Ian Harper, Wood Grainer
In recent days, while making my way to and fro along Princelet St, I have had the delight observe the progress of wood grainer Ian Harper at work upon the frontage of an eighteenth century house which is being restored by Chris Dyson. The project took two weeks from start to finish and permitted me the opportunity of some conversations with Ian, who retained an enviable composure throughout the accumulating drama of his epic undertaking – chatting amiably as he worked and managing the endeavour with such ease that he almost succeeded in drawing attention away from the skill and mastery of technique involved. Yet from the first day – starting with a mustard coloured ground – the assurance of Ian’s work and the uncanny realism of his wood grain drew admirers like myself who could not resist taking daily detours through Princelet St to wonder at this rare display.
Laying a thin coat of dark oil paint on top of the paler base coat, Ian used combs to create the grain and pliable slivers of rubber to add cross grain in satisfyingly random forms, working methodically on each of the separate panels of the frontage’s construction. Ian explained to me that the combs which make such convincing grain were a nineteenth century invention when the aspiration was to create a surface indistinguishable from wood. “I like to be more painterly. It was the Victorians who wanted verisimilitude.” he declared with delicate satire, playfully brandishing a paintbrush for emphasis. Ian’s personal taste is closer to that of a previous period when graining was freer, illustrated by the original Georgian graining upon Dan Cruickshank’s front door that Ian has been called upon to repair and which is the earliest surviving wood graining in Spitalfields.
For this frontage in Princelet St, Ian painted the facade with an oak effect and the front door with a contrasted burr walnut. In each case, he adopted a pleasing degree of stylization derived from different paint techniques, using combs for oak and a soft brush twirled with a turn of the wrist to create the pattern of walnut. “Finding the brush you like gives you great confidence,” he admitted, holding up an example affectionately, “This little brush, I bought it in France. Very soft and it saved the day, it was just what I was looking for.” I was intrigued to understand how such a technical approach came to render these different woods so gracefully, and Ian’s two weeks in Princelet St served as an impressive demonstration of the patience and steady hand that are prerequisites of this singular endeavour. Then,once the graining was complete, he applied a coat of tinted glaze to add depth. And the finished result is an honourable addition to the growing number of examples of Ian’s wood graining in the neighbourhood, including at 3 Fournier St, the Market Coffee House, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and Jones Dairy in Ezra St.
Ian was first introduced to Spitalfields in 1982 by Marianna Kennedy who was a fellow student at the Slade and then he became a lodger in Fournier St. Simon Pettet portrayed both of them on one of his delft tiles in Dennis Severs’ House recording local personalities at that time. Yet although Ian only lived here for seven years, he remembers it as an inspirational period of formative experiences, discovering his aptitude in creating traditional paint finishes that complements his work as a fine artist. At the top of his profession today, with work in 10 Downing St, Manor Des Quatre Saisons and Lord Rothchild’s house on Corfu, Ian retains an abiding affection for Spitalfields that keeps bringing him back to the place where it all began.
“It was a great time to be here as an art student then, in a place with so many artists. There was an energy and openness because so many of the people were young. Those who had houses here had bought them for not too much money and were doing the restoration with their own hands, so everyone helped everyone else. It seemed everyone was busy, teaching each other and sharing tools. In those days the fruit & vegetable market was still here too, and Fournier St was busy all night with people shouting and selling cabbages. When I finished art school, people were asking ‘Did I do marbling?’ It was quite the thing at the time, so I went to work with a friend who had a job doing a restaurant in New York and then Fiona Skrine got me a job assisting a decorative painter she was working for, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Spitalfields has been consistently in my life because I keep coming back to do work here. You would think there wasn’t anything left to paint after all these years, but whenever I walk down the street here I meet people who say, ‘Will you come and do something for me.’ I should never have guessed twenty-five years ago that I would still be coming back to these three streets beside the church. It’s a lynchpin. All my best friends are here. It’s still a great place for meeting people with ideas. I’ve lost track of all the amazing people I’ve met in Spitalfields.”
Now that the scaffolding is down, Ian’s work is fully exposed to Princelet St, bringing gravity to the freshly restored house. The fascination of Ian’s work comes from the trick it plays upon your eye which, in spite of the stylization of the wood grain, tells you it is real just as your brain reminds you it is painted. Now the frontage only needs a little weathering, and everyone will assume it was always like that.
