David Sawer, composer
The composer in the rose garden is David Sawer, whose opera Rumpelstiltskin is performed at St Leonards Church in Shoreditch tonight as part of the Spitalfields Festival. He looks full of life in the bright morning sunshine, photographed before one of the final rehearsals. Though perhaps a second glance at the picture reveals a certain professional reserve too – because I have no doubt he has a few adjustments in mind that he requires, before everything is as it should be for the performances. Even this seventy minute opera took ten months to compose, so you will understand – with so much work involved – David has a right to be particular.
David Sawer’s music is distinguished by a bold vibrant emotionalism, persuasive in tone and dramatic in effect. Although aware of his antecedents in modern music, David writes compelling melodies which are engaging to the widest audience. To put it simply, anyone that has got ears can recognise David writes beautiful music. I cannot separate David from his music because, as a personality, he is blessed with a rare animated quality, which means that when you are with him you cannot fail to be aware he has so much going on inside. Sometimes I wonder if David has one layer of skin missing, because his mercurial internal currents of thought and feeling are almost legible upon his large oval face, changing like patterns of light on water, just as the layers of texture in his music constantly shimmer and transform. It makes for exciting conversations and gives him a bewitching charismatic intensity too.
Once upon a time I wrote the words for an opera of David Sawer’s produced by the Royal Opera, it was an unforgettable experience and it brought me face to face with the magic that a composer works. I spoke to Myfanwy Piper who had worked with Benjamin Britten and she gave me salient advice. She told me to create a dramatic story but avoid overtly emotional language, leaving that to the music. So, in my libretto, I restricted myself to lines like “Open the door.” and, once David was happy with what I had done, I absented myself only returning at the dress rehearsal, months later, to hear the music for the first time. Although we had constructed an emotional drama on paper, I was entirely unprepared for the musical realisation of this. In his music, David had manifested the emotions of the characters more vividly than I had ever dreamed. I thought I knew what was behind the words, but David found so much more. It was a revelation, and it remains an elusive mystery to me how a composer can conjure music of such potency out of air.
When I met with him this week, three more operas down the line, David was eager to talk about the nature and ambitions of his latest work, “Rumpelstiltskin”, a seventy minute piece which involves ten performers and thirteen instrumentalists, staged by his long-term collaborators, director Richard Jones and designer Stewart Laing. “I didn’t want it in a theatre where the detail gets lost, I wanted to create an intimate ballet that works like a silent film – where the audience are able to get more involved because they haven’t got people singing at them. Instead the story is told through people moving and articulating the music. If you look at Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores there are stage directions every five lines – so I just pulled the story apart, writing my own directions throughout the score.”
“It’s about the fact that someone puts a lie into the world because he can’t pay his rent,” David added with an enigmatic smile, setting up the premise of the story,” So he says his daughter can spin straw into gold and she’s put in a dungeon with straw and has to spin it – The idea of spinning straw is very enticing musically, music’s very good at expressing change and transformation over time. – Then Rumpelstiltskin offers to do it, but the pact is she agrees to give him her baby in a year’s time.”
Originally transcribed by the Brothers Grimm in the eighteen forties, the story of Rumpelstiltskin can be seen as reflecting the anxiety around the replacement of human skills, like spinning, through mechanisation. But David’s interest is in the ambivalence of the character of Rumpelstiltskin himself – the mysterious outsider who becomes the eventual scapegoat. In this production, his identity remains ambiguous, allowing the drama to retain its fullest resonance as a fable. “It is quite religious, a crucifixion story.” added David contemplatively.
It is clear that David loves the collaborative world of the theatre in contrast to the solitary months at his desk. A large-scale opera can entail years of labour, composing and transcribing all the parts for the orchestra and singers. “You’ve got to get the balance right,” said David, sketching out his relationship to his craft, “The problem is if someone wants an opera for 2018, how are you going to pace yourself? It can be hard, because you need to have adrenalin but not get hysterical either.” Then he rolled his eyes in self parody, but afterwards left the question hanging in the air, because he did not want to think about it too much today. Instead he had critical time with the musicians and performers, before everything came together, after ten months of composition and weeks of rehearsal, in the performances that are the culmination of his work.
