Spitalfields Life

This is the first photo of the remarkable Mavis Bullwinkle, seen here attending a Christmas party in 1932 at the Drill Hall in Buxton St, hosted by Rev Holdstock of All Saints’ Church, Spitalfields – Mavis can easily be distinguished to the left of the happy crowd, because she is a baby in her mother Gwendoline’s arms. In this picture, you see her at the centre of life in Spitalfields and even though this hall does not exist anymore and the church it was attached to was demolished in 1951, and everyone else in this photo has gone now too, I am happy to report that Mavis is still alive and kicking, to carry the story of this world and continue her existence at the centre of things in the neighbourhood.

Mavis’ grandfather, Richard Pugh, was a lay preacher who came to Spitalfields with his wife and family from North Wales in 1898, where he held bible classes at All Saints and spoke at open air meetings and, in the absence of social workers, counselled men from the Truman Brewery in their family problems. His mother paid for him to return alone to Wales to see her for two weeks annual holiday from the East End each year. But Mavis’ grandmother Frances never had a holiday, she said, “Why should people take notice of you when you talk of living the Christian life, when you have an easier time than they do?” Then in 1905, Richard died unexpectedly of pneumonia and Frances was left almost bereft in Spitalfields. She had to leave the church house and take care of her seven children alone. She received a modest pension from the Scripture Readers’ Union until her youngest son, Albert, was fourteen, the Truman Brewery gave her a small grant twice a year and she took work scrubbing floors.

The family moved into Albert Family Dwellings, a large nineteenth century block in Deal St, where subsequently Mavis grew up, living there until it was demolished in 1975 when they were rehoused in a new block in Hanbury St. And today, when I visited Mavis in Hanbury St less than a hundred yards away from the site of Albert Family Dwellings and she described her grandmother who died when she was six, an extraordinary perspective became apparent, connecting our world with that of  Spitalfields more than a century ago.“I remember her shape and her North Wales accent, a lilt.” Mavis told me, conjuring the image in her mind’s eye,” She would always call my father Alfred, when everyone else called him Alf. She was short of stature and she worked hard.”

Mavis’ testimony of life in the East End is one of proud working class families who strove to lead decent lives in spite of limited circumstances. “People like to think that they were all drunks who dropped their ‘h’s, and they were dirty,” she said, eager to dispel this misconception, “Years ago, people were poor but they were completely clean. You can wash without a bathroom, but it takes a lot of work. My father used to put the water on to boil and pour it into the bath. And in the Family Dwellings, it was very well maintained, low rents, strict rules and a uniformed superintendent. When my mother was small and people had large families, if the superintendent saw children playing after eight o’ clock, he’d say ‘Go to bed!’ and you had to do it. I often think of it now when I see children playing outside at eleven at night. Then, everyone used to know each other and help one another. If you were going away on holiday, you’d tell everyone and they’d wave you goodbye.”

Mavis’ story of her family’s existence in Albert Family Dwellings spans the original flat where her grandmother lived with her two maiden aunts, and then Mavis’ parents’ flat that she grew up in. Mavis took care of her mother and the two aunts, who lived to be eighty-six,ninety and ninety-five respectively, even after they all moved out – seventy years after they first moved in as an act of expediency. But by then the nature of the place had changed and it was condemned as part of a slum clearance programme. “It suddenly went down hill in the late fifties when the housing association sold it,” admitted Mavis with a regreftul smile, looking from her living room window across the rooftops of Spitalfields to the space where Albert Family Dwellings formerly stood, a space that holds so much of her family history. If Mavis had married, she would have left Spitalfields but instead she stayed to care for the elderly members of her family and worked for forty years as a secretary in the social work department at the Royal London Hospital, where she was born in 1932. A woman of dauntless temperament, even retired now, she returns one day a week on a voluntary basis to do typing for the friends of the hospital and on another day each week she does reading with a reception class at Christ Church School in Brick Lane where she is a governor.

