A Flight In A Tiger Moth
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What better way could there be to enjoy a warm summer afternoon than taking a gentle spin in a 1939 Tiger Moth over Kent? I took off from Damyns Hall Aerodrome in Upminster where the East End pilots of World War Two did their training in exactly such a plane.
A train delivered me to Upminster, then a bus dropped me at Corbets Tey before I walked a mile along the grass verge towards Aveley. Strolling up an unremarkable farm track, I discovered a number of brightly coloured vintage aeroplanes and there, ahead of me, stretched a wide expanse of grass that serves as the runway.
My pilot Alex Reynier – the model of confident expertise in a sleek flight suit – was waiting in the clubhouse and, once I had signed a one day membership of the flying club, we walked out to survey the bright red Tiger Moth – as jaunty as a model plane.
These vehicles were used for pilot training – with two seats, one behind the other, open cockpits and dual controls. The robust simplicity of the vehicle is awe-inspiring, essentially a large kite with a motor engine attached. The wings are made of cloth stretched over a frame and the light-weight body of aluminium. Alex opened up the hood to reveal the engine, fitted upside-down to ensure that oil always reaches the pistons and it cannot stall.
I pulled the nozzle out of the nearby petrol pump and handed it Alex so he could fill the small overhead fuel tank, situated where the wings met. Wrapped in some extra layers for warmth, I climbed into my tiny cockpit then Alex strapped me in and fitted my headphones and microphone so we could communicate in the air.
The runway was bumpy but fortunately we did not discover any new rabbit holes and the tiny plane took off effortlessly into the sky, spiralling up at an astonishing speed into the rushing wind.
It is impossible not to be overwhelmed at first by the visceral experience of flight when you are exposed to the air without any barrier between you and the sky. You gaze down from the familiar height of an aeroplane, yet without any of the barriers that are designed to insulate you from the reality of flight in commercial airlines, especially the racing currents of wind and the vibration of the motor. In a Tiger Moth, you are seemingly suspended in air, like an insect.
We were high over the Dartford Bridge, so I turned my head right to see London and left to see the Thames estuary. Without direct reference, the sense of speed was indeterminate.
I was delighted and reassured to be reminded how green the landscape is, mostly undeveloped fields and woods, still peppered with fine old houses and castles – picture book England. Alex pointed out Eynsford Castle, Lullingstone Castle, Chavening House and Chartwell. At Chavening, we descended in a cheeky spiral around the house to take a nosy peek at the gardens. But the climax of the flight was to circle over Knole, just outside Sevenoaks. This is one of my favourite places and the house is often described as resembling a medieval city on account of its vast rambling structure, yet it appeared like a model that I could reach out and pick up if I chose.
Indeed I was beginning to feel that – from above – the world looked like a model of itself, the work of a fanatical enthusiast. This realisation engenders a seductive sense of powerful autonomy, encouraging the notion that it is all laid out from your pleasure and you can fly wherever you please upon a whim. Such was my exhilarated reverie, suspended at 1800 feet over Kent.
I discovered that in these tiny open planes, which take you so high into the air so quickly, the experience of flight has less mystique but a lot more wonder.
Knole
The Thames
Landing safe and sound at Damyns Hall Aerodrome
In Itchy Park With Jack London
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The churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, was once known as “Itchy Park,” a nickname that may derive from the long-term presence of the homeless sleeping there and the lice that afflicted them. In 1902, at the age of twenty-six, the American novelist Jack London came to Itchy Park as part of seven weeks he spent wandering around the East End that Summer, talking to people and learning as much as he could of their lives. The result was a masterpiece, “The People of the Abyss,” in which London used his talent as a novelist to draw his readers into sympathy with those he described, creating a humane portrayal of a world that had previously been the preserve of social campaigners.
The shadow of Christ Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, and in the shadow of Christ’s Church, at three o’clock in the afternoon, I saw a sight which I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in this garden, which is smaller than my own rose garden at home. Grass only grows here, and it is surrounded by sharp-spiked iron iron fencing, as are all the parks of London town, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it.
As we entered the garden, an old woman between fifty and sixty, passed us, striding with sturdy intention if somewhat rickety action, with two bulky bundles, covered with sacking, slung fore and aft upon her. She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her falling carcass through the workhouse door. Like the snail, she carries her home with her. In two sacking-covered bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine possessions.
We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part of trying to sleep.
Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with anyone looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep.In one place a family group, a child asleep in its mother’s arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench, a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with a thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Further on, a man, his clothes caked with gutter mud, asleep, with his head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep.
