A Fox in Hoxton
At this time of year, as the shadows get longer, the foxes of the East End grow bolder, reclaiming their territory. Those that have acquired a taste for curry come streaming down Brick Lane in the early hours to pillage the bins, and throughout Spitalfields you may even see foxes during daylight hours skulking in the side streets, as familiar with humans as we have become with them. Consequently, I did not blink when I caught a glance of the first of Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Martin Usborne’s fascinating fox photographs. My immediate assumption was to admire his skill in capturing a rare moment – until I saw the other pictures and realised that a sly ruse was involved.
Now that digital manipulation of photography has become commonplace, there is an elegant poetry in the plain contrivance of taking a stuffed fox and placing it in the street, because a natural correlation exists between the still life of taxidermy and the frozen moment of a photograph. So familiar are we with photography as a record of an event that we naturally imagine the movement before and after the frame, an impulse that still exists even after we know the fox is immobile.
There is also the delight of complicity here, in observing how different people gamely participated in Martin’s project, when he spent three days wandering around with a dead fox that he rented from “Get Stuffed” taxidermy hire in Islington. (Martin was assured that the fox died of natural causes and was given to the taxidermist by the RSPCA.) The comedy of the undertaking is irresistible, even if it is underscored by the poignancy of this displaced creature returning to its urban habitat after death.
Athough foxes are common in the city, the surrealism of their presence never fails to startle, and these cunning photographs play upon this familiarity, pushing the limit of credibility. Since foxes appear to be as at home in the East End as we humans are, it would not actually be out of character for them to do any of the things shown here. It makes perfect sense to see a fox get cash from a machine and then hit the fried chicken shop. Equally, when I saw the picture of the fox with the girls in the cocktail bar, I could not help wondering if it was a hen night.
In reality, there is a large family of foxes that live in a secret enclave in the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, which makes them perfectly placed to take advantage of the night life on their doorstep. Here in Spitalfields, I have become quite used to seeing foxes gambolling in my back yard. Although guests get excited to see the foxes emerging from the undergrowth seeking chicken bones whenever I serve dinner in the garden, this has become commonplace to me now. Sometimes in the Spring, fox cubs waken me with their cries while playing outside my bedroom window and if I go out at night to bring in washing from the line they prowl around me in the dark. Similarly, the neighbourhood cats appear to have entered into an understanding with the foxes, and I even saw Mr Pussy rubbing noses with a fox this Summer. And I shall never forget returning from the premiere of “Fantastic Mr Fox” to confront a fox on the street in Spitalfields at midnight and half-expecting him to ask, “How was it then?”
So you will understand why Martin Usborne’s clever fox photographs stuck a chord, they are only one step removed from actuality – and their subtle irony renders them as playful and engaging satires upon the absurdity of our curious inner-city existence.
Photographs copyright © Martin Usborne
You may also enjoy Martin’s pictures of Joseph Markovitch of Hoxton.
Second Annual Report
As a slow writer who struggles to put words together, it astonishes me to discover myself writing this Second Annual Report. It certainly was a foolhardy undertaking that I set out upon two years ago on 26th August 2009 – promising to write a story every single day – but I do not regret it because it has brought me so much pleasure.
I do not quite know how to account for the more than seven hundred stories that I have published since then. In fact, I try to avoid an overview because it fills me with vertigo to contemplate how many words I have written, almost as disorienting as trying to imagine what lies ahead over the next quarter century of this endeavour. Yet the reality of this project consists always in writing today’s story and, as far as possible, I submit myself to the job in hand, which can be relied upon to provide more than sufficient challenge to fill one day.
As a child, I never understood why I could not go and speak with everybody, and I used to knock on the doors of people in my street and ask about their lives. Even now I do not know why people choose to be strangers to one another and not enter into conversations at bus stops and on transport. Fortunately, my chosen occupation permits me to fulfil my lifelong curiousity about the lives of others. And, in the last two years, I have met more people than I ever did in my life up to the moment I began writing these pen portraits, and a good many have now become friends.
