Brick Lane Market 12
This is Kevin Stocker from Harlow who once served in the Royal Fusiliers. “Need brought me here,” he revealed to me with a phlegmatic grin on a slow Sunday in Sclater St, “Most of the regional markets are dying out, so you’ve got to go where you can find the customers. And I like the hustle and bustle here, it’s a very sociable place.” Of expansive temperament, Kevin is a skilled man who has done many jobs in his varied career – “I trained as a plumber and hated every minute of it” – but now he sells bric-a-brac at boot fairs and antiques markets to earn a living. “I’ve been doing it fifteen years, this July,” he calculated. I joined Kevin for a cup of tea behind the stall to enjoy a chat with him and his pal, the neighbouring stallholder Christine, while the clouds gathering overhead scattering the last customers. “I called her ‘Lucky’ because every day she bought off me, I had a lucky day,” he informed me, catching her eye, as we sipped from our plastic cups.
“We’re all here by default, because it’s what we know,” said Christine with a knowing chuckle, “For me it’s all about the people, it’s the social aspect as well as earning enough to pay the odd bill. It’s not my primary focus, like Kevin – although next year it might become so.” A woman who has travelled the world and seen life, Christine worked her way up from trading at car boot sales to international antiques fairs, until she started a theatre group exploring the subject of mental health inspired by her own experience of mental illness. Two years ago, she quit the theatre and now she is back in the market again. “I live in Dagenham and I own a Skoda,” she explained, puffing on her cigarette excitedly, “when I first got started again, I used to come on the bus with all my things and it almost killed me!” A popular character in the Sclater St Market, Christine knows her stuff, and is renowned for her raucous humour and splendid corn-rows.
This is Chris & Vince of Abco Wiping Cloths & Janitorial Supplies who deal in secondhand textiles from the former railway workers’ chapel in Sclater St. Here, in this atmospheric shadowy space beneath the foliate Victorian cast iron roof brackets and lancet windows, you can find a wonderful selection of old roller towels, boiler suits, cotton bed sheets and pillow cases, catering uniforms, aprons and coats – even socks at twenty pence a pair. Vince’s grandfather started the business (which also operates from the Coppermill in Cheshire St) in 1920 as rag merchants and they have operated here in the chapel for the past thirty years. “I was probably about three or four when I first came down here, I don’t remember not being here,” recalled Vince with a sentimental smile, taking in the magnificent old store and then gazing out to the building site across the road where the future is being constructed, “But it’s just a hobby now. We’ll be history very soon.”
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
On the Thames with Crayfish Bob
In early Summer, I always get the longing to go up river where the banks are lined with willows and yellow flags, and elderflowers hang down at the water’s edge. So I was delighted to accept Crayfish Bob’s invitation to spend an afternoon with him on the Thames, all the way upstream at Abingdon Lock, where he was emptying his traps in preparation for the event at Toynbee Hall in Commercial St next week where you can eat his Crayfish for dinner for five pounds.
“Hello there!” Bob says in a cheery, friendly tone as he heaves the traps up from the river bed, peering out from under his hat to greet the Crayfish that are gathered in his net eye-to-eye. Then he unzips the trap and gives it a good shake, bouncing the Crayfish up and down, revealing their dramatic orange claws and blue undersides, as they dance and prance along the net to fall ungainly into the bucket. “That’s right, come along now,” he encourages, as if he were a professional tour guide – with an edge of impatience.
You see, Crayfish Bob is a dissimulator as far as freshwater crustacea are concerned, because the blunt truth is he that has made it his personal mission to wipe out the American Signal Crayfish which infest our rivers. With his glinting eyes and twitching smile, Crayfish Bob is a connoisseur of irony, and the irony here is that these American Crayfish were introduced by the government in the nineteen seventies as an alternative to the diminishing stocks of the native variety of White-clawed Crayfish, which they now threaten to replace entirely.
