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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In my imagination, Joan Lauder (1924-2011) was a mysterious feline spirit in human form who prowled the alleys and back streets, a self-appointed guardian of the stray cats and a lonely sentinel embodying the melancholy soul of the place.

Here are Rodney Archer’s memories with Phil Maxwell’s black and white photos from the eighties and Clive Murphy’s colour pictures from the nineties.

One day, when I went round to enjoy a cup of tea and shot of rum with Rodney in his cosy basement kitchen in Fournier St, he told me about Joan, the Cat Lady, who made it her business to befriend all the felines in Spitalfields during the nineteen eighties.

Rodney: Joan went all around the neighbourhood feeding the cats regularly and she had names for them. You’d see her crouching, looking through the corrugated iron surrounding Truman’s Brewery, waiting for the cats to come and then they suddenly all appeared. I think once I saw her there and I asked her what she was doing, and she said ‘I’m waiting for the cats to appear.’

‘My darlings,’ she really did call them, ‘My darlings,’ and it was wonderful in a way that she had this love of cats and spent her life encouraging them and feeding them and keeping them alive. I could never quite work it out, but she had a bag, like one of those trolleys you carry, full of cat food. Now, either she’d taken the tops off the tins or something, since I noticed – because she had a kind of witchlike aspect – that although she put her hands right into the tin to feed them and then just threw it down, I never saw any cat food on her hands. It was like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Over the years, I would chat to her but she was someone that you had to have some time for, because once she began she went on and on. The Cat Lady was strange – she spent all her money on the cats – she was like a character out of Dickens. She was almost a street person, except she had a place to live. And she did get benefits and she wasn’t an alcoholic or anything, she was very doughty, she had a bit of a moustache.

She was the kind of woman that, a hundred years ago, people would have been fearful of in a way. There was something awesome about her, because she had her own aura and she was there to feed the cats, and the cats were much more important to her than people. I’d talk about my cat to her and I think once she stopped by my door, and I opened it, and my cat sat looking at her.

The Gentle Author: I’ve heard she had this mantra, “Cats are better than rats.” Were there a lot of rats at that time?

Rodney: I think there were. When the market was still going and you had all the fruit and vegetables, the rats would come out to feed. I never saw that myself, but you might see a rat running along the curb. A lot of people said they were looking forward to the market closing because the area would be cleaner and neater, but I regretted that the market left and there weren’t cabbages everywhere.

The Gentle Author: Can you remember when you first saw the Cat Lady?

Rodney: I think I first saw her on the corner of Fournier St and Brick Lane. She had a huge physical endurance, but I think she must have been exhausted by her journey every day, because she would often stop for quite a long time, and she’d just be there looking around. I suppose she might have been looking for the cats. That’s why you could catch up with her and ask her how she was doing.

One day I just spoke to her, maybe I’d seen her around, and I said, ‘Are you feeding the cats?’ And she told me, and I said had a cat and so we talked about cats and the wisdom of cats and that kind of thing. And afterwards, I’d see her quite often. She didn’t talk much to me about her life – but she was the Great Mother of all the cats in Spitalfields.

Phil Maxwell photographed Joan, the Cat Lady, in the eighties

The cat lady on Brick Lane in the late nineteen eighties.

Phil: The woman in this photograph was always dressed in a head scarf and large coat. Usually she would pull a shopping bag on wheels behind her. She was the Cat Lady of Spitalfields. She knew where every cat and kitten lived in the wild and made it her task to feed them every day. Her bag was full of cat food which she would serve on newspaper at designated spots around Spitalfields.

Phil: The Cat Lady pauses for a second beside the Seven Stars pub on Brick Lane. She has just left some food in the ‘private road’ for some cats.

Phil: The Cat Lady floats past Christchurch School on Brick Lane – with her eyes closed, she contemplates the next cat awaiting a delivery.

Phil: The Cat Lady waits outside her favourite cafe in Cheshire St. Now a trendy boutique, in the nineteen-eighties you could buy a cup of tea and a sandwich for less than a pound at this establishment.

