The shoe-shiners of Leadenhall Market
Yesterday afternoon, I walked over in the torrential rain to find the shoe-shiners of Leadenhall Market but they were gone. It was my mistake, I should have known better, I should have realised that you cannot polish wet leather. So today I returned under a benign blue sky and was delighted to discover that the sunshine brings out the shoe-shiners in the City of London.
Before long, I struck up a conversation with John who you see above in the throes of his swift occupation. He explained that he is one of a half dozen actors and musicians who work here in Leadenhall Market shining shoes as part of the London City Shoe Shine Company when they are between engagements. Even in these pictures, you can tell that John is a natural performer, bringing his relaxed stage presence and gallant sense of style to fulfill his current role of shoe-shiner for bankers with appealing panache. There is a sense of theatre about Leadenhall Market with its intricate carmine ironwork and John’s virtuoso performance on the shoe-shine has become a major dramatic attraction in this Victorian architectural masterpiece sequestered between Lloyds and Gracechurch St.
Observe the casual pride on the customers’ faces as they place their best foot forward to receive the polish that is the finishing touch. Assuming a stance that has an innate nobility and enjoying a tiny moment of grace, they bolster their spirits, before striding off with glazed eyes to take on the Leviathan that is the infinite tribulation of the global financial marketplace.
Meanwhile, exuding an appealing buoyant energy, John is an enthusiastic advocate for the understated art of the shoe-shine. “We all enjoy doing it because it is a window into a world you wouldn’t be party to otherwise”, he explained as he finished up another shoe-shine and eagerly pocketed another banknote, before turning to me and rolling his eyes with sardonic humour, “During the banking crisis was an interesting time to be down here. The sense of dread was palpable for a while. Anyone who works in a high powered business wants to protect their interests, they need a lot of money to live, so there were a lot of very scared people around at that time.”
But a global financial crisis is water off a duck’s back for the shoe-shiners. “It didn’t affect our business at all,” revealed John with a breezy smile,“People need to look good, especially for job interviews. It’s surprising how much pride they take in their appearance.” I asked John, if like those Wall St shoe-shiners of the nineteen thirties, any of his colleagues were tempted to cross over to work in the financial sector, but he shook his head with good-humoured disinterest, “We see the pitfalls from the ground, he concluded sagely.
There is an intimacy between the shoe-shiner and the customer, comparable to that of a barber and client, and it is this camaraderie of the city that John delights in, because actors are by nature students of humanity. “It’s a very social job and we have regulars who we consider friends. We are privy to things they wouldn’t tell their nearest and dearest”, he said, with a grin that transformed into an incongruous laugh as he revealed his customers’ curiosity for the acting life, “Everybody is very interested in what we do, because the pursuit of artistic endeavour isn’t prevalent in the City.”
I wondered whether John might get cold, working outdoors in all weathers, but he rejected my concern robustly with a smirk. ” The worst thing is the people who say ‘God you must be freezing!’ It’s a physical job, so you keep warm and you wear the right clothes,” he said, drawing my attention to the salopettes and moon boots he was wearing and explaining that he prefers to work in shorts in summer, adding, “Business is pretty even all year round,” just to confirm his state of ease in the day job, in case I had even the hint of a shred of doubt left. Then another customer arrived and, as I was taking my pictures, I overheard John speaking in care-free excitement for his next engagement as an actor/musician, a tour of South East Asia. As John was explaining that he might take some time at the beach afterwards, I could see the grey-faced city worker filling with barely-concealed jealousy and it made me realise that the balance of the transaction between shoe-shiner and businessman is not as clear cut as it might first appear.
Finally, I asked about the rain.“All of those people who were drowned yesterday will be here today, it’s swings and roundabouts.” declared John with his indefatigable alacrity, as he set upon the high-powered two-handed brush action that brings the ultimate lustrous gloss to the leather. Then his pal interrupted with a nudge, “Tell him about the pancake race, John.” and John blushed to confess he won the Leadenhall Pancake Race yesterday morning, receiving a magnum of champagne as his reward. Come rain or shine, the life of the modest shoe-shiner possesses an enivable sheen. You have to admire his polish.
Jeremy Freedman, photographer
There is a particular time in March around six thirty in the morning when the sun rising sends a narrow ray of sunlight along Sandys Row to illuminate the front of the synagogue in Spitalfields and photographer Jeremy Freedman was there for weeks in the frost to capture this haunting image with its subtly modulated dark tones and luminous mackerel sky at dawn.