Where others see a problem, Bob sees a business opportunity – and, since 2003, he has devoted himself to finding the means to rid our rivers of these interlopers, by encouraging people to eat them. This is where the second irony becomes apparent – since as Bob’s efforts to promote Crayfish have succeeded in encouraging the fashion for eating Crayfish, more are imported from China to meet the demand. Supermarkets sell cheap inferior Chinese Crayfish labelled as “produced in the United Kingdom” when the fact is they only package them in this country. A disappointing sleight of hand that Bob illustrated to me in a supermarket famous for its declared ethical credentials, when we popped in to buy mackerel to bait the traps on our way to the river.
Bob is driven by a frustration compounded of these ironies. When he drives his fishy van, when he spends countless hours shelling crustacea, when he stands in his tiny boat hauling the traps up from the mud, Bob is single minded in his intent. “I haven’t made any money out of it yet, but if I did I would invest it back in the project,” he admitted to me, clenching his jaw in determination.
“How’s it going Bob?” yelled a fellow fisherman from the towpath, with a smile and a hint of sceptical superiority, provoking Bob to cease his labour, and stand erect to cock his hat and reply with dignity, “It’s going to happen this year.” And Bob has real reason for this belief because he has just got his first big break. The week after the event in Spitalfields, Bob will be catering the Glastonbury Festival, serving Bob’s Crayfish Bisque to the hoards of hungry revellers. Now there is a sense of urgency to the endeavour because this a chance to shift some Crayfish, to dredge them up from the river and feed them to the festival-goers. “I don’t know if I will be able to offer more than a thousand portions of Crayfish,” Bob muttered, shaking his head and thinking out loud as he picked up the errant Crayfish that strayed from his bucket and were crawling across the floor of his tiny boat in a feeble escape attempt.
Trippers on pleasure boats drifted by, they saw the two of us in the scruffy little boat, but they did appreciate the nobility of our purpose, nor did the Crayfish realise their fate. Five ducklings bobbed past and a red kite dived overhead, yet we alone knew of the grand plan that was underway. “The population here is diminished,” Bob confided to me in modest satisfaction as he emptied another trap, “these have wandered in from elsewhere.”
If you want to help Crayfish Bob redress the balance of Nature, come to Toynbee Hall next week and consume as many as you can of the plague of alien Crayfish that swarm in the Thames.
A Moorhen’s nest.
Bob finds a Pike in his net and holds it for a moment before throwing it back.
A Crayfish.
Bob impersonates a Crayfish.
Learn more about Crayfish Bob’s Dinners at Toynbee Hall 13-17th June.
At the Algha Spectacle Works
Between Victoria Park and the site of the 2012 Olympics, lies a narrow stretch of land known as Fish Island, filled with a crowded array of dignified old brick industrial buildings. Most are turned over to artists’ studios now, but standing amongst them at the corner of Smeed Rd is the world famous Algha Works, home to Britain’s last metal spectacle frame manufacturer, operating from here for the past century.
In this early steel frame building of 1907, the gold National Health Service spectacles that once corrected the sight of the population were made by Max Wiseman & Co, founded in 1898. Think of any of the famous gold rimmed glasses of the twentieth century, from Mahatma Gandhi to John Lennon, to every bank manager and headmaster, and this where they were manufactured. The heart-shaped sunglasses for Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” and, more recently, Harry Potter’s geeky specs were also made here.
You might say that Max Wiseman was a visionary in the world of spectacles. “As a young man of nineteen, I was inspired and tremendously enthusiastic at the possibility of ‘goldfilled’ being the future of spectacles.” he wrote breathlessly in the fiftieth anniversary edition of “The Optician” in 1941, and the rest was history. “Goldfilling” means coating the frame with a sleeve of gold which extends the life of the spectacles by preventing corrosion. Cheaper and lighter than solid gold, resistant to corrosion and longer lasting than gold plating, fourteen carat goldfilled spectacles from the Algha Works were universally available on the NHS in this country for forty years.