Burr walnut to the left, on the door, and oak to the right, on the surround.
Some of Ian’s tools.
The earliest wood graining in Spitalfields is on Dan Cruickshank’s front door, dating from the eighteenth century, with some subtle repair work by Ian Harper.
The frontage of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry by Ian Harper, painted in an oak grain to match the earlier graining inside.
Jones Dairy in Ezra St, off Columbia Rd, wood grained by Ian Harper.
The newly completed frontage in Princelet St, Ian Harper’s piéce de resistance in Spitalfields.
Portrait of Ian Harper & working photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Edward Greenfield, Music Critic
The entire ground floor of Ted Greenfield’s house in Folgate St is given over to an archive of thousands upon thousands of CDs. Stretching from floor to ceiling in each room are shelves of utilitarian design, lined with meticulously labelled brown archive boxes containing them all, while down in the cellar is stored his collection of over thirty thousand LPs. When you first walk through the door, it feels as if you have entered the storeroom of a music shop or the hidden stack of music library, but climbing the stairs to the first floor leads you into the more congenial atmosphere of Ted’s domestic arena. He lives up above, in the top three storeys of his magnificently tottering eighteenth century house, in rooms stacked with more CDs, musical biographies, back copies of The Gramophone, programmes from concerts and opera – and innumerable notes and cards of good wishes that testify to his many friends and admirers.
“I once had a flat in Highgate but the LPs got me out!” he admitted to me as we enjoyed a reviving mid-morning vodka and lemon in his sunlit panelled living room, lined with striking modernist portraits by Jeffrey Spedding of Ted’s musical icons, Mahler, Sibelius, Brahms, William Walton, Leonard Bernstein and Beethoven.
“I have been here in Spitalfields for thirty-two years and it seems like no time at all. The whole place has changed, yet largely for the better I think. In those days, there was nothing between me and the church, nowadays you’d barely recognise it. My friends were shocked when I bought this house with a hole in the roof in 1979, but I could see the potential and so could my architect, because it was he who suggested I come to live here.
The builders were in for over two years, and then it took another ten years to get the panelling sorted out. This room alone took over a year. In the nineteen thirties, they thought ‘horrible old panelling’ and lined it with fibreboard and covered the walls with miles of bellwire attached to alarms, because this was the Co-operative Fruit & Vegetable Department and they kept all their valuables here, using staples for the wire that created thousands of tiny holes we had to fill. And they installed a particularly nasty nineteen thirties ceramic fireplace that looked like it should have china rabbits over it – behind that we discovered this original coved fireplace recess.
Then I had a disaster when I moved in and only stayed fifteen minutes because there was a fire! Later, I had just moved my record collection of thirty thousand odd LPs into the cellar when there was flood. After the fire and the flood, I was expecting an earthquake. At that time, the two plots next door were vacant, where the houses had fallen down, and there were baulks of timber holding this one up. I had a party for one hundred and fifty people when I finally moved in and there were so many people the building was rocking!”
Ted Greenfield dramatises his own life with an endearing humour borne of a life of fulfilment at the heart of the British music scene as longtime music critic at The Guardian and subsequently as editor of the Penguin Guide to CDs. A trusted authority who, now into his eighties, continues to review regularly for The Gramophone, Greenfield forged friendships with many musicians who were the subject of his writing – from William Walton (“My great hero and a dear friend”), Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich to Leonard Bernstein (“The most charismatic man I ever knew”.). Ted Greenfield’s magnanimous optimistic temperament partly accounts for this, but it is further explained by his philosophy of criticism, which he outlines thus,“The first duty of a critic is to appreciate, to try to understand what the artist is trying to do and how far he has succeeded. You just have to try and sympathise.” As a critic, Ted Greenfield wrote to explore the intentions of the work he was reviewing, rather than sitting in judgement.