Phil: The Cat Lady ‘kept herself to herself’ and avoided the company of others

Phil: It must be about twenty years since I last saw the Cat Lady of Spitalfields. She devoted her life to feeding the stray cats of the area. I have no idea where she lived and I never saw her talking to another person. She seemed to live in her own separate cat world. Even though I was sitting opposite her when I took this photograph, I felt that she had created a barrier and would be reluctant to engage in conversation. It was impossible to make eye contact. I’m pleased I photographed her on the streets and in her Cheshire St cafe. She would not recognise Cheshire St and Brick Lane today.

Clive Murphy’s portrait of Joan Lauder

At Angel Alley, Whitechapel, 5th March 1992

Feeding the cat from The White Hart in Angel Alley, 5th March 1992

In Gunthorpe St, 5th March 1992

Buying cat food at Taj Stores, Brick Lane, 3rd August 1992

In Wentworth St, 3rd August 1992

Calling a cat, Bacon St, 3rd August 1992

The cat arrives, Bacon St, 3rd August 1992

Alley off Hanbury St, 2nd August 1992

Hanbury St, 26th November 1995

At Aldgate East, 3rd August 1992

At Lloyds, Leadenhall St, 3rd August 1992

Walking from Angel Alley into Whitechapel High St, 3rd August 1992

Beware Of The Pussy, 132 Brick Lane, 26th November 1995

Clive visits Joan in her Nursing Home, 1995

Clive: The women I have loved you could count upon the digits of one hand – my mother, her mother, our loyal companion Maureen McDonnell, the poet Patricia Doubell and the demented, incontinent Joan Lauder, the Cat Lady of Spitalfields who, in 1991, when I first spoke to her was already my heroine, a day-and-night-in-all-weathers Trojan, doggedly devoting herself to cats because human beings had for too long failed her.

She looked at me with suspicion when I suggested we tape record a book. Only my bribe that half of any proceeds of publication would fall to her or her favoured charities and enable the purchase of extra tins of cat food persuaded her at least to humour me. I could swear I saw those azure eyes, set in that pretty face, dilate.

I had entrapped her with the best of intentions as she, I was to learn, often entrapped, also with the best of intentions, the denizens of the feral world to have them spayed or neutered in the interests of control. But to the end, her end, I don’t think she ever trusted or respected me. I once found her surreptitiously laying down Whiskas in my hallway for my own newly-adopted cat which I named Joan in her honour. And she once spat the expletive ‘t***’ at me in a tone of total dismissal. To be called a foolish and obnoxious person was hardly comforting, given that I believe my own adage ‘in dementia veritas’ holds all too often true.

Black & white photographs copyright © Phil Maxwell

Colour photographs copyright © Clive Murphy

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In 1981, when Malcolm Tremain was working as a Telephone Engineer in Moorgate, he bought an Olympus 0M1 and set out to explore his fascination with Spitalfields.

‘I used to come over and wander round whenever I felt like it,’ he admitted to me, ‘I never thought I was making a record, I just wanted to take interesting photographs.’ Malcolm’s pictures of Spitalfields in the early eighties capture a curious moment of stasis and neglect before the neighbourhood changed forever.

Passage from Allen Gardens to Brick Lane – ‘I asked this boy if I could take his picture and he said, ‘yes.’ When I looked at the photograph afterwards, I realised he had one buckle missing from his shoe.’

Spital Sq, entrance to former Central Foundation School now Galvin Restaurant

In Spital Sq

In Brune St

In Toynbee St

Corner of Grey Eagle St & Quaker St

In Quaker St

Off Quaker St

Outside Brick Lane Mosque – ‘People dumped stuff everywhere in those days’

In Puma Court

Corner of Wilkes St & Princelet St

In Wilkes St

Outside the Jewish Soup Kitchen in Brune St

Outside the night shelter in Crispin St – ‘He was shuffling his feet, completely out of it’

In Crispin St

In Bell Lane

In Parliament Court

In Artillery Passage

In Artillery Passage

In Middlesex St – ‘note the squint letter ‘N’ in ‘salvation”