It was this sleep that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not till afterwards that I learned. It is a law of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. On the pavement, by the portico of Christ’s Church, where the stone pillars rise towards the sky in a stately row, were whole rows of men asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in a torpor to rouse or be made curious by our intrusion.
On August 25th 1902, Jack London wrote, “I was out all night with the homeless ones, walking the streets in the bitter rain, and, drenched to the skin, wondering when dawn would come. I returned to my rooms on Sunday night after seventy-two hours continuous work and only a short night’s sleep… and my nerves are blunted with what I have seen.” In later years, after the success of his great novels “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang,” he recalled of “People of the Abyss,” “No other book of mine took so much of my young heart and tears as that study of the economic degradation of the poor.”
More than a century later, London would be disappointed to return and discover people still sleeping in “Itchy Park” – nowadays they are almost exclusively male and are a mixture of homeless people, addicts and alcoholics, economic migrants and those sleeping it off after a heavy night in a club.
Yet change is imminent, as there is controversy in Spitalfields over the future of “Itchy Park.” Only the section next to Commercial St is open today, to the East are the former Christ Church youth club building and the playground of Christ Church School in Brick Lane. While the school, which is short of space, wishes to build a nursery upon the site of the youth club, there is another body of opinion that would like to see the park enlarged to include the youth club site as a public green space for all.
Meanwhile the sleepers of “Itchy Park” continue their slumber, office workers come to eat their lunch in the shade and tourists sit under the trees to rest their feet, and somehow everybody co-exists amicably enough.
Sleeping in the churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, 1902
Sleeping in the churchyard of Christ Church, Spitalfields, 2011
Jack London
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Terry Smith, Envelope Cutter
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There is not much that Terry Smith does not know about envelopes. When I met him he had been cutting them for sixty years at Baddeley Brothers, the long-established family firm of fine stationery manufacturers. “When I tell people I make envelopes, sometimes they look at you and ask, ‘What does it take to make envelopes?’ Terry revealed to me with a knowing smile, “So I tell them to get hold of a piece of paper and a knife and a ruler, and try to cut out the shape – because that is the trade of envelope making.”
Envelopes, especially of the brown manila variety, are mostly mundane objects that people prefer not to think about too much. But, at Baddeley Brothers, they make the envelopes of luxury and the envelopes of pleasure, envelopes with gilt crests embossed upon the flap, envelopes with enticing windows to peer through and envelopes lined with deep-coloured tissue – envelopes to lose yourself in. This is envelope-making as an art form, and Terry Smith is the supreme master of it.
Did you know there are only four types of envelope in the world? Thanks to Terry, the morning post will never be the same as I shall be categorising my mail according to styles of envelope. Firstly, there is the Diamond Shape, made from a diamond-shaped template and in which all four points meet in the middle – once this is opened, it cannot be resealed. Secondly, there is the “T” Style, which is the same as the Diamond Shape, only the lower flap ends in a straight edge rather than a point – permitting the top flap to be tucked underneath, which means the envelope can be reused. Thirdly, there is the Wallet, which is a rectangular envelope that opens on the long side. And lastly, the Pocket – which is a rectangular envelope that opens upon the short side.
“The skill of it is to make all the points meet in the middle,” confided Terry, speaking of the Diamond Shape, and I nodded in unthinking agreement – because by then I was already enraptured by the intriguing world of bespoke envelope-making.
“I was born in Shoreditch, and my mother and father were both born in Hackney. My dad was a telephone operator until the war and then he became a chauffeur afterwards. My first job, after I left school at fifteen, was at a carton maker but I was only there for three or four weeks when a friend came along and said to me, would I like to work in a ladies clothing warehouse? And I did that for a year until it got a bit iffy. The Employment Exchange sent me along to Baddeley Brothers and I joined when I was seventeen, and stayed ever since.
The company was in Tabernacle St then and I worked in the warehouse alongside the envelope cutters. It was a good thing because as somebody left another one joined and I worked with them, and I picked stuff up. Eventually when one left, they said to me, ‘Do you think you can do it?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, give me a try.’ At first, I did the easy ones, punching out envelopes, and then I started to learn how to make the patterns and got into bespoke envelopes.
It is something that I should like to pass on myself, but I have not found anyone that can handle the paper. Once you have got the paper under the guillotine, it can be hard to get just the shape you want. And it can be quite difficult, because if the stack shifts beneath the pattern it can be very tricky to get it straight again. After you have trimmed the paper in the guillotine, then you put it in the adjustable press, and set up your pattern to cut through the paper and give you the exact shape of the envelope. I design all the patterns and, if we need a new knife, I design the shape and make the pattern myself. All of this can be done on a computer – the trade is dying, but this firm is thriving because we do bespoke. If a customer comes to us, I will always make a sample and nine times out of ten we get the job. You won’t find many people like me, because there’s not many left who know how to make bespoke envelopes.