In Mavis’ personal landscape, Spitalfields’ neighbouring territory, the City of London holds an enduring fascination as a symbolic counterpoint to these streets where she makes her home. “I love the City because I went to school in the City at the Sir John Cass School,” she confided with pleasure, “and my father worked as a clerk in the City, at the Royal London Oil Company for fifty-one years. To go from Tower Hamlets to the City, crossing Middlesex St, was like crossing the River Jordan to the Promised Land. Everyone in Stepney used to dream of living in the City. Before the war, all kinds of people lived in the City, caretakers and such, not just rich people like now.” And then Mavis ran into another room to bring a framed certificate to show me and held it up with a gleaming playful smile of triumph. It read, “Mavis Gwendoline Bullwinkle, Citizen of the City of London.”

Mavis Gwendoline Bullwinkle – Citizen of Spitalfields – is a woman who makes no apology to call herself a secretary, because she is inspired by the best of that proud nineteenth century spirit which carried a compassionate egalitarian sense of moral purpose.

Mavis’ mother’s family, the Pughs of North Wales, photographed in Spitalfields in 1900. At the centre, Mavis’ grandmother Frances holds Mavis’ mother Gwendoline as a baby, with her grandfather Richard at her shoulder, a lay preacher who died unexpectedly of pneumonia four years later.

Handbill for one of Mavis’ grandfather’s bible classes at St Matthew’s Mission, Fulham.

Mavis’ mother Gwendoline and her sisters at All Saints School, Buxton St, Spitalfields, 1904. g – Gwendoline, l – Laura, a – Ada and h – Hilda.

Mavis’ father’s family, the Bullwinkles of Bow in 1917. Her grandmother Lousia sits on the left and her grandfather Edwin on the right. Mavis’ father Alfred stands between his two brothers Harry and Ted, both in Royal Air Corps uniform. The eldest daughter standing behind her mother was also Louisa but known as “Sis.”

Mavis, with her parents Gwendoline and Alfred, and younger sister Margaret in Barking Park, 1939 – before Mavis & Margaret were evacuated to Aylesbury.

Mavis stands on the extreme left of this picture of the All Saints Church Spitalfields choir, 1951.

Mavis sits at the centre of the picnic at this Christ Church, Spitalfields, Sunday School outing to Chalkwell in the late fifties – presided over by Mrs Berdoe (top centre).

Mavis Bullwinkle in her Hanbury St flat today.

The factory of James Ince & Sons, the oldest established umbrella makers in the country, is one of the few places in London where you will not hear complaints about the rainy weather, because – while our moist climate is such a disappointment to the population in general – it has happily sustained generations of Inces for over two centuries now. If you walked down Whites Row in Spitalfields in 1824, you would have found William Ince making umbrellas and this week, six generations later, I was able to visit Richard Ince, still making umbrellas in the East End. Yet although the date of origin of the company is conservatively set at 1805, there was a William Inch, a tailor listed in Spitalfields in 1793, who may have been father to William Ince of Whites Row – which makes it credible to surmise that Inces have been making umbrellas since they first became popular at the end of the eighteenth century.

You might assume that the weight of so much history weighs heavily upon Richard Ince, but it is like water off a duck’s back to him, because he is simply too busy manufacturing umbrellas. Richard’s father and grandfather were managers with a large staff of employees, but Richard is one of only four workers at James Ince & Sons today, and he works alongside his colleagues as one of the team, cutting and stitching, personally supervising all the orders. Watching them at work this week, it was a glimpse of what William Ince’s workshop might have been like in Spitalfields in 1824, because – although synthetics and steel have replaced silk and whalebone, and all stitching is done by machine now – the essential design and manufacturing process of umbrellas remains the same.

Between these two workshops of William Ince in 1824 and Richard Ince in 2011, exists a majestic history, which might be best described as one of gracious expansion and then sudden contraction, in the manner of an umbrella itself. It was the necessity of silk that made Spitalfields the natural home for James Ince & Sons. The company prospered there during the expansion of London through the nineteenth century and the increase in colonial trade, especially to India and Burma. In 1837, they moved into larger premises in Brushfield St and, by 1857, filled a building on Bishopsgate too. In the twentieth century, workers at Inces’ factory in Spitalfields took cover in the basement during air raids, and then emerged to resume making military umbrellas for soldiers in the trenches during the First World War and canvas covers for guns during the Second World War. Luckily, the factory itself narrowly survived a flying bomb, permitting the company to enjoy post-war success, diversifying into angling umbrellas, golfing umbrellas, sun umbrellas and promotional umbrellas, even a ceremonial umbrella for a Nigerian Chief. But in the nineteen eighties, a change in tax law, meaning that umbrella makers could no longer be classed as self-employed, challenged the viability of the company, causing James Ince & Sons to shed most of the staff and move to smaller premises in Hackney.

