The Creeping Plague Of Ghastly Facadism
I am giving a free lecture based on my book THE CREEPING PLAGUE OF GHASTLY FACADISM at the Barbican Library on Tuesday 11th June at 6pm. CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR TICKET
An affront in Spitalfields
As if I were being poked repeatedly in the eye with a blunt stick, I cannot avoid becoming increasingly aware of a painfully cynical trend in London architecture which threatens to turn the city into the backlot of an abandoned movie studio. If walls could speak, these would tell tales of bad compromises and angry developers who, dissatisfied with the meagre notion of repair and reuse, are driven solely by remorseless greed.
Meanwhile, bullied into sacrificing historic buildings of merit, cowed planning authorities must take consolation in the small mercy of retaining a facade. The result is that architects are humiliated into creating passive-aggressive structures, like the examples you see below – gross hybrids of conflicted intentions that scream ‘Look what you made me do!’ in bitter petulant resentment.
‘A kind of authenticity’ is British Land’s oxymoronical attempt to sell this approach in their Norton Folgate publicity, as if there were fifty-seven varieties of authenticity, when ‘authentic’ is not a relative term – something is either authentic or it is phoney.
Shameless in Artillery Lane
Not even pretending in Gun St either
A sham marriage in Chiswell St
Lonely and full of dread in Smithfield
Can you spot the join in Fitzrovia?
Looming intimations of ugliness in Oxford St
A fracture in Hanway St
A hollow excuse in Central London
The veneer of luxury in the West End
A prize-winning abomination on the Caledonian Rd
Barely keeping up appearances at UCL Student Housing
In Gracechurch St, City of London
St Giles High St, Off Tottenham Court Rd
‘A kind of authenticity’ – Facadism in Norton Folgate according to British Land
CLICK HERE TO ORDER A COPY FOR £15
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Visit The Secret Gardens Of Spitalfields
Gardens in Spitalfields are open for visitors this year on Saturday 8th June from 10am – 4pm. Find details at the website of the National Gardens Scheme.
I have just four tickets remaining for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields at 2pm that day, so if you are clever you can fit both in on the same day.
These hidden enclaves of green are entirely concealed from the street by the houses in front and the tall walls that enclose them. If you did not know of the existence of these gardens, you might think Spitalfields was an entirely urban place with barely a leaf in sight, but in fact every terrace conceals a string of verdant little gardens and yards filled with plants and trees that defy the dusty streets beyond.
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So Long, The Gallant
I am sorry to report that The Gallant sank after capsizing in a sudden violent storm early on Tuesday 21st May, twenty-two nautical miles north of the Bahamas island of Great Inagua with eight sailors on board. Six – four men and two women – were rescued from a life raft, but the two other crew members – Emma T (31) and Léa B (28) – were lost at sea.
The Gallant arriving in Greenwich
In 2019, photographer Rachel Ferriman & I were at the shore to welcome the first sailing ship in more than a generation arriving at the London Docks with a cargo of provisions from overseas. Over subsequent years, the Gallant became a regular sight on the Thames, bringing produce from Portugal and the Caribbean. Although it was a small beginning, we were inspired by this visionary endeavour which set out to connect farmers directly with customers and make the delivery by sail power.
On board, we met Alex Geldenhuys who explained how she started this unique project.
“We are very excited because this is our first visit to London and we believe this cargo has not been delivered here by sail for forty years or more. We have olive oil, olives, almonds, honey, port wine from Portugal and chocolate and coffee from the Caribbean.
I set up New Dawn Traders in 2013. At first, we were working with ships crossing the Atlantic once a year bringing chocolate, coffee and rum but then I started the European voyages three years ago. We do two or three voyages a year which means we are learning more quickly.
With the captains, we decide when and where we will go and what we will pick up. We started in Portugal and most of our suppliers are based in the north of the country, small family farms producing olive oil. They give the best care for the land and contribute most to the local community. These farmers do mixed agriculture and so they also produce honey, almonds and chestnuts.
Next year, we look forward to working with Thames barges, meeting the Gallant in the estuary after the long distance voyage and delivering the cargo to London, just as they were designed to do. We will be back in the spring and customers can order online and then come down to the dock to collect their produce.”