“They manufactured two and a half million frames a year here, when two hundred people worked in this building,” Peter Viner, the current managing director told me,“they lived next door and the building opposite was a school.” And he gestured back in time, and towards the window of his office on the top floor with views back across the East End in one direction and to the Olympic stadium in the other. When Peter came here in 1996, there were over fifty employees and today there are just fifteen, yet the ghosts of the past workforce linger in this light and spacious utilitarian building with its magnificent tiled stairwells and toilets.
Before 1932, Max Wiseman imported his frames from Germany, but the disruption of the First World War and inflation of the nineteen thirties led him to buy a complete factory in Rathnau, Germany and transport it to Hackney Wick along with ten optical technicians. When the Second World War broke out, these technicians found themselves interned in Scotland, but the machinery they set up remains in use after all this time. Efficient, serviceable and sturdy, the complete German plant for manufacturing metal spectacles from the nineteen thirties is used to make all the frames at the Algha Works today – one place were you can truly say, they still make them like they used to. In other words, where the purpose of the manufacture to is to create something of the highest quality that will last as long as possible, without built-in obsolescence.
“The black art,” as Peter terms it, describing the swaging, pressing, bending, notching, crimping, burnishing and other means of folding, that comprise the one hundred and thirty operations which go into making a pair of metal frames – including seventeen bends for the bridge alone. Protective of his unrivalled spectacle works, Peter restricted what might be photographed lest his Chinese competitors should garner trade secrets, yet he could not resist taking me to the manufacturing floor and showing off the heart of his operation, which gave me the opportunity to meet some of his proud spectacle makers.
Nirmal Chadha, who had been there twenty-four years, showed me the device that creates the “Hockey” end, bending the “temples” – as the arms of the spectacles are known in the trade. She put in the straight temple, pulled a lever and out came the temple crooked like a Hockey stick, as you would recognise it. Indi Singh, who had been there twenty-two years, demonstrated an elegant machine that spins different wires together to create the tensile arms for spectacles much in demand by sportmen – and curled into a “Fishook” so they can be secured around the ear.
Meanwhile Matt Havercroft, who had been working there just six months, was screwing temples to frames at the other end of the production line. He told me he was completely absorbed in all the processes and devices that are involved in the art of spectacle making. And after doing casual work in a bar and telephone sales, he was delighted to have found an occupation so engaging. Finally, I was proud to shake hands with Raymond Miller who had worked there thirty years and whose mother also worked there before him.
The shared endeavour at the Algha Works is a unique cultural phenomenon that has miraculously survived here in the East End, in spite of the withdrawal of free National Health Service glasses and the flood of cheap imports sold under designer labels which dominate chains of opticians today. So, if you want a pair of handmade classic spectacles that will last the rest of your life, you know where to go.
Algha Works – Algha is a composite of “from Alpha to Omega.”
Max Wiseman founder of Max Wiseman & Co in 1898, leading manufacturers of spectacles.
Nirmal Chadha has worked here twenty-four years.
Matthew Havercroft joined six months ago and intends to stay for the rest of his career.
Indi Singh has worked here twenty-two years.
Raymond Miller has worked at Algha Works for thirty years and his mother worked there before him.
Spectacles made at the Algha Works are sold under the “Savile Rowe” and “Just in Time” brands
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At James Ince & Sons, Umbrella Makers
At Stephen Walters & Sons, Silkweavers
Spitalfields Antiques Market 22
This is Nancy Lee Child, a weaver who came from New York in 1969 and ran a weaving shop in Walthamstow for thirty-six years until she sold it in 2009. “When I retired at sixty-eight, they said, ‘What are you going to do? You’re an a empress and your empire is your life,'” Nancy confided to me, her sharp blue eyes sparkling with intensity. “But I’d had enough. This is my empire now, it’s six feet long and two feet wide.” she said, gesturing proudly to her stall and crossing her arms in contentment, “I’m in charge, I employ me and I answer to me.” As well as being a virtuoso at the loom, Nancy collected wooden boxes for forty years until she had so many she could not get into her living room. “Now the word is sell ’em and you ain’t buyin’ any more,” she informed me with gruff enthusiasm, “Every one I have, I like and now I’m trying to persuade the public to like ’em too.”