“I always wanted to write about records, but then I thought ‘I’ll never be able to keep myself,’ so I did Law at Cambridge where I wrote the Cambridge Union reports, and then when I went to the Appointments Board, they said, ‘Why not journalism?’ I think I’ve been very lucky, but equally I know you have to make your own luck to an extent. I try to look for the best side of things and to make things happen. I’ve written about a lot of people and they’ve become good friends. I’ve known many of the greats in music and politics over the years.”
When I asked Ted what music he listens to for recreation, he opened Who’s Who’s and showed me his entry which lists his recreations as “music and work,” and I understood that music is simply his life. Looking around, I realised that it is unquestionably a bachelor’s dwelling he inhabits, with few luxuries and comforts, and an atmosphere that is collegiate as much as it is domestic, displaying the charismatic disorder of books and papers you might expect in an undergraduate’s chambers overlooking an old quad.
Indeed many of Ted’s Cambridge contemporaries remained lifelong friends including ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Geoffrey Howe (“When he came to my party here, before all the buildings were put up, we were able to look across and see St Pauls”), ex-Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie ( “When I first visited him at Lambeth Palace, his wife had him doing the washing up”) and ex-Prime Minister Edward Heath with whom he shared a love of music. “Ted became a dear friend, especially when Margaret Thatcher took over and he famously was in the big sulk – he was a frequent visitor to Spitalfields in those days. I realised how vulnerable he was. Although he was entirely incapable of expressing human emotions, whenever he saw me he was plainly delighted. It was very amusing to tease him and have him tease me back.”
In spite of his immense knowledge and his friendships with all these establishment types, Ted is refreshingly lacking in pomposity and even a little subversive, wearing britches and nicely polished riding boots when he has no intention of going riding or even leaving the house. Drinking spirits in the morning is a rare experience for me but I recognised at once it was a habit I could get accustomed to – What could be more civilised than to sit in an old house in Spitalfields sipping vodka with lemon and listening to classical CDs? This is the life of Edward Greenfield.
You can read excerpts from Edward Greenfield’s memoires at www.edwardgreenfield.co.uk
Photographs copyright © Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Ainsworth Broughton, Upholsterer
My interview with master upholsterer Ainsworth Donovan Broughton of 14 Calvert Avenue (commonly known as Mike) was perforce a swift one because he had three sofas, four chairs, a day bed and a Chesterfield to upholster before the end of this week. Although I arrived at the beginning of the working day, Ainsworth had been in since seven, stealing a march on time, and, as you can see from the picture, he had already made swift work of the day bed. Once I arrived, he sat down on his work bench, crossed his arms and displaying his good-humoured accommodating smile, declared, “Right, let’s get this done!”– with the same workmanlike sense of purpose that he would approach a challenging piece of upholstery.
Not so long ago, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green were the home of a thriving furniture industry that has almost entirely disappeared now. While there are people in the neighbourhood who may call themselves upholsterers these days, Ainsworth is the only one that has done the full apprenticeship in traditional upholstery and qualified under the Association of Master Upholsterers. More than this, Ainsworth is the living connection to the time when furniture-making flourished here. Although he is not self-conscious about it, he carries that history on his shoulders, which enables him to carry it lightly – because as the factories closed down and the other traditional upholsterers retired, Ainsworth simply carried on resolutely upholstering chairs and making an honest living at it while the world (and the East End) transformed around him. It was the natural thing for him to do, and it is this ease with his work, and commitment to his craft which makes Ainsworth such a dignified figure today.
“I specialise in traditional upholstery, although I can do whatever people bring along. Traditional upholstery is the old way of doing it, with stuffing and stitching and horsehair. I love it. The modern stuff is just foam! When I found traditional upholstery, I knew I had found my vocation in life. At the London College of Furniture, they banned me from the workshop because I used to stay behind after hours, always stuffing and stitching. Traditional upholstery is just quality – you know it will last thirty years or more. Working out from a frame how to do everything, that’s the joy of it. I’ve always liked to build something up, take it from frame to finished job and see people appreciate my work. There’s pieces of mine I have done for interior designers at Liberty, Sketch and Manolo Blahnik but the people there don’t know my name.