The Gallant was a handsome schooner and we were delighted to explore such a fine vessel moored in the shadow of Tower Bridge while the tanned and scrawny crew were unloading crates of olive oil, coffee and rum, loading them onto bicycle panniers for transport to the warehouse in Euston.
Down in the cabin, we met captains Guillaume Roche & Jean Francois Lebleu, studying charts of the estuary in preparation for their journey to Great Yarmouth, the next port of call. Guillaume began by telling me the story of the Gallant and revealing his ambition and motives for the undertaking.
“I am co-owner of the ship with Jean Francois, we take it in turns to be captain. The Gallant was built as a fishing boat in Holland in 1916, but, when we bought her two years ago to use her as a cargo vessel, she had been converted to carry passengers so we had to build a hatch for loading and enlarge the hold.
We are both professional seamen who have worked on big ships in the merchant navy and we want to do something about Climate Change, but the only thing we know is how to sail a ship. As well as delivering cargo by sail, we want to spread the word to encourage others so this can be the beginning of something bigger.”
Jean Francois outlined the pattern of their working year.
“This summer we did two voyages to northern Europe from Portugal, two ports in France, a lot of ports in England – Bristol, Penzance, Newhaven, Ramsgate, London and Great Yarmouth. Next we go to Holland to deliver cargo there.
Over the winter, we will do maintenance before we sail across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Central America to load rum, chocolate, coffee, mezcal and spices, and stop off in the Azores on the return voyage to pick up honey and tea. And we will bring this cargo back to London next year.”
The work of The Gallant goes on. You can order produce from Sail Cargo London and learn more by following New Dawn Traders.
The crew of the Gallant
Alex Geldenhuys, founder of New Dawn Traders
Guillaume Roche & Jean Francois Lebleu, Captains of the Gallant
Celestin, First Mate of Gallant
Davide, Deck Hand
The cargo is delivered to the warehouse by pedal power
Photographs copyright @ Rachel Ferriman
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Doreen Fletcher’s Spitalfields Paintings
Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields
It is my delight to publish Doreen Fletcher‘s paintings of Spitalfields, Bethnal Green and beyond. These new pictures are to be seen in Doreen’s forthcoming exhibition at Townhouse Fournier St, E1 6QE, from next Saturday 8th until Sunday 30th June. Below Doreen introduces her paintings in her own words.
Lost in Spitalfields
“My title refers both to the maze of streets in this neighbourhood and also to the thousands of refugees from all over the world who have found sanctuary here through the centuries.
In my painting you see Christchurch in the distance, yet it does not dominate for this is an area of markets. Wentworth St has packed up for the day, all the traders and customers have gone home but a few lost souls wander, giving the place a melancholy atmosphere.
Despite the brightly painted frontage of Majestic London, Petticoat Lane only becomes truly vibrant on Sunday when the whole world strolls through these streets.”
Crossing
“When I was young, I discovered that if I drew my surroundings sitting on top of a ladder, I was able to observe with fresh eyes. Standing on the balcony of the block where a friend lives, I was struck by the geometry and emptiness of the streets once the Petticoat Lane traders had packed up and gone. So I sought to capture this quiet aftermath when the market has closed for the day but office workers are still at their desks.”
Elegant Corner
“Standing on a the balcony, I was struck by the eccentricity of this shopfront on the corner of Middlesex St and Wentworth St. An enormous amount of effort has gone into creating this eye-catching scheme.
I discovered the shop has been in the same hands since 2004, so perhaps the fact it is still trading twenty years later is down to the undoubted enthusiasm of the proprietor?
Drawn to this corner, I wanted to celebrate the optimism I sensed in the exuberantly exterior and hint at the treasure trove lying in the cool, dark interior.”
Middlesex St
“It was a hot sunny afternoon and, from my vantage point, Middlesex St appeared sliced in half by shadow. My eye was caught by the flash of an orange t-shirt crossing below, offset by a splash of turquoise from the back pack of a cyclist further up the street.
I prefer to wander these streets when they are deserted with just a few passersby and, recently, I discovered Mien 3, a Vietnamese restaurant with an excellent reputation. The cyclist is not just passing, he has collected an order from this restaurant.”