Although I had some experience of writing before I commenced, these two years of contriving a story daily have changed my life. Sometimes people assume that I knock off several at once and publish them at leisure. But the truth is that I always write tomorrow’s story today, often working late into the night until it is ready.
Whenever I get the chance to look back at previous posts, I am struck how they flow one after another, as if preordained, when, in fact, I rarely know what is coming next. It is a situation that creates a certain internal drama, exciting and terrifying at the same time. While – from those already published – I may persuade myself that tomorrow’s story will appear inevitably, I get fidgety as the day fades if I have not yet begun writing, or – worse – I have not decided what I am writing about. Yet each night, when I publish my story, the drama is resolved and I can go to sleep peacefully, before waking up ready to start again.
As you will appreciate, it keeps me on my toes, with so many people to write about and you, the readers, awaiting tomorrow’s story. I recognise a constant imperative to do my subjects justice and I know I cannot disappoint you. It is a perfect situation for a writer, especially a slow writer.
I did not realise that this would be the outcome when I set out, but I am very grateful for it, because it has proved so rewarding. Years ago, when I complained of my long afternoons struggling to compose a single sentence, people used to say, “If someone put a gun to your head, couldn’t you write faster?” Now this is situation is remedied, I can answer those people by declaring, “I have found the gun!”
As I pass the two year milestone, I am going to take a moment to draw breath, celebrating this anniversary by publishing a week of favourite posts. Meanwhile, I shall take the opportunity to tidy my desk, weed the garden, sew on buttons and prepare myself to set forth again through the streets of Spitalfields. But first, I have something extraordinary planned to commemorate this auspicious moment and I must leave you here while I run off to do it. Naturally, you will read an account, as the first post opening the third year of stories on Monday 5th September.
And thus, with all these thoughts in mind, I come to the end of this second year of Spitalfields Life.
I am your loyal servant
The Gentle Author
You may also like to read the First Annual Report
The Return of Norah Pam
Norah Pam first came to Spitalfields in August 1931 and this week she made a return visit, just to see how things were ticking over in her old neighbourhood eighty years later. Here you can see her standing outside 11 Victoria Cottages, where her great-grandparents Lewis Carr, a silk dyer, and his wife Louisa came to live with their three children, shortly after the terrace was built in the 1860s. Norah was delighted to see that the gardens are well kept – just as she remembers them in her childhood in the 1930s.
By 1881, the family had moved to the flats at the rear of the cottages, known as Albert Family Dwellings and it was there that Norah grew up. She still has vivid memories of these formative years in Spitalfields, even though she only came to live in the Dwellings at the age of six and left in 1940 at the age of fifteen when the bombing of London made it too risky to stay.
It was my pleasure to introduce Norah to Spitalfields resident Mavis Bullwinkle who also grew up in Albert Family Dwellings in the 1930s, which was the cause of considerable mutual excitement since – although Mavis does not remember Norah – Norah, being seven years older, remembers seventy-nine year old Mavis being born. “You were such a little baby,” she recalled sweetly, causing Mavis to blush, “I remember when your sister was born, she had golden curls and blue eyes and everyone doted on her, and my mother said to me, ‘Pay some attention to the little girl standing at the side of the pram,’and that was you.”
This was a cause of great amusement to Mavis, who shrieked with girlish delight to confirm this unexpected recollection. “Yes, that’s right” she exclaimed in surprise, “My hair was was straight as die!” Yet all these years later, this conversation was evidence that Norah had taken notice of her mother’s instruction. “I can see you now coming down the stairs beside the pram,” she added, thinking back across time, on the occasion of meeting someone she had not seen in more than seventy years.
We all sat in a garden at Victoria Cottages and enjoyed a sunny morning chatting together, while Norah brought out her family photographs, which span dizzying amounts of time, and beguiled us with her account of her Spitalfields childhood.