This is Jo & Kelvin Page who deal in drinking and smoking collectibles. “It’s my wife’s baby,” said Kelvin, passing me over to Jo. “We’ve been collecting for a long time,” responded Jo with a diplomatic smile, casting her eyes fondly over all their fancy ashtrays and kitschy cocktail paraphernalia,“I admit I am compulsive, if I see it I have to have it.” “We like to own it for a little while and then we sell it,” continued Kelvin, in tactfully qualification. “We like the nineteen fifties,” declared Jo helpfully. “Neither of us smokes, but we do like a drink,” announced Kelvin, catching Jo’s eye as they exchanged a private smile.“But we don’t overdo it,” added Jo prudently, just in case I imagined they enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, and revealing she is a Paediatric Audiologist for the rest of the week.
This is Tim Mason who has been trading in “quirks of art” for the past twenty-five years. “I used to have a flat full of weird and interesting things, but I am selling it all now I’ve become a dad because I need to keep the wolf from the door,” he confessed to me proudly with a grin untinged by regret, adding, “I’ve still got quite a nice art collection.” Tim’s stock ranges from taxidermy through vintage copies of Playboy to anatomical charts. “It serves me well coming to Spitalfields” he explained, setting his jaw purposefully,“because even if I have a slow day selling, all the other dealers are here so I can do a lot of buying.” If you look closely you can see Kermit the Frog to the left of Tim. “I’ve always had him, he’s been hanging around for years and no-one ever buys him. He’s my mascot,” confided Tim shyly, raising one eyebrow and revealing an unexpected whimsical side.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
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Rupert Blanchard, Salvager & Maker
If you go North from Shoreditch High St, up the Kingsland Rd, under the railway bridge, and turn immediately left down a tiny nondescript alley, you come to a metal door without any sign, that is the entrance to the secret world of Rupert Blanchard. Here you will find many wonders. You ring the bell and wait patiently for a while, and then you hear footsteps inside before the door opens and a skinny young man with a long nose and lanky hair leans out, clutching his black cat, and smiles amiably. This is Rupert.
Step inside and find yourself in what was formerly part of the Shoreditch Police Station and latterly a furniture factory, and currently the workshop, store and dwelling of Rupert Blanchard. Up on the wall are prized specimens of Rupert’s tubular chair collection, displayed in the way that others show hunting trophies. Turn and observe Rupert’s collection of errant drawers that have lost their siblings, all stacked up neatly. Step into the next room and admire Rupert’s collection of screen-printed milk bottles artfully arranged upon a roof beam. Beyond you will find a smaller room, with further collections stacked upon shelves. It goes on and on, like the opening shot of Citizen Kane.
“My obsession with drawers and collecting began at an early age,” Rupert admitted to me, “As a child, I would enjoy riffling through a large bank of watchmaker’s drawers that lined the corridor to my grandmother’s kitchen. Each tiny drawer was full of every useful object that you could ever need, an odd screw, a piece of string, folded plastic bags, buttons, paper and pens. Everyone should have a useful drawer.”
Rupert has developed a trained eye for the beauty of the disregarded and, as a consequence, lives at the mercy of his compulsion to hoard it, taking him to at least three car boot sales a week and connecting him to an elaborate network of scavengers, junk dealers, house clearance people, skip raiders and demolition workers. “Time will run out before the rubbish does,” he pronounced, pulling a long quizzical face, shaking his head and crossing his arms in bewilderment at his crazy hoarding instinct. Yet everything here is wonderful in its way, and Rupert has found means to give new life these artifacts once their original incarnation is defunct.
