all the props for the Mary Poppins shows. And that was a nice earner, because it went from the West End to Broadway, then touring the States, and there’s another one touring the Far East, Australia and Japan. So you thought one order was nice and then …
HENRY JONES: Can I get one of them umbrellas?
RICHARD INCE: What where she flies off? Do you know, the funniest thing about that was, when it first started in the West End, she was literally breaking one of those props every other night
PAUL GARDNER: Handy.
RICHARD INCE: Well it was for me, because they’d all come back for repair or replacement.
PAUL GARDNER: You know with your dairy Henry, do you go out delivering things all the time? Because that must be hard to now to get around London or do you still go out very early in the morning?
HENRY JONES: We start a lot earlier than what we used to – about 1 o’clock in the morning now.
PAUL GARDNER: Blimey, that’s not much fun is it really?
RICHARD INCE: Are we holding you up?
HENRY JONES: (Laughs) I’m used to it! It’s changed, we deliver to businesses, to schools, to cafes, restaurants, we haven’t any residential customers any more. We got through to the last two companies in the tenders to deliver to the Olympics. It’s hard, you have to go through such a long process today with all the paper work you have to fill in. The difficulty I find is I get to the top level and fill in all the paperwork and then they go, “Oh, you’re not on the list of approved suppliers,” so the difficulty for the small business is to get into these companies at all. And obviously, if you have a small profit margin, it’s nice to have that turnover – it pays your rent, pays your rates, lets you go into the pub and have a drink, doesn’t it?
PAUL GARDNER: Only once a week!
RICHARD INCE: The tender process for the Olympics is fantastic, you think “great opportunity” and yes, I was asked, and I can tell you about this because they’ve mothballed the idea and it’s too late to get 7,600 umbrellas, one for every athlete in the opening and closing ceremonies. You have to provide three years of profit and loss accounts, proof of professional indemnity, employer’s liability, and you have to have it all on computer so that you can upload it to them. So, thankfully, that tender went away because I…
PAUL GARDNER: Good job they didn’t need any paper bags from me then.
RICHARD INCE: It promised a lot didn’t it? The theory was great because we’re all within a stone’s throw of the Olympics.
HENRY JONES: I was able to fight through it, because I’ve got another generation below me that’s actually capable of doing the paperwork for me.
RICHARD INCE: Everything above 7000 pounds has to go through the tender process, so that’s a lot of tenders. Fortunately, I’m going through someone else now who’s already done the tender process and been accepted.
PAUL GARDNER: So you’re making some things?
RICHARD INCE: I’m not allowed to tell you too much because obviously they’d shoot me.
QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE
QUESTION: Henry, just going back to what you were saying about your grandparents coming up from Wales, bringing their cows with them, obviously at that time it was a real feat? It would be a real feat now. Why did they do it?
HENRY JONES: They drove the cows up and milked them and sent them back again. I don’t know how they ever did it. At the time, London was a magnet for Welsh people to come and start dairies. I think a lot of Welsh people came up – D.H. Evans, John Lewis, Peter Jones, all the big stores.
QUESTION: Throughout the time that your families have been in the area have you ever been aware of any traders’ association existing?
RICHARD INCE: No.
HENRY JONES: I think it’s an excellent idea to be quite honest with you.
QUESTION: What would you like it to do?
HENRY JONES: My business is quite active, promoting ourselves but there needs to be more promotion for the likes of Paul Gardner, people need to know that he’s there. Obviously what we’re all after is getting customers and being introduced to larger businesses in the area, especially larger businesses, where they can be supplied from us.
PAUL GARDNER: We need to unite the small shops because, in the next few years, unless they stick together, they’ll all go – especially if the rents keep on going up – and the rates. I think my rates have doubled in three years. It is a worry for me, what’s going to happen in the next few years. So, it would be good if we could bring the small businesses together, so we have more of a voice. Because, you’re by yourself and you’re confronted by big rent increases… I’ve had it over the years where I was scared of answering the phone. Luckily, I came through, but it isn’t much fun when you’re on your own, so if we can unite the small businesses that would be a good idea, I think.
Portraits copyright © Colin O’Brien