As he spoke, David’s hands were in constant precise motion – tracing lines of thought in the air -occasionally tapping the table and once applying all his fingers, as if it were a piano. To David, music is a concrete thing that he can describe with his hands, and it is also something intangible, coursing through his mind and body as he speaks. It is inside him and outside him, like air, it is his element. David’s singular movement and nature are expressions of his remarkable musical talent. I cannot imagine David without music. It is what he does and who he is. More than anyone I have ever met, David Sawer incarnates his music.
Production photo of Rumpelstiltskin by Keith Pattison
Spitalfields Antique Market 11
This is Jimmie Fish of Fish Island Antiques in Hackney. An ex-cocktail waiter on cruise ships who once served Rod Stewart, in an impressive reinvention, Jimmie now deals in industrial and workshop items, like desks, lockers, lamps and trunks. A proud Cumbrian from Carlisle with dark ginger hair and keen grey eyes, full of humour and bristling with positive energy – thriving in his new profession – Jimmie declared, “You get on better, if you’ve got a bit of character and personality about you. It’s good fun, every day’s different and you are your own boss!” Plain words that, in Jimmy’s mouth, became a declaration of independence.
This is Lily Beth Wood, daughter of Stuart (who we featured in May), which makes her a third generation market trader, at least. Lily was enjoying helping out her dad on his stall, while on half term holiday from St Peter’s School, down in Wapping where she lives. “I collect small things when the tide goes out,” said Lily, proudly outlining her mudlarking activities on the banks of the Thames, and revealing an inherited curiosity about things from the past, “Sometimes I find old ship’s nails, bones, oyster shells, bullets, book hinges and once I found a clay pipe in three pieces.”
This is Paul the Urban Shepherd. “I work with serious clothing but make it fun. My stock is countrywear, not made in the city but worn in the city,” said Paul, introducing the trend for men’s clothing from the provinces, appropriated by fashionable gallants here in London and worn with an urban attitude. Fondly drawing my attention to the quality on display, “It’s very well made – designed to last a lifetime – and, if it doesn’t fit exactly, it can easily be tailored to the new owner.” he explained. A style ambassador, Paul intuitively understands the necessary combination of levity and sobriety in menswear.
This happy couple comprises Sue Stokes & Leo Kurunis, loving mother and son. Sue lives in Bath and is an antique dealer while Leo lives in Hackney and is in a band. “Leo doesn’t come home very often,” confided Sue, who got up at three thirty in the morning to drive down to London which her stock of French antiques. This is Sue’s first week in Spitalfields, but she plans to be here every Thursday in future, taking the opportunity to stay over at Leo’s place in Hackney each week and see more of her son – that is, if he is not out gigging with Lord Auch.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Stephanie Sian Smith, headdress maker
When I visited Stephanie Siân Smith at her workshop in the roof of an old warehouse in Bethnal Green, she was working flat-out through the weekend to make a collection of ten different headdresses for an order to be delivered this week. Everywhere I looked there were feathers of diverse kinds, embroidery, lace, cloth and all manner of paraphernalia which Stephanie uses to contrive her extravagant headdresses, that have made such a hit in the capricious world of fashion this year. Meanwhile, her ginger cat, Marmalade Donkey Ron Jeremy Clarkson (given a different name by everyone at the house in Gun St, Spitalfields where Stephanie lives), strolled around among the feathers and debris, intrigued by the spectacle.