Taking lone drawers that survive from broken chests of drawers, damaged doors and fragments of enamel signs, Rupert contrives elegant pieces of furniture which allow the beauty of their constituent parts to be appreciated anew. It is a question not just of the aesthetic quality of the elements but also of their history – a personal matter for Rupert, witnessing the endless destruction that goes on in house clearance as the furniture of a dying generation is trashed. “You can see when people have saved money to buy a quality piece of furniture,” he informed me in melancholic contemplation of a sole wardrobe door, placing his hand upon it tenderly, “These are people’s lives.”
There is both poetry and humour in Rupert’s work, which plays upon the tension between an appreciation of the soulful nature of the material and the contemporary sensibility of his conception. And, there is an elegant conceit to his whole endeavour. Based here in this old furniture factory, and working with metalworkers and woodworkers based in the East End, using salvaged timber – much of which is from the East End – he has created a new industry producing appealingly idiosyncratic furniture, shop fittings and interiors to fulfil an ever-growing demand.
The inspired anarchy of Rupert’s sensibility is irresistible to me, and I especially like the cabinets laminated with fragments of old enamel advertising signs. Some were found patching up holes in leaky barns, others had been cut in pieces and were discovered in scrap yards and markets, none were in a condition to be of interest to collectors. Rupert built these cabinets from the recycled plywood that is the basis of most of his furniture, which comes from hoardings around building sites, providing a plentiful supply in the East End. The tops of the cabinets are teak reclaimed from a school science lab, still with its graffiti and marks that evidence its use – and even the hinges and screws are recycled from other furniture.
Everything that Rupert collects becomes a potential piece of a puzzle, just waiting to be reassembled in an unexpected new way to create unique furniture which declares the eclecticism of its origins. He has just completed a refit of Ally Capellino’s shop in Calvert Avenue and his work is more in demand than he can supply, yet in spite of Rupert Blanchard’s success, I do get the feeling that it is all an elaborate excuse for him to pursue his first love – trawling Outer London car boot sales for the lonely drawers and broken doors that are his unlikely passion.
Cabinet made from scraps of aluminium sections of a decommissioned London bus.
Designs copyright © Rupert Blanchard
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The Handbells of Spitalfields
The joyous art of handbell ringing has survived because it was kept alive by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. “For many years we were the only company in the world making handbells,” revealed Kathryn Hughes – joint-Master Bellfounder with Alan Hughes – as we sat together in the peaceful office of the ancient foundry while outside the traffic roared down the Whitechapel Rd . “Handbell ringing survived because of one person, Anne Hughes, my husband’s grandmother.” Kathryn continued, “She was a solo handbell ringer, and that’s how Alan’s grandfather Albert met her, he heard the sound of her playing handbells at a concert. And for a wedding present, he gave her a thirty-chime set of handbells.”
As a lover of bells and bellringing, I am always pleased to visit the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the centre of the world of tintinnabulation, responsible not just for casting big bells like the Liberty Bell and Big Ben, but also fine handbells. And, continuing the work of Anne Hughes, Kathryn herself is also a handbell ringer. “I do ring, yes,” she admitted with professional reserve – being an authority on handbells and presiding with formidable expertise over the handbells side of the business. “In the nineteenth century, traditional handbell ringing was very popular in the North of England,” she informed me, adopting an elegiac tone, “most villages had teams of handbell ringers just as they had brass bands, but the First World War decimated the teams and the whole thing died the death after World War II.”
“Albert Hughes wanted to stop making them,” confided Kathryn, almost embarrassed to admit it now and raising her eyebrows in barely concealed disapproval, “but his wife said, ‘Over my dead body.'” Anne’s stubborn refusal to let the art die was vindicated by the revival in handbell ringing which occurred in the latter half of the twentieth century, and today the art is thriving again. Now, in an exciting development, to complement the wide range of traditional compositions that exist, the bell foundry is supporting three commissions of experimental pieces for handbells by young composers to be performed as part of the Spitalfields Festival in the charismatic surroundings of Dennis Severs’ House next week.
