Blackie, the Last Spitalfields Market Cat
Here you see Blackie, the last Spitalfields market cat, taking a nap in the premises of Williams Watercress at 11 Gun St. Presiding over Blackie – as she sleeps peacefully among the watercress boxes before the electric fire with her dishes of food and water to hand – is Jim, the nightman who oversaw the premises from six each evening until two next morning, on behalf of Len Williams the proprietor.
This black and white photograph by Robert Davis, with a nineteenth century barrow wheel in the background and a nineteen fifties heater in the foreground, could have been taken almost any time in the second half of the twentieth century. Only the date on the “Car Girls’ Calendar” betrays it as 1990, the penultimate year of the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market, before it moved East to Stratford, the same year that Mark Jackson and Huw Davies took their pictures recording the market, which I published in the Spring.
In spite of Jim the nightman’s fond expression, Blackie was no pet, she was a working animal who earned her keep killing rats. Underneath the market were vaults to store fresh produce, which had to be sold within three days – formalised as first, second and third day prices – with each day’s price struck at two in the morning. But the traders often forgot about the fruit and vegetables down in the basement and it hung around more than three days, and with the spillage on the road which local residents and the homeless came to scavenge, it caused the entire market to become a magnet for vermin, running through the streets and into the labyrinth beneath the buildings.
It must have been paradise for a cat that loved to hunt, like Blackie. With her jet black fur, so black she was like a dark hole in the world running round on legs, vanishing into the shadow and appearing from nowhere to pounce upon a rat and take its life with her needle-sharp claws, Blackie was a lethally efficient killer. Not a submissive creature that could be easily stroked and petted as domestic cats are, Blackie was a proud beast that walked on her own, learnt the secret of survival on the streets and won independent status, affection and respect through her achievements in vermin control.
“They were all very pleased with Blackie for her great skill in catching rats, she was the last great market cat.” confirmed Jim Howett, a furniture maker who first met Blackie when he moved into a workshop above the watercress seller in 1988. “The other traders would queue up for kittens from Blackie’s sister’s litters because they were so good at rat-catching. Blackie brought half-dead rats back to teach them how to do it. Such was Blackie’s expertise, it was said she could spot a poisoned rat at a hundred feet. The porters used to marvel that when they said, ‘Blackie, there’s a rat,’ Blackie would focus and if the rat showed any weakness, would wobble, or walk uncertainly, she would turn her back, and return to the fire – because the rat was ill, and most likely poisoned. And after all, Blackie was the last cat standing,” continued Jim, recounting tales of this noble creature that has become a legend in Spitalfields today. “The story was often told of the kitten trained by Blackie, taken by a restaurant and hotel in the country. One day it brought a half-dead rat into the middle of a Rotary Club Function, seeking approval as it had learnt in Spitalfields, and the guests ran screaming.”
The day the Fruit & Vegetable Market left in 1991, Blackie adjusted, no longer crossing the road to the empty market building instead she concentrated on maintaining the block of buildings on Brushfield St as her territory by patrolling the rooftops. By now she was an old cat and eventually could only control the three corner buildings, and one day Charles Gledhill a book binder who lived with his wife Marianna Kennedy at 42 Brushfield St, noticed a shadow fly past his window. It was Blackie that he saw, she had fallen from the gutter and broken a leg on the pavement below. “We all liked Blackie, and we took care of her after the market left,” explained Jim, with a regretful smile, “so we took her to the vet who was amazed, he said, ‘What are you doing with this old feral cat?’, because Blackie had a fierce temper, she was always hissing and growling.”
“But Blackie recovered, and on good days she would cross the road and sun herself on palettes, although on other days she did not move from the fire. She became very thin and we put her in the window of A.Gold to enjoy the sun. One day Blackie was stolen from there. We heard a woman had been seen carrying her towards Liverpool St in a box but we couldn’t find her, so we put up signs explaining that Blackie was so thin because she was a very old cat. Two weeks later, Blackie was returned in a fierce mood by the lady who taken her, she apologised and ran away. Blackie had a sojourn in Milton Keynes! We guessed the woman was horrified with this feral creature that growled and scratched and hissed and arched its back. After that, Blackie got stiffer and stiffer, and one day she stood in the centre of the floor and we knew she wasn’t going to move again. She died of a stroke that night. The market porters told me Blackie was twenty when she died, as old as any cat could be.”