Galaxy Textiles, Wentworth St
“This shop has been here since 2000 and sells wholesale, shipping off merchandise in trucks and lorries. I was drawn to the empty chair on the pavement. Perhaps it is there to allow the proprietor to sit and watch the world go by when business is quiet? Such a rare human touch. “
House of Hair
“I was struck by the colours of this façade in bright sunshine and the incongruity of its position, a crumbling edifice dwarfed by towers of concrete and glass.
I chose to paint this scene not only because of its abstract qualities of light, colour and composition, but also because I wanted to record one of the last isolated fragments of ‘old Spitalfields’ that remains.
Bruised and battered but not broken, House of Hair is still in business. A few months ago, the dilapidated signage was replaced by machine-cut letters mounted onto glossy perspex. Progress of a sort, though I have to admit that personally I preferred the previous, crooked lettering.”
French Riviera
“I first came to Bethnal Green Rd in December 1983, looking for a jacket, and found a bargain in a leather goods shop. Apart from Woolworths, Burger King and McDonalds, I recall the place as mainly butchers with red-and-white awnings and secondhand shops.
Years later, so much has changed. Not one butcher remains and charity shops have replaced the secondhand stores. To me, the curious facade of French Riviera with its ironic signage and paintwork epitomises the transformation of the area. I assumed it was a trendy cafe, although further investigation revealed it to be a contemporary art gallery!“
Pink Fiat
“E. Pellicci has been a constant in Bethnal Green Rd since it was opened by the Pellicci family in 1900. Even during the pandemic, it ran a takeaway service, as I discovered during the second lockdown. I was wandering around Bethnal Green in the sleet when everything was closed. The streets felt bleak, lonely and eerily quiet.
Then I spotted this Fiat parked outside Pellicci’s and my spirits lifted at the splash of bright pink in front of the yellow facade. Closer investigation revealed that the cafe was open for hot drinks served through a hatch, which was wonderfully reassuring.
Despite the grim winter’s afternoon, the juxtaposition of these two Italian icons evoked Neapolitan ice cream for me. So I went home and set about planning a painting. Three years passed before I felt satisfied with it, which is quite normal with my work.”
Barber’s Shop
“Woodgrange Rd is next to Forest Gate station and, shortly before the Elizabeth Line opened, the shopfronts were cleaned and repainted. Yet a grittiness remains that is refreshing to encounter after a trip to the West End. It is mostly small shops, including four barbers. This one is always busy with sofas inside for customers to waiting.
My painting was begun during the pandemic and the barber is wearing a mask. Yet there is still an intimacy between barber and client which exists despite the necessity of wearing a mask.”
The Bookmakers
“Until 1961 betting shops were illegal and betting took place clandestinely. In the fifties, my gran took bets from punters in her kitchen and even before I was tall enough to see the scribbled bits of paper and money placed on the table, I was told to keep quiet about the frequent comings and goings at her house.
Paddy Power is on Stratford Broadway, opposite a bus stop where I have spent a lot of time over the past fifteen years, waiting for the 308 home after visiting the Picture House. Many years of looking at this view have resulted in The Bookmakers, tempting with the allure of warmth and security within.”
Jo’s Diner
“The funfair always comes to Wanstead Flats at Easter, Whitsun and August Bank Holiday. Every Easter, I marvel at the spirit and optimism of the fairground fraternity as they set up their rides and stalls only to be deluged by the downpour. Nevertheless, these people are resilient and here we see them set up and ready, awaiting visitors.
I made a coloured pencil study of this scene six years ago then made the painting two years ago, inspired the range of emotions present in this moment. When the funfair returned recently, Jo’s Diner had disappeared, replaced by a new food truck and I have not glimpsed it again.”
Capel Point
“I have lived near Wanstead Flats since 2007 but this is the first time I have made the Common the subject of a painting. It lies just yards from my house yet I hardly visited. This all changed when the pandemic curtailed our lives and I acquired Charlie, an energetic spaniel puppy.
For the first time, I appreciated how lucky I was to be living next to a vast open expanse where we could roam freely. Slowly I began to appreciate the immense variety of light created by the seasons, weather and time of day. I came to understand that a flat landscape has its own poetry.”
Play Zone
‘This is the funfair on Wanstead Flats at August Bank Holiday when the night is fine although chilly. After a hot summer, the grass is brown and parched.