Stephanie comes from the tiny village of Hanbury in Staffordshire where her grandmother taught her how to sew. “It’s a lot do with the fact that I grew up in the middle of nowhere,” she revealed, outlining a rural childhood where she devised her own entertainments, and explaining something of her playful creativity that bridges handicrafts and high fashion with such bravura and charm. When Stephanie talks about her family, her father who is a steel fabricator, or her aunt that took her skunking in Alberta, you get a strong sense of Northern personalities, people who know who they are. And Stephanie herself is no exception, because while she enjoys spontaneous delight in what she does, a quality that is communicated by the fanciful drama of the headdresses, she is also taken seriously by Mrs Jones, an acknowledged arbiter of taste, who styles Kylie Minogue and The Scissor Sisters.
There is a feeling of liberation when you don a headdress, a licence for flamboyant, cheeky or mischievous behaviour. Irrespective of your clothing, the headdress is sufficient to set you apart from the world as participant in a surreal drama – the child within the adult is released. “People like to wear them at festivals,” explained Stephanie, and I can imagine that possessing one could be an invaluable confidence booster at a parties, especially if you were feeling a little shy. With her doll-like features, huge blue eyes and unkempt blonde hair, Stephanie is the ideal model for her headdresses and, several times during our conversation, when she tried one on to the gauge the effect, batting her long eyelashes flirtatiously and asking “What do think?”, I was stuck for a response. She looked like someone had taken her photo and scribbled all over the top of it with coloured crayons.
“Would you like to see my pom-poms?” offered Stephanie – a twinkle in her eye – throwing open a suitcase with a theatrical flourish to reveal dozens of those multicoloured woollen pom-poms that every child makes by winding two rings of cardboard with whatever spare yarn is knocking around the house. Jeremy Freedman, Spitalfields Life contributing photographer, accompanied me on this interview and, when the case opened, neither of us could withhold our delight at these super pom-poms which Stephanie made in a whole variety of sizes and gauges of yarn.
It was time to take pictures and when Stephanie, who is herself an experienced photographer, suggested Jeremy photograph her pouring pom-poms from her teapot with a woolly cosy into a giant teacup, it would have been disingenuous not to acquiesce. Jeremy and Stephanie did a dance in the sunlight, photographer and model, prancing in tandem, as they moved around the studio together in a glamorous scene reminiscent of playful sixties movies. There was an intoxicating sense of infinite possibility in the fleeting moment, an effervescence generated by the exhilaration of youth, the seduction of romance and the escapism of fantasy.
Once the impromptu dance was over, the time arrived to leave Stephanie and Marmalade Donkey Ron Jeremy Clarkson to complete the other seven headdresses in time for the opening of Mrs Jones’ shop. You have to admire Stephanie’s wit and confidence, “I am just doing it for myself, I like working with feathers,” she says plainly, before listing the gamekeepers of Suffolk, Staffordshire and even Balmoral, that she has befriended to keep her supplied with the materials of her trade, which are a byproduct of the making of game pies. Engaging with the emotional vocabulary of childhood dressing up games, Stephanie has refashioned these images, introducing rare humour into high fashion and having a lot of fun too.
As we shut the door on this colourful and bizarre world, I wondered if this could be the start of major trend for the cognoscenti to sport headdresses in daily life. Walking along Bethnal Green Rd in the noise and dust, I wondered if I should ask Stephanie to make me one to give me confidence when I visit the supermarket in Whitechapel. Hats off to the ingenious Miss Smith, making whimsical headdresses for Mrs Jones!
If you want to get one before everyone else does, you can visit Mrs Jones, and see more headdresses by looking at Stephanie Siân Smith’s blog feathersmith.
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
In The Debtors’ Prison
Walking into a cell from an eighteenth century prison in Wellclose Square was an especially vivid experience for me because, if I had lived then, I and almost everyone I know would have invariably ended up in here at some point. Although almost nothing is known of the occupants of this cell, they created their own remembrance through the graffiti they left upon the walls during the few years it was in use, between 1740-1760, and these humble inscriptions still recall their human presence after all this time.
No one could fail to be touched by the emotional storm of marks across the walls. There are explicit names and dates carved with dignity and proportion, and there are dozens of crude yet affectionate images, presumably carved by those who could not write. There are also a few texts, which are heartbreaking in their bare language and plain sentiment, such as “Pray Remember the Poor Deptors.” The spelling of “deptors” after the model of “Deptford” is a particularly plangent detail.