Everyone knows the tale of Dick Whittington, the first Lord Mayor of London whose cat was instrumental to his success. This story reminds us that for centuries a feline presence was essential to all homes and premises in London. It was a serious business to keep the rats and mice at bay, killing vermin that ate supplies and brought plague. Over its three centuries of operation, there were innumerable generations of cats bred for their ratting abilities at the Spitalfields Market, but it all ended with Blackie. Like Tess of the D’Urbevilles or The Last of the Mohicans, the tale of Blackie, the Last Great Spitalfields Market Cat contains the story of all that came before. Cats were the first animals to be domesticated, long before dogs, and so our connection with felines is the oldest human relationship with an animal, based up the exchange of food and shelter in return for vermin control.
Even though Blackie – who came to incarnate the spirit of the ancient market itself – died in 1995, four years after the traders left, her progeny live on as domestic pets in the East End and there are plenty of similar black short-haired cats with golden eyes around Spitalfields today. I spotted one that lives in the aptly named Puma Court recently, and, of course, there is Madge who resides in Folgate St at Dennis Severs’ House, and Mr Pussy whose origins lie in Mile End but who has shown extraordinary prowess as a hunter in Devon – catching rabbits and even moorhens – which surely makes him a worthy descendant of Blackie.
Blackie at 42 Brushfield St.
Blackie in her final years, in 1991/2.
Mid-nineteenth century print of Dick Whittington & his cat.
Columbia Road Market 48
Change is undeniably in the air. Over this last week, the decline of the season has become discernible as the nights have cooled and the dry spell has given way to showers. And even as I walked up the road to the market beneath a sky heavy with clouds, a fresh breeze spiralling out from the river was sending dry leaves scuttling around the pavements of the East End in the early morning. In Columbia Rd the traders were standing in huddles discussing the chill. No wonder I was seduced by Rudbeckia with its generous deep yellow flowers which confirm Summer has yet a while to run. Over several years I have admired them growing profusely, making an exuberantly gaudy display at the entrance to Haggerston Park as I have passed through on my way to Broadway Market. For just four pounds I bought a healthy specimen of this commonplace hardy perennial, which I have seen thriving in many gardens throughout the neighbourhood, and carried it back to plant in a corner of my garden, now revived by the recent rain, in the hope that it will also grant me some heartening late Summer colour in years to come.
Sanu Miah, Businessman
“Spitalfields is my life,” admitted Sanu Miah with a shy smile, when I sat down with him during a rare quiet half hour in his modest office above a restaurant in Brick Lane, where he works each day, selling plane tickets, doing money transfers and brokering mortgages and loans. We met at the doorway on the street, as Sanu arrived looking fresh and serene in his cool Punjabi against the heat of the day, coming from the mosque and ready to start business. In the peace of the morning, before his customers came tramping up the stairs, Sanu disclosed his story to me plainly yet with a certain dignified reticence – an emotional restraint that served to reveal something of the quiet courage of this unassuming man.
“I have been here since I arrived in London in 1979 at the age of fifteen years old.” he began, “Brick Lane was the first place I came to on the tube, travelling from Heathrow to Aldgate East with my uncle Zillul. I saw Bengali, English and Jewish people, and my uncle explained that Brick Lane was the place every immigrant arrived and then eventually moved out. That was my first day.
I tried to forget about Bangladesh because I knew I was now in a rich country where I had the most opportunity to lead my life, but when I woke up next morning I was a bit upset to discover the house was empty – life in Bangladesh and Brick Lane are completely opposite! I was used to seeing so many people around in the countryside, friends, family and neighbours. At five, my father came home from work and took me to Brick Lane to do the shopping, where I met a few of his friends and that cheered me up again, starting to think about my future. My first priority was going to school and getting a good education.
Unfortunately, I had the problem of language where I could understand yet not speak English, so I went to classes at night and after six months I learnt a bit of English. Then I started looking for a school but as I was nearly sixteen nobody would take me. So I did special classes in English, Maths and Immigrant History and took City & Guilds exams, and I had a place at Jubilee St Sixth Form College. And then my family went back to Bangladesh – but it was too important an experience here for me to leave. Now the problem was how to get an education and feed myself too.