At fifteen, I did a day release from school at the London College of Furniture, and the head of the department saw what I was doing and said, ‘You could be good at this.’ After college, I was apprenticed to furniture makers A&E Chapman of Crouch End for five years and then I had the opportunity to stay on for another couple of years and be an ‘improver’ – before that you were just prepping. One day they took me into the office and said, ‘We’re going to let you loose,’ and it didn’t take much longer before I was able to work at the bench, but I always wanted to be self-employed. So in 1981, I took a studio in the Cleve Workshops in Boundary St and I used to do a day’s work before coming here to do a few ‘copper jobs’ – on the side.
Then one day I took a chance and left, and for six months I had hardly any work but slowly it picked up. I had one customer and then another and it continued like that. Back in the day, every shop in Shoreditch was an upholsterer but they’ve all gone now. In 1984, when the Cleve Workshops were sold, I managed to get one of the derelict shops in Calvert Avenue. The whole area was completely desolate then, there wasn’t anybody living here, but it enabled me to have a workshop because it was cheap. I never took my shutters down until seven years ago, because there was no passing trade, but recently it’s been different, there’s people here who are into traditional upholstery and so I get work locally now. “
Ainsworth does not even have a sign outside his shop, yet customers come and go all the time. In the window you simply see a photocopy of his certificate presented to the most outstanding student at the London College of Furniture in 1976/77. Looking through the metal grille into the crowded workshop where Ainsworth works from seven until seven each day, you see a high shelf up above where bare frames of furniture await his attention, while the walls are lined with racks of tools, cloth swatches and innumerable calculations pencilled directly onto the plaster, and the lino tiles from the shop that Ainsworth superseded in 1984 still cover the floor. In front of the window is a shelf to display his finished handiwork – only Ainsworth is so inundated that it is always piled with incoming work. “I could do even more, if I had an assistant – but I never want to employ anyone.”, he said, shrugging his shoulders dispassionately and revealing the enviable self-reliance that is the source of his tranquil manner.
I did not want to take any more of his working day. So once he was assured that I was satisfied with his interview, I asked Ainsworth if he thought he would finish the three sofas, four chairs, day bed and Chesterfield this week. “We’ll give it a go!” he declared with a smirk as he stood up from the work bench with energy rising, eager to set to work again. Even if anyone that has done a course can claim to be an upholsterer nowadays, it seems that there are plenty who recognise that the noble Ainsworth Broughton is the genuine article – an artist whose technique is stitching and medium is horsehair, practicing a skill acquired through an apprenticeship of five years, with an expertise honed over thirty years, and executed with a satisfaction and delight that is his alone.
Ainsworth in 1973, when he first started at London College of Furniture.
Ainsworth at work on his graduation piece, London College of Furniture, 1976.
Ainsworth Broughton, Master Upholsterer of Calvert Avenue, commonly known as Mike.
At the Bunny Girls’ Reunion
On Sunday night, I attended the most glamorous party of my life. It was a Bunny Girls & Playboy Models’ reunion hosted by ex-Bunny Barbara Haigh, esteemed landlady of The Grapes in Limehouse. Never have I encountered more voluptuous charismatic ladies per square metre than were crammed joyfully together in the tiny bar-rooms of this historic riverside pub that night. With Sarah Ainslie, Spitalfields Life contributing photographer, as my chaperone, I was thrilled to join this exuberant sisterhood of more than a hundred garrulous alpha females for a knees-up. Squeezing my way through the curvy bodies – fine specimens of their sex who have all got what it takes to succeed in life – I arrived on the river frontage where waves were crashing theatrically over the verandah as if, in reenactment of Botticelli’s Venus, each of these goddesses had just emerged triumphant from the Thames’ spray to delight the souls of mere mortals like myself.
The first Aphrodite to catch my eye was cheeky Bunny Sandie (pictured above), the seventh Bunny to join the newly opened Playboy Club in Park Lane in 1966, who is more formally known these days as Lady Sandra Bates. Within seconds of our introduction, Sandie gleefully revealed she had bedded Sean Connery, Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty and Telly Savalas, emphasising that her most important conquest was Sir Charles Clore, owner of Selfridges and Mappin & Webb. “I was living in a house in Mayfair at the time, but the owner put it up for sale and wanted to throw me out, so I told Charles and he bought it for me!” she declared with a glittering smile, rolling her chestnut eyes, batting her eyelashes and clutching her hands in girlish pleasure. “You should see my art collection!” she proposed recklessly now that her husband Sir Charles is no more, as we shared a glass of wine on the verandah and the setting sun lit up the clouds, turning the river livid pink.
