Click here order a signed copy of The Gentle Author’s ON CHRISTMAS DAY for £10

As we brace ourselves for the forthcoming festive season, let us contemplate George Cruikshank‘s illustrations of yuletide in London 1838-53 from his Comic Almanack which remind us how much has changed and also how little has changed. (You can click on any of these images to enlarge)

A swallow at Christmas

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas dining

Christmas bustle

Boxing day

Hard frost

A picture in the gallery

Theatrical dinner

The Parlour & the Cellar

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s birth

Twelfth Night – Drawing characters

January – Last year’s bills

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Click here order a signed copy of The Gentle Author’s ON CHRISTMAS DAY for £10

If you were to take a turning off the Strand, walk down Essex St, then descend Milford Stairs to Milford Lane, emerging within the shadow of the nineteenth century edifice of Two Temple Place, then sneak between the ornate railings and slip in through a crack in the panelled door – you might find yourself alone, as I did, in the hallway of the extravagant mansion built for the reclusive William Waldorf Astor when he inherited a hundred million dollars in 1890, became the richest man in the United States and fled to London in exile.

“America is not a fit place for a gentleman to live,” he declared after receiving death threats and kidnap attempts upon his children. Yet even before you know the details or learn that Astor employed pre-eminent architect, John Loughborough Pearson – luring him with an unlimited budget – you sense that you are at the portal to a fantasy. The staircase is oak, the panelling is mahogany, the pillars are solid ebony and the marble floor is inlaid with jasper, porphyry and onyx. Twelve characters from Robin Hood sculpted by Thomas Nicholls upon the newel posts emerge from the gloom, harbingers of another world that awaits you at the head of the stair.

So frustrated was Astor that, in 1892, he released announcements of his own death in the vain hope of winning greater privacy, only compounding his personal enigma once they were revealed as false. After Astor’s wife died in 1894, he often retreated from his family home in the more fashionable Carlton House Terrace to sleep at Two Temple Place, built as the headquarters of his sprawling business empire. “There I am safe,” he confided to Lady Warwick and showed her a lever upon the first floor which locked every entrance to the building. Similiarly at Hever Castle, Astor’s primary country residence, he had a drawbridge constructed that could be raised each night.

Two Temple Place is the glorious product of an idiosyncratic and unfettered imagination. After Astor’s death in 1919, it was rented and then sold for use as offices, only opened to visitors in 2011 by the Bulldog Trust, when it was revealed to the wider public as a lost masterpiece of late nineteenth century architecture.

Standing at the foot of the staircase, you understand why Astor felt “safe,” in the sense that you are entirely enclosed by the wood-lined room which permits no window to the outside world. Comprising a square stairwell, the space rises to an enclosed gallery with arches similar to those in engravings by Esher.

The bitter aroma of pine from the Christmas tree rises in the soporific warmth of the central heating as you ascend in the shadows to the gallery, where the extent of the literary iconography which recurs throughout the building becomes apparent. At each corner of the stairwell stand Astor’s favourite protagonists from novels – Hester Prynne, Rip Van Winkle, The Pathfinder and The Last of the Mohicans – characteristically, all are outsiders who are misunderstood. Above them is a Shakespearian frieze with eighty-two identifiable characters from Anthony & Cleopatra, Henry VIII, Othello and Macbeth, significantly chosen as plays that dramatise the torments of power. Yet, remarkably, the proportion and order of the space, the lustre of the materials and the expertise of the workmanship place everything in perspective – the chaos of human endeavour is reconciled within this sanctuary of the imagination.

Unsurprisingly, Astor’s private office is equipped with both a secret door and discreet drawers for the storage of champagne, the latter hinting at a brighter side to his nature. Through the secret panel is the largest room in the building, known as The Great Hall or The Mediation Room, where Astor summoned those he chose to do business with. I was told that Pencil Cedar was chosen for the panelling in this room, emitting a relaxing aroma calculated to dispel any tension, yet such is the grandiose nature of the seventy-foot long hall, I doubt anyone would seek controversy in the face of its creator.