So I took a job as a machinist and did part-time study, until 1985 when I started in business at twenty-one years old, a restaurant in partnership with my uncle in Brick Lane. It wasn’t doing very well, so I carried on working as a machinist by day and in the restaurant at night. After a year it picked up so I left work to concentrate on the restaurant, it wasn’t making any profit but there was a small income. I had a hard time when my father died in 1986 and I visited him for six weeks, that’s when I stopped my education. My uncle and I decided to sell the restaurant and again I went back to work as a machinist and doing part-time study. Eventually, again in partnership with my uncle, I bought another restaurant, in Manchester and each weekend I went up there and helped them out, until the building got compulsorily purchased and demolished.
Next I found a job in insurance, I was looking for a better job that was less tiring than being a machinist. I did it for six months but then I quit because although my East End clients spoke to me nicely, they were back biting and one introduced me as “an insurance thief.” Returning to being a machinist, I became a manager since I knew the trade.
In 1990 when I was twenty-seven, I married Shelena Begum and it was a happy time because we had a son in 1991, our first baby. I had the opportunity to buy another restaurant and my brother managed it for me. By this time I was searching for further study and I started a course in motor vehicles at City & Islington College, but there was a disaster at the restaurant and I had to go and run it. I managed it for two years and there were so many battles, I had to give up my course – even though my ambition was not to be a restaurateur, but to study and do something professionally.
Then one day my son’s teacher said to me, ‘Mr Miah, I have found your son very aggressive, even though he is a good student.’ I was surprised. I couldn’t understand what was wrong. I put a manager in the restaurant on Saturday and Sunday, and I spent two hours each day with my son taking him to school and bringing him back, I talked to him everyday. I was spending more time with him than at work, I was trying to give him comfort. I realised the problem was that when I left he was at school and when I came home he was asleep. I took a few weeks off to be with him, but most parents would not be able to do as I have done.”
Sanu Miah no longer works days in a clothing factory and nights in a restaurant. That is behind him now he has achieved the professional career he always aspired to. What is remarkable about Sanu’s account is that it is a testimony of unceasing labour, counter-balanced by a hungry appetite for learning and study which continues to this day. Coming to London from Bangladesh, work and study were the paths of personal advancement Sanu pursued tenaciously in spite of all the obstacles, until the needs of his own son caused him to re-evaluate his priorities. I asked Sanu if he felt any sense of loss that he left his country of origin and worked all through his youth. Not in the least cynical or world-weary, he is adamant that the opportunities he had, even to labour so many years in menial employment and devote all his spare time to study, were more than worth any sacrifice.
Today the fifteen year old boy who arrived on the District Line – like so many others before him – and walked out of Aldgate East tube station and up Brick Lane in 1979 to seek his own future, has become a respected businessman. After such a long journey and so much work, we are now witnessing the apotheosis of Sanu Miah. “I think I will be here in Spitalfields all my life.”, he reflected soberly, acknowledging past tensions yet hopeful of the future too, “Although there was once hatred between the whites, the Bengalis and the Pakistanis, that was because of the language problem. We could not communicate so we knew nothing of each other. People have changed, learning the language and meeting socially together. Everybody has the habit of living together here. I would like to meet other communities and know different people – because you are in this world not for very long and you have to live with other people…”
Sanu on the left, pictured with friends on the day he left Bangladesh at fifteen years old to come to London in 1979.
Where Sanu’s journey began.
In the rural world of Bangladesh.
Working in a Brick Lane video store, 1986.
The evolution of a young businessman.
Sanu with cousins, 1982
Stanley Rondeau, Huguenot
If you visit Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Christ Church, Spitalfields on any given Tuesday, you will find Stanley Rondeau – where he works unpaid one day each week, welcoming visitors and handing out guides to the building. The architecture is of such magnificence, arresting your attention, that you might not even notice this quietly spoken white-haired gentleman sitting behind a small table just to the right of the entrance, who comes here weekly on the train from Enfield. But if you are interested in local history, then Stanley is one of the most remarkable people you could hope to meet, because his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Jean Rondeau was a Huguenot immigrant who came to Spitalfields in 1685.