We moved into a flat in Albert Family Dwellings to be close to my grandmother – the family had been in Spitalfields since the 1840s.
I went to All Saints School in Buxton St. Some of the children were quite poor. I had a friend whose father was a ganger – a roadworker – and if it rained he got no work and he had no money. Several children had parents who were builders, they couldn’t work in bad weather either. Some were railway people, and if they had big families they couldn’t manage. My friend’s family worked in the parcels office, they were comfortable, they even had a holiday because they got free travel. There was a lot of poverty because in 1931 all public service workers had a pound cut from their pay – a wage of three pounds and five shillings a week went down to two pounds and five shillings a week. It was a significant amount of money and people had to cut back.
I wasn’t allowed to play outside. I was an only child and very protected, but I caught Scarlet Fever. I was taken to Homerton in the fever ambulance which was grey. My parents weren’t allowed to visit. They would bring a parcel each week and stand outside. The flat was sealed and the bedding taken away for fumigation, and my father had to have three days off work because it was so contagious. Then after six weeks, they said I had Nasal Diptheria and I had to stay another six weeks, so it was very harrowing for all of us. My mother cried when people asked how I was.
When the war came, everyone was evacuated but, because I had been seriously ill, I pleaded with my parents to let me stay at home, and there was no school, so I had a heyday. I remember the bombing of the docks. On that day, I went on my own to Dalston on the bus to buy a skirt at Marks & Spencer. The air raid siren went at two o’clock and we were told to get off the bus and go to a shelter. Then, at four, I bought my skirt and walked back to Spitalfields.
I wanted a pair of silk stockings to go with my skirt and in Hanbury St there was a little shop that sold everything. The owner was Noah Cohen, so I went to his shop and there was this little old lady and her daughter who was in her thirties. Noah let them go into the back to change and he told me their story. The girl had been in the bath when the air raid siren went and her mother called her to go to the Anderson shelter. The house was in Jamaica St and it got a direct hit, but they were saved by the shelter and all she had left was the dress she put on when she got out of the bath. Her mother had come to buy her a set of underwear to go a night shelter in a school, and he let her change into her new clothes. I often wondered what happened to that woman because a lot of the schools were hit.
I went home and, by the time I got to the Cottages, I was running because I could smell the fires burning at the docks. And, as my mother opened the door, the people upstairs were coming down for safety. We sat in the doorway and my mother made tea while the bombs fell. The German planes made a particular noise. They got nearer and nearer and nearer, and you heard the bombs dropping, and you thought, “This is us,” and then they went over.
The people in the building across the road all left, and they set their cats and dogs loose. We found a dog in the street and my mother called it “Victory “because she said, “We’re going to have victory! They can continue bombing but we won’t give in. They can do what they like.” We kept him for seven years and he died on 31st May 1946, on my twenty-first birthday, in his sleep.
Then, in 1940, a landmine fell on the Crown & Leek in Deal St and they evacuated a mile around, and that’s when we all decided to leave. But even after we moved out, I was always coming back to see my friends. I missed by friends. And my father said, “But I thought you wanted a house with a garden?!”
Today, the Albert Family Dwellings have long gone, demolished in 1975. Mavis Bullwinkle who lived in the Dwellings until the end and now lives a quarter a mile away, told me she had not been over to this area of Spitalfields for thirty years, “Because I miss them so much.” The pair of terraces named Victoria and Albert Cottages, and St Anne’s Church, are all that remain now of the world that Norah and Mavis knew in their childhood. Yet for a couple of hours it came alive again, as they sat in the garden and shared recollections of the two old ladies who ran the sweetshop across the road – gone more than half a century ago – the mission hall that moved to Bethnal Green in 1935, and of the teachers at Sir John Cass School where they were both pupils before the war.