At either end, stained glass windows portray the rising and setting sun while the epic mahogany hammer-beam ceiling above is modelled upon the design of the roof in Middle Temple Hall, a wooden frieze depicts a mixture of personalities from history and myth, including Bismarck and Pocahontas, and characters from Ivanhoe perch upon the beams – gilded, just in case you might fail to notice them in the flurry of literary references. Once the time comes to leave, overwhelmed by the wealth of detail, your eye falls upon the Arthurian heroines by George Frampton languishing upon the rear of the door.

You stumble back into the vestibule, intoxicated by the decorative excess yet seduced by the dazzling assurance of your host. There are so many corners and doors within this intricate building, which retains the presence and personality of its creator so vividly, you half-expect William Waldorf Astor to appear at any moment and pull the lever to lock all exits. Yet who could object to spending Christmas holed up by the fire at Two Temple Place and letting the outside world recede far away?

Twelve characters from Robin Hood sculpted by Thomas Nicolls adorn the newel posts

The floor is inspired by the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey

Scenes from Shakespeare with eighty-two identifiable characters filling the frieze above the stairwell

Frieze of a scene from Macbeth

The Great Hall

Gilt panels by George Frampton upon the door in the Great Hall depict heroines of Arthurian myth

The window by Clayton & Bell at the west end of the Great Hall depicts sunset in the Swiss Alps

Ground floor reception room overlooking the Thames

The entrance on Temple Place

Weathervane by J. Starkie Gardner depicts Columbus’ caravel in which he discovered America

In Milford Lane

Milford Stairs leading to Essex St

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One cold day many years ago, photographer Colin O’Brien & I were greeted by the Beadle of The Worshipful Company of Butchers, when we arrived at their Hall in St Bartholomew’s Close, Smithfield, to join a small crowd eagerly awaiting the annual appearance of the celebrated Boar’s Head in the first week of Advent, marking the beginning on the Christmas season in London.

This arcane tradition which has its origin in 1343 when the Lord Mayor, John Hamond, granted the Butchers of the City of London use of a piece of land by the Fleet River, where they could slaughter and clean their beasts, for the token yearly payment of a Boar’s Head at Christmas.

To pass the time in the drizzle, the Beadle showed us his magnificent staff of office dating from 1716, upon which may be discerned a Boar’s Head. “Years ago, they had a robbery and this was the only thing that wasn’t stolen,” he confided to me helpfully, ” – it had a cover and the thieves mistook it for a mop.”

Before another word was spoken, a posse of members of the Butcher’s Company emerged triumphant from the Hall in blue robes and velvet hats, with a livid red Boar’s Head carried aloft at shoulder height, to the delighted applause of those waiting in the street. Behind us, drummers of the Royal Logistics Corps in red uniforms gathered and  City of London Police motorcyclists in fluorescent garb lined up to receive instructions from the Master of the Company.

Everyone assembled to pose for official photographs with the perky red ears of the Boar sticking up above the crowd, providing the opportunity for a closer examination of this gloss-painted paper mache creation, sitting upon a base of Covent Garden grass and surrounded by plastic fruit. As recently as 1968, a real Boar’s Head was paraded but these days Health & Safety concerns about hygiene require the use of this colourful replica for ceremonial purposes.

The drummers set a brisk pace and before we knew it, the parade was off down Little Britain, preceded by the police motorcyclists halting the traffic. For a couple of minutes, the City stopped – astonished passengers leaned out of buses and taxis, and office workers reached for their phones to capture the moment. It made a fine spectacle advancing down Cheapside, past St Mary Le Bow, with the sound of drums echoing and reverberating off the tall buildings.

The rhythmic clamour accompanying the procession of men in their dark robes, with the Boar’s Head bobbing above, evoked the ancient drama of the City of London and, as they paraded through the gathering dusk towards the Mansion House looming in the east on that occluded December afternoon, I could not resist the feeling that they were marching through time as well as space.