About six feet wide and ten feet long, with a narrow door in one corner, and lined with vertical oak planks, this is one of several cells that once existed beneath the Neptune public house. There is a small window with wide bars, high upon the end wall, corresponding with street level – not enough to offer a view, but just sufficient to indicate if it was daylight. There would have been straw on the floor and some rough furniture, maybe a table and chairs, where the inmates might eat whatever food they could afford to buy from the publican, because this was a privately managed prison run for profit.
Wellclose Square was once a fine square between Cable St and the Highway, which barely exists any more. St Peter’s School, with its gleaming golden ship as a weathervane, is the only building of note today, though early photographs reveal that many distinguished buildings once lined Wellclose Square, including the Danish Embassy, conveniently situated for the docks. When the Neptune was demolished in 1912, two of the cells were acquired by the Museum of London, where I was able to walk into one this week to meet Alex Werner the curator responsible for putting it on display. “We’re never going to know who they are!” he said with a cool grin, extending his arms to indicate all the names and pictures that people once carved with so much expense of effort, under such grim conditions, to console themselves by making their mark.
It is a room full of sadness, and even as I was taking my photographs, visitors to the museum came and went but did not linger. In spite of their exclamations of wonder at the general effect of all the graffiti, people did not wish to examine the details too closely. The lighting in the museum approximates to candlelight, highlighted some areas and leaving others in gloom, so I took along a flashlight to examine every detail and pay due reverence to the souls who whiled away long nights and days upon these inscriptions.
In a dark corner near the floor, I found this, painstaking lettered in well-formed capitals, which I wrote on the back of an envelope, “All You That on This Cast an Eye, Behold in Prison Here Lie, Bestow You in Charety.” The final phrase struck a chord with me, because I think he refers to moral charity or compassion. Even today, we equate debt with profligacy and fecklessness, yet my experience is that people commonly borrow money to make up the shortfall for necessary expenses, when there is no alternative. I was brought up to avoid debt, but I had no choice when I was nursing my mother through her terminal illness at home. I borrowed because I could not earn money to cover household expenses when she lived a year longer than the doctors predicted, and then I borrowed more when I could not make the repayments. It was a hollow lonely feeling to fill in the lies upon the second online loan application, just to ensure enough money to last out until she died, when I was able to sell our house and pay it off.
So you will understand why I feel personal sympathy with the debtors who inhabited this cell. Every one will have had a reason and story. I wish I could speak with Edward Burk, Iohn Knolle, William Thomas, Edward Murphy, Thomas Lynch, Richard Phelps, James Parkinson, Edward Stockley and the unnamed others to discover how they got here. In spite of the melancholy atmosphere, it gave me great pleasure to examine their drawings incised upon the walls. Here in this dark smelly cell, the prisoners created totems, both to represent their own identities and to recall the commonplace sights of the exterior world. There are tall ships with all the rigging accurately observed, doves, trees, a Scots thistle, a gun, anchors and all manner of brick buildings. I could distinguish a church with a steeple, several taverns with suspended signs, and terraces stretching along the whole wall, not unlike the old houses in Spitalfields.
I shall carry in my mind these modest images upon the walls of the cell from Wellclose Square for a long time, created by those denied the familiar wonders that fill our days. Shut away from life in an underground cell, they carved these intense bare images to evoke the whole world. Now they have gone, and everyone they loved has gone, and their entire world has gone generations ago, and we shall never know who they were, yet because of their graffiti we know that they were human and they lived.
The return of Ben Eine, street artist
Ben Eine, the street artist famous for painting letters of the alphabet on shops in Shoreditch, told me that he had never been able to persuade more than three shopkeepers in a row to let him do his paintings on their shutters – but now, Jessica Tibbles, the enterprising curator of the Electric Blue Gallery in Middlesex St, in a act of heroic bravado, has persuaded twenty six to grant permission for Ben to paint a whole alphabet.