In contrast to the general assumption of poverty in the East End, Norah and Mavis’ history reveals a more complex social picture of people of different incomes living in close proximity. Norah and Mavis were also keen to emphasise the self-respecting ethic they grew up with.“They think we were all prostitutes and drunks, and we were dirty, but our working class morality was strong,” declared Mavis, turning passionate, “We didn’t think we were poor, we had enough to eat and we never wasted anything.” A statement which prompted the exchange of a glance of unity between the two women.
Then it was time to say goodbye – once Norah Pam and Mavis Bullwinkle had swapped numbers, because a new friendship had been kindled that morning. Norah took one last glance at the gardens of Victoria Cottages, where her great-grandparents lived one hundred and fifty years ago, and looked up to the space in the sky where Albert Family Dwellings once stood. “I had a happy childhood here,” she said.
Norah’s great grandparents, Lewis and Louisa Carr, and their children, Lewis, Louisa Ann and George – the residents of 11 Victoria Cottages, Spitalfields. On the reverse of this photograph Norah has written, “When my great-grandfather became a widower, he went to lunch each Sunday with my gran, always arriving wearing wearing a tall silk hat.”
Norah’s great uncle, Lewis Carr. He became a vaccination officer for Smallpox and lived on Cheshire St.
Norah’s grandmother, Louisa Ann Carr as a young woman. She worked at home sewing waistcoat buttons for Savile Row.
Norah’s grandmother, Louisa Ann, as an older woman at Albert Family Dwellings.
Norah’s parents’ on their wedding day.
Norah’s father Edward Samuel Simmonds in 1939.
Norah’s mother, Violet Louisa Simmonds, with their dog Victory.
Norah’s class at All Saints’ School, Buxton St in 1934. Nine year old Norah is in the check dress with spectacles, third from the right in the first row seated on chairs. Norah’s glasses were from Mr Stutter, the optician in Bishopsgate.
Norah in 1940, aged fifteen.
Norah and Mavis both grew up in the Albert Family Dwellings in Deal St that were demolished in 1975.
The last May Queen at Sir John Cass School in 1939, Mavis is third from the right in the front row of girls standing.
Mavis’ Aunt Ada and her mother Gwen in Deal St outside the Albert Family Dwellings in the 1920s.
Norah Pam & Mavis Bullwinkle at Victoria Cottages.
You may like to read my profile of Mavis Bullwinkle, Secretary
H. W. Petherick’s London Characters
These London Characters were drawn by Horace William Petherick, a painter and illustrator who once contributed pictures regularly to the Illustrated London News. He also collaborated on some children’s books with Laura Valentine, who wrote under the pseudonym Aunt Louisa, and the prints you see here are the product of such a collaboration.
When I first came across these pictures in the collection at the Bishopsgate Institute, they caught my eye at once with the veracity of their observation. I am fascinated by all the prints that were made through the ages of the street people of London, and I have seen so many now that I have learnt to recognise when these images become generic. Yet, although in form and composition, H.W.Petherick’s London Characters draw upon the traditional visual style of the Cries of London, there is clear evidence of observation from life in his vibrant designs.
The subtleties of posture and demeanour in each trade, and the fluent quality of vigorous movement, are true to those of working people. He captures the stance that reveals the relationship of each individual to the world, whether haughty like the Beadle, weary like the Dustman, playful like the Acrobat, deferential like the Cabman or resigned like the old wounded soldier working as a Commissionaire. In these images, they declare themselves as who they are, both the products and the exemplifiers of their occupations.
It was the Lamplighter that first drew my attention, gazing with such concentrated poise up to the light, which is cleverly placed outside the frame of the composition – indicated only by the cast of its glow. In the foggy street, the Lamplighter pauses for the briefest moment for the flame to catch, while a carriage rolls away to vanish into the mist. An instant later, he will move on to the next lamp, but the fleeting moment is caught. All these Characters are preoccupied with their business – walking with intent, pouring milk steadily, carrying a loaf carefully, cutting meat with practised skill, scrutinising an address on an envelope, pasting up a poster just so, or concentrating to keep three balls up in the air at once.