Expectation is the best part of any adventure – the coloured lights glowing in the dusk, beckoning revellers from the roads nearby even as the music has ceased, the fair is winding down and punters leaving. The stalls may look tired yet there is still a blaze of light and colour that holds a promise for tomorrow.”
Theatre Royal, Stratford East
“This theatre opened in 1884 and has survived, despite name changes, fires and closures. In 1953, it was famously taken over by Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop.
I have been familiar with the facade of Theatre Royal, Stratford East, for many years, and often sat in the bar upstairs at the Picture House opposite, gazing across at it, glowing like a watchman’s brazier.
About five years ago, the theatre was repainted. Yet the memory of what had been stayed with me – the statue of Joan Littlewood against the backdrop of the facade, with its red and white paintwork glowing in the light. This is Theatre Royal, Stratford East, as I wish to remember it.”
Paintings copyright © Doreen Fletcher
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A Conversation With Doreen Fletcher
The War On Vice In The East End
Click for tickets for The Gentle Author’s Tour of Spitalfields on Saturday 1st June
The Brown Bear, Leman St
‘well known as being frequented almost exclusively by homos’
Peter Parker, editor of SOME MEN IN LONDON, Queer Life, 1945-1959 published today by Penguin, explores the roles of Edith Ramsay and Father Joe Williamson who made it their mission to clean up ‘vice’ in the East End.
Introducing a debate in the House of Lords on ‘Magistrates’ Powers and Control of Clubs’ in June 1960, the Labour peer Lord Stonham stated that he wished ‘to draw attention to the sudden growth in London, and other large towns, in the number of so-called ‘clubs’ at which, at great profit to themselves, vicious men exploit with impunity almost every known vice, and, in the process, break almost every legal and social law, written and unwritten.’
Having been born in Whitechapel, Stonham was particularly concerned about the clubs of the East End, a number of which had ‘become notorious for prostitution, homosexuality and drug-trafficking’. Among those supplying Stonham with information about the area’s social problems were Edith Ramsay, a long-serving member of Stepney Council whom he dubbed ‘a Florence Nightingale of the brothels’, and Father Joe Williamson, the well-known High Anglican vicar of St Paul’s Church, Dock St, who was known as ‘the prostitute’s padre’.
The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Ramsay was born in Highgate in 1895, but moved to Stepney as a young woman to teach vocational skills to young people (from the ages of fourteen to sixteen) at the Day Continuation School in Old Castle St. Her principal career was in education, and in 1931 she became head of the Stepney Women’s Evening Institute, a post she held until she retired in 1960. When she first came to Stepney she also spent time in local women’s hostels in order to understand conditions among the poor, and this led to her volunteering to do social work in the area, particularly among prostitutes, immigrants and homosexual men.
Among Ramsay’s papers in Tower Hamlets’ Bancroft Library are a number of documents relating to the prevalence of ‘male vice’ in Stepney in the late fifties and early sixties. These give a frank and fascinating insight into a queer underworld far removed from that of the rather more soigné clubs and pubs of the West End.
The Wolfenden Report of 1957 is chiefly remembered for its recommendation that homosexuality should, with certain provisos, be decriminalised, but the Wolfenden Committee had been additionally appointed by the government to investigate prostitution. Both ‘vices’ were thought to have grown exponentially in the wake of the Second World War and were widely believed to be threatening the moral fabric of the nation.
As legal and social outcasts, some prostitutes and gay men had a kind of camaraderie, frequenting the same areas and patronising the same pubs, clubs and cafés. This was certainly true of the East End, though some venues gained a particular reputation as homosexual meeting places, as Ramsay explained. ‘There is the clear distinction in Stepney between ‘common pouffes’ and ‘select pouffes’,’ she wrote. ‘They have their own assembly points, and these change. For instance, the Cockney Cafe and the Brown Bear pub were well known as being frequented almost exclusively by homos. But this suddenly changed.’ Such changes were often a result of police raids, after which the clientele simply took their custom elsewhere.