This grand endeavour, painting “a” to “z” sequentially on shutters along the entire length of the street, is a community initiative in which the traders of Petticoat Lane have come together to welcome an artist, bringing vibrant colour to these grey streets at the border of the City. On one side of Middlesex St are the dilapidated nineteenth century shops of Tower Hamlets, which exist in sharp contrast to the modernist block belonging to the City of London on the other side. Yet Ben Eine’s alphabet, which now adorns both sides of Middlesex St proposes a sympathetic conversation. His letters, deriving from nineteenth century woodblock display types, draw the eye to appreciate the details and proportion of the brick terraces, while the bright colour palette that he employs enlivens the geometric concrete edifice opposite. Even though the architectural language may in discord, Ben’s happy paintings humanise the environment, utilising a vocabulary that everyone can relate to, thereby unifying the streetscape.
Anyone that has walked through Petticoat Lane over recent Saturdays will have witnessed Ben at work on this magnum opus, and I enjoyed the privilege of his company last weekend as he worked his way from “n” to “r”. His Shoreditch alphabet has become inextricable from the identity of its location, and the popularity of these works have led Ben to paint them in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Osaka, Tokyo and Budapest. Ben admitted to me that he has now painted more than two hundred letters of the alphabet on shutters, and waved his dirty finger in the air playfully, proudly displaying the thickened skin upon the tip of his forefinger, where he presses the nozzle on the can, formed as his hand accustomed to spray painting over the years.
Ben grew up in South London, but he has affectionate memories of when his mother brought him to Petticoat Lane to buy him his first grown up leather jacket at eleven years old. Today he is excited to be back and bringing his witty enigmatic vision to play upon this famous street. It is the very first time Ben has painted lower case letters, a new departure that reflects the significance of this commission, and he showed me an outline of the complete alphabet he drew, that he carries in his bag for reference, though I never saw him look at it.
Each time he sets out, Ben puts enough spray paint for three letters in his bag, but does not decide in advance upon the colour combinations, both to avoid repeating preferred schemes and to invite a wild element into the composition. Ben works fast, each letter takes less than an hour, commencing by sketching the body of the letter, establishing the horizontal and vertical lines, then adding the background but leaving space for the outline of the letter. Although in the first instance Ben has only bought spray cans in colours he likes, he says the first two colours for each letter can almost be chosen at random. The most important decisions are the colour for the surround and the colour of the horizontal stripes within the body of the letter, the latter being the crucial element to the success of each painting as a composition.
I was wary of talking to Ben and interrupting his furious pace, but he read my thoughts, turning from the shutter with his can in hand and declaring generously with a cock-eyed grin, “You can ask me questions while I work. I can paint and talk at the same time.” Although he is a married man with three children, Ben retains the charisma of an artful street urchin, with his pants falling down, his glasses that are always squint and his habit of rocking on the balls of his feet, as if he might run off any time. There is a magic moment when he takes a can and gives it a shake while standing in front of a new shutter, taking in the potential with a single gaze. The intense shaking of the can manifests the accumulating thoughts in Ben’s mind. It is a rush of mental energy that culminates in the first lines he paints, defining the entire image, and drawn with such confidence, as if he were tracing an invisible image that was already there – which it is, in his mind’s eye.
“I hate doing ‘o’s!” admitted Ben, rolling his eyes with good natured irony, as he traced out a huge full moon in pale blue,“You spend all your time painting circles.” The blue barely registered on the steel shutter, but when Ben added the violet background, it jumped into relief. The colours spoke to each other. Then the drama ramped up a level, as he approached the shutter with a new can to commence the outline. In an instant, the pale blue popped when he added the red, causing the whole painting to sing. Finally, he added yellow horizontal stripes and the whole composition unified in a moment of exhilaration for Ben. He had reconciled all the elements into a harmonious whole, and raised a paint-stained hand in triumph.