In Bishopsgate

In Bishopsgate

Petticoat Lane Market

In Wentworth St

In Wentworth St

In Wentworth St

In Wentworth St

In Wentworth St

In Fort St

In Allen Gardens

In Pedley St

In Pedley St

In Pedley St – ‘Good horse manure available – Help yourself – No charge’

At Pedley St Bridge

In Sun St Passage at the back of Liverpool St – ‘Note spelling ‘NATOINE FORANT”

In Sun St Passage

Photographs copyright © Malcolm Tremain

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David Hoffman at Fieldgate Mansions

Val Perrin’s Spitalfields

Philip Marriage’s Spitalfields

Dan Cruickshank’s Spitalfields

Andrew Scott’s East End

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If you got lost in the six volumes of Walter Thornbury’s London Old & New you might never find your way out again. Published in the eighteen-seventies, they recall a London which had already vanished in atmospheric engravings that entice the viewer to visit the dirty, shabby, narrow labyrinthine streets leading to Thieving Lane, by way of Butcher’s Row and Bleeding Heart Yard.

Butcher’s Row, Fleet St, 1800

The Old Fish Shop by Temple Bar, 1846

Exeter Change Menagerie in the Strand, 1826

Hungerford Bridge with Hungerford Market, 1850

At the Panopticon in Leicester Sq, 1854

Holbein Gateway in Whitehall, 1739

Thieving Lane in Westminster, 1808

Old London Bridge, 1796

Black Bull Inn, Gray’s Inn Lane

Cold Harbour, Upper Thames St, City of London

Billingsgate, 1820

Bedford Head Tavern,  Covent Garden

Coal Exchange, City of London, 1876

The Cock & Magpie, Drury Lane

Roman remains discovered at Bilingsgate

Hick’s Hall in Clerkenwell,  1730

Former church of St James Clerkenwell

Door of Newgate Prison

Fleet Market

Bleeding Heart Yard in Hatton Garden

Prince Henry’s House in the Barbican

Fortune Theatre, Whitecross St, 1811

Coldbath House in Clerkenwell, 1811

Milford Lane, off the Strand, 1820

St Martin’s-Le-Grand, 1760

Old Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), Moorfields, in 1750

Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Rhondda Grove was originally known as Cottage Grove

The river was a wide bowl of pewter then. Its bank of silt and clay – some peat – was trodden only by sailors, boat builders, rope makers, figurehead carvers, dry dockers, painters and tavern keepers. Over the crying of gulls and seamen, if you followed the pealing bells, away from the shore, you arrived at St Dunstan, the church of the high seas.

To the east of the churchyard, the land opened to a common, Rogues Well. Beyond stretched acres of fields, Fenwick, Buckridge, Grice. Some of them belonging to sea captains, Cook and Owen. These were ribboned with walks, lanes and paths – Robin Hood, Beer Binder, Salmon – all joining up to the main thoroughfare that led to Essex and East Anglia.

Rising above the pasture on either side of this road were the roofs of inns, hamlets and a few country manors of merchants. But what dominated the landscape since medieval times were large plots of market gardens and orchards. Placed on the rich alluvial soil and heavily manured, they supplied fresh vegetables, fruits, flowers and salad to the burgeoning population of London.

In the early eighteen-hundreds, when the docks were constructed and Commercial Rd laid out, accommodation was needed for the large numbers – dockers, ballast-heavers, clerks – who came to work there. The farmlands vanished and the rustic hamlets of Stepney, Poplar, Mile End and Bethnal Green were transformed into a dense web of streets.

The estate along the main road on which Cottage Grove (now Rhondda Grove) was laid out belonged to the Gouge family. In 1589, Elizabeth Culverwell bequeathed it to her daughter Elizabeth and her husband Thomas Gouge of Bow. In the same manner, Sir Charles Morgan inherited property in Tredegar, Wales, through his wife, Jane, in 1792. Rich in minerals, the land was leased by Charles to a mining company. Employing this income, his son – also Charles – purchased two parcels of land from the Gouges and developed what we see today.