Neil Hunt, Beadle of The Worshipful Company of Butchers

The Beadle’s staff dates from 1716

Leaving St Bartholomew’s Close

Advancing through Little Britain

Entering Cheapside

Passing St Mary Le Bow

In Cheapside

Approaching the Mansion House

The Boar’s Head arrives at the Mansion House

Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien

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I am reading my short story ON CHRISTMAS DAY next Saturday 2nd December at 11am as part of the BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE at the Art Workers’ Guild in Queens Square, WC1N 3AT.

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Thirteen years ago I visited, 2 Wilkes St, the last derelict house in Spitalfields but this week I walked passed to discovered it has acquired – as if by magic – a splendid new doorcase, so sensitively made that it looks as if it were always there. This is visible evidence on the street of a long process of repair and now the house can no longer be said to be derelict, thanks to enlightened owner Rupert Hunt and talented architect Chris Williams.

Below you can read my original feature and photographs. I hope to follow this next year with pictures that show the interiors once repairs are complete.

In the meantime, you can follow the progress on Instagram @spitalfields1725

This is the view of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s spire of Christ Church seen from the weaver’s loft at the top of 2 Wilkes St – once the last derelict house in Spitalfields – which is currently in the process of conscientious repair.

Once upon a time people used to wander in these streets surrounding the shabby old church, savouring the romance of these ancient Huguenot houses that had seen better days and were then used as workplaces or left empty, but now those days are long gone

Most recently 2 Wilkes St served as a warehouse for Star Wholesale Cash & Carry. Previously, it had been a workplace with boards nailed over panelling, false ceilings added and layers of flooring concealing the original floorboards. Behind all these accretions, the old structure remained intact and when the additions were removed, along with some of the fabric – in a former abortive restoration attempt – no-one bothered to dispose of any of the timber from the house. The piles that lay around comprised the missing pieces of an enormous three dimensional jigsaw just waiting to be put back together. Elsewhere in Spitalfields, old properties have been turned upside down and stripped out, removing all evidence of the previous occupants, yet as a consequence of benign neglect, 2 Wilkes St existed as an eighteenth-century time capsule.

Stepping through the door, I was amazed by the multilayered textures that were the result of human activity throughout the long history of the building, especially the flaking paint that revealed every single coat through back three centuries. The house has a presence that halts you in your step and you lower your voice without knowing why. You stand and gaze. The reflected light from the street falls upon dusty old floorboards visibly worn beside the windows where people have stood in the same spot to look down upon Wilkes St since the seventeen-twenties – when the house was built by William Taylor, who was responsible for the house next door and several others in the vicinity.

Ten years ago, the central staircase of the house was rebuilt with the original treads on wooden bearers that support each step in the traditional method, starting at the bottom and working all the way up – just as a joiner would have done in the eighteenth-century, when all carpenters did their work on site.

Descended into the dark musty cellar by torchlight, I could see my own breath in the air as I entered a kitchen where the beam of light fell upon eighteenth-century match-boarding and a flag floor. The torchlight caught portions of an old dresser and a stone sink, beneath layers of dust, grit and filth – abandoned since the nineteenth century.

On the first floor, an intermediary space off the stairwell links rooms on either side, divided from them by partitions – this is a rare example of a powder room. Any of Henry Fielding’s characters would recognise this space.

Of all the old houses in Spitalfields, this is the one that has most retained its soul. The house holds its own silence and the din of the contemporary world is drowned out by it. 2 Wilkes St possesses the authentic atmosphere of old London that Fielding and Dickens knew, yet which can all too easily be destroyed forever. All these years it has been waiting for someone with the knowledge, money and patience to repair it and bring it back to life without erasing its history – and now this moment has arrived.

Eighteenth century staircase spindles

The view along the back gardens of Fournier St

2 Wilkes St

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You are invited to our annual BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE which runs from 11am-5pm on Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd December at Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Sq, WC1N 3AT.