“When visiting a friend in Suffolk in 1980, I was introduced to the local vicar who became curious about my name and asked me ‘Are you a Huguenot?'” explained Stanley with a quizzical grin.“I didn’t even know what he meant.” he added, revealing the origin of his life-changing discovery,” So I went to Workers’ Educational Association evening classes in Genealogy and that was how it started. I’ve been at it now for thirty years. My own family history came first, but when I learnt that Jean Rondeau’s son John Rondeau was Sexton of Christ Church, I got involved in Spitalfields. And now I come every Tuesday as a volunteer and I like being here in the same building where he was. They refer to me as ‘a piece of living history’, which is what I am really. Although I have never lived here, I feel I am so much part of the area.”
Jean Rondeau was a serge weaver born in 1666 in Paris into a family that had been involved in weaving for three generations. Escaping persecution for his Protestant faith, he came to London and settled in Brick Lane, fathering twelve children. Jean had such success as weaver in London that in 1723 he built a fine house, number four Wilkes St, in the style that remains familiar to this day in Spitalfields. It is a measure of Jean’s integration into British society that his name is to be discovered on a document of 1728 ensuring the building of Christ Church, alongside that of Edward Peck who laid the foundation stone. Peck is commemorated today by the elaborate marble monument next to the altar, where I took Stanley’s portrait which you can see above.
Jean’s son John Rondeau was a master silk weaver and in 1741 he commissioned textile designs from Anna Maria Garthwaite, the famous designer of Spitalfields silks, who lived at the corner of Princelet St adjoining Wilkes St. As a measure of John’s status, in 1745 he sent forty-seven of his employees to join the fight against Bonnie Prince Charlie. Appointed Sexton of the church in 1761 until his death in 1790, when he was buried in the crypt in a lead coffin labelled “John Rondeau, Sexton of this Parish,” his remains were exhumed at the end of twentieth century and transported to the Natural History Museum for study.
“Once I found that the crypt was cleared, I made an appointment at the Natural History Museum, where Dr Molleson showed his bones to me.” admitted Stanley, widening his eyes in wonder. “She told me he was eighty-five, a big fellow – a bit on the chubby side, yet with no curvature of the spine, which meant he stood upright. It was strange to be able to hold his bones, because I know so much about his history.”, Stanley told me in a whisper of amazement, as we sat together, alone in the vast empty church that would have been equally familiar to John the Sexton.
In 1936, a carpenter removing a window sill from an old warehouse in Cutler St that was being refurbished was surprised when a scrap of paper fell out. When unfolded, this long strip was revealed to be a ballad in support of the weavers, demanding an Act of Parliament to prevent the cheap imports that were destroying their industry. It was written by James Rondeau, the grandson of John the Sexton who was recorded in directories as doing business in Cutler St between 1809 and 1816. Bringing us two generations closer to the present day, James Rondeau author of the ballad was Stanley’s great-great-great-grandfather. It was three generations later, in 1882, that Stanley’s grandfather left Sclater St and the East End for good, moving to Edmonton when the railway opened. And subsequently Stanley grew up without any knowledge of Huguenots or the Spitalfields connection, until that chance meeting in 1980 leading to the discovery that he is an eighth generation British Huguenot.
“When I retired twelve years ago, it gave me a new purpose.” said Stanley, cradling the slender pamphlet he has written entitled, “The Rondeaus of Spitalfields.” “It’s a story that must not be forgotten because we were the originals, the first wave of immigrants that came to Spitalfields,” he declared. Turning the pages slowly, as he contemplated the sense of connection that the discovery of his ancestry has given him, he admitted, “It has made a big difference to my life, and when I walk around in Christ Church today I can imagine my ancestor John the Sexton walking about in here, and his father Jean who built the house in Wilkes St. I can see the same things he did, and when I am able to hear the great eighteenth century organ, once it is restored, I can know that my ancestor played it and heard the same sound.”
There is no such thing as an old family, just those whose histories are recorded. We all have ancestors – although few of us know who they were, or have undertaken the years of research Stanley Rondeau has done, bringing him into such vivid relationship with his ancestors. I think it has granted him an enviably broad sense of perspective, seeing himself against a wider timescale than his own life. History has become personal for Stanley Rondeau in Spitalfields.