It was a remarkable overture to an unforgettable evening, because these girls all know how to party. Bunnies had flown in from all over the world, Tasmania, Las Vegas, the Bahamas, Egypt and as far away as Australia to celebrate the glory days of the British Playboy Club that ran from 1966 until 1980. As Marilyn Cole (the first full frontal nude in the history of Playboy in 1972) put it so elegantly in her speech of welcome, “When people ask ‘Where did you go to school?’ I say, ‘Fuck that, I went to the University of Playboy! You learn much more about life.’” An astute comment that drew roars of approval from the assembled Bunnies.
Marilyn, resplendent in a quilted leather miniskirt and thigh length high-heeled boots, ushered me over to meet her famously reclusive husband Victor Lownes, who opened the London Playboy Club. Formerly in charge of all Playboy’s gaming operations, Victor Lownes is a bon-viveur who was once Britain’s highest paid executive, counted Francis Bacon and Roman Polanski as friends and reputedly had five girls a day, sometimes two at once. He looked at me benignly from under a mop of white hair across the chasm of our different experiences of life. “Do you miss it?” I enquired tentatively, and Victor rolled his twinkly eyes in good-humoured irony. “What do you think? I am eighty-two years old!” he replied with dignified restraint.
There was a giddy atmosphere in the Grapes that night and so I chose to embrace the spirit of the occasion and mingle with as many Bunnies as possible. “I was a young girl from a very religious strict background in Birmingham who ran away from home.”admitted Bobbie, one of first black Bunnies, who worked at the Playboy Club from 1975-80, “I was shopping one day and I went along to ‘a cattle drive’ and out of fifty girls was one of a handful accepted to be a Bunny. I had four wonderful years that totally changed my life. It was a terrific experience. I have run my own business for the past twenty years and the things I learnt at Playboy set me on the road to be able to do that.”
“There was only one rule,’Don’t touch the Bunnies!’”explained Bunny Erica, raising a finger of authority,“Membership of the Playboy Club came with a key, which members handed in when they arrived and collected when they left. If somebody went too far the management took away their key. So the men always behaved respectfully. You were never forced to do anything. It’s made to seem cheap now – but we wore two pair of tights, our costumes were fitted and stiffened with whalebone, we even put toilet rolls down the front as padding – it was an illusion. We were supposed to share tips, but I put mine down my costume and when I took it off all the banknotes would fall out. The money was fabulous. Playboy gave us the most amazing part of our lives. It gave us freedom. It gave us a love of humanity. It enlightened us.”
“I was the very first UK Bunny to be hired in 1966,” declared Bunny Alexis, still glowing with pride over forty years later, “I was a dancer at the Talk of the Town in Leicester Sq on £12 a week, but at Playboy I earned £200. I was already married with a child and on the strength of my two years as a Bunny I was able to buy our first house in Wood Green. It was the hardest work, eight hours a day on five-inch heels with just one half hour break. But it was good fun and we met all the most amazing people. 1966 was a very good year!”
People often ask what happened to the nineteen sixties, yet here the evidence was all around me. It was a buzz to be in a room full of such self-confident women who knew who they were and were supremely comfortable with it too, women with their wits about them, who counted brains amongst other natural assets when it came to interactions with the opposite sex. Women who knew how to make the best of the situation they found themselves in at the Playboy Club – unashamedly constructed as an arena of male fantasy yet, paradoxically, as all these women testify thirty years on, provided opportunities for them to take control of their lives.
Undoubtably there were those that, as Bunny Serena put it succinctly, “screwed their way to the top,” but equally there were many who, as Bunny Lara confirmed, found it, “An empowering experience. They sent us on management training courses, and I learnt how to handle people and manage staff. All of which has come in useful ever since in everything I have done.” She now runs a young offenders’ programme, training staff in conflict management. Many women I spoke with occupy senior management roles in the gaming and entertainment industry today – including one who manages a chain of casinos – in jobs that would have been closed to them previously.