We are showing the work of twenty of our favourite artists and makers, and we are proud to present this accompanying programme of readings and talks. Tickets are £10 which includes entry to the Jamboree.

Wood engraving by Reynolds Stone

ON CHRISTMAS DAY – A READING BY THE GENTLE AUTHOR

The Gentle Author picks up the threads of Christmas fiction from Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas and George Mackay Brown to weave a compelling tale of family conflicts ignited and resolved in the festive season.

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s reading at 11am on Saturday 2nd December

Photo by Sebastian Boettcher

THE GLOBEMAKERS – THE CURIOUS STORY OF AN ANCIENT CRAFT

Peter Bellerby introduces his new book, ‘The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft’, in conversation with Basil Comely. Peter is founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, the world’s only truly bespoke makers of traditionally handcrafted globes.

Click here to book for The Globemakers at 12:15pm on Saturday 2nd December

Cover by Matt Johnson

MATT JOHNSON, SEASALT & LOBSTER POTS 

Matt Johnson recently illustrated ‘Red Sails & Pilchards’ published by Design for Today. Thousands recognise Matt’s lyrical images of Cornish harbours, wildlife and landscapes, featured widely in books and advertising.

Click here to book for Seasalt & Lobsterpots at 1:30pm on Saturday 2nd December

Self portrait by Morris Goldstein

MORRIS GOLDSTEIN – THE LOST WHITECHAPEL BOY

We present a selection of the unseen paintings of Morris Goldstein – contemporary of Mark Gertler and David Bomberg – to mark the publication of a new monograph. The talk will be introduced by Professor Rebecca Beasley and presented by Morris Goldstein’s son Raymond Francis who has been researching his father’s story for the last ten years.

Click here to book for The Lost Whitechapel Boy at 2:45pm on Saturday 2nd December

Tea towel by Marion Elliot

MARION ELLIOT – SAILORS, TEAPOTS & FOLK ART

Marion Elliot, illustrator, collage artist and maker, explores her influences, inspiration and process, creating a unique world where Jaques Tati meets Hank Williams and in which folk art collides with cafe culture.

Click here to book for Sailors, Teapots & Folk Art at 11am on Sunday 3rd December

Print by Mark Hearld

DAVID BUGG – THE PENFOLD PRESS

Printmaker Dan Bugg of The Penfold Press will be in conversation with curator Jane Audas, outlining the journey of the press and their celebrated partnerships with contemporary artists.

Click here to book for The Penfold Press at 12:15pm on Sunday 3rd December

Lithograph by Lucien Boucher

JAMES RUSSELL – A TIME-TRAVELLER ‘S GUIDE TO PARIS

Art historian James Russell takes a journey into the wonderful world of twenties Paris. Published by the Mainstone Press, the Boutiques trilogy explores the city’s shops, fairgrounds and literary scene with dazzling illustrations by Lucien Boucher and Henri Guilac.

Click here for A Time-Traveller’s Guide to Paris at 1:30pm on Sunday 3rd December

Pollock’s, Scala St

ALAN POWERS – LONDON’S OLDEST TOY MUSEUM

Pollock’s Toy Museum began in 1956 in an attic in Monmouth St, Covent Garden, moving in 1969 to Scala Street, Fitzrovia. Today it is run by the grandson of the founder and since January 2023 this beloved museum has been looking for a new home. Alan will explore the history and reveal the future plans.

Click here to book for London’s Oldest Toy Museum at 2:45pm on Sunday 3rd December

In gleeful collaboration with Tim Mainstone of Mainstone Press and Joe Pearson of Design for Today, I am hosting our annual BLOOMSBURY JAMBOREE, a festival of books and print, illustration, talks and seasonal merriment next SATURDAY 2nd & SUNDAY 3rd DECEMBER from 10:30am until 4:30pm.