The silk design at the top was commissioned from Anna Maria Garthwaite by Jean Rondeau in 1742. (5981.9A Victoria and Albert Museum. Photo courtesy of V&A images)
4 Wilkes St built by Jean Rondeau in 1723. Pictured here seen from Puma Court in the nineteen twenties, it was destroyed by a bomb in World War II and is today the site of Suskin’s Textiles.
The copy of James Rondeau’s song discovered under a window sill in Cutler St in 1936.
Stanley Rondeau standing in the churchyard near his home in Enfield, at the foot of the grave of John the Sexton’s son and grandson (the author of the song) both called James Rondeau, and who coincidentally also settled in Enfield.
Fergus Henderson, bookworm
Although Fergus Henderson is widely celebrated as the presiding spirit and co-founder of St John, his literary tendencies are less commonly known. And so, desirous of learning more, I dropped by St John in Smithfield one bright morning, with my City Of London library card in hand, to enjoy a steadying glass of Fernet Branca with Fergus and discover how it is that certain books have become the means by which he communicates the undefinable ethos of this unique culinary enterprise with his staff. Still windswept and tanned from a recent holiday on the Isle of Tiree, Fergus arrived glowing with all the enthusiasm and energy of a schoolboy returning from Summer Camp. “Sometimes I feel that I am not the most clear of chaps,” he confessed to me with a tender grimace – as we each knocked back the bitter liqueur laced with rhubarb and saffron yet possessing a compelling aroma of frankincense and myrrh – adding plainly, “so I amassed this collection of books to explain.”
“It was when I first handed the reins to another chef, Ed Lewis, that I needed some means to convey the essence,” continued Fergus mysteriously.“I chose ‘Master & Commander’ by Patrick O’Brian because I think of the kitchen as very much like an eighteenth century Man o’ War – a confined space. As chef you have to be everybody’s friend, but you must be in charge, so you need to keep yourself at a distance too. My march up and down between the fridges in the kitchen, there’s some similarity there with the Captain’s march up and down the deck, I think.” he said, adopting an unconvincing comic frown of fierce authority as his attempt at a Captain of an eighteenth century Man o’ War. “I have given this book to every head chef and sous-chef.” he explained, before raising his eyebrows with a self deprecatory smile, changing tone as a thought occurred to him, “Maybe I should ask if they read it?”
His second choice appeared more esoteric, though I quickly became aware of a theme emergent. Fergus chose L.T.C. Rolt’s 1957 biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a subjective portrait of the engineer, tracing his triumphs and tribulations to create a narrative that reads like a novel. “Unlike recent biographies that have been critical, Rolt just loves Brunel and so I love him too. What’s so brilliant about Brunel is that he builds the Great Western Railway which is a feat in its own right, gets to Bristol, notices the Atlantic and says we’ll built the SS Great Britain and go across it – What a guy!” said Fergus with an admiring grin, making a lateral connection to St John’s next step, the hotel in Leciester Sq. “With the hotel, we thought,’We’ve fed them, now we’ll bed them.’ Not quite as ambitious as spanning the Atlantic but in his spirit.” he outlined with a deferential shrug. I knew that Fergus himself trained as an architect, so it seemed the appropriate moment to ask if he designed his restaurants, “I am to blame for most of it,” he admitted, drawing a long face of self-parody and casting his eyes around the cavernous white interior.
As we arrived at Fergus’ third title, Thomas Blythe the general manager walked in, adopting a good-humoured smirk when he overheard the subject of our conversation – because he is himself a recipient of these books, and he knew what was coming next, Ian Fleming’s “The Man With the Golden Gun.” “I chose it because I thought Bond and Scaramanga ate whole crabs together and drank pink champagne.” revealed Fergus wistfully before Thomas confirmed, “I read the book and it doesn’t exist, it wasn’t there at all.” and they both exchanged a glance of crazy humour. “That’s why we always serve whole crabs on the menu here…” continued Fergus with supreme logic,”It’s a sad story, but Thomas enjoyed the book – who wouldn’t enjoy it?” Then they both looked at me and smiled in solidarity, like brothers.
This obscure paradox was the ideal introduction to Fergus’ fourth title, John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing.” “What I took from this book was the importance of genus locii, the sense of place.” admitted Fergus, “Restaurants are places rich in genus locii. There is this chaos that happens twice a day, extraordinarily different people coming together. Also, Berger discusses Leonardo’s cartoon that no-one was interested to look at until an American offers to buy it for a million dollars and then a line forms. Restaurants can be a good example of this phenomenon too.”