James Stevens Curls in an article in Country Life on ‘Architectural Grandeur in Stepney’ wrote, ‘The estates at Mile End Old Town were unusual in that they were designed in a lavish scale, and were planned to resemble contemporary developments in the western and northern parts of an expanding London. Sir Charles Morgan envisaged his Stepney inheritance as having possibilities as a middle class residential area. In 1822, he made a new agreement with Daniel Austin for a lease of eighty years, with the intention of developing the western part of his estate for housing.’

Daniel Austin was a man of many trades. He is described in records as a surveyor, builder, brick-maker, haberdasher, dealer and chapman. He laid out a formal plan that comprised a square and five streets lining the north side of the road to Essex that became Mile End Rd. These terraces were Frederick Place (later Aberavon Rd), Cottage Grove (now Rhondda Grove), Tredegar St, Montague St and Coborn Rd. To the north of these terraces were open fields.

William King, one of the architect of this scheme, was a local man and may well have been a friend of Austin, since the design of the houses in the street Austin chose to live in was significantly different to that of the others. The paired villas in Cottage Grove, with space between the pairs, were made of yellow stock brick. Their big overhanging slate roofs with projecting eaves on coupled wooden brackets, recessed entrances with elaborate fanlights over the doors, large sash windows, sill bands on the first floor, and substantial gardens in both front and back, were much grander than houses in the surrounding streets.

Once the building works were complete, Austin lived at 14 Cottage Grove. On January 7th 1824, one of the three co-partners in his firm dissolved his share by mutual consent. On August 8th 1826, the second co-partner did the same. A year later, things took a turn for the worse and a Bankruptcy Award was issued against Daniel Austin.

Bankruptcy at this period brought not just criminal charges but humiliation and disgrace. Cottage Grove had its fair share of bankrupts, including Wm. Jos. Layel, an ‘out-of-business man’, who was ordered to be brought before the court in Portugal St as an insolvent debtor. The only person to petition against the award was James Metcalfe, of No 13, a Boot and Shoe Maker and a part time collector of Taxes, Tithes and Sewer Rates.

One of the most famous residents of Cottage Grove was George William Francis. By the time he moved into No 27 in around 1838, he had already established himself as a figure in the strata of ‘gentlemanly science’. He lectured and wrote a number of books including the best-selling Analysis of British Ferns (1837), The Little English Flora (1839) and The Grammar of Botany (1840), and he played a big role in starting the Victorian fern obsession. While at Cottage Grove, Francis founded The Magazine of Science & School of Arts, an ambitious journal extremely popular for its illustrated explanations of curiosities and discoveries in chemistry, astronomy, and craftsmanship. It was printed nearby at his brother David Francis’s workshop at 6 White Horse Lane. He left Cottage Grove in 1844 and emigrated with his family to Australia, where he founded the Adelaide Botanic Garden.

There were other ingenious resident of the street. In 1851, whe the Great Exhibition was held at the Crystal Palace, a resident of Cottage Grove, W Squires, exhibited his invention which can be found in the weapons category of the Official Catalogue: ‘W Squires, of Cottage Grove, Inv. and Manual New rifle, calculated to project a ball to a great distance with a small charge’.

Squires was not the only inventor to live in Cottage Grove. On July 21st, 1868, James Chandler, an engineer who lived at No 17, had his patent accepted for ‘Improvements in apparatus for drawing and preventing waste of water from pipes, Maines, or other sources, for domestic or other purposes’. Four years later, he could no longer afford to continue to pay the stamp duty on his patent and received a letter that proclaimed the patents void. His name was eventually published in 1874’s Record of failures and liquidations in the financial, international, wholesale branches of commerce. He continued to live in Cottage Grove, his wife occasionally selling plants, ‘old crimson clove carnations – true sort, cuttings 1s. Per dozen, post free’.

Then there were the five Wimpress siblings, the eldest of whom, George H Wimpress lived at 8 Cottage Grove and advertised his skills at typing and shorthand in local newspapers. The family were all member of the Little Folks Humane Society, an animal welfare organization. Other residents included a carpenter, a mantle maker, a butcher, a cigarette manufacturer, a tailor’s cutter, a cabinetmaker and a bell hanger.