Above all, these were women who were full of life, they had seen so much life and had so many stories to tell, that it was wonderful simply to be amongst them, confirming Bunny Lara’s fond verdict on her experience working at the Playboy Club, “The camaraderie was phenomenal.”
Bunny Cleo, with evidence of her encounter with Sid James at The Playboy Club.
Marilyn Cole, “Whatever else happens in life, good, bad or indifferent, we can always say we had this!”
Bunny Maretta & Bunny friend
Bunny Marisa is now an artist painting in oils.
Bunny Dilys & Bunny friend.
Bunny Alexis, ex-Windmill Girl was the very first UK Bunny to be recruited in 1966.
Bunny Serena & Bunny Jane.
Bunny Bobbie
Bunny Brenda, Bunny Nancy & Bunny Marion
Victor Lownes, “What is a playboy? It is someone who is getting more sex than you are.”
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
Alan Dein's East End Decollage, 1989
Alan Dein, who photographed the East End shopfronts in 1988, sent me some different pictures. A fascinating collection of details that caught his eye – textures, torn posters, graffiti and marginal artwork – which complement the shopfront images through bringing us closer to the streets of 1989/90. Ephemeral minutiae that witness the human presence are rarely recorded and today Alan’s pictures reveal a great deal about the life of the neighbourhood at that time. It is a commonplace to describe the culture of the East End as one of many layers, yet Alan’s photographs make it visibly apparent. These walls speak eloquently and they tell us that everything is in the details, as Alan explained to me.
“I’ve recently rediscovered more batches of transparencies, negatives and prints, dating between 1988 and 1990. Amongst one lot, the focus is on the results of random, natural, and perhaps motivated, destruction of fly-posted political and entertainment adverts. Another set contains relics of hand-written or painted signage. Every one caught in time, at a certain point in their decay, before they were erased forever.
I have favourites: the face of Karl Marx split in two (taken at the time the Berlin Wall came down), the Bollywood dancer that appears to be ripping his own face off (Brick Lane was then awash with brightly-coloured film ads and political flyers), the handsome illustration of a barber’s handiwork, the close-up of a door without a handle (a reminder of all those derelict properties in the backstreets of Stepney at that time), and the hand-painted price list for fireworks that adorned a wall in Bacon Street for years and years.
I’m especially touched by that worn flyer in Angel Alley. It’s for ‘The Streets of East London’ by William J. Fishman. ‘Bill’, as he’s known by his students and his friends, an inspirational figure for many of us who were, and still are, seduced by the social history of the East End. His walking tours were legendary – and at the Freedom Bookshop he was signing copies of his classic, ‘The Streets of East London,’ which came out in 1979. I don’t suppose this photocopy pasted on the wall dated back to then as the book was reprinted many times over, but it could have…”
As a short-sighted day-dreamer, these photographs reflect how I tend to see the world – as a set of close-up details – when I am walking around the East End lost in thought. Transient details like these exist at the fringes of consciousness. Although rarely substantial enough to bear recognition, nevertheless we observe them in peripheral vision, creating the backdrop that informs the drama of our daily lives. You can read them as map of the collective unconsciousness of the neighbourhood.
This set manifests the background to life in the East End twenty years ago, both literally and metaphorically. Scrutinising these photographs today, we see evidence of the decline of manufacturing, the politicisation of the Asian presence and the enduring radical tradition set against the end of Communism. Time imparts an emotional resonance too, aestheticising these textures in retrospect, as what was unremarkable and barely noticed in its day becomes emblematic to the eyes of posterity.
Yet there is a compelling ambivalence about these pictures too, because we can never know how much is deliberate or random. We cannot know whether tearing the posters was an act of violence or play. We cannot tell how much neglect was wilful or the result of broader changes. We cannot say if these signs indicate personal loss or social development. After a mere two decades, we are already left with human marks that are as ambiguous as cave paintings and, like cave art, we appreciate them for their abstract qualities as much as their elusive significance.
Collage is when you bring elements together to create a picture and decollage is the opposite, when you tear things apart to explore their meaning. This set of pictures is Alan Dein’s East End decollage.