I took this as a cue to probe Fergus about the origin of St John which has led the renaissance in British cooking in recent years, and is now integral to the identity of both Smithfield and Spitalfields. Explaining that Dickens was appalled by the variety of offal eaten in Spitalfields when he visited in 1851 and that Joan Rose remembers poor people eating a pig’s head when they could not afford a Sunday roast in the nineteen thirties, I asked him about his relationship to the food of the past. “Dickens was narrow-minded and pig’s head is delicious!” he retorted with unexpected fervour, eyes sparkling through his horn-rimmed spectacles as he declared his personal manifesto, “Food is permanent while fashion just changes, but what was good then is good now. I’m not interested in historical recreations. I am a modernist through and through, yet a pickled walnut is something that has been around forever and is still a thing of joy. I think of our food as permanent British. Nose-to-tail-eating is because it’s polite. It is not because of thrift, it’s simply because it is delicious.”
So now I hope I understood something. Many of the elements I recognise at St John are present in these books, the acute drama of collective enterprise, the particularly British glamour of dining incarnated by Bond and the unadorned presentation of good food that resists fashionable categorisation. There is a sensibility that is a synthesis of these literary works, serious yet with levity, and it adds up to the unique quality of tone that characterises St John – which all makes complete sense for a distinctively British restaurant because we are a nation of writers.
Ron Goldstein, Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club
If – like Ron – you were your parents’ tenth child, growing up in a tiny terraced house with a clothing factory on the top floor in Boreham St, Brick Lane, and sharing a room with your three elder brothers, then you might also be impatient to join the Boys’ Club round the corner in Chance St and have somewhere to let off steam and have fun. Even though strictly you had to be eleven, Ron was able to join the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club in 1933 when he was only ten, because his older brother Mossy was a Club Captain and pulled a few strings.
At this moment a whole new world opened up to Ron. For the price of a halfpenny a week subscription, each night he would be in the front of the throng of boys waiting impatiently in Chance St for the seven o’clock opening of the Club, hungry for fulfilment of the evening’s promise. Squeezing past the office where membership cards were checked, he went first to the canteen in the hope of wolfing a tasty saveloy, while others were already getting stuck into a quick game of table tennis, before the photography class started at seven-thirty. This was the primary focus of the evening for Ron – because as you can see from the picture above, he was the proud owner of a box brownie that he bought for two shillings from Woolworths. Harry Tichener, who ran the classes, was a West End photographer who inspired his East End pupils by teaching them how to use and develop colour film before most people had even seen a colour photograph – encouraging a lifelong enthusiasm for photography in Ron. At eight-thirty sharp the photography class was over, and it was time for Ron and the others to enjoy a brisk run down Bishopsgate to the Bank of England and back again without stopping, followed by a refreshing shower at nine-thirty, then a prayer in the gymnasium before going straight home to bed in Boreham St.
And so at ten years old, life acquired a totally new momentum for Ron. It was so special to him that even today, more than seventy years later, he remains close friends with many of the boys he met then and they are still enjoying regular happy Club reunions, celebrating the lifelong friendships that were forged at the Club.
Opened in 1924 by altruistic undergraduates as a Jewish Boys’ Club, the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club had an ethical intent from the beginning, adopting the motto, “serva corpus, cole mentem, animam cura,” – keep fit, cultivate your mind, think of your soul. These lofty ambitions were reflected in the lively range of activities on offer, including, boxing, art, photography, gym, travel talks with lantern slides, dramatics and play reading, harmonica classes, health lectures, first aid lessons, hobbies, science lectures, swimming, shoe repair, philately, essay writing and debating.
In retrospect, Ron fondly appreciates the raising of expectations that the Club encouraged, “Half of the boys would have ended up as the next generation of gangsters and criminals if it had not been for the Club. It was our first time to mix with people who never had to work from an early age and our first chance to consider the ethical side of life. We were a bunch of young tearaways. The Club managers from Cambridge had a very upper class way of talking and we used to take the mickey, but it was different at the weekend camps, everyone dressed the same and we all mucked in together.”