I retired at sixty-five after I trained somebody up, but two months later I got the phone call saying, ‘Will you please come back?’ That was two years ago nearly and I was pleased to come back because I was getting a bit bored. It’s a great pleasure producing envelopes, because I can do work that others would struggle with. There’s a lot of pressure put upon you, you’ve got a couple of machines waiting and a few ladies making up the finished envelopes.
I was brought up with sport and I ran for London, I am a good all-rounder. I am a swimming instructor with disabled people at Ironmonger’s Row Baths. Every morning, I do press ups and sit ups to keep in shape – a good hour’s work out. I know that when I come into work, I’m ready to go. I’m probably fitter than most of the people here.
They’ve asked me how long can I go on making envelopes and I answer, ‘As long as I am able and as long as I am needed.'”
Terry at work making envelopes in 1990 in Boundary St.
Terry sets a knife to cut the final shape of a stack of envelopes
Die cutting, 1990
Jim Roche checking the quality of foiling on envelopes
Checking the quality of foiling, 1990
Alan Reeves and envelope machine
Alan Reeves and envelope machine, 1990
Gary Cline
Die press proofing, 1990
Folding envelopes by hand
Folding envelopes by hand, 1990
Gita Patel & Wendy Arundel – “We are the best hand finishers”
Proofing Press, 1990
Alan Reeves, Gary Cline, Terry Smith and Jim Lambert.
Baddeley Brothers at Boundary St in the building that is now the Boundary Hotel, 1990
Colour photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien
Black & white photographs copyright © Baddeley Brothers
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Crudgie, Motorcyclist
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Behold the noble Crudgie!
I have been hoping for the opportunity to catch up with Crudgie ever since we were first introduced at the Fish Harvest Festival in St Mary At Hill, so I was delighted to accept his invitation to meet at that legendary bikers’ rendezvous, the Ace Cafe on the North Circular.
Over six foot six in height, clad head to toe in black leather, with extravagant facial hair trained into straggling locks and carrying the unmistakable whiff of engine oil wherever he goes, Crudgie makes an unforgettable impression. Crudgie’s monumental stature, beady roving eyes and bold craggy features adorned with personal topiary, give him the presence of one from medieval mythology, like Merlin on a motorbike. Yet in spite of his awesome appearance and gruff voice, I found Crudgie a warm and friendly personality, even if he does not suffer fools gladly, issuing fearsome warnings to pedestrians not to get in his way.
“I’m only called by my surname, Crudgington. “Ington” means family living in an enclosed dwelling, and “crud” is a variation of curd, so they were probably cheesemakers. There’s a place in Shropshire named Crudgington, but there’s nobody buried in the church with that name, nobody living there with that name either and nobody that lives there has ever heard of anybody called Crudgington. The shortened version of my name came about when I went to play rugby and cricket where everyone gets a nickname ending in “ie.” I’ve swum for the county, and competed as an athlete in the four hundred metres and javelin, as well.
I grew up in Billericay, famous for being the first place to count the votes in the General Election. My father was builder called Henry but everyone knew him as Nobby. I went into banking for ten years in Essex but I couldn’t get on with it, even though I was the youngest person ever to pass the banking exam. So then I went to work in insurance in the City, I worked for Barclays for ten years and played for their rugby team until they couldn’t afford to fund it anymore. In the nineteen nineties, I felt I was getting nowhere in insurance so I started motorbicycle couriering. I got a motorbike from my parents for fifteenth birthday, so I’ve always been a biker and I do thousands of miles on it every year, going to sporting events, meet-ups and scrambles.
It’s the camaraderie of it that appeals to me, meeting up with your mates, but unfortunately you are perceived as an outlaw. I have been stopped eighty-nine times in twenty-one years by the police. Apparently, couriers are the second most-disliked Londoners after Estate Agents. It’s because people get scared out of their wits when they are not thinking where they are going and a courier brushes by and gives them the shock of their life. People should look where they are going. If you are going to hit a pedestrian, it’s best to hit them them straight on, that way they get thrown over the handlebars. A few cuts and bruises, but nobody gets killed by a motorbicycle. Whereas if you veer to either side to avoid them, the danger is you clip them with your handlebars and it sends you into a tailspin, and you fall off.