This is some of the history that Richard Ince does not think about very much, whilst deeply engaged through every working hour with the elegant contrivance of making umbrellas. In the twenty-first century, James Ince & Sons fashion the umbrellas for Rubeus Hagrid and Mary Poppins, surely the most famous brollies on the planet. A fact which permits Richard a small, yet justly deserved, smile of satisfaction as the proper outcome of more than two hundred years of umbrella making by seven generations of his family. A smile that in its quiet intensity reveals his passion for his calling. “My father didn’t want to do it,” he admitted with a grin of regret, “but I left school at seventeen and I felt my way in. I used to spend my Saturdays in Spitalfields, kicking cabbages around as footballs, and when we had the big tax problem, it taught me that I had to get involved.” This was how Richard oversaw the transformation of his company to become the lean operation it is today. “We are the only people who are prepared to look at making weird umbrellas, when they want strange ones for film and theatre.” he confessed with yet another modest smile, as if this indication of his expertise were a mere admission of amiable gullibility.

On the ground floor of his factory in Vyner St, is a long block where Richard unfurls the rolls of fabric and cuts the umbrella panels using a wooden pattern and a sharp knife. Then he carries the armful of pieces upstairs to Rita Smith, the irresistibly charming machinist with vivid green eyes that match her uniform, who sits perched by the window eager to sew the panels together, deploying a deceptively casual expertise honed over sixty years at her machine. Seventy-six year old Rita has sewn umbrella covers for three generations of Inces, Richard, Wilfred and Geoffrey, Richard’s father, whose picture she glances at occasionally for reassurance, high upon the wall in the workroom. “I never wanted to try anything else. My Aunt Eva got me the job when I was fifteen and I worked beside her at first. If I got it wrong, she said, ‘Do it again or I’ll knock you off your chair!'” confided Rita to me mischievously, enacting the role of Aunt Eva with fearsome conviction. “I started in Spitalfields in 1950 as a machinist.” she continued brightly, “Upstairs there used to be a cutter for ladies and gentlemen’s umbrellas and one for garden umbrellas, and below four machinists who did garden umbrellas and three who did ladies and gents’ and golf umbrellas, as well as six ‘tippers’ who sewed the covers on by hand.” All the time Rita spoke, she worked, almost automatically, sewing the triangular panels of slippery fabric in pairs, combining them into fours and then adding a thin, perfectly even seam, all round the circumference once she had made a complete cover of eight pieces.

As soon as the covers are sewn, Job Forster takes them and does the “tipping,” consisting of fixing the “points” (which attach the cover to the ends of the ribs), sewing the cover to the frame and adding the tie which is used to furl the umbrella when not in use. Job was making some huge umbrellas for The Berkeley, used by the doormen to shepherd guests through the rain, and I watched as he clamped the bare metal frame to the bench, revolving it as he stitched the cover to each rib in turn, to complete the umbrella. Then came the moment when Job opened it up to scrutinise his handiwork. With a satisfying “thunk,” the black cover expanded like a giant bat stretching its wings taut and I was spellbound by the drama of the moment – because now I understood what it takes to make one, I was seeing an umbrella for the first time, thanks to James Ince & Sons (Umbrella Makers) Ltd.

Richard Ince, seventh generation umbrella maker, prepares to cut covers for brollies.

Rita Smith of Bethnal Green began sewing covers for umbrellas in Spitalfields in 1950. “I’ve always liked the work. I only do two days now, but I go home and I just get bored to tears sitting on my bottom – I found myself playing Chinese patience the other day. I don’t think I’ll be here much longer though, I’m thirty years older than anyone else, but we all get on pretty well considering the difference in years. I’m not a trouble maker.”