It was a university photographic project that first drew Jeremy to the orthodox synagogue, established here in Sandys Row in 1854 as The Society of Loving Kindness and Truth (a Mutual Aid Society offering a community of social support and traditional funeral for those who embraced the society), in a former Huguenot Chapel built in 1766. In the nineteenth century, when there were over one hundred and fifty synagogues in the East End, Sandys Row had one of the largest congregations. Now it is one of only four that remain active and, when Jeremy came along to take his pictures, he found the attendance was dwindling.
“As a photographer, I thought was very important to photograph the senior members of the shul and try to do it in a way that captured their essence.” explained Jeremy, introducing the remarkable series of portraits you see below, which are published here for the first time. As the work of a photographer at the beginning of a career, there is an impressive restraint to these austere, warm and dignified images that stand as fine examples of classical photographic portraiture.
More significantly, there is an emotional intensity present that reveals something of Jeremy’s relationship to his subjects. Because although Jeremy grew up in North London, he is descended through his father from generations of Dutch Jewish economic migrants who came to the East End in the eighteenth century, while on his mother’s side he is descended from those who came as part of the great migration of over one hundred thousand Polish Jewish people in the late nineteenth century. The name of Deborah Englesman, Jeremy’s ancestor upon his father’s side, is there upon the humble paper and cloth plaque recording the foundation of the synagogue – as one of the mothers, daughters and wives that the poor working men who formed the Mutual Aid Society honoured, in contrast to the rich benefactors whose names were dignified in stone at the foundation of wealthier synagogues in other parts of London. Among Jeremy’s many East End antecedents, his grandfather, Alfred, who was born in Wentworth St, was once the president of the synagogue and his grandmother, Pamela, ran The Princess Alice in Commercial St.
In the late forties and early nineteen fifties, when much of the East End was derelict due to bomb damage, Jeremy’s mother’s and father’s families were among thousands who left, to escape the stigma and poor living conditions. Jeremy’s father grew up in Finchley and his mother in Wembley. “Most of Anglo-Jewry stems from the East End but they never talked about it, as soon as they left they never looked back,” revealed Jeremy, speaking candidly, “it was a dark time in their family history.” Concluding with a grin, “Now they had flushing toilets and electrical appliances.”
Returning to the photographs, “These are the people that left,” Jeremy explained, revealing his personal perspective as proud guardian of these images. They are the work of a passionate young photographer looking at those seniors who are the living connection to his own Jewish patrimony. Once Jeremy had made this connection, to which these photographs bear testimony, he could no longer observe passively. “It was apparent that if I didn’t stop taking photographs and do something, this shul would close, so I joined the board, and I came up with ideas, and got my father involved too, as treasurer. I brought fresh blood and, in turn, this attracted other younger dynamic people. ”
Today Sandys Row is on the up again, welcoming approximately eighty businessmen from the City for lunchtime services on weekdays, plus the synagogue recently received a major award from English Heritage to preserve the roof and Jeremy is currently amassing a photographic archive of all the families, like his, that have been associated with the shul over generations.
“I feel at home here in these streets”, said Jeremy, reflecting affectionately upon this neighbourhood that holds so much of his family history. You will see him frequently these days in the places his ancestors knew so well, because he now has many reasons to spend time here in Spitalfields, through his involvement with the synagogue, as a weekly trader in the Thursday antique market and as a busy working photographer too.
Reverend Malcolm Gingold. © Jeremy Freedman
Harry Gilbert, warden of the synagogue. © Jeremy Freedman
Lilly and Ray Messophia. © Jeremy Freedman
Rose Edmunds. © Jeremy Freedman
Julie Smith and Pauline Rifkind. © Jeremy Freedman
Morris and Maurine Delew. © Jeremy Freedman
© Jeremy Freedman
Henry Glass, who arrived at Liverpool St Station as a child, as part of the Kindertransport.
Dickens in Spitalfields 4, the silk weavers
In the first three installments of Charles Dickens’ article “Spitalfields” that he published in his weekly journal “Household Words” on 5th April 1851, we accompanied Dickens and his sub-editor W.H.Wills to a silk warehouse where they met the manager, Mr Broadelle, and the silk buyer of Messrs Treacy & McIntyre. With Mr Broadelle as their guide, they set out through the streets of the Spitalfields, dropping in to a Ragged School and eventually finding themselves at a weaver’s workshop…
Up a narrow winding stair, such as are numerous in Lyon or in the wynds and closes of the old town of Edinburgh, and into a room where there are four looms; one idle, three at work.