Like pubs, clubs had to be licensed, and until 1954 there were a mere eighteen of them in Stepney, some attached to churches, others catering for medical students, sailors and those employed by breweries or the docks, and all of them ‘respectable’. By 1960 the number of clubs had risen to eighty, twenty-four of which had had their licences revoked – mostly for serving drinks outside licensing hours, though the New Life Club at 102 Commercial Rd was ‘struck off’ for a ‘deplorable record’ that included regular fights, broken windows and organized prostitution. Once a venue had been removed from the register, no new club could be established on the premises for a stipulated period, usually twelve months.
Another infamous establishment was the Creole Club at 72 Cable St, which the Observer journalist Godfrey Hodgson had visited. According to one of Ramsay’s informants, Hodgson was greeted there by a white man, drunk, who apologised for leaving but said he must get back to his wife. (The men in the Club believed this man to be an MP but there is no proof of that.) The man introduced Hodgson to an African who was obviously his ‘boy-friend’, and charged the African to look after Hodgson. The African offered him ‘Men, boys, women, drink after hours, minor and major drugs’.
Some politicians could in fact to be found ‘slumming it’ in the East End, among them the Conservative’s Lord Boothby and Labour’s Tom Driberg, two men who may have been separated by party allegiances but were united in their taste for East End boys.
In 1959 an unidentified social worker was recruited by Ramsay to accompany Father Joe on several guided tours of the East End’s most disreputable haunts and to make written reports. Their first stop on a Saturday night was the aforementioned Brown Bear pub in Leman St, which Williamson declared ‘especially rough’, patronised by female prostitutes but also known as ‘a homosexual rendezvous’.
Passing the pub again on their way home at closing time, they observed a gang of fifteen or so youths ‘larking about outside, breaking milk bottles, very drunk and probably homosexuals from the look of them’. Quite what it was about these youths that identified them as homosexual is not revealed. Apparently bypassing East End Passage, which ran off Leman St and had been reported to Ramsay as the haunt of homosexual prostitutes, Father Joe also called at Wellclose Sq, where in Church House he had set up a rehabilitation hostel for ‘fallen women’. Williamson reported that on the corner of the square he had recently seen ‘four or five men, two of them with their trousers down and the others “driving up them like dogs”’ – not the kind of homosexual act ‘in private’ that the Wolfenden Committee had recommended should be legalised. Not everyone approved of Father Joe’s social work, and some of the East End’s homosexual prostitutes resented what they saw as mere interference. Williamson related how one of them, accompanied by ‘two clients’ had knocked on his door and threatened him.
[Williamson] ‘went outside the door and locked it behind him and said what he says he always says ‘I’m too busy to be frightened of you. Now what have you got to tell me.’ He was really badly cussed; but later the publican from across the road said that he had been waiting in the shadows and that if there had been any trouble he and his friends would have given them a beating up they wouldn’t recover from.’
It is unclear which pub this was, but evidently not one where homosexual patrons would be as welcome as they were at the Brown Bear.
The second tour took place a week later and lasted from 9 to 11.30 pm. It was a Thursday, and so things were quieter than on the previous Saturday, but there were still some awkward encounters. ‘A new feature was a constant hanging-about on the corner of Leman and Dock St, shifting groups of three to six men, white. One as I passed, Irish, delivering a vehement harangue about something. W[illiamson] said he was homosexual, one of the ones who had threatened him the night the publican intervened.’ They then visited Cable St, where there was a ‘gambling joint’ called the Valletta where drugs were peddled. (The club’s name suggests that, like many such places in the East End, it was run by Maltese.) Father Joe said that he thought that ‘some doctors in the district give coloured men drugs, and one good young doctor admits that he has a patient who takes [i.e. steals] them.’
Another patient named in the report was Tony Hyndman, the former boyfriend of Stephen Spender, who appears as ‘Jimmy Younger’ in Spender’s 1951 autobiography World Within World. The report tactfully refers to Spender only as ‘a very famous writer’, adding that he ‘later married and ditched’ Hyndman, who was now living in the area and hopelessly addicted to drugs. ‘He was at one time given to ringing up very early in the morning to get money out of the writer’s wife, who gave it to him, but W claims to have stopped him doing that. He was left alone in the doctor’s surgery by a locum and stole a large amount of narcotics. Most of which he took until he was in a really serious state.’