Job Forster sews the cover to the ribs of the umbrella.

James Ince, born 1816

James John Ince, born 1830

Samuel George Ince, born 1853

Ernest Edward Sears, born 1870

Wilfred Sears Ince, born 1894

Geoffrey Ince, born 1932

Richard Ince, “Prepare for a rainy day!”

New photographs copyright ©  Chris Hill-Scott

Archive photographs copyright © Bishopsgate Institute

The alteration tailors go disregarded for the most part – no-one notices them. It is almost as if they have mastered the art of invisibility, for they can sit in the window of a dry cleaners or a shoe repair business while the customers come and go to the counter without even casting a glance at the tailor, working placidly at a sewing machine in the most conspicuous position in the shop. From this privileged location facing onto the street, all of existence passes like a charade before the eyes of the alteration tailor, screened by the plate glass window and the collective amnesia of the populace.

Yet there comes a moment when they occupy the focus of attention, when life cannot continue because your trousers split or you discover your hem is showing, and your need of an alteration tailor is burning. Then, like a superhero lurking in the subliminal margin of your consciousness, they step to the fore and you thank the heavens you can rely upon them in the hour of need. A brief conversation is all that is required and, with the mere exchange of a few pounds, your self-esteem is restored.

Such is my fascination with the paradoxical existence of the alteration tailors that I persuaded Spitalfields Life contributing photographer Sarah Ainslie to accompany me on a quest to photograph these ethereal beings, and bring them into visibility. Superficially, it might seem that these stitchers are inferior to the tailors that actually make clothes, yet is my perception that the work of the alteration tailor is a subtler art, one of accommodation to flawed humanity, since the two arenas of endeavour for these tailors are those of repair and adjustment and, commonly, both are indicators of fallibility.

In Bethnal Green, at The Ironing Parlour, there is an eye-catching display of old irons in the window which Hussein, the proprietor, told me he inherited from the previous owner, symbolic tokens of gratitude offered up to the altar of the modest alteration tailor. And it explained a certain self-respecting ease, even a mild swagger common to all the alteration tailors I met, acknowledging they appreciate that what it costs to expend their skill is so much less than what it means to us. As Mohammed Abdul Mannan at Needlepoint in Barnet Grove put it succinctly, “I think it is nice job. People like us because they need it.” Consequently, although it was a source of humiliation to me when a fellow-customer came in to get his wife’s dress repaired and negotiated a price reduction from eight to five pounds, whilst also seeking assurances that it would be done well, the alteration tailor reacted with admirable largesse . “I will do my best for you,” was his poignant response, accepting the mean-spirited reduction with grace. “You’re always going to make a living, but you’re never going to make a fortune in this trade,” was the ambivalent summation – accompanied by a weary smile – quoted by several of my subjects of enquiry.

Yet there is little intrinsic melancholy in the lives of the alteration tailors, because the line of the needy is always balanced by the line of the jubilant, collecting their repairs – whilst the tailors mediate the space between, working conscientiously at their own pace. When I was in The Ironing Parlour, a senior lady pushing a trolley came in hopefully on the off-chance to check if there was anything for her to collect, only to leave disheartened when they explained politely that she had brought nothing in for repair. After searching carefully, just to make sure, Shabaz and Chris, who work here, looked at each other in disappointment to send her away empty-handed.

As Vaida who does the repairs at Classi Clean in the Liverpool St Arcade confirmed with a shy smile, “I like it,  from when I was a child.” This week, she is busy taking out the waists for her City gents as she usually does in January, just as she will expect to take them in again next Summer when they lose weight for the beach. Vaida came here from Vilnius eight years ago when she lost her job in a clothing factory after manufacturing transferred to China and Mr Patel, who has run this store for twenty-five years, prizes her for her nimble work. “We were struggling to find a competent seamstress,” he lamented, “They don’t teach it here. Young people in this country can’t even sew on a button.” It did not seem appropriate to tell him of young Ali at Needlepoint in Barnet Grove, six months into the profession with dexterous fingers and an eager personable manner.