By the turn of twentieth century, reforms were made to remove children from workhouses and move them to live in domestic houses, commonly known as ‘scattered homes’. Fifteen of these children lived at No 14, 15 & 16 Cottage Grove, operated by Stepney Union. The style of these houses is significantly different to the others in the street, terraced rather than in twinned pairs. This ‘scattered home’ had a superintendent, a steward, a matron, assistant matron and a chaplain.

There, in 1903, taught a Mrs Pilcher, who believed that ‘systematic education was a crying need for East End children’. She started a school for children in Cottage Grove, which eventually moved to more commodious premises in the Mission Hall, Stepney that Mrs Pilcher rented from the Rector of Stepney. Occasionally she took the mission children on outings to Epping Forest in a van.

At the other end of Cottage Grove, where it meets Mile End Rd, was the Assembly Room. Here, on a hot day in June 1857, the residents of Cottage Grove gathered in to witness a performance by the Bow & Mile End Harmonic Society. It also held public meetings and lectures including London Ethical Society and the East London Medical Society.

Through the summer of 1915, a year after the war was declared, the residents of Cottage Grove saw a Communist & Anarchist group organising lectures on topics such as ‘Evolution & Revolution’ and ‘Anarchist Morality’. These meetings often commenced at 8:30pm and went on till 3am, ‘Tickets, One Shilling each’.

The Assembly Room even featured in the prolific and popular novelist Jack Lindsay’s Rising Tide: A Novel of the British Way, which deals with the dockworkers’ strike:

“‘Let’s go to the Victory Dance the Stepney Y.C.L. are giving,’ he said. ‘Some of the lads were talking about it.’

‘Where is it?’ she asked, flustered.

‘At Rhondda Grove'”.

Between the two World Wars the street was renamed, becoming Rhondda Grove, as a nod to its Welsh roots.

A few months before the Second World War, Mr J Alexander, of Rhondda Grove, wrote to the local newspaper, ‘I am an auxiliary fireman and I work with the finest body of regulars and auxiliaries that anyone could wish for. Now this is what I want to know, why, when we are out on a call, people turn round to jeer at us and laugh as if it was a good joke. Do we look comical? Or perhaps we are doing wrong by wearing an axe and belt and a steel helmet which we take for protection.’

The newspaper’s answer: ‘Can Mile End be a hotbed of grinning apes? ‘Cos this is the first time we’ve received a complaint of this nature. Carry on, laddie! Stick your axe, your belt and your tin hat. You’re doing a darn good job, even if a few dimwits in your locality can’t see it.’

We do not know whether Alexander was at home or work when the first V-1 flying bomb to strike London landed not far from Rhondda Grove on 13th June 1944 or later, when more bombs fell destroying five of the paired villas built by Austin.

View from an attic window of one of the big overhanging slate roofs with projecting eaves on coupled wooden brackets. Note the pair of side passages that have been bricked up.

The paired villas with recessed entrances, built in 1823 of yellow stock brick.

Substantial front gardens make these houses much grander than those in neighbouring streets.

An 1823 villa meets post-war infill.

Large sash windows with sill bands on the first floor.

Where one half of one of the twin villas was bomb-damaged, modern flats have been grafted on.

The stone steps have an iron stair rail and the street is lined with mature lime trees.

Recent modernist houses fill the space where a pair of twin villas were completely destroyed in the Blitz.

Each front door is flanked by Doric columns with an elaborate fanlight above.

A Hindu temple stands on the site of the former Grove Mews.

14, 15 & 16 Rhondda Grove were run by Stepney Union as ‘scattered homes’ for workhouse children.

The author, Naman Chaudhary, is a resident of Rhondda Grove.

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Blue Gate

A Walk in Stoke Newington is an exhibition of new oil paintings by Marie Lenclos opening on Monday 6th November. Marie walked for days exploring the streets, enjoying the shortcuts and alleyways, strolling along terraced streets, and observing the way light fell on buildings and walls. Her new paintings comprise a personal and intimate reflection on Stoke Newington, focusing on the stillness and tranquility of the place. Marie takes delight in colour and form, and the play of light at certain times of the day.