A wan thin eager-eyed man, weaving in his shirt and trousers, stops the jarring of his loom. He is the master of the place. not an Irishman himself, but of Irish descent.
“Good day!”
“Good day!” Passing his hand over his rough chin, and feeling his lean throat.
“We are walking through Spitalfields, being interested in the place. Will you allow us to look at your work?”
“Oh! Certainly.”
“It is very beautiful. Black velvet?”
“Yes. Every time I throw the shuttle, I cut out this wire, as you see, and put it in again – so!” Jarring and clashing at the loom, and glancing at us with his eager eyes.
“It is slow work?”
“Very slow.” With a hard dry cough, and the glance.
“And hard work?”
“Very hard.” With the cough again.
After a while, he once more stops, perceiving that we really are interested, and says, laying his hand upon his hollow breast and speaking in an unusually loud voice, being used to speaking through the clashing of the loom:
“It tries the chest, you see, leaning for’ard like this for fifteen or sixteen hours at a stretch.”
“Do you work so long at a time?”
“Glad to do it when I can get it to do. A day’s work like that, is worth a matter of three shillings.”
“Eighteen shillings a week.”
“Ah! But it ain’t always eighteen shillings a week. I don’t always get it, remember! One week with another, I hardly get more than ten or ten-and-six.”
“Is this Mr Broadelle’s loom?”
“Yes. This is. So is that one there;” the idle one.
“And that, where the young man is working?”
“That’s another party’s. The young man working at it, pays me a shilling a week for leave to work here. That’s a shilling, you know, off my rent of half-a-crown. It’s rather a large room.”
“Is that your wife at the other loom?”
“That’s my wife. She’s making a commoner sort of work, for bonnets and that.”
Again his loom clashes and jars, and he leans forward over his toil. In the window by him, is a singing bird in a little cage, which trolls its song, and seems to think the loom an instrument of music. The window, tightly closed, commands a maze of chimney pots, and tiles, and gables. Among them, the ineffectual sun, faintly contending with the rain and the mist, is going down. A yellow ray of light crossing the weaver’s eager eyes and hollow white face, makes a shape something like a pike-head on the floor.
The room is unwholesome, close, and dirty. Through one part of it the staircase comes up in a bulk, and roughly partitions off a corner. In that corner are the bedstead and the fireplace, a table, a chair or two, a kettle, a tub of water, a little crockery. The looms claim all the superior space and have it. Like grim enchanters who provide the family with their scant food, they must be propitiated with the best accommodation. They bestride the room, and pitilessly squeeze the children – this heavy, watery-headed baby carried in the arms of its staggering little brother, for example – into corners. The children sleep at night between the legs of the monsters, who deafen their first cries with their whirr and rattle, and who roar the same tune to them when they die.
Come to the mother’s loom.
“Have you any children besides these?”
“I have had eight. I have six alive.”
“Did we see any of them, just now, at the – “
“Ragged School? O yes! You saw four of mine at the Ragged School!”
She looks up, quite bright about it – has a mother’s pride in it – is not ashamed of the name: she, working for her bread, not begging it – not in the least.
She has stopped her loom for the moment. So has her husband. So has the young man.
“Weaver’s children are born in the weaver’s room” says the husband, with a nod at the bedstead. “Nursed there, brought up there – sick or well – and die there.”
To which, the clash and jar of three looms – the wife’s the husband’s and the young man’s, as they go again – make a chorus.
“This man’s work, now, Mr Broadelle – he can’t hear us apart here, in this noise? – “
“Oh, no!”
– “requires but little skill?”
“Very little skill. He is doing now, exactly what his grandfather did. Nothing would induce him to use a simple improvement (the ‘fly shuttle’) to prevent the contraction of the chest of which he complains. Nothing would turn him aside from his old ways. It is the old custom to work at home, in a crowded room, instead of in a factory. I couldn’t change it, if I were to try.”
Good Heaven, is the house falling? Is there an earthquake in Spitalfields! Has a volcano burst out in the heart of London! What is this appalling rush and tremble?
It is only the railroad.