Karl Marx in Spitalfields 1989
Lost door knob in Stepney 1989
Brick Lane 1989
Brick Lane 1989
Brick Lane 1989
“Fireworks without boxes” Bacon St 1989
Whitechapel 1989
Brick Lane 1989
“The Streets of East London” Angel Alley 1989
Shoreditch 1990
Brick Lane 1989
Brick Lane 1989
Commercial Rd 1989
Whitechapel 1990
Shoreditch 1990
Photographs copyright © Alan Dein
With the Pigeon Fliers of Bethnal Green
With the pigeon racing season drawing to a close, I took the opportunity to join Albert Stratton, pigeon flier, and his pal Keith Plastow on Saturday afternoon in Bethnal Green to wait for return of the young birds – born this Spring – given an outing each year as the penultimate race of the season. Even though these fledglings only pecked their way out of the egg in March, many have already spent months in training, building up their stamina with practice flights of twenty-five miles from Harlow three times a week. On Saturday, Albert had eleven young birds among eight hundred competitors, flying one hundred and twelve miles and one hundred and seven yards, from Newark in Nottinghamshire to Bethnal Green.
As soon as I got the call to say “The birds are up!”, I raced over from Spitalfields to Albert’s house, arriving at three thirty. Then we all sat together in nervous anticipation in Albert’s garden for half an hour gazing anxiously at the sky while he amused us with a constant stream of droll banter and, in time-honoured fashion, his wife Tracey reclined on the couch in the living room relaying us the results in the Tottenham game. “It’s a heartbreaking sport, pigeon racing,” confessed Albert, turning melancholy, his eyes fixed firmly on the occluded sky, “It’s like supporting Tottenham Hotspur – if only you got out as much you put in.”
Albert informed me that pigeons fly at fifty miles per hour with no wind, but can reach speeds of eighty miles an hour with a gale force behind them. Saturday’s wind was South West. “Not helpful! It slows them down and pushes them out to East, which gives the Easterly fliers an advantage,” declared Albert, exchanging a grimace with Keith,“Let’s hope it’s not like last week, we were twenty minutes behind the rest.” Albert hoped the first of his birds – liberated at one thirty in Nottinghamsire – would arrive home shortly after half past three but, when four o’clock approached, he shook his head in disappointment as we all checked our watches.“Give me my hat,” Albert asked Keith, exasperated and clutching at straws now, “or they won’t recognise me.”
Positioning himself next to the pigeon shed, Albert waited with a cup of nuts ready for the first arrival, while Keith occupied the back door of the house, puffing on a cigarette to relieve the tension as he peered into the unyielding sky. Then two pigeons appeared, a blue cock and red pied bird. They circled, but instead of flying down to the pigeon shed, landed on the roof of the flats in the next street, looking down at us curiously. Albert and Keith were beside themselves simultaneously with excitement and frustration.
“Three hours flying and then five minutes walking up and down!” quipped Albert through gritted teeth, as he shook the peanuts in his cup to encourage his birds down. At once they flew down, increasing the tension further by alighted on the gutter over our heads. With intense self-control, Albert shook his cup of nuts again, calling tenderly, “Come one, come on,” and after short pause both birds landed on the wooden platform attached to the pigeon shed. Yet even now the tension did not abate, because we had to wait again, in speechless excitement, for the birds to enter the shed through the ‘trap.’
Then Keith ran over, dropping his cigarette as he swiftly pulled the ring off the first bird once it entered the ‘trap’and putting it triumphantly into the special clock that records the arrival times. These clocks were all synchronised earlier in the day, and we would only discover who had won when the members gathered at Albert’s house later and the club president unlocked the clocks with the only key. Meanwhile a falcon circled overhead and Albert grew concerned for his other pigeons. “Poor little birds,” he said, turning emotional with relief now that a couple had arrived, asking,“Where’s the other nine?”
“We ain’t seen anyone else’s birds.” Keith reminded Albert hopefully, as he continued putting the rings in the clock and keeping a running total of the times when more pigeons arrived, while Albert became sardonic in defeat, announcing, “The winner will be here soon, whoever’s won it will knock at the door.” Hopes of victory abandoned, Albert’s sole concern was the safe return of his beloved pigeons, and, over the next hour, as they appeared in ones and twos, like weary children returning from an afternoon’s ramble, he was particular to make sure they had slaked their thirst, sympathetically observing them stretching their tired wings. “He’s had enough,” commented Albert affectionately, as a favoured bird dropped down from the sky and sought refuge in the pigeon shed.