A Walk in Stoke Newington is at Everyday Sunshine Shop, 49 Barbauld Rd, N16 0RT, from 6th to 26th November, Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm, for the duration of the show.

Caf

Church Walk

Church Walk Factory

Crossing

Dalston Junction

Edwards Lane

Green Door

Stairs

Three Windows

Paintings copyright © Marie Lenclos

Click here to book for my last Spitalfields tour of the year

St. Martin, Ludgate with St. Paul’s Cathedral, c. 1900

At this time of year, when dusk gathers in the mid-afternoon, a certain fog drifts into my brain and the city itself grows mutable as the looming buildings outside my window merge into a dark labyrinth of shadows beyond. Yet this is as nothing compared with the smog of old London – in the days before anyone dreamed of the Ultra Low Emission Zone – when a million coal fires polluted the atmosphere with clouds of filthy black smoke carrying noxious fumes, infections and lung diseases. In old London, the city resounded with a symphony of fog horns on the river and thousands of people coughing in the street.

Looking at these glass slides of a century ago, once used for magic lantern shows by the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society at the Bishopsgate Institute, the fogs and smogs of old London take on quite another meaning. They manifest the proverbial mythic “mists of time,” the miasma wherein is lost all of human history, save the sketchy outline that some idle writer or other jotted down. Just as gauzes at the pantomime conjure the romance of fairyland, the hazes in these pictures filter and soften the images as if they were faded memories, receding into the past.

The closer I examine these views, the more I wonder whether the fog is, in some cases, an apparition called forth by the photographic process itself – the result of a smeary lens or grime on the glass plate, or simply an accident of exposure. Even so, this photographic fogging is no less evocative of old London than the actual meteorological phenomenon. As long as there is atmosphere, the pictures are irresistibly atmospheric. And old London is a city eternally swathed in mist.

St Paul’s Cathedral from the north-west, c. 1920

Pump at Bedford Row, 1911

Cenotaph, 1919

Upper Thames view, c. 1920

Greenwich Hospital from the Park, c. 1920

City roadworks, 1910

Looking north across the City of London, c. 1920

Old General Post Office, c. 1910

View eastwards from St Paul’s, c. 1910

Hertford House, c. 1910

New River Head, c. 1910

The Running Footman public house, c. 1900

Unidentified building, c 1910

Church Row, Hampstead, c. 1910

Danish Ambassador’s residence, Wellclose Square, Wapping c. 1910

Church of All Hallows, London Wall, c. 1890

Drapers’ Almshouses, Bromley Street, c. 1910

Battersea Bridge, c. 1910

32 Smith Grove, Highgate, in the snow, 1906

Unknown public building, c. 1910

Training ship at Greenwich, c. 1910

Flooded moat at the Tower of London, c. 1910

The Woodman, 1900

Bangor St, North Kensington, c. 1910

Terrace of the Houses of Parliament, c.1910

Statue of Boudicca on Westminster Bridge, c. 1910

Glass slides copyright © Bishopsgate Institute

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The Nights of Old London

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The Doors of Old London

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The High Days & Holidays of Old London

The Dinners of Old London

The Shops of Old London

I am proud to present these extracts from A LONDON INHERITANCE, a private history of a public city by a graduate of my blog writing course who has been publishing regularly for nine and a half years. The author inherited a series of old photographs of London from his father and by tracing them, he discovers the changes in the city.

Follow A LONDON INHERITANCE

I am now taking bookings for the next writing course, HOW TO WRITE A BLOG THAT PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ on November 25th & 26th.

Come to Spitalfields and spend a weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches and eat cakes baked to historic recipes, all catered by Townhouse, and learn how to write your own blog.

Click here for details

If you are graduate of my course and you would like me to feature your blog, please drop me a line.