I stepped by to join a rehearsal in one of the modest panelled rooms upstairs at the foundry, where a handsome array of gleaming brass bells lay upon the table, arranged in order of size. Taking it in turns to work with the two handbell players, the three composers drifted in and out from the next room, so I took the opportunity to have chat with them there, while the chimes continued on the other side of the door. In recent months, all three visited the time capsule house in Folgate St and have created pieces inspired by its mysterious interior, and conceived to be performed in its distinctive sound spaces.
“I’ve never worked with handbells before,” Shiva Feshareki declared, her dark pupils shining with excitement, “it’s been an opportunity to think in a different way.” The composer known only as Gameshow Outpatient agreed, “We’ve all gone in completely separate ways, which I think is good.” he said. Yet, seduced by the beauty of the sound of the bells, these two have both created semi-improvised compositions that allow the bells to speak for themselves. “I am using just four handbells, and I want to draw people to become aware of the quality of silence that exists in the house.” explained Shiva, “There are some church bells in the distance that I hope they will hear during my performance.”
Gameshow Outpatient has written a piece to be played in the withdrawing room on the first floor entitled “Dead Reckoning,” referring to the early eighteenth century when sea captains were expected to retain Greenwich Mean Time internally through physical memory during their voyages. “I’ve got a headache from listening to the opening of it over and over,” he said, rolling his eyes in playfully self-deprecation,”but the next section sounds really beautiful by comparison – thank goodness for that!”
“It’s nice to have the opportunity to be more intimate, you can encourage detailed listening when people are up close.” Edmund Finnis told me. “A lot of my music is quite fast paced and energetic but this is more meditative,” he confessed. He has sampled handbells and manipulated their sound, to accompany the live performance and provide an additional dimension of resonance.“I’m using a lot of handbells and I like the idea that people don’t know what they’re going to get,” he announced with a wicked smile, adding, “I haven’t cluttered it with too many notes, it’s about the joy of sound.”
These three premieres are part of a jubilant evening’s event celebrating bells that also includes performances in the Charnel House, and in the Masonic Temple beneath the former Great Eastern Hotel, entitled “Song of the Bell” and curated by Spitalfields Music Associate Artist Mica Levi – destined to bring Spitalfields alive to the echoing tintinnabulation of bells next week.
The composer known as Gameshow Outpatient.
You can book tickets for “Song of the Bell,” the bell-themed event curated by Mica Levi in Spitalfields on Tuesday 14th June at Spitalfields Music.
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Beating the Bounds at the Tower of London
The Liberty of the Tower of London was once defined by the distance of an arrow’s flight from the outer walls of the Tower – an area independent of the City of London, and free of buildings so that those inside the Tower might see approaching forces. Yet although the modern city has crept up around the ancient Tower, the markers that define this territory still exist and every three years upon Ascension Day, the Yeoman Warders emerge from the Tower in procession to beat the bounds, reminding the neighbours of their former jurisdiction.
This year, John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder led the procession, for the fourth and final time in his tenure, with majestic aplomb. Behind him came the Chaplain of the Tower, followed by a bold troupe of boy scouts brandishing willow wands, followed by the choir and master of the music, followed by the Governor of the Tower, followed by the Officers of the Tower and all the families, including the children and even grandchildren of the Yeoman Warders, also waving their willow wands. And this year, I was invited to join as the penultimate member of the procession, before Alan Kingshott, the Yeoman Gaoler who followed up behind me with a great big axe. Meanwhile Spitalfields Life contributing photographer Sarah Ainslie ran ahead to capture the event with her lens.
When I arrived on Tower Green, I was delighted to be welcomed by the residents assembling and for the first time I encountered the entire community of people for whom the Tower is their home. All the tourists had gone and the informal atmosphere was that of a village square where the all inhabitants were gathering in the golden rays of the setting sun for a shindig, and we set off in high spirits as if it was the town carnival or we were off to the choir picnic.