All of Ben’s painting is a performance, and on Saturday afternoon there was a constant crowd of passers-by, shopkeepers, residents, and a few stray tourists, all rapt by the spontaneous drama of Ben at work. An elegant Nigerian lady came out of her shop, selling African batik fabrics, to admire Ben’s “q” which matched the tones of her colourful outfit. “Nice one!”, she cried in delight. Then a senior gentleman, walking slowly with a zimmer frame emerged from Petticoat Square and halted to gather his strength and take in Ben’s dazzling “o.” “It’s looking good!” he exclaimed, filled with sudden animation as he cast his eyes up and down the street in pleasure to see the whole alphabet.
Although there is an immense cultural history in Petticoat Lane, ever since the Jewish people left half a century ago there has also been a sense of absence in these streets. The residents and traders there have shown a sense of vision and community in supporting Ben Eine to create this glorious gallery of joyful, quirky paintings celebrating life and the city. I hope this unlikely alphabet will bring more people to appreciate this neglected corner of East London. Go and take a look for yourself.
Columbia Road Market 38
I woke in the night to the sound of the downpour, yet when I rose at six the rain had ceased and the air was cool and fresh, with the call of the wood-pigeon echoing in the still of the morning. By the time I reached the market at seven, there was already a brisk trade and the traders were cheerful at the opportune timing of the rain, good for gardeners and good for the market too. The damp air brought out all the fragrances of the flowers and, as one trader wheeled a barrow of bunches of sweet peas past me this morning, the scent was intense.
I was in no mood for any arduous gardening today, in this humid weather, so I simply bought myself two pots of these delicious Pinks, the attractively named Whatfield Ruby for £3 each – the colour of strawberry blamanche – to stand in pots on a wall. Each summer, I collect more Pinks. The single less-cultivated varieties are my preference in pale or deep pink, as these are. It is the subtle details that speak to me, the deep red pattern of veins and the lovely denticulated ends of the petals.
I leaned perilously far out of the window to photograph this Passion Flower (Passiflora Cerulaea) for you, that has just reached the first floor and came into flower this week. It cost me just £6 for a tiny plant at Columbia Rd last year and now it covers a vast wall. As I contemplated the consequence of falling – while eyeballing this gloriously strange bloom – the gruesome religious iconography of the flower came to mind.
Apparently, the three stamens represent the nails of the crucifixion, the lower five stand for the five wounds, while the attractive blue rosette of filaments recalls the crown of thorns and the ten petals remind us of the ten true apostles. It was a suitably sober lesson for a Sunday, but my affection for the Passion Flower is purely aesthetic. Like so many brooches adorning the wall, the decorative extravagance of these prolific flowers is an irresistible delight to me.
Joan Rose at Gardners Market Sundriesmen
Between the ages of twelve and fourteen years old, Joan Rose regularly visited Gardner’s Market Sundriesmen (established 1870) in Commercial St to collect orders of paper bags from Bertie Gardner for her grandfather Alfred Raymond, proprietor of Raymond’s greengrocers (founded 1900) in Calvert Avenue next to Arnold Circus, where Leila’s Shop is today. Joan, now eighty four, has not been back to Gardners since she was evacuated from London at fourteen years old, so yesterday I took her along to meet Bertie’s grandson, Paul Gardner, who runs the shop today – a fourth generation paper bag seller and the owner of Spitalfields’ oldest family business.
Paul never met his grandfather Bertie, but Joan remembers him clearly, always wearing his brown dustcoat. “He didn’t talk down to you. Even though I was twelve years old, he’d say ‘Can I help you?’” recalled Joan, appreciative of the respect that Bertie, whom she knew as Mr Gardner, paid to her as a young woman over seventy years ago. Once I made the introductions, Joan and Paul began their conversation by discussing bags. “Would you mind going over to Gardners, we’re short of 2lb bags?” Joan announced gleefully, quoting a commonplace line of her grandfather’s, to outline the premise of her visits to Commercial St, so long ago. “I think we had bags printed here?” queried Joan, as Paul indicated a dusty old brown paper carrier with images of fruit printed upon it, as a example, while he and Joan exchanged a nod of joyful recognition. “They were much wider in those days, weren’t they?” she commented to Paul, who directed her to the contemporary equivalent hanging on the opposite wall that is taller – with a grin, revealing that a certain professional rapport had been cemented between them.