They inhabit a recognisable city and they take ownership of the streets by their presence – they are London Characters.
The Butcher Boy
The Milkman
The Baker
The Cat’s-Meat Man
The Waterman
The Street Boy
The Dustman
The Chimney Sweeper
The Cabman
The Orange Girl
The Turncock
The Navvy
The Lamplighter
The Telegraph Boy
The Beadle
The Muffin Man
The Basket Woman
The Postman
The Fireman
The Railway Porter
The Policeman
The Newspaper Boy
The Bill Sticker
The Costermonger
The Organ Grinder
The Commissionaire
The Acrobat
Images copyright © Bishopsgate Institute
You may like to take a look at
John Thomson’s Street Life in London
Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries
Marcellus Laroon’s Cries of London
More John Player’s Cries of London
William Nicholson’s London Types
Francis Wheatley’s Cries of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana of 1817
Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders
Carol Burns, Dogsbody
I was shocked when Carol Burns told me she was a dogsbody, because I could not believe it of such an astute woman. “I am surrounded by men telling me what needs to be done,” she confided to me with a hint of theatrical affront, speaking just loud enough for the males in the vicinity to overhear, and raising one eyebrow with cool irony.“In the end, it’s easier for me to do what they ask, just for the sake of a quiet life.” she added, wagging a cigarette with a sweet smile of weary compliance.
Yet it would be wrong to assume that Carol is another example of oppressed womankind – you may rest assured she can hold her own in any situation. The truth is that Carol can afford such a self-deprecating quip because she is unquestionably in charge at C.E. Burns Ltd, her father’s waste paper business, still operating from Bacon St where her great-grandfather John Burns started it in 1864.
In the blue Micra parked at the kerb, sits Carol’s ninety-five-year old dad, Charlie Burns. A legendary East End waste paper merchant and boxing entrepreneur. His entire life has been enacted on Bacon St and he cannot keep away now, observing the ongoing saga each day from his discreet vantage point in the passenger seat, interrupted only by greetings from passersby. Carol brings Charlie here every day, keeping one eye on him while greeting customers and making sales of secondhand furniture, carpet tiles and job lots of toiletries and fertilizer.
Whenever there is a lull, Carol retreats to her strategically placed garden shed, lined with family photos, where she can snatch a moment’s peace to gather her thoughts before negotiating the next bulk sale of toilet rolls. It was here that I joined Carol on a slow Summer’s afternoon while she reflected upon her half century on Bacon St.
My brother Edward told me, when I was eighteen, that I’d still be here at forty and I’m fifty-nine now. I stayed because of my dad, and I’m quite happy with what I’m doing. I don’t even think any more about what else I might have done. You meet different people every day. I walk down the Bethnal Green Rd and the traders in the market all know me.
My dad’s mum, Alice, died on 29th March 1952 and I was born that June – I was the one that lived out of a pair of twins. And I always thought that she died for me to be born. I was born at home in Redmill House, Headlam St, Whitechapel, and I came down here to Bacon St at eight years of age. When I left school at sixteen in 1964, I came here to work, I sat and answered the phones. I came down each day around six to join the boys for a proper breakfast, before they went off to collect waste paper at nine thirty.
We used to keep a horse and cart then, and we had three geese to act as guard, they were worse than any guard dog if they went for you. But then someone reported them and they were taken away. We only had them because somebody asked us to take care of them and never came back. It was better that what it is now, you had a lot more trade even though it was on a smaller site. People was happier. Nobody had to worry about what they had, because they didn’t have anything!