The photographs speak eloquently of the joy engendered by the Club and of the easy affectionate atmosphere, creating a warm playful environment in which the boys were able to feel free and enjoy the respect of their peers. Each weekend there were rambles when the boys took their cameras and enjoyed afternoon hikes within striking distance of London, stopping off at pubs to quench their thirst with half pints of shandy. During Summer weekends there were camps, when everyone travelled down to the country together, set up their tents, cooked meals and enjoyed outdoor pursuits, returning to the East End weary and sunburnt on Sunday night. Once a year, this was extended to a week’s Summer Camp at a more exotic location such as Frome or Banbury or Wimbourne. Ron only attended two Summer camps but he also recalls with delight the year he was disappointed, when he was unable to go due to a strained heart muscle that confined him to the Royal London Hospital. To his everlasting delight, a basket of fruit from Fortnum & Mason arrived from one of the Club’s wealthy patrons and no-one in the hospital had ever seen such a generous gift to a teenage boy.
When the twin Lotinga brothers, George and Rowland took over in 1936, they removed the Jewish prerequisite of membership of the Club, opening it to everyone, as a radical and egalitarian response to the rise of antisemitism, manifested by Oswald Mosley and the fascists in the East End. In this context, the playful Club photographs take on another quality, because there is something noble in the existence of a social space devoted to nurturing human sympathy, created while others are setting out to breed hatred. The boys were not unaware of the value of their freedom either, as evidenced by the seventeen year old lad that Ron remembers, who told his mother he was going on a weekend camp with the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys Club but ran away to fight in the Spanish Civil War instead.
At thirteen years old in 1936, Ron started in Fleet St as a runner for the Associated Press Picture Agency which required working evenings and limited his opportunities to attend the Boys’ Club. But he remained a member until war broke out in 1939, attending the Camp at Greatstones, Hythe at the age of sixteen, during that famously beautiful last Summer before hostilities were declared. These photographs are especially poignant, recording the final moments of a carefree youthful world before it was destroyed forever.
When war commenced, Ron’s father moved the family out of London to Hove and before long Ron and many other members of the Club found themselves enlisted. Some achieved heroism in the service and many died, while others came to prominence in post-war civilian life, yet although the Club finally closed in 1990, there are still enough members of the Cambridge and Bethnal Green Boys’ Club around to remind us of this honourable endeavour which set out to encourage the best in people, despite the tyranny of circumstance.
You can read more at The Cambridge & Bethnal Green Old Boys’ Club
Waiting in line in Chance St on a Winter’s night for the club to open at seven o’ clock.
George and Rowland Lotinga surrounded by members of the club in Chance St, with Harry Tichener extreme right.
On a visit to Parliament in 1935 as guests of Sir Percy Harris, Liberal MP for Bethnal Green, seen on the right. Ron is the second boy standing to the left of Club manager, Derek Merton.
On a Sunday ramble through the outskirts of London.
Fourth from the left in the front row, Ron cradles his camera on this ramble led by photographer Harry Tichener, who ran the Club all through World War II when the younger managers were enlisted.
At Summer Camp, Ron is riding in the rumble seat at the very back of this car belonging to Harry Moss of Moss Bros. Passengers from left, George Lotinga, Harry Moss, Ronny Coffer, Dave Ross, Mick Goldstein, Syd Curtis and Ron.
A happy scene at Greatstones Summer Camp 1939 with Dave Saunders (bending at centre) and Monty Meth, current chairman of the old boys’ club (bottom row, right, in a dark blouson)
Mealtime at Greatstones Summer Camp 1939.
A race in Victoria Park in 1938, with Odiff Fugler making headway on the left and Dave Saunders in the centre.
High jinks at the Greatstones Camp Tuck Shop 1939.
The cook makes dough in a field at Greatstones – note the makeshift stoves in the background.
Cecil Bright, Dave Ross, Sid Tabor, Freddy Oels, Dave Summers, Monty Griver and Mick Goldstein (Ron’s brother).
More recently, Cecil Bright, Dave Ross, Sid Tabor, Dave Summers, Monty Griver and Mick Goldstein.
Ron was part of the Club’s Harmonica group named “The Four Harmonica Kids.”