It was a startling moment of worlds meeting when we emerged from the West Gate of the Tower where crowds of tourists lingering by the gift shop, who could hardly believe their eyes at this sudden eruption of the medieval world into the modern city. Cameras popped right, left and centre, and we acquired an accumulating entourage of excited photographers that grew and grew, in spite of our police escort, as we traced our route around the boundary.
At each marker, John Keohane raised his silver mace with the finial in the shape of the Tower and called his instruction to “Mark Well!” in his gruff voice, and the boy scouts and children of the Tower and some members of the choir and even a few adults, including the chaplain, took it as their cue to give it a great enthusiastic thwacking with their sticks – an inexplicable source of great hilarity and satisfaction to those involved. No doubt the atmosphere would have been different if the children had been beaten upon each of the boundary stones, as was the original practice to instill the boundaries forcefully into their minds.
Yet it was not long before a reminder of the once aggressive nature of the endeavour appeared, when we confronted the party from the parish of All Hallows by the Tower who were also beating their bounds, recalling “the riotous assembly” of 1698 who “protested in most vile manners at the disputed boundary betwixt the Tower and All Hallows Parish Church.” It was a face-off – like gangs of rival football fans – with our opponents consisting of City of London worthies, a gang of schoolchildren with sticks and the Vicar of All Hallows by the Tower. It might have turned ugly and required the police escort to keep the opposing parties apart, if the conflict had not been limited to huffing and puffing. It might have ASBOs all round, because the Tower kids and the boy scouts were up for a fight, and the Yeoman Warders were brandishing some serious weaponry, but fortunately the encounter was quelled by the exchange of civilized words.
The Governor of the Tower said, “We greet our neighbours of All Hallows and assure them that, unlike our predecessors of three hundred years ago, we come in peace.” And then a relieved Vicar replied, “We greet you in peace.” But then, just to make it clear who was the boss, the Governor of the Tower instructed them to take off their hats – oh so politely. “Before we part, may I ask the gentleman of both parties to doff their hats?” he said. There was a momentary hiatus before the party from All Hallows assented, and it made not a sliver of difference to the politics of the exchange that not even one of them wore a hat.
Then, in the manner of the fabled waters of the Red Sea, the crowd from All Hallows parted and we walked across the road to Trinity Square where one of the markers was inside the entrance of the magnificent Trinity House, indicated by brass strips set into the floor. Now we were in the City proper and commuters stopped in their tracks to wonder at our unlikely pageant that had materialized in the midst of the rush hour. “They must think that we’re mad!” whispered one of the Officers of the Tower – a distinguished gentleman in a dark suit who walked alongside me – when he saw the astonished faces of his counterparts from the City, as they hurried off towards Tower Hill tube.
If we were mad, our madness was sanctioned by the police who turned all the lights to red for our unlikely crew – of Beefeaters in red Tudor uniforms with gold braid, overexcited youths and choir singers with sticks, Officers of the Tower in suits and various family groups straggling along – permitting us all to weave our way through each of the pedestrian crossings that span the major roads converging at Tower Hill. The sun was declining in the West and the Thames was sparkling gold, as we returned to the waterfront and made a sharp right, crossing the middle drawbridge and re-entering the Tower a half hour after we left.
After one verse of the national anthem and photographs upon Tower Green, the Chaplain collected the willow wands off everyone just to make sure there was no funny business later. Then the assembly dispersed and we joined John Keohane and the boys of the Royal Eltham Scout Group for a refreshing glass of orange juice in the crypt beneath the chapel, where they store the bones of those unfortunates who were executed at Tower Hill. There, John introduced me to his wife, his daughter and his grandson, all of whom had participated in beating the bounds. It was a real family occasion.
Colonel Dick Harrald, Governor the Tower of London
Alan Kingshott, Yeoman Gaoler and John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
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John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