It takes place at the magnificent ART WORKERS GUILD, 6 Queens Sq, WC1, which was founded in 1884 by members of the Arts & Crafts movement including William Morris and C R Ashbee. These oak panelled rooms lined with oil paintings in a beautiful old house in Bloomsbury offer the ideal venue to celebrate our books, and the authors and artists who create them.

There will be book-signings and a programme of ticketed lectures and readings plus we have invited twenty friends to exhibit, including print and paper makers, small press publishers, toy makers, potters, craft workers and importers for food by small producers.

We need volunteers on Friday at 6:30pm and all day Saturday and Sunday. We offer bags of books as rewards – if you can help us, please email hello@inkpaperandprint.co.uk

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS OF OUR LECTURES

Art Workers Guild

Art Workers Guild

Art Workers Guild

Elizabeth Harbour

From Boutiques by Lucie Bouchier published by Mainstone Press

Plate by Simon Turner

Tea towel by Marion Elliot

The Tiger’s Bride by Clive Hicks-Jenkins published Penfold Press

Elizabeth Harbour

Paper wreath by Clare Dales

Portrait of Dorset by Rena Gardiner published by Design for Today

Provisions imported by Sail Cargo London

Tea Towel by Chris Brown

Folk art from Poland imported by Frank & Luisa

Print by Mandy Doubt

Produce imported by sail power from Sail Cargo London

Hanging decorations by Elizabeth Harbour

Cards by Yes Paper Goods

Illustration by Jonny Hannah

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF ‘ON CHRISTMAS DAY’ FOR £10

Born in Clerkenwell in 1813 as the eldest son of a bookseller, Thomas Onwhyn created a series of cheap mass-produced satirical prints illustrating the comedy of everyday life for publishers Rock Brothers & Payne in the eighteen forties and fifties.

In his time, Onwhyn was overshadowed by the talent of George Cruickshank and won notoriety for supplying pictures to pirated editions of Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby, which drew the ire of Charles Dickens who wrote of “the singular Vileness of the Illustrations.”

Nevertheless, these fascinating ‘Pictures of London’ that I came upon in the Bishopsgate Institute demonstrate a critical intelligence, a sly humour and an unexpected political sensibility which speaks powerfully to our own times.

In this social panorama, originally published as one concertina-fold strip, Onwhyn contrasts the culture and lives of rich and the poor in London with subtle comedy, tracing their interdependence yet making it quite clear where his sympathy lay.

The Court – Dress Wearers.

Dressmakers.

The Opera Box.

The Gallery.

The West End Dinner Party.

A Charity Dinner.

Mayfair.

Rag Fair.

Music of the Drawing Room.

Street Music.

The Physician.

The Medical Student.

The Parks – Day.

The Parks – Night.

The Club – The Wine Bibber.

The Gin Shop – The Dram Drinker.

The Shopkeeper.

The Shirtmaker.

The Bouquet Maker.

The Basket Woman.  (Initialled – T.O. Thomas Onwhyn)

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

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Morris Goldstein, self-portrait

There is a lecture to celebrate the publication of a new book about Goldstein’s life and the rediscovery of a significant artist of the East End. The talk will be introduced by Professor Rebecca Beasley, an expert in Modernist Studies at Oxford University, and presented by Morris Goldstein’s son Raymond Francis who has been researching his story for the last ten years.

Click here to book for the lecture at the Hanbury Hall on Tuesday December 5th

When Raymond Francis showed me these pictures by his father Morris Goldstein – seeking to bring them to a wider audience and reinstate his father’s position among the Whitechapel Boys – I was touched by the tender human observation apparent in Morris’ sympathetic portraits of his fellow East Enders.

The Whitechapel Boys were a group of young Jewish artists from the East End, including the poet Isaac Rosenberg, who showed together at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1914 and made a distinctive contribution to British Modernism in the early twentieth century. Yet when the list of those who comprise this group is made – including Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and others – the name of Morris Goldstein is rarely mentioned.

It was the death of Morris Goldstein’s father that forced him to leave the Slade early, in order to earn money to support his family rather than pursue his art, with the outcome that – although he exhibited a significant number of works in the 1914 Whitechapel show – his work has subsequently become unjustly neglected.