I’m a member of the most important biker club – The 59 Club, set up by Father Bill Shergold in 1959. He was a vicar who was a biker, and he wanted to bring the mods and rockers together, so he opened up in a church hall in West London in 1961 and on the first day he had Cliff Richard & The Shadows performing there. Then in 1985, it moved to Yorkton St, Bethnal Green. It was open three days a week, and you could go in and have a cup of tea after work. They had a bike repair workshop for maintenance, two snooker tables and a stage where lots of bands performed. And once a year, you could go to a church service. They moved to Plaistow now, but everybody that was in it is still in it – it’s the largest bike club in the world.
There’s only a few British couriers left, most are Brazilians now. It used to be Polish until they earned enough money and all went back home. Once upon a time, there was a lot of money in it though it’s gone down thanks to technology, but the beauty is you can work when you like and you get to go interesting places that you’d never go otherwise. I’ve picked up the Queen’s hair products from SW3 and driven into Buckingham Palace to deliver them. I do a lot of deliveries for film companies and quite often I stay around on set to watch, especially if it’s in some interesting stately home that you wouldn’t normally get to visit. If I have to go somewhere on a journey out of London, I always take time to visit the museum or castle or whatever there is to see.
I’ve worked from nine until seven for years, but I’ve decided I’m only going to do nine thirty to six because I’m getting old. If I had independent funds, I wouldn’t be riding anymore. I haven’t missed a day in quite a few years and I’ve only ever had one week off in twenty years…”
When I arrived at the Ace Cafe, I saw Crudgie’s bike outside and I spotted him through the window, head and shoulders above his fellows. Inside, a long counter ran along one wall, facing a line of windows looking out on the North Circular, and the space in between was filled by tables, scattered with helmets to indicate those which were reserved by customers. Once Crudgie had greeted me with a firm bikers’ handshake, we settled by the window where he squeezed every drop from his teabag to achieve a beverage that was so strong it was almost black. A characteristic Crudgie brew.
Like the questing knight or the solitary cowboy, Crudgie has no choice but to follow his ordained path through the world, yet he is a law unto himself and the grime he acquires speeding through the traffic is his proud badge of independence. A loner riding the city streets with his magnificent nose faced into the wind, Crudgie is his own master.
Crudgie at the Ace Cafe on the North Circular. “- Like Merlin on a motorbike.”
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Fran May’s Brick Lane Market
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Shall we take a walk around Brick Lane with Photographer Fran May on a Sunday in 1976?
Photographs copyright © Fran May
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E. O. Hoppé’s Londoners
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I came upon these intimate and dignified portraits by Emil Otto Hoppé (1878-1972), accompanying interviews by W. Pett Ridge in his LONDON TYPES, 1926.
RANK & FASHION
‘The costume known as pearlies went out so long ago that it can be regarded as a page of distant history. The presentment of a Cockney type is now achieved by other means. As a fact, Commercial Rd is determined to keep pace with the West End so far as male attire is concerned, but the time may come when Hackney Rd will lead.’
THE CHIPPER
‘An increased use of roadways has added to the range of the chipper. From the motor coach, as he goes along the countryside, he can fire comments at slow pedestrians and he can chaff the young women riding pillion on motor bicycles. As used at public meetings, chipping is sometimes known as heckling and no general election is complete without specimens of his art. A junior in any office or warehouse is wise to submit to the verbal attack made by the chipper of the establishment. In due course and with the passage of years, he too will become a chipper. In this way, traditions are maintained and old customs not allowed to die.’
THE MESSENGER GIRL
‘With all the short cuts she is well acquainted and it is not the messenger girl who is deceived by turnings out of Bishopsgate St…’
OF THE FOREIGN LEGION
‘Robinsky – first name Stanislaus – came here many years ago with his wife, neither being acquainted with the English language. Somehow they made their way from the docks to Tottenham Court Rd where they have lived ever since. Robinsky is growing old now and likely enough he does not feel his control over European matters is quite as complete as he once hoped it would be.’
COURT MARTIAL
‘All witnesses whether from Hoxton or elsewhere show a pained anxiety to be extremely decorous in language. Only under the encouragement of the magistrate’s clerk do they, in their quotations, consent to be verbally exact and report with coyness words to which, in ordinary life, they are fully accustomed.’
COMPARISONS
‘Cecil Whitstable swaggered along Latimer Rd, giving a wave of the hand to men acquaintances, with a forefinger to the peak of the cap when they were in the company of ladies. One of the men hurried after him and asked privately if he knew anything worth knowing about the three-thirty race that afternoon. Cecil replied that his mind was on weightier matters.’