The arches of the railroad span the house; the wires of the electric telegraph stretch over the confined scene of his daily life; the engines fly past him on their errands, and outstrip the birds; and what can the man of usage hope for, but to be overthrown and flung into oblivion!
There, we leave him in the dark, about to kindle at the poor fire the lamp that hangs upon his loom, to help him on his labouring way into the night. The sun has gone down, the reflection has vanished from the floor. There is nothing in the gloom but his eager eyes, made hungrier by the sight of our small present; the dark shapes of his fellow-workers mingled with their stopped looms; the mute bird in its little cage, duskily expressed against the window; and the watery- headed baby crooning a in a corner God knows where.
In “Household Words”, this interview followed directly from Dickens’ account of the ostentatious affluence of the silk buyer and the immense financial turnover of the silk warehouse, upon the previous pages. By strategically placing these accounts of the different components of the silk industry side by side, Dickens presents his readers with the impoverished weavers, who actually produce the cloth, uneasily contrasted with those who profit handsomely through trading the fruit of their labours. The reader is invited to draw their own conclusion upon the inequalities of the textile industry, a trade in which injustice persists. Except today, rather than being on the other side of the city from the privileged customer, the workers are likely to be on the other side of the world.
Next time, in the final installment of Dickens’ article, we shall accompany him on a visit to the studio of a young British artist in Spitalfields.
The rare photograph at the top shows a Spitalfields weaver’s workshop, taken in June 1885. Both illustrations were kindly provided by the Tower Hamlets Local History Collection.
Kitty Valentine, artist
Kitty Valentine invited me round to Worship St for tea on Saturday afternoon to visit her tiny apartment in the terrace designed by the pre-eminent Arts & Crafts’ architect Philip Webb in 1862. These buildings were conceived as living and working spaces, with a workshop in the basement, a shop on the ground floor and dwelling for the family on the floors above. Designed in a handsome neo-medieval style with modest proportions yet providing decent living conditions for the artisans, they represent an admirable social ideal – though, disappointingly, the terrace was later divided up into offices and now each floor is let out as a separate dwelling. Kitty’s flat occupies a space that was previously a shop and we enjoyed a lively conversation as we drank our tea upon the raised platform in front of the window, originally used to display items for sale.
Kitty was attracted to the building when she first saw a little picture on the letting agents’ website and, two years ago, she persuaded the sceptical landlord to let it to her when he was suspicious of artists, preferring City workers whom he believed were more responsible. A presumption that we hope he has revised in the light of recent events. It was an inspiring discovery for Kitty to learn of the noble origins of the building, once she had moved in, especially as was she studying screen-printing at the Working Men’s College in Camden, which had been founded by William Morris and where Dante Gabriel Rossetti taught.
Although history may have taken Philip Webb’s building away from its conception and purpose, in her part Kitty has brought it back to its origin as a creative space. Lining every corner of her flat with her wonderful market finds, clothes and artwork (all lovingly organised, arranged, displayed and cared for), Kitty has fashioned an exquisite bower. A nest woven by an ingenious magpie with a million glittery, flowery, feathery things to create the charismatic living space of a woman with with a rich self-confident imagination. I was spellbound by this secret feminine enclave at the base of the vast steel Broadgate Tower.
Kitty studied Fine Art at St Martins School of Art where, like so many talented artists of the younger generation, she came up against the stultifying hegemony of conceptualism. “They weren’t interested in your inspiration, because they thought you weren’t trying hard enough to be modern,” she revealed with a doleful grin. Adding derisively, “They even thought using colour was frivolous,” before looking me in the eye to declare light-heartedly, “but I am glad I stuck with painting because it has given me so much joy.”
There is a brave side to Kitty that is not at first apparent. She is her own woman, who through hard work and directed intelligence has found a way to support herself as an artist. She has won an independent life, making her work here in the living place that she has established. It is a room of her own, which even today can be elusive for many to achieve, but remains essential for anyone pursuing creative work, as a private imaginative space. Somewhere to discover who you are and work out what you are capable of.