More than century later, it is is time for a re-evaluation of the group that became known as the Whitechapel Boys and a re-examination the life and work of those artists who became marginalised. And, thanks to Raymond Francis, we are to learn Morris Goldstein’s story at long last.

Born in Poland in 1892 in Pinczow, a small town midway between Krakow and Warsaw, Morris Kugal emigrated to London at the age of six in 1898 with his parents David and Sarah, and his two younger sisters Annie and Jeannie.

Adopting the name Goldstein, the family lived in Redman’s Row, Stepney, where the poet Isaac Rosenberg was a neighbour. Growing up in poverty, Morris quickly came to understand the conflict between his dreams and reality. Although his talent led him to Stepney Green Art School, he knew that the need to leave and earn a living at fourteen years old would prevent him pursuing a career as an artist.

Like Rosenberg, he was obliged to take up an apprenticeship in marquetry but for three years they went together to evening classes in art close to their employment in Bolt Court, Fleet St, where Morris received the gold medal for best work and found himself alongside fellow students including Paul Nash. Determined to become a respected painter, Morris soon fund himself in the company of other aspiring young artists, including Mark Gertler whom he first met at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1908.

Through tenacity and determination, Morris managed to overcome the obstacle of his financial disadvantage by winning a scholarship to the Slade School of Art which he attended alongside other Whitechapel Boys – Isaac Rosenberg, David Bomberg and Mark Gertler in 1912. He applied to the Jewish Education Aid Society in 1908, 1909 and 1911, before being granted twelve shillings and sixpence a week. While at the Slade, Morris and Isaac Rosenberg walked from Mile End to Gower St every day to save money and they often went to study at the Whitechapel Library, doing their homework which entailed sketching and studying the history of art, thus escaping the distractions of home life in the evening.

As this group of young East End artists acquired confidence, they discovered the Cafe Royal in Regent St where they encountered luminaries of the day, including members of the Bloomsbury Group and socialites such as Nancy Cunard and Lady Diana Manners. Morris hailed it as Mecca and recalled making his sixpenny coffee and cake last all day.

Often Morris and Isaac Rosenberg were joined on their walks by David Bomberg and they met Sonia Cohen, a Whitechapel girl brought up in an orphanage, whom they all fell in love with. Meanwhile, Isaac Rosenberg grew increasingly conscious of the burden imposed on his family by his long preparation for a career as a painter. Morris’ mother Sarah Goldstein was a close friend of Hacha Rosenberg, Isaac’s mother, and they commiserated that they knew of young tailors in the neighbourhood earning  fifteen or twenty pounds a week, while their sons brought in nothing. In 1913, Morris’ father’s unexpected death placed the responsibility of becoming the breadwinner upon him and he had to give up his study to replace the income of two pounds a week that David Goldstein had earned as a shoemaker.

He had five works in the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s Twentieth Century Art Review of Modern Movements in May 1914, along with the other Whitechapel Boys (Rosenberg, Bomberg etc), the only time that this group ever exhibited together. When the First World War broke out in August of that year, Morris sought to enlist but was rejected because he was not yet a naturalised British citizen. David Bomberg was also rejected but Isaac Rosenberg was sent to the Somme where he was killed in April 1918.

During the war, Morris was Art Master at the Toynbee Art Club at Toynbee Hall and the Annual report of 1914 -1915 notes, “classes were well attended, the members being greatly assisted by the guidance and criticism of Mr Morris Goldstein, the art master.”

When the Jewish Education Aid Society wrote to Morris asking for their money back in 1917, he replied on Boxing Day in the following defiant terms –“I am alive and that is a great deal in these days. To be alive is a great benediction – to live through these turbulent times until peace reigns once more upon earth would be the greatest joy of all. My present hope and wish is to live through these times so that after the cessation of hostilities I could put my body and soul into my spiritual work. I am not yet in the army but of course I’m liable to be called up any day now. Let us hope the war will end soon, Believe me to remain, Morris Goldstein”

Morris continued to exhibit at the Whitechapel Gallery’s annual East End Academy until 1960.