We moved to Sharon Gardens when I was fifteen, and I got married for the first time when I was eighteen. Then I separated and moved back to Sharon Gardens, until I got married again and moved to Bethnal Green – I only moved across the Cambridge Heath Rd to go from E1 to E2, when I moved into Canrobert St in 1978, and I’ve been there ever since.
My dad found something you could sell and then others followed, but he was the leader in our eyes. This has always been our family business. My sister used to work down the lane before me, and my mum worked Wednesdays and Fridays, and my brothers were always on the vans. There’s seven or eight of us altogether.
Everything’s negotiable here, because if we a stuck a price on it, we’d be gone years ago. We have a laugh, we have a joke with our customers, we give a little and they give a little, then you meet in the middle and they buy it. And they tell their friends, and they come along too.
It’s my life and it’s been a good life. I get by through talking. We are the East Enders that stayed in the East End, not some that moved out to Ilford. We’re not going anywhere. We’re not out to impress. We don’t buy mansions or drive expensive cars, we are how we are. We don’t want the champagne lifestyle, we want lemonade. We’re just proud to still be here.
Carol is one of a family of innovators, recycling waste paper for nearly a hundred and fifty years, before the notion of recycling became virtuous. Today, the Burns family are patrons of the arts and you will find a constantly changing gallery of street art outside their Bacon St premises, thanks to Carol’s enlightened generosity – “They’ve got to start somewhere.” she says cheerily.
Carol takes pleasure in all her negotiations as an opportunity to exercise her considerable skills of rhetoric, and the codes of civility and respect that attend these conversations are close to heart of what this old family business is about. It presumes a society in which everyone can talk to each other as equals, based upon mutual respect, and Carol delights to tell me of those customers to whom she says they can pay her later, who invariably do. Shrewd and without sentiment, Carol Burns runs her family enterprise based upon assuming the best rather than the worst of people.
Carol Burns in her shed lined with family memories.
Charlie and Carol Burns, snapped a few years ago in their beloved Bacon St warehouse.
Carol’s father Charlie Burns in the car where he sits each day on Bacon St – at ninety-five years old, he is the oldest man on Brick Lane.
You might like to read my original portrait of Charlie Burns, the King of Bacon St
or of Charlie’s nephew Tony Burns, Chief Coach at the Repton Boxing Club.
More Dogs of Spitalfields
Spitalfields Life contributing photographer Sarah Ainslie and writer Andrew McCaldon have been out on the streets again to continue their survey of East End canines. These inner city dogs are equally at home on street corners, in alleyways and along busy roads, as they are in the parks and green spaces which are designated as their playgrounds.
Coco (Papillon) & Keith Chilvers
“Coco’s my best friend. She’s very bright and a good watch dog.
Around here there’s always a lot of noise. Hammering and drilling, she’ll sleep through – but one knock on my door and she’s off!
I was born in London, although I have travelled around as a landscape gardener. At that time, in the late sixties, it was all very hippy and back to the earth. While some people have got worn down, I’ve kept my values, of wanting to be close to nature. I’m learning wood carving now and I would like a garden – I’ve crammed as much in here as I can.
The last walk of the day sometimes ends up in the pub, The Perseverance or Nelson’s Head. Coco likes the foam from my Guinness, she’ll lick it off my finger. She’s a damn good beggar in the pub!”
Marvin (Staffordshire Bull Terrier) & Karolina Kolodziej
“Marvin is all about sexual healing. Marvin Gaye had such a positive energy and so does our Marvin. He makes me so happy. He loves everybody, always licking them and, well, he doesn’t hump anymore – but he used to!
My partner and I both work in theatre, and Marvin’s a regular in the West End. He’s often waiting at the stage door for us and, if he’s invited, he likes visiting the dressing rooms.
Some of the Muslim children on my estate are taught to think that dogs are dirty. They are scared and panicky, they think Marvin will eat them. They come, very frightened but excited, to see him sometimes. I say, “If you would like to touch him you can.” They pat his back and then run away. They ask hundreds of questions about him and I answer them all.