Kitty showed me her recent work, a series of miniature paintings, embellishments upon nineteenth century portrait photographs, which she titles “Victorian Mischief”. Kitty’s work is an entirely personal and darkly humorous vision of the Victorians, in which prim and proper worthies and nobility, encased in their uniforms and corsets, acquire animal heads and skulls, with horns or antlers. It is a curious perspective, Lytton Strachey undermined in the spirit of Max Ernst’s collage novel “Une Semaine de Bonte”. But more than this, Kitty’s works are superb paintings, executed with the skill of a miniaturist and revealing an acute ability to express the paradoxes of the human personality. “I look at them and I know what animal they are going to be,” says Kitty describing her response on the discovery of new examples of these small unloved anonymous cabinet photos. Produced in millions by nineteenth century photographers, they were made in addition to the sitters’ prints as disposable advertising material.
I think Kitty’s work has a captivating poetry, proposing images of the hidden emotions and imaginative life of the unknown subjects, while also enriching their mystery by masking their faces with bizarre yet strangely appropriate replacements. And it is a measure of the power of her imagination that you cannot envisage these pictures anymore with mere human faces. This is serious work that explores the tensions and contradictions of our relationship with photography, and with the past, but it is the tenderness of these pieces that touches me most. In the strange world of contemporary art, it takes courage to be tender and, in my opinion, courage is Kitty Valentine’s defining quality.
You can see more of Kitty Valentine’s work by clicking on her name at the top of this story which will take you to her blog, where you may also click on her Etsy shop. Prints of the “Victorian Mischief” series are currently also available at the Two Magpies Emporium in the Tea Room Market in Brick Lane each weekend.
If you look closely at the nineteenth century engraving of Philip Webb’s building below you can see the niche where I photographed Kitty Valentine on Saturday.
A Valentine from Spitalfields
Not so long ago, I used to go out and buy my daily loaf from St John and walk home again, and the only person I knew in Spitalfields to speak to was Sandra Esqulant, the landlady of the Golden Heart. Just six months later, all that has changed entirely, now I cannot walk anywhere here in Spitalfields without meeting someone I know! My life has been transformed.
For several years, I nursed my mother Valerie at home through the Dementia that afflicted her. It was an isolated existence, caring for her, feeding her and reading her stories until eventually she died. Throughout these years, I lived constantly in the presence of death. At almost any point in the final two years, she might have died. Whenever I came upon her sleeping deeply (as I did most days when I came to feed her), there was always a moment when I had to ask myself if she had died and I would observe her breathing to confirm whether she lived, before I woke her.
Years later, it has become apparent that this experience has filled me with the compulsion to write about life. By “life”, I mean all the aspects of existence you see in the categories on the right hand side of this page. In particular, my passion is to explore human life through examining the different qualities of people. I want to use my writing to draw me closer to life. When I began to write Spitalfields Life, I had no idea where it would lead. For over a year, I had been sending pictures daily to my friends from my phone and so it was a natural progress to transfer this process to the internet. But at the moment of commencement, in envoking the name of Spitalfields, I recognised a responsibility to undertake the project with the greatest of care, endowing it with a dignity that reflects my affection for this corner of London. Though equally, I am personally vividly aware that “life” is no less an operative word in the title for me.
Kierkegaard compared the experience of being a writer to that of constantly running through a burning house snatching whatever can be rescued. I think this describes something of my feeling, as I walk through the streets here, because I have this drive to record all the stories of the people and the place, as many as I can, at the rate of one a day, before I meet my own demise. Spitalfields has always been in flux, on account of its position at the boundary of the City of London and so it is in the nature of this place that it is always changing. My pursuit is to record as much as possible, especially the experiences of the people here, in midst of this constant transformation and reconfiguration, as it happens.
Once I began to write posts, something wonderful happened. People began to read them, more and more people. It was an extraordinarily uplifting experience to discover that there was an appetite for my stories of Spitalfields and it confirmed what I had always hoped, that if you strive to do something to the best of your abilities, people will seek it out. All the generous responses I have received from you, my readers, have touched my heart, filled me with humility and given me confidence too – inspiring me to raise the bar, trying to write better and better stories to delight and intrigue you. And you have obviously been talking to your friends, because each week there has been an increase, as more have come to read.
Above all, I cannot disappoint you. The presence of you reading has inspired me with courage to go out and talk to people, seeking stories to write – and the outcome of this is that I have met so many diverse people here in Spitalfields and each one of these people has become fascinating to me in a different way. It has enriched my life far more than I ever expected. I have learnt so much and Spitalfields has become even more intriguing to me. I count my own good luck to live somewhere with an exceptionally long and interesting history, inhabited by a phenomenal range of people. The more I learn, the more I want to know, and every person I meet suggests someone else for me to talk to. And so it goes on. Over the last harsh winter (in what was previously always the most dejected season for me), there has been this rising chord as the stories have become more compelling and the readership has grown too.