Surrounded on all sides by packets of paper bags, Joan sat herself down upon a stack, gazing around her with a child’s delight at this spectacle from her youth, as Paul served a stream of customers coming in for bags. Joan was fascinated by the familiar brass scales with a large scoop that stands on Paul’s counter, and the old weights with iron loop handles that sit upon shelves behind the counter. “When a bomb landed on Calvert Avenue, a fourteen pound weight like that blew off the shelf and hit my grandfather in the head and nearly killed him,” she informed me, widening her eyes in amazement at the wonder of his survival.
Once the flurry of customers had departed, Paul produced two of his ancient account books with entries for “Raymond” to show Joan. One was in the eighteen nineties, when Paul’s great-grandfather, James, serviced the scales for a Mr Raymond in Quaker St. “One of my grandfather’s brothers I think,” explained Joan, “they were all costermongers.” The other entry was for a Mr Raymond in Dalston Lane in 1920, who was slow to clear his account. The page was annotated with the phrases,“Reminder sent” then “Stiff letter,” before payment was eventually received by cheque in 1923. Joan was dubious about this entry, because her grandfather never wrote cheques, he always gave her an envelope of cash to pay for the bags, which may account for the lack of surviving paperwork. With regret, she dismissed this unreliable character from Dalston Lane as another of her grandfather’s brothers.
Joan recounted to Paul how Bertie Gardner occasionally walked into her grandfather’s shop to make deliveries in person, with the cursory, “Alf, here’s your bags!” – a cue for Alfred to search through the wooden block of wood with scoops in it where he kept his change. Hearing this story was the cue for Paul, the grandson, to bring out the block of wood with scoops out of it that has served four generations of his family to store coins. The merest sight of it was a delight for Joan. “But he never kept notes in it!” she retorted, wagging her finger in amused qualification, a comment that was itself another cue for Paul. This time, with a mischievous smile, he brought out an old Oxo tin and then a Fuller’s Cake tin, that he uses to keep his bank notes in today, causing Joan to clasp her hands in rapture.
Then, with a natural sense of theatre, Joan opened her handbag and produced a photograph of Raymond’s greengrocers taken in the nineteen thirties and, sure enough, there were the bunches of brown paper bags that came from Gardners. As more customers arrived in Paul’s shop, they also became party to this impromptu display, sharing expressions of wonder at these images, and amazed to meet a returned customer in the shop from more than seventy years ago. For a moment the haste of the day was stilled.
It was a timely reminder of the unique quality of Gardner’s, a remarkable and much loved establishment, where the smallest traders of East London go to buy their bags today, as they have done for over a century. Even though he has a vast number of loyal customers who rely upon him, Paul Gardner only earns £250 a week, yet his landlord’s agents Tarn & Tarn are seeking to raise Paul’s rent from £15,000 in a single step to £25,000 per annum, next month – a single act that could drive Gardners out of business, destroying an invaluable East End family institution. Joan was outraged to hear this news, “We’ll have to start a petition!” she declared, animated with righteous anger.
Once we had taken pictures to record the auspicious occasion of the visit, it was time to make our reluctant departure and retrace Joan’s former path back to the location of her grandfather’s shop in Calvert Avenue, where we sought a cup of tea at Leila’s Cafe. Joan and Paul parted with a kiss, intimate acquaintances now through an unlikely bond and, as we walked up Commercial St together, Joan confided to me with a smile, “His grandfather had a longer face, but he does look just like him.”
Paul’s grandfather Bertie and father Roy outside the shop in Commercial St around 1930.
Joan’s grandfather Alfred Raymond outside the shop in Calvert Avenue around 1930.
Joan sitting in Arnold Circus in 1940.