Sarah & David Goldstein stand outside the East End boot shop that was the family business, c. 1912

Sarah and David Goldstein with their daughters Annie and Jeannie, and Morris on the right.

Morris Goldstein aged twenty when he went to the Slade in 1912

Morris Goldstein paints the portrait of the Mayor of Stoke Newington in 1960

Sketch of Morris Goldstein’s son, Raymond Francis, sleeping in 1955

Raymond Francis standing at the gates of Stepney Green School where his father was educated

Raymond Francis outside 13 Vallance Rd where his father lived and wrote the letter below.

In 1940, Morris Goldstein wrote to relatives in America seeking help to send his two daughters across the Atlantic to escape the war.

A local landmark, this unusual and attractive nineteenth century terrace 3-11 Vallance Rd in Whitechapel is currently under threat of demolition.

Artwork copyright © Estate of Morris Goldstein

Photograph of Vallance Rd terrace © Alex Pink

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It was my great delight to meet Rodney Holt of Mojo Productions, the creative mastermind responsible for London’s most famous window displays, at Fortnum & Mason for the past thirty years. This bright-eyed genius with a shock of white hair flits around his workshop in Brentwood, Essex, grinning excitedly as he oversees his extravagant creations and encourages his minions just like Father Christmas in that other fabled workshop at the North Pole.

Rod and his team of specialists were putting the finishing touches to the Christmas window displays before they were transported to Piccadilly. The walls were lined with huge wooden frames, the same size as the shop windows, and each one was filled with a sequence of exotic animated confections, rotating lobsters, flying puddings, champagne fountains, exploding crackers and a train set circling eternally. All around lay fragments of former displays, including golden carriages, giant nutcracker dolls and the man in the moon.

Wandering around this bizarre interior was like exploring the unconscious imagination of Santa himself – the workshop where dreams and fantasies are manufactured. Yet Rod’s crew of painters and model makers worked placidly at their tasks despite the phantasmagoric contents of their workplace. Readers will be relieved to learn that everything is under control for Christmas.

Rod & I retreated to his office, where a row of miniature shop windows contained the working models for this year’s displays. Here Rod told me his story and I was fascinated to learn how this overflowing of flamboyant creativity has its origins in the craft traditions of old East End.

“I was born in Bethnal Green but my family moved out to Essex after the war, when I was still a baby. There were jobs in Essex and my dad went to work at Ford’s in Dagenham and was there for forty years. Mum had ten children, so she was quite busy too. Her full name was Amy Rosina Goldring, so we think she might be Jewish. She came from an interesting family – one of her brothers was in the film industry in the early days, one did back-to-front sign writing with gold leaf, another had an accordion band in West End, The Accordionnaires, and her mother was a court dressmaker.

Dad was one of ten brothers and most of them worked in Spitalfields Market, some were traders but others used to make carts and barrows in the Hackney Rd. My dad was a French Polisher who kept a horse in Gibraltar Walk and used to make furniture deliveries on a flatbed cart. I remember him telling me that he used to deliver as far as Hampstead.

I left school and went to Hartley Green College, doing a course in Display & Exhibition Design. My career officer told me I should be a council tiler, that was the nearest they could get to an artistic career. So I said, ‘That’s no good,’ and I think it was my art teacher at school who suggested I do this. To be honest, I wanted to be a sculptor or a potter, but there were not many options then. If you wanted to be a potter, you worked on an assembly line in a pottery. I was at college for a couple of years and I did not learn a lot but I sorted out what I wanted to do. They did a day release scheme and I got sent to Selfridges in Oxford St. I got on well with everybody there and they said, ‘You’ve got a job here after you’ve taken your diploma.’ But I went to Paris instead of taking my diploma. I stole a mate’s bike out of an alleyway while he was away at university in Manchester and cycled off to France. When I came back, I went straight to Selfridges.