I think, on my floor, the children – just the children I suppose – are changing their minds about Marvin.”
Gizmo, Tricksy (Chihuahuas) & Des Johnson
“I’ve had a lot of big dogs over the years but now little dogs have come into my life.
They are really my daughter’s but they prefer to be with me. She puts them in her handbag, whereas I treat them like dogs.
I’m an architect, and they like to sit up in my van and look out at all the other dogs. They may have pea brains but they’re very intelligent. And they can look after themselves – they’ll go for anything that moves. They’ve got small-man-syndrome.
My wife liked orchids and Chihuahuas. She died when my daughter was aged three. My daughter never knew her and yet now she loves them too.”
Archie (Golden Retriever) & Andy Rider, Rector of Spitalfields
“Archie’s my second Golden Retriever. My wife and I had to give away our first dog when we moved to a flat in the West End years ago. But when I became Rector here at Christ Church, my son stood in the garden of the Rectory and said “Dad, I think this is dog country!”
He’s gentle and friendly, although he does eat everything and leave hair everywhere. If you’re wearing a black jumper, you don’t want to start stroking Archie.
He’s very popular with the congregation and sometimes comes to prayers with me in the morning.
But it’s when I take Archie to the Lake District every year that he’s at his happiest.”
Edwin (Lakeland Terrier) & Grace Dant
“I play a game with Edwin, when Daddy has a lie-in – I open the door and say “Edwin! Look!” and he runs up the stairs and pounces on him.
I walk Edwin around the bandstand in Arnold Circus and sometimes the fox will walk alongside him in the morning. They don’t seem to mind each other.
And we go past AZ Grocers where Edwin’s enemy Lily the Cat lives. She once scratched him in the face. When we go by Edwin stretches at the lead, he really wants to bite her.
He was tied up outside my school one day and could see me in my classroom. He started howling – “owwwwooo!” – outside. I had to pardon myself from the class and give him some biscuits I had in my satchel.
I remember when I first met Edwin, Daddy let him go and he ran straight towards me. From Edwin’s face I knew he was thinking “She looks fun!”
Harvey, Chai (Staffordshire Bull Terriers), Missy (Pekingese) & Mandy King
“I do three walks a day. This is number two.
I’ve lived in London Fields all my life and I’ve been walking dogs in the Fields since I was a child. Everyone knows me around here, probably as the Mad Dog Lady – well, I say “hello” to everyone and to all the dogs too. And I’m not quiet – if I see abuse being done to another dog I won’t keep my mouth shut.
All my dogs are rescued dogs. At one time I had five dogs. Now it’s just these three and my cat who’s called “Mr Samuel Beckett.” They all get along fine.
I love dogs, they’re great companions. They’re not stupid like people.
I had to retire from work for medical reasons and my world has become very small – but these dogs are what keep me going.”
Banjo (Cocker Spaniel) & Vanessa Caswill
“He just loves this hoop.
And puddles too. He’s a real water dog. When I first saw Banjo’s profile online, I read about how he loved to lie on his back in a bowl of water in the sunshine. We borrowed a neighbour’s car, drove to Canterbury, and brought him home that day.
I’m due in five weeks. Banjo’ll put his paw on my belly, because I think he knows something is different. Things may change.
To get him used to the idea, I’ve started to have friends with babies coming round. They move, they make weird noises, they’re on his eye level – I think he finds them freaky.
It’s because of Banjo that we decided to have a kid. We loved him so much, he turned us from being a couple into a family. He gave us the confidence to have a child.”
Chase (Shih Tzu-Bichon cross) & Eddie Philpot
“He’s a good companion, he makes me go out.
I was born in Bethnal Green, I know these streets well. I ran up and down ladders all my life, cleaning windows. My father did the same job.
Oh, it’s changed. I walk round the same streets with Chase, where I used to clean windows, and sometimes I don’t know where I am – what with the security gates and all that.