Ron Goldstein
More of Jim Howett's shop fronts
This photograph shows numbers one and three Fournier St – a detail of a plate of Christ Church, Spitalfields in a book of old London churches from 1896. As well as being a unique historical record this picture also includes a pitiful old nag outside number three, a hidden realistic incidental detail revealed by the enlargement, at odds with the photographer’s picturesque ambition to illustrate the nobility of our capital’s churches. A century later, this photograph was confirmation that although both premises pictured were empty and neglected after the fruit and vegetable market moved out (an ex-banana importer and an ex-pawnbroker’s premises respectively), the shop fronts were largely unaltered. In fact, both these frontages were themselves alterations, dating from when these eighteenth century houses became shops in the eighteen forties. A consideration that emphasises the continuum of change, while revealing the dilemmas raised by any pursuit of authenticity in Spitalfields.
In 1998, when Jim Howett set about the restoration of number three Fournier St, apart from replacing the doors and opening up the lights to the cellar below, the work entailed repairing what remained. Using a palette knife, through painstaking work, it was possible to pick the paint off the fascia to reveal the earlier signwriting, “W & A. Jones.” The following year, Jim was asked to create the shop front for number one, which had been stripped out for use as a warehouse and there he designed a shop frontage that continued the same structure and style of number three. This discreet work has restored the modest dignity to this pair of houses at the foot of Fournier St, linking Fournier St with the market, and quietly complementing the baroque egoism of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Christ Church.
Directly round the corner at 86 Commercial St, directly on the other side of the Ten Bells public house which occupies the corner site, Jim had the opportunity in 2004 to design a new frontage for “Beedell Coram” (Andrew Coram’s antique shop) and thereby define the look of this corner which is a key location at the centre of Spitalfields. Interestingly, the frontage at the time attempted a faux period style, yet the low fascia blocked daylight from the interior of the shop and created a strange disjuncture between the shop front and the building above, which only served to emphasise the fakeness of the design. Structurally, what revealed this as a modern shop front was the door cases, which were set on a plane with the window. In the past, door cases were usually set back, allowing people to step in from the rain while opening or closing the door – creating an intermediary space that modern developers seek to avoid, as a potential location for homeless people to shelter.
Working from a photo of the earlier shop front, taken in the nineteen sixties when the premises were Donovan Bros Market Sundriesmen, Jim reconfigured pieces of the current frontage. Setting back the door cases immediately restored the proportion, while raising the fascia reconnected the frontage to the top of the building and allowed more light into the shop too. While addressing these formal considerations, Jim equally considered the function of the space. He reinstated the cellar lights, which allow the basement to become a business premises and installed a metal grille (recycled from the former pawn shop at 11 Princelet St) which better serves an antique dealer than shutters, providing security and permitting window shoppers to peer through the glass at night. Finally, in contrast to the anachronistic Gill Kayo typeface used for “Flowerworks”, Jim took the style of sans-serif relief lettering for the new sign from the lost fascia of an old Jewish delicatessen in Brick Lane, that he photographed when it was briefly uncovered.
The finished result is in revealing contrast to the heritage style design that preceded it, Jim’s shop front looks natural because it was created from an understanding of form and function, based upon a conscientious research of the historical record. There is an austere dignity in this work that is never ostentatious, drawing attention to the contents rather than foregounding the design of the fascia, and now this shop complements the streetscape that surrounds it, becoming part of the larger picture rather than jostling for attention with the neighbours.
When you arrive in Spitalfields from Liverpool St Station, walking up Brushfield St towards the church, you notice Jim’s shop fronts for Verde & Co and A.Gold on your right, and arriving at Commercial St to stand in the shadow of the spire, you see the Ten Bells to your left flanked by Jim’s shop fronts on either side. The irony of the modest aesthetic apparent in each case is that these are all the shops that look most at home, while the others appear interlopers by contrast. Amidst the jostling contrast of the old and new, it is the work that Jim Howett has done which sews everything together, picking up threads of the past and defining a quiet vernacular style that is unique to Spitalfields, as part of the fabric and the personality of this place.
Read the previous feature here Jim Howett’s Spitalfields shop fronts
Three Fournier St, prior to restoration.
Three Fournier St today.
86 Commercial St in the nineteen sixties.
86 Commercial St in the nineteen nineties
86 Commercial St today
The fascia uncovered on Brick Lane that inspired the Beedell Coram lettering
At the corner of Commercial St and Fournier St, the Ten Bells, flanked by Jim Howett’s shopfronts.