At first, I assumed the role of a journalist undertaking an interview but almost immediately this boundary dissolved – because everyone I met treated me with unexpected kindness and because these are the people who inhabit the place I live. Many of the subjects of these interviews have become friends and so what began as a project entitled Spitalfields Life has quite simply become my life. Transforming my life, it has made me look at people differently as I grow to understand their motives better and the result is that the city has become a more human place for me.
I owe it all to you. All this happened because you came along. I sacrificed my career to be a full-time nurse for my mother, then afterwards I could not go back, but Spitalfields Life has permitted me a new direction. Now, because of you, I find myself in this situation where I shall be writing to you every day for the next twenty seven years and I cannot think of a more beautiful way to spend the rest of my life.
The gentle author loves the gentle reader. You are my Spitalfields valentine.
The splendid Valentine at the top is the work of Rob Ryan and I am grateful to him for permitting me to reproduce it here. If you are reading this on Sunday morning, Valentine’s Day, there is still time to go to Ryantown in Columbia Rd and get one for your beloved.
The picture below is my mother Valerie aged seven, taken by my grandfather Leslie.
Maria Pellicci, cook
The weather was unremitting and my shoes were leaking, so I went round to E.Pellicci, the Italian café at 332 Bethnal Green Rd where Maria Pellicci, the head cook, proprietor, and beloved matriarch, cooked me a generous dish of steaming hot spaghetti with freshly made Bolognese sauce which Salvatore, Maria’s nephew, topped off with some Parmesan and ground black pepper. As I wolfed down the delicious spaghetti, I could feel my spirits reviving. Overcome with the intense culinary experience afforded by the tangy tomato sauce and the sweet spaghetti that was of perfect consistency, I was barely aware of the enthusiastic lunch crowd arriving and filling every seat in this historic, perfectly-proportioned, supercosy café, lined with exquisite Italian marquetry by Achille Cappoci in 1946.
As the multiple conversations around me accumulated symphonically, it was like sitting in the centre of an orchestra and hearing all the different instruments playing at once. Yet I felt quite comfortable enjoying my solitary meal peacefully in the midst of this gregarious friendly crowd of locals and regulars, some of whom, Nevio, Maria’s son, told me, have been coming for lunch for more than four generations now, ever since Pellicci’s opened in 1900. Justifiably, this café is a legend in its own lunchtime – a lunch service that has now extended over one hundred and ten years. There is room for thirty customers and there are five waiting staff, which means that everyone gets respectful attention paid to them, and Anna (Maria’s daughter), Nevio, Salvatore and their colleagues have time to enjoy relaxed animated conversations with their guests, whilst keeping the service running efficiently with deceptive ease.
Peering out through the graceful ballet of customers coming and going, and drinks and meals being served, all accomplished through the ingenious collective manoeuvres that have evolved in this confined space over a century of use, I could just make out the sleet falling in the blue light outside and took great comfort in being inside among this happy community of diners. There is a constant debate about whether the East End spirit still exists but all that is required is a visit to Pellicci’s to experience the egalitarian human spirit for yourself.
In that moment when you have finished eating, peek back through the hatch at the rear of the café and you will see Maria busy in the kitchen where she has worked six days a week since 1961, from six in the morning until seven at night (from four in the morning originally), ever since she first came to Bethnal Green leaving the small Tuscan village of Casclana that was her birthplace. Taking a glance through from the café into the kitchen, you will not be ignored, you will not be met with disinterest, Maria will raise her Sophia Loren brows to meet your gaze with her glittering eyes and the gentle smile that you recognise from all those Tuscan paintings of the early Renaissance.
Consequently, it was with some humility that I accepted the honour of Maria’s invitation to visit her there in her kitchen, whence she presides upon her entire domain. “Mama Maria” the children call her, when their parents bring them to the café, where they also came to eat as children once upon a time. If these children can show themselves well behaved throughout their meal, as a reward, they are sometimes permitted to visit Mama Maria in the kitchen, who might dispense a sweet treat if they are especially good.