HOME WORKERS
‘The home worker pays more dearly than for necessaries than anyone else in London and this is because she has to buy tea by the two ounces, butter by the quarter pound and sugar by the pennyworth…’
STREET MUSIC
‘There are changes in the musical repertory of London introduced so gradually that one requires an observant ear to detect the alteration of the programme. The rhythmical sound of horses hooves has become rare, even the piano organ has become less aggressive. In order that its voice may not reach a public outside its paying area, it frequently mutes its notes and rarely leaves Saffron Hill until the day is well advanced…’
THE COMPLETE LETTER WRITER
‘You will find the humble abode of one who has been visited by dire misfortune, deserted by all the acquaintances one knew in happier days and in brighter surroundings, many articles in the shape of furniture have had to go…’
THE CITY POLICEMAN
‘Protected by his outstretched arm from the traffic that near the Bank comes from every quarter, I have crossed safely without the trouble of diving into the station of the Central Railway. I have seen him dance with agreeable ladies in the great hall at the Cannon St Hotel. I have watched him at open air sports for an entire afternoon. I have looked on with awe at his boxing…’
PRIME OF LIFE
‘An occurrence on which he is an authority is the Clerkenwell Explosion – ‘Wheels a barrel of gunpowder close up against the wall of the prison, then lights a fuse and runs away,’ adding with relish, ‘A few dozen killed and over a hundred damaged. Precious little else talked about at the time I can assure you!”
NOTABLE FEATURES
“Living not far from Shoreditch Church, Mrs Marsden’s husband held a fixed objection to work and the task of earning a wage was left to her. Once he was absent for a fortnight and, when a neighbour brought news that a body had been taken out of the river, Mrs Marsden set out at once for the mortuary. ‘That’s Bill, right enough!’ she said. The insurance was drawn, an almost luxurious funeral provided and a good supply of refreshments laid in. But when the mourners returned, conducted by Mrs Marsden, they found Bill seated at the table. He had eaten the ham and consumed most of the beverages.’
CHAILEY’S RECORD
‘One of the bravest officers the division had ever included in its ranks, Mr Chailey was presented by the Chairman with a spontaneous collection amounting to over one hundred pounds.’
STEPS
‘In the quarters where doorsteps receive daily attention, the maid with her kneeling mat and other necessities of the job, comes up the area stairs early enough to permit of conversation with the acquaintances who pass by and she does not object to the interruptions created. The postman alludes to the temperature. ‘Don’t find I sleep well,’ he mentions autobiographically, ‘during the hot weather.’ ‘Small wonder,’ she remarks, good-humouredly. ‘Look at the life you have led.’ The postman goes on, greatly cheered by the implication.’
THE CHAR-LADY
It is rare for Mrs Miller to take a journey in a public conveyance without being recognised by a fellow passenger. Her bonnet assists her identification. Being no slave to fashion, she has always, in living memory, worn the same style and she retains the headgear when engaged in her daily tasks. I am unable to say whether of not she sleeps in it.’
FIRST DAY
‘George found himself a junior at a salary which juniors of an earlier period would have deemed impossible. A chief clerk to whom he was introduced gazed at him steadily through a pince-nez and said, not discouragingly, ‘I daresay we shall be able to knock some sense into you.’ To which George replied – having been warned to be polite to his superiors – ‘Much obliged, sir!”
HANDS
‘The beauty of the hand diminishes when it has to perform tasks at the Council Washhouses.’
Photographs copyright © Estate of E O Hoppé
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The Bengali Photo Archive
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These photographs are drawn from the Bengali Photo Archive, a new collection of personal and family images donated by local people alongside the work of photographers who have documented the lives of the Bengali community. An exhibition of pictures from the archive entitled, I Am Who I Am Now opens today at Four Corners in Bethnal Green and runs until 3rd August.
Dance at Spitalfields City Farm, Danièle Lamarche 1990s
Adult learners in Whitechapel, Bev Zalcock 1975
Shanaz with her mother in Bangladesh, Shanaz Siddiqa-Baeg 1981
Brick Lane, David Hoffman 1990
Outside Ali Brothers’ grocery shop, Fashion St, Raju Vaidyanathan 1986
Shanaz at Biscott House and three passport photos collage, Shanaz Siddiqa-Baeg
Notes from the streets, Anthony Lam 1990s
Mela, Brady St, David Hoffman 1987
Portrait of a young girl, Anthony Lam 1980s
Montefiore Mural Painting, Tom Learmouth 1970s
Bangladesh Youth Movement winning the football tournament final, Lloyd Gee 1986
Shaira’s siblings and mother, Shaira Jahan 1982
Anti-racist protest in Tower Hamlets, Syd Shelton 1970s
Studio Portrait, Nita Roy Chowdhury 1983
TUC Unite Against Racism March, Mayar Akash 1990s
Brick Lane Mela, Raju Vaidyanathan 1996
Images courtesy Bengali Photo Archive
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