Back in Bethnal Green, a different Mr Patel, my old friend at Smarty Pants, did his his best to live up to the name of his shop. “This is what you call philosophical,” he declared, rolling his eyes ironically while seated behind his machine patching a pair of jeans, “The poor man’s necessity is the rich man’s hobby. Here people eat less to lose weight – in the poor countries, they lose weight because they can’t afford to eat. Here people have a Rolls Royce but they prefer to walk – in the poor countries, people walk because they can’t afford the bus. Here people pay to get their old jeans patched – in the poor countries, they can’t afford to buy new ones.” It was a glimpse of the sly wisdom of the alteration tailor, observing weakness and vanity, yet bringing a quick needle and a compassionate sensibility to ameliorate our needs.

Shabaz at The Ironing Parlour.

Hussein, proprietor of Attaboy Dry Cleaners and The Ironing Parlour in the Bethnal Green Rd.

The collection of old irons donated by grateful customers.

Vaida at Classi Clean in the Liverpool St Arcade.

Raj at Dry Cleaners in Middlesex St

Ali at Needlepoint in Barnet Grove has only been in the profession for six months.

Mohammed Abdul Mannan at Needlepoint in Barnet Grove.

Mr Patel, proprietor of Smarty Pants in the Bethnal Green Rd.

Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie

You may like to read about

The Tailors of Spitalfields

The Barbers of Spitalfields

The Cobblers of Spitalfields

The Lost World of the Laundrettes

Franceskka Abimbola, Franceskka Fabrics

On a rainy Sunday in Spitalfields when everything is grey, I wend my way to Wentworth St to visit the African textile stores, that glow like multicoloured lanterns illuminated in the dusk – where a troupe of magnificent women preside, each one a shining goddess in her own universe. A radiance which Spitalfields Life contributing photographer Jeremy Freedman celebrates in his exuberant portraits published here.

Sunday is when it all happens in Wentworth St, when customers coming from as far as away as Aberdeen and the Netherlands converge to savour its wonders as the international destination for the best Holland Wax, French Lace, Swiss Voile and Headties to be found anywhere.

Weaving through the Petticoat Lane Market and pausing in the drizzle to gaze into the shop windows, you will spy the fine ladies of Wentworth St holding court in their shops to the assembled throng, simultaneously displaying the wit of matriarchs, the authority of monarchs and the glamour of movie-stars, and all dressed up to show off the potential of their textiles. Identified upon the fascias by their first names, as Franceskka Fabrics, Tayo Fashions & Textiles, and Fola Textile, many of these women put themselves forward personally as bold trendsetters, designing their own fabrics, defining the fashion and styling their customers too. In this, the oldest part of Spitalfields, the textile industry which has defined this neighbourhood for centuries is alive and thriving today thanks to the talents of these shrewd businesswomen of Wentworth St.

Franceskka Abimbola, whose business is the longest established here, welcomed me into her kaleidoscopic shop with mirrored ceiling and walls draped in lush fabrics, just as there was a brief lull in the mid-afternoon trade. “In the late eighties, I came here from Edinburgh to Petticoat Lane to buy this fabric and I found the dealers were all Jewish who didn’t wear it and didn’t understand it,” she explained with a humorous frown, “I spoke to Solomon at Renee’s who introduced me to his supplier. So then I wanted to be the first African woman to open a shop, and I used to buy it and sell it from the back of a car. But when I spoke to the supplier about opening my own place, he said, ‘You want to open a shop and start selling my fabrics? I’m going to break you into pieces!'”

Undeterred, Franceskka bravely opened her shop in the Kingsland Rd – at a respectable distance – and, fourteen years ago, she was one of the very first to open in Wentworth St, thus initiating this extraordinary phenomenon where now every other shop here sells Wax, all fiercely competing with their own styles and prices. Thankfully, Franceskka is still in one piece and, in reward for her courage, she is a big success.