At Selfridges, I told them I knew nothing about fashion, so I could not be fashion dresser. I said, ‘I’d like to do all the toy windows and all the gardening windows,’ because those were the things I thought I could be more creative with. I was nineteen years old and they let me loose. I did one display where I had all the teddy bears marching out of the window which everybody liked. My idea was they were fed up and walking out. I got on alright there but I thought I do not really like this much. I wanted to join the team in the big studio up in the roof. I used to get on very well with all the guys there. After eighteen months, a couple of Australians who worked there and had come over land said, ‘We’re all fed up now, we think we should go off somewhere on a trip.’ I said, ‘That sounds good to me,’ and we went off to India. Mr Millard, the Managing Director, asked me, ‘Are you sure? Because the others have gone, you could move up the ladder.’ But I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go up the ladder, I’d rather go to India.’ He wished me all the luck in the world.

I only had a hundred quid but I made it to Kashmir by hitch-hiking, where my sister sent me another thirty quid to get home. It cost me six quid to get from Istanbul to London and I sold my blood to do it. When I got back, it all fell into place. Selfridges welcomed me back to work on the Christmas windows. I was lucky because it was the first time they were trying a different type of window. They did a set of windows that had no stock in them but told a story instead. The designer Peter Howitt had just finished the film of Alice in Wonderland and he was able to buy the sets. They gave us an old factory in Kensington where we sorted the scheme out. Pete asked for me, he said, ‘I’d like Rod because he doesn’t want to do window dressing really.’

Working freelance, I did all sorts – shops in the Kings Rd and themed pubs, clubs and bars. I worked for Peter on the original London Dungeon too. They gave me a mini with ‘London Dungeon’ on the side and an iron coffin on the roof! I had to be careful how I drove that about. I had quite a few contacts at Pinewood and Shepperton so I was able to purchase some great old props. We used to work overnight in the Dungeon and the stuff that happened was unbelievable.”

Rodney Holt, Designer, Set Builder & Model Maker

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Liverpool St Station by Edward Bawden

Please come to our free SAVE LIVERPOOL ST STATION campaign event at 6pm tomorrow, Tuesday 21st November, at Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH. No need to book, just come along. Speakers include Griff Rhys Jones, Eric Reynolds and Robert Thorne.

Edward Bawden made this huge linocut of a smoke-blackened Liverpool St in 1960. It extends to almost five feet in length, so long that to allow you to see the details of this epic work I must show it here in two panels. In order to print it, Bawden laid a board on top of the linocut and asked his students at the Royal College of Art to assist him by standing on top

When I first visited the station it was just like this and I remember it as a diabolic dark cathedral. As a one new to London, I arrived back from Cromer one Sunday on a late train after the tubes had closed and spent a terrifying night here, shivering on a bench. Sitting awake, I watched all through the small hours as the trucks rattled in and out of the station, racing down the slope onto the platforms, delivering newspapers and mail sacks to the waiting trains.

But as this print reveals, Edward Bawden had a keen eye for elegant nineteenth century ironwork and, even before it was cleaned up, he was alive to beauty of the station. Contemplating Liverpool St on the BBC television programme Monitor in 1963, he said “I think the ceiling is absolutely magnificent, it is one of the wonders of London.” And he knew it well, because for nearly sixty years – between 1930 and 1989 – he travelled regularly through the station, whenever he took the train back and forth between London and Braintree station, just one mile from his home at Brick House in Great Bardfield, Essex.

He is one of my favourite twentieth century British artists and the span of Edward Bawden’s career is almost as wide as the Liverpool St arches. After leaving the Royal College of Art, he began designing posters for London Transport in the nineteen twenties, then became a war artist in World War II and was busy creating prints and paintings, alongside murals, wallpapers, commercial illustration and design, right up until the late eighties. I particularly admire his unique bold sense of line that gave an unmistakably appealing graphic quality to everything he touched.