My first two dogs were laid back but Chase is a comedian, full of energy. He is very protective of my daughter Kim – she carried him around when he was young. And he’s naughty when he wants to be.
He’s a devil, but a loving little devil.”
Pan (Whippet-Bedlington cross), Peggy (Scottish Deerhound) & Jess Collins
“Peggy fell in the canal today.
She went out of her depth, her head went under and I had to help by pulling her out. Some passersby saw us struggling but Pan just stood and watched while we both got soaked.
We had Pan first, he’d been a working dog, a ratter. When we got Peggy, for a while Pan absolutely hated her and he wouldn’t look at me for weeks.
My partner Oliver and I run The Vintage Emporium, and we love dogs in the shop. They sit on the couch and get lots of attention. I’m lucky that I get to have Pan and Peggy with me all the time.
On my days off we all go to Hampstead Heath, which is such a beautiful place for dogs – and human beings too!”
Martha, Missy (Miniature Dachshunds), & Steven Dray
“Missy is named after Missy Elliot. My partner, Steven, and I are both big fans. She’s only three and a half months old but she’s getting longer by the day.
I had an Alsatian when I was a teenager growing up on Columbia Rd. My mother still lives in the Guinness Trust Buildings there. Now I’m writing a book called “Shoreditch Unbound” which has been an important thing for me to do.
Dachshunds were originally bred to go down badger sets – though I can’t imagine these little madams going down a badger hole, they’re too precious. They’re perfect city dogs though and they’re super-affectionate.
Steven, me and both the dogs all sleep together – we’re going to have to get a bigger bed!”
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
You may also like to read the original Dogs of Spitalfields feature.
Brick Lane Market 14
Victor Otigbah runs a bicycle repair workshop, doing on-the-spot repairs with his pal Rob, each Sunday morning under the railway bridge, where he also sells old bikes they have fixed up. You can buy some of the cheapest bicycles in London here. “A friend of mine gave me a bike when I first moved to Brick Lane in 2005 and I sold it for forty-five pounds.” explained Victor, as we stood among the sea of bicycles for sale, “With that money, I bought three more bikes, and fixed them up and sold them too. Then the council got hold of me and said it was illegal to sell on the street, so I got a licence and I’ve been here ever since.” A Glaswegian by origin, “I used to cycle up around Loch Lomond, when I was young and cycling was my life,” Victor admitted to me,“But I didn’t know anything about bikes until I did a course in cycle maintenance, and that’s when it all took off.”
Kal Newby & Bettina Gallizzi, on the Sclater St yard, were trading together for the first time. In fact, Kal confided to me it was her first day in the market, as she handed over an old but still serviceable Venetian blind to a customer for three pounds. “Betty’s been up here before, and she gave me a call asking if I fancied coming and joining her, so I took it as an opportunity to clear out my parents’ garage.” she said, “It’s been up and down today, but we’ve sold a lot.” Kal is a sign language interpreter by profession, while her friend Bettina is a sports instructor who teaches cycling – and she reminded me that each London borough offers four hours of free cycling tuition to every resident. Bettina also runs www.velo-re.com where she sells belts and wallets she makes out of old bicycle tyres and inner tubes.
Sneizana & Justin both came from Lithuania to Brick Lane. Sneizana has worked as a trader her whole life, but when the markets began to die in her country, she realised she could do better in London and took the brave decision to move here. “This is my holiday!” Sneizana declared to me with a weary smile, since she works the other six days of the week as a cleaner. And “This is my day off,” Justin announced too – not to be outdone – because he works all week on a building site. Yet in spite of this relentless routine of work, both were keen to emphasise how much they enjoy selling old clothes in the market. “It’s relaxing. People like us, and we’ve made lots of friends,” Justin informed me enthusiastically,“There are Italians, French, Portuguese, Polish, Serbians and Croatians – every country is here and this is good!”
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