By 1963, Edith Ramsay felt that there had been ‘a remarkable decrease’ in the homosexual population of Stepney – or at any rate in the area’s visible homosexual activity. She added that ‘both “Maralyn” and “Jezebal”, two famous figures in that underworld, have both married and had children’. This did not lessen her concern for what she always saw as a social problem. Unlike many devout Christians, she believed that the church and society needed to reach out to homosexual men rather than ostracize them. ‘Of course homosexuals need special consideration, and parish priests should be given help to enable them to help the homos,’ she wrote to Kenneth Leech, a Stepney resident who was training for the ministry at Oxford and would become a curate at Holy Trinity, Hoxton. Leech had suggested founding a ‘special ministry’ for gay men, but Ramsay replied that ‘a “special ministry” implies segregating them, when what they need is to be brought into the normal community and helped – those who want help must have it by medical and, psychological experts.’
Of course, many homosexual men didn’t want this kind of help, preferring to be left to lead their lives as they saw fit. Within four years, a step in this direction took place when the Sexual Offences Act, 1967 was finally passed, meaning that ‘homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private’ was no longer be a criminal offence.
Father Joe Williamson
‘the prostitute’s padre’
St Paul’s, Dock St
Daily Mail feature of 1961, with Father Joe praying in thanks for the destruction of local housing with the caption, ‘Vice takes a knock – an old man thanks God.’
Church House, Wellclose Sq
Father Joe’s rehabilitation hostel for ‘fallen women’
Councillor Edith Ramsay MBE
‘There is the clear distinction in Stepney between ‘common pouffes’ and ‘select pouffes’
102 Commercial Rd, site of the New Life Club which was ‘struck off’ for a ‘deplorable record’
‘A new feature was a constant hanging-about on the corner of Leman and Dock St, shifting groups of three to six men…’
Williamson reported that on the corner of Wellclose Sq he had recently seen ‘four or five men, two of them with their trousers down…’
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Malcolm Johnson At St Botolph’s
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Dan Jones’ painting of Malcolm Johnson at Botolph’s, Aldgate 1982
These days, with his gentle blue eyes and white locks, Reverend Dr Malcolm Johnson is one of the most even-tempered radicals that you could meet, yet the work he did at St Botolph’s in Aldgate was truly extraordinary in its bold and compassionate nature. From 1974 until 1992, Malcolm was responsible for the ‘wet’ shelter that operated in the crypt, offering sustenance, showers and moral support to those that everyone else turned away. While other shelters refused admission to homeless people with alcohol or drugs in their possession, St Botolph’s did not and when I sought further, asking Malcolm to explain the origin of this decision, he simply said, “I believe you have to accept people as they are.”
The project at St Botolph’s was eminently pragmatic, working with people individually to find long-term accommodation in hostels and providing support in establishing a life beyond their homelessness and addiction. But shortly after Malcolm left St Botolph’s in 1992, the shelter was closed by his successor and it has sat unused for the past twenty years, making it a disappointing experience for Malcolm to return and be confronted with the shadow of his former works.
“I can’t tell you how upsetting it is, seeing it like this – it used to be such a wonderful place, full of energy and life, and now its just a store” he admitted to me when Photographer David Hoffman & I accompanied him on a visit to the disused crypt. Yet it proved to be a pertinent moment for reflection, as Malcolm told me the story of how it all happened.
“I had been Chaplain at Queen Mary University for seven years and specialised in counselling gay and lesbian people, so the Bishop thought I needed a quiet City parish where I could get on with my writing next. But, when I arrived. the crypt had been operating for five years and was catering for seventy homeless people each night, and I felt that wasn’t enough. I realised that we were here in the City of London surrounded by big companies, so I went to ask their assistance and I was lucky because they helped me, and I persuaded the City of London Corporation to give us seventy-thousand pounds a year too. The volunteers were all sorts, housewives, city workers after a day at the office and students from the polytechnic. I decided that it would be a wet crypt and we wouldn’t charge for food.
I was the rector upstairs and the director down here in the crypt – I believed the church had to be one outfit, upstairs and down. I went to Eddy Stride at Christ Church Spitalfields to ask what I should do, I had no experience so I had to learn. Over time, we expanded the shelter, we had quite a lot of full-time workers and we established four long-term hostels in Hackney. We were getting about two to three hundred people a night and it was quite an experience, but I was never frightened. Only once did a man take a swing at me, and all the others gathered round and grabbed him.