“Lots of Nigerian women came at first to buy and ask advice,” she revealed delightedly, “but then women from Gambia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Ghana came too. Many didn’t know how to tie the headtie so I teach them how to do it.” With an unassuming relaxed presence, Franceskka, who has a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Studies, controls her international business empire from this tiny shop, extending to two more in Lagos and a third in Abuja. “I go to the fabric exhibitions in Paris and Spain to get inspiration, I design the fabrics myself and get them manufactured in Switzerland. The French Laces are in vogue at the moment and they are very expensive, but if it’s for a wedding people will go all out to look beautiful.” she said, with a delicate smile and lift of her brow, merely hinting at the razzle-dazzle on offer.

Banke Adetoro at Royal Fashions incarnates the notion of sassy with her extravagant eyelashes, constantly fluttering like butterflies. “There’s nothing you want that you can’t get here,” she informed me with an amused gesture of unqualified authority, when I dropped in, “I get all the latest stuff. I can do as many as twenty buying trips in a year. My shop is the biggest and the most beautiful!” You really need to visit this shop to experience the vast phantasmagoria of patterns on display.

By contrast, across the road at Tayo Fashions & Textiles, I met the alluring Tayo herself in her modestly-sized shop. “My mother used to do this back in Africa, and I picked it up,” she confided to me quietly, “I just started trading at home and through the church, and then I started in a small shop with a little help from the bank. Now I have a shop in Lagos too and I go three times a year.” Outlining the convenient balance between the trade in  both continents, “At Christmas it’s busy there when it’s quiet here, and it’s busy here in the Summer when it’s quiet there.” she said. Tayo’s two sons help her out in the shop and I was fascinated that in every single shop I visited these women had their children present. In fact, most had come into it through their families and some already had their children working with them, and I found it an interesting contrast to the perceived dilemma between children and career that many European women face.

Betwixt the fabulous fabric shops in Wentworth St are those selling the accessories to complete the outfit, the gleaming metallic pointy shoes and matching bags in multiple colourways and, of course, the jewellery. My favourite is Beauty Stones, lined entirely with coral necklaces that cascade like a waterfall down the walls to create an environment enraptured like a magic cave in a fairy tale. “In the beginning of African culture, anyone that wears it will be honoured,” declared Onome, the gentle custodian of the coral, “In Africa, we believe it is more precious than gold but, in this market, I have realised that lots of people are in love with it too.” Standing proud, Onome who is a celebrant in her own tribe, gestured to the coral that surrounded her, feeling its benign presence. “It’s my mother’s business,” she continued fondly,”but when she died ten years ago I couldn’t let the business die too.” And today the business is lively, since Onome’s nine children work in the shop (two were adopted after her sister’s death) and, as we spoke, happy little children ran around our legs playing with strings of corals beads they were threading. “It’s really is lovely to look at – sometimes when I put my hand on a bead, it tells me what to do, how to make the necklace,” Onome admitted, clasping a string of coral in her hand, “and the children are very good at the beads too, it’s in the family.”

Speaking with the Wax sellers of Wentworth St, who taught me the Yoruba concept of “Aso- Ebi” – using co-ordinated textiles at a social gathering to express the inter-relationships of all the people there – I realised that these modest shops contain an entire cultural universe with its own sophisticated language spoken in the vocabulary of textiles. Fashion exists here but, more than this, each decision taken, both in the choice and combination of fabrics makes a personal statement, which gives every single outfit a vibrant poetry all of its own.

Sheba Eferoghene, Novo Fashions

Tayo Oladele, Tayo Fashions & Textiles

Fola Mustapha, Fola Textile

Banke Adetoro, Royal Fashions

Onome Efebeh-Atano, Beauty Stones

Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman

With grateful thanks to Sheba Eferoghene for making the introductions.

You can read my original feature about Jo & Sheba Eferoghene, Novo Fashions

Jil pensive

Jil humorous

Jil astute

Jil valiant

Jil triumphant

As Phil Maxwell’s exuberant portraits reveal, Jil Cove is one of the most quick-witted women you could hope to meet. She first came to Whitechapel in the nineteen fifties as a nurse at the Royal London Hospital, and then worked as a probation officer, putting East End villains on the straight and narrow for a quarter of a century, before becoming leader of the campaign to save the Spitalfields Market – when famously she had all the developers running around in circles for fifteen years. As a consequence of this and all her other work for the community over this time, Jil is universally respected in Spitalfields, even by those who would consider themselves her adversaries. Today she lives in a small block of flats beside Petticoat Lane, where she is proud to count eight different nationalities amongst her neighbours in the building and where, as we sat in her cosy kitchen, she recalled a few impressions from the passing years.