“It takes over your life,” Albert revealed to me, caught in the emotion of the moment and speaking frankly of his life-long passion for pigeon flying. “It’s worse than golf. I’ve not been separated from my pigeons for a night, when I could help it,” he confided, referring to a recent spell in hospital. “They go on holiday without me,” he continued, referring to his family, as he consoled himself with the parental delights of his chosen sport, “It’s not just the racing, it’s the breeding. It’s very satisfying when you put a couple of birds together and they have healthy young ones.”
We were interrupted by a knock on the door, and four excited members of the Kingsland Racing Pigeon Club entered carrying their clocks. At the stroke of six-thirty they all stopped their clocks which they lined up on the floor for John Hamilton, president and clocksetter, to unlock them with his key and tabulate the figures that would give a winner. Tracey served tea and these minutes of waiting gave the opportunity for bravado and banter as the members, who are all old friends as well as arch competitors, faced each other out making conversation. First up was a discussion about how many young pigeons had gone missing. Les Hicks (last week’s winner as well as this week’s favourite) declared nine out of nineteen lost, with alacrity. Next up was a discussion about those ignorant fools who denigrate pigeons as flying rats, and, in the process of the discourse contrary to this prejudice, I learnt that the queen is patron of the Royal Pigeon Flying Society and that pigeons have saved thousands of lives in war. Finally the members compared the size of their first ever pay packets, the lowest being £3 and highest being £12.50, but I failed to ascertain which was superior in this subtly competitive debate.
After writing out the figures and scrutinising the printouts from the clocks, John Hamilton had a winner – but Albert Stratton, club secretary, was dubious and insisted on checking the figures with his calculator before the result could be disclosed. Yet after the average velocities of each of the birds had been calculated again, Albert confirmed the president’s result umambiguously, although he chose to add that the victor had emerged only one decimal point ahead. Tracey came in to stand beside her husband Albert to give him moral support as John Hamilton announced the official result. The winners were Mr & Mrs Albert Stratton. It was an unexpected climax to an emotional afternoon.
Enjoy this music video featuring Albert Stratton & his racing pigeons.
Albert Stratton waits with his cup of peanuts, ready to coax any errant pigeon down from the rooftops.
Anxious moments gazing expectantly at the sky.
The first birds arrive in Bethnal Green from Nottinghamshire, in just over two hours and thirty minutes.
Keith removes the ring from the bird’s leg prior to placing it in the clock on the right.
Keith keeps a running score.
Keith Plastow, seasoned pigeon flier, “My father kept pigeons before me.”
John Hamilton, president and clocksetter of the club, transcribes the race times from the clock.
John and Albert, club secretary, check their calculations to confirm the result.
John Hamilton, President of the Kingsland Pigeon Fliers Club.
A victorious flier, safely home.
Columbia Road Market 50
Over coming weeks I shall be introducing you to all the Columbia Road Market traders I have been buying plants and flowers from over the past year.
No matter how early I get to the market – whatever the season or the weather – herbsellers Mick & Sylvia Grover are always already set up, possessing resilient smiles and ready for business at the corner of Ezra St and Columbia Rd, where they sell the enormous variety of sweet-smelling and useful plants which they grow themselves in Hainault. Married forty-nine years ago, they spend all week together tending to the hundred and fifty different herbs they cultivate at their nursery, and every Sunday running the stall.“My family have always been in the flower business, but over the years we’ve specialised in herbs,” explained Mick who began at eight years old, selling flowers in Romford Market with his mother and father. He fills with affection to recall his grandfather, a flowerseller with a horse and cart, who sold ice cream in the Summer months, calling out “Oki poki, a penny a lump, eat it quick or it makes you jump!” Mick & Sylvia set out on their own in the Caledonian Rd Market forty years ago selling flowers and plants. “Although we always had a nursery, we only started this ten years ago,” he revealed, with understated pride for his beloved herb stall that has become an East End landmark as well as the lynchpin of the flower market.
Photograph copyright © Jeremy Freedman