I missed this place so desperately when I left because you never knew what was going to happen when you walked through the door, it was wonderful, but I felt eighteen years was enough. Then, quite suddenly after I left in 1992, my successor closed the crypt and they said it went bankrupt, although I never understood what happened because we’d done a benefit at the Bank of England shortly before and, if there had been problems, I know my City friends would have come in to save it.”
The crypt of St Botolph’s is still equipped as a homeless shelter, functional but abandoned, pretty much as Malcolm left it and still harbouring emotive memories of those who passed through, many of whom are now dead. Encouragingly, Malcolm told me the current rector is considering whether it could be reopened.
This would itself be sufficient story and achievement for one man, yet there was another side to Malcolm Johnson’s ministry. As one of the first in the Church of England to come out as gay in 1969, he established the office of the Gay & Lesbian Christian Movement at St Botolph’s and even became known as the Pink Bishop for his campaigning work.
“I had always thought that if clergy can bless battleships and budgerigars, we could bless two people in love,” was his eloquent justification for his blessing of gay couples. Unsurprisingly, it was a subject that met opposition within the Church of England but, by the mid-eighties, the subject of AIDS became an unavoidable one and St Botolph’s was the first church to appoint a full-time minister to care for those affected by the HIV virus, as well as opening a dedicated hostel for this purpose.
In spite of his sadness at the closure of his shelter in the crypt, it was inspiring to meet Malcolm Johnson, a man with an open heart and a keen intelligence, who had the moral courage to recognise the truth of his own experience and apply that knowledge to better the lives of others.
“If clergy can bless battleships and budgerigars, we could bless two people in love…”
At St Botolph’s, 1978
Malcolm Johnson recalls the wet shelter in the crypt, now disused
At St Botolph’s, 1978
“I believe you have to accept people as they are.”
At St Botolph’s, 1978
“I can’t tell you how upsetting it is seeing it like this, it used to be such a wonderful place full of energy and life, and now it’s just a store”
Malcolm Johnson stands left at this midnight mass for the homeless at St Dunstan’s Stepney in 1978
Photographs copyright © David Hoffman
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Tony Bock’s East Enders
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Clock Winder at Christ Church, Spitalfields
Here are the East Enders of the nineteen seventies as pictured by photographer Tony Bock in the days when he worked for the East London Advertiser – the poncy dignitaries, the comb-over tories, the kids on the street, the market porters, the fascists, the anti-fascists, the shopkeepers, the sheet metal workers, the unions, the management, the lone dancers, the Saturday shoppers, the Saturday drinkers, the loving family, the West Ham supporters, the late bride, the wedding photographer, the clock winder, the Guinness tippler, the solitary clown, the kneeling politician and the pie & mash shop cat.
Welcome to the teeming masses. Welcome to the infinite variety of life. Welcome to the exuberant clear-eyed vision of Tony Bock. Welcome to the East End of fifty years ago.
Dignitaries await the arrival of the Queen Mother at Toynbee Hall. John Profumo kneels.
Children playing on the street in Poplar.
On the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral.
National Front supporters gather at Brick Lane.
Watching a National Front march in Hackney.
Shopkeepers come out to watch an anti-racism march in Hackney.
A family in Stratford pose in their back yard.
Wedding photographer in Hackney – the couple had been engaged many years.
West Ham fans at Upton Park, not a woman to be seen.
Sports club awards night in Hackney.
Dancers in Victoria Park.
Conservative party workers in the 1974 electoral campaign, Ilford.
Ted Heath campaigns in Ilford for the General Election of 1974.
Ford workers union meeting, Dagenham.
Ford managers, Dagenham.
Press operator at Ford plant, Dagenham.
At Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park.
Mr East End Contest at E1 Festival.
The shop cat at Kelly’s Pie & Mash Shop, Bethnal Green Rd.
At the White Swan in Poplar.
Enjoying a Guinness in the Royal Oak, Bethnal Green.
Boy on demolition site, Tiller Rd, Isle of Dogs.
Brick Lane Sunday Market.
Clown in Stratford Broadway.
Saturday morning at Roman Rd Market.
Saturday night out in Dagenham.
Spitalfields Market porter in the workers’ club
Photographs copyright © Tony Bock
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