With her strong features, deep chestnut eyes and exuberant nature, I was immediately under Mama Maria’s spell. She showed me her hands with which she has been cooking her whole life, beautiful working hands, nimble and strong and graceful. She wears the gold ring that her husband, Nevio senior, gave her. It was Nevio’s senior’s father, Priamo Pellicci, who began here in 1900, but he died young and left his wife Elide to run the business and bring up seven children, which she did with great success. Elide Pellicci was the E.Pellicci whose name is still upon the grade II listed facade today. Her son Nevio, who was born above the cafe in 1927, took over from her until his death just a year ago, which leaves Maria as the head of the family business now, supported in the cafe by Nevio junior, her son, Anna, her daughter, and Salvatore, her nephew.
Maria Pellicci cooks every dish on the menu herself, all the meat pies, speciality pasta dishes and traditional desserts, prepared from scratch using fresh ingredients each day. Maria even cuts every chip personally by hand, a feat that recently won her an award for the best in London. She is keen to emphasise that she takes exceptional pride in her cooking and is always eager to respond to the requests of her customers. Scrupulous, Maria orders her meat from the nearby butcher, making regular small orders so that food never hangs around and she has rigorous cleaning regime too, everything is left spotless at the end of each day.
“There is no secret here,” declared Maria, gesturing playfully around her immaculate kitchen, once she had authoritatively outlined the nature of her work. The fact is the Pelliccis love their café and their loyal customers reciprocate the affection, inspiring a passionate human tradition that thrives today as it has always done over so many years. It is a rare haven of kindness, appreciated as it deserves.
I kissed Maria’s hand as I left the kitchen and I was just shaking hands with Nevio before I stepped outside, when Maria appeared unexpectedly through the stained glass door that leads to the kitchen and flashed her huge eyes, holding up a tinfoil parcel for me. It was my sweet treat.
As I walked along the Bethnal Green Rd and crossed Weavers’ Fields in the dark, on my way back to Spitalfields in the gathering blizzard, I could not resist opening the parcel, discovering two slices of bread pudding in there. Let me confess, I ate them both before I got home. My shoes were still leaking but I was warm inside thanks to Mama Maria.
The catkins of Clerkenwell
We have all lived through this worst Winter together, following what we had believed was the worst Winter ever last year. So you may share my delight to see these hazel catkins dancing flamboyantly in the churchyard of St James, Clerkenwell, where they stopped me in my tracks. Another of those familiar rural sights that acquire an exotic poetry, displaced here in the heart of the city.
I was walking home to Spitalfields when I saw the catkins, as I was taking a detour through Clerkenwell to avoid the bitter East wind that numbs my face and pinches my nose, blowing directly along Old St. In Summer, the churchyard is a pleasant shady place to sit, in Winter the buildings and surrounding trees create a shelter from the Arctic blast. At this time of year, I avoid Old St entirely, walking instead along the smaller parallel roads. Closer to home, in Spitalfields, I am familiar with which streets channel the wind and which exclude it. Hanbury St, for example, is a wind tunnel whereas Princelet St is always sheltered from the traffic of air currents, while Commercial St and Great Eastern St are especially prone to raging winds that cause pedestrians to walk with their heads down, bent double against the furious blast.
Being a perennial optimist, whenever I have woken to sunshine over recent weeks, I have briefly convinced myself it is Spring. A self-deception exposed each time that notorious East wind brings another whirling blizzard across the North Sea to engulf us. In fact, the pot of fresh green mint that I bought at Columbia Rd Market on Sunday to brighten my kitchen window sill had to be hauled inside on Wednesday when the snow fell again.
Yet I cannot relinquish the wishful thinking engendered by my longing for Spring and every day I cast my eyes upon the garden searching for signs of growth. There are points of green poking from the dark earth where Spring bulbs declare their first intentions but, however many times I check, they appear reluctant to reveal themselves and make a further commitment to new life. They have a more prudent appreciation than I do of the potential for bad weather still ahead.
As I continued on my way beyond Clerkenwell Green, I acquired a spring to my step because of my discovery. At last, the catkins were positive proof, botanical evidence that life advances ceaselessly and this stasis at Winter’s end cannot be interminable. If your wishful thinking is directed towards something that you know will come, I think it can be dignified with the name of hope, I told myself. And then, even as these thoughts were crossing my mind, I realised my newly fleet feet were carrying me quickly eastwards and I found myself in Allen Gardens, next to Brick Lane, where I looked down to discover these first snowdrops here in the Spring sunshine.
My path led from the catkins of Clerkenwell to the snowdrops of Spitalfields.