“When I was eight years old, I said, “When I get married, I’m going to marry a black man and have a black baby.” My parents were generous to a fault but they had terrible views about black people. And I know my politics doesn’t come from them because they both voted for Margaret Thatcher. So I think it may be part of my rebellion. We lived across the road from a convent in Brighton and one day when I became a beatnik and wore no shoes, my dad said, “What will the nuns think? They’ll think we can’t afford shoes!” My mum thought I was going through a phase, but it was a sense of rebellion and a sense of justice too.

I trained as nurse in Brighton, and then applied to do midwifery at the Royal London Hospital. My mum came with me for the interview and there were drunks lying on the pavement all along Whitechapel, and she said, “You can’t come here!” but that was why I was attracted to it. I was working here in 1957, when the Windrush came over, and I worked alongside the first influx of black nurses, while my mum couldn’t believe black people were even allowed in the hospital.

After a couple of years, I was advised to give up nursing because I had a slipped disc, so I decided to try to become a probation officer and I got to know a psychiatric social worker at the Toynbee Hall in Commercial St where they had an outpost of Grendon Underwood prison – for inmates with personality disorders. At that time, the building where I live now was for ex-prisoners coming in and going off into the world, and she had a flat there but she needed a back-up to keep an eye on things, and I’ve been here ever since.

One of the things I do remember is walking down Brick Lane and, if you were on your own, Bengali guys would come up and ask “Do you want to come with me?” They were here without their familes in those days. But I discovered if you carried a briefcase, it was, “Good Evening, Miss Cove! Nice to see you.”

In all the twenty-five years I worked in probation, I only took three people back to court for non-co-operation. You saw them for half an hour a week and you were supposed to influence them. My policy was radical non-intervention – I didn’t interfere with them and they didn’t interfere with me, but I was always there if they needed help. I think one of the things that me and my friends who worked together in the service for all those years valued was that we were left alone, but we had a small budget to do things – even as simple as getting a cat speyed.

One poor man, he was convinced the neighbours were sending sinister rays through the walls and ceiling, so we bought baking foil and helped him line the flat with it and it worked, it calmed him down. I remember one family in particular, the dad was a forger, the boys committed offences and the daughters would get pregnant, but somehow the mother held it all together – the kids were immaculately turned out and I always wondered how she did it. Another of the guys I worked with had done a lot of really nasty offences, a real tough nut. He was doing his A levels in prison and I visited him, and he said he’d just read the Diary of Anne Frank and it made him cry. It was November, and I said I wouldn’t retire until he got parole, and he got out next June. He’d never been to the theatre before so I took him to see Julius Caesar – you saw how you could change someone’s life and that’s what made it worthwhile. It was a nice job and I wouldn’t have left, but there was change towards a more punitive approach. In those days you could actually do social work. At my leaving party at The Water Poet, I got so drunk I was drinking pints of vodka and gin, and then they took me home and I drank half a bottle of rum.

On my sixtieth birthday, I had my first tattoo and I paid for it with my first pension money. He said, “You’re my first pensioner, and I’ve never done a daffodil before!” I went home and  told my mum. I said, “I’ve had a tattoo,” and she said, “That’s disgusting!” So I thought, “If I can still disgust my mum at sixty, I must be OK.”

Jill told me she has not been to the Spitalfields Market for years, even though it is only quarter of a mile from her home. “The building we got was marginally better than the building they wanted to put there,” she confided, summing up the outcome of her campaign, “But when you’re up against the City and the Local Authority, you don’t stand much of a chance. At the end of the day, there was money.” Yet over time, Jil has been proved right in her case against the development, because in the rebuilding of the market, it was taken away from the residents and is no longer the community focus it once was. Meanwhile, Jil Cove’s influence continues to prevail in Spitalfields because she is woman of great spirit and humour, a passionate unvanquished fighter.

Jil at an event in Victoria Park in the nineteen seventies.