My father’s photograph from 1952

My photograph of the same view today

IN WATNEY MARKET & WATNEY ST, SHADWELL

In my father’s photo of 1952, the slogan “No Arms For Nazis” painted on the wall represented a concern about the level of Nazi sympathies still remaining in Germany in the aftermath of WWII. It was taken from the bombed site once occupied by a church, looking southwest towards the Masons Arms which faced onto Watney St and Watney Market.

In 1953, the US government undertook a survey which revealed residual undercurrents of Nazism in Germany needed to be taken seriously. It was claimed the growth of “nationalistic discontent among young men is ominous”. There was mass unemployment in Germany and economic grievances were intensified by the numbers of refugees from Eastern Europe.

This slogan  “No Arms For Nazis”appeared at many sites in London and across the country, and the East Kent Times reported that in Ramsgate “Motorists and residents were startled to see on the parapet of the viaduct, high above the main Margate Road, the words ‘No Arms For Nazis’ painted in large white capitals.”

The southern end of Watney St meets Cable St, well known as the scene of the famous battle in 1936, when there were clashes between the Police, anti-fascists and the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley, who were attempting to march through the area.

In the thirties, this area was the scene of regular provocation of the Jewish community by members of fascist organisations. Watney St and Watney Market frequently appeared in newspaper reports of these events. On 30th of May 1936, the City & East London Observer carried a report titled “Fascists in Watney St.”

“There was great excitement among the many shoppers and stallholders in Watney Ston Sunday morning when about a dozen Blackshirts paraded up and down the market selling Fascist newspapers amid cries of ‘More Stalls for Englishmen’, ‘Foreigners Last and Nowhere’, while from another section of the crowd there were cries of ‘Blackshirt Thugs’, ‘Rats’, etc.

A great crowd gathered, and a Jewish girl, going up to one of the Blackshirts, bought a paper, tore it to pieces and stamped on the fragments. After this the police took a hand but they found it very difficult to keep the crowd on the move owing to the barrows in the market. Somebody picked up a cucumber from one of the stalls, but was prevented from throwing it at a Blackshirt.

A surprising number of the people present appeared to be in sympathy with the Blackshirts. The Blackshirts are, it is believed, about to open a branch in Stepney.”

A few months later, in July 1936, it was reported that the market place in Watney St “seems to be the chief hunting ground for Blackshirts selling their propaganda, who, according to reports, do their best to encourage hatred of the Jewish community.”

Many of the traders in the market were concerned about the lack of action from the authorities, and “rightly or wrongly, are of the opinion that the police are pro-Fascist”.

The traders were concerned that the Blackshirts were having a negative impact on their trade. Their actions and language put off many of the customers of the market, so when they arrived many of the traders packed up and left too. This all came to a head at the Battle of Cable St on 4th October.

AT CLOAK LANE POLICE STATION

When I walked along Cloak Lane in the City a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this foundation stone on the corner laid by a Deputy Chairman of the Police Committee.

Plainly decorated and mainly brick with stone cladding on the ground floor, the building still projects a strong, functional image but the foundation stone is now the only reminder that this was built for the City of London Police and opened as Cloak Lane Police Station.

I cannot find the exact date when the new station opened, however it appears to have been built quickly since by 1886 newspapers were carrying reports about events there, including what must have been a most unusual use for the new police station.

“AN ADDER CAUGHT IN A LONDON STREET. There is now to be seen at the Police Station, Cloak Lane, City, an adder, about 15 inches long, which was seen in Cannon Street a morning or two ago basking in the sun on the foot pavement, although large numbers of persons were passing to and fro at the time.

A constable’s attention was drawn to the strange sight, and he managed to get it into a box and take it to the station. It is conjectured that it must have been inadvertently conveyed to town in some bale or other package of goods. The creature, which is pronounced to be a fine specimen, has been visited by large numbers of persons.”

I could not find any record of what happened to the adder after its appearance at Cloak Lane police station.

The River Thames features in a number of events that involved Cloak Lane police station. These often involved tragedy, due to the nature of police work and the dangers of the river, such as in April 1924:

“POLICEMAN VANISHES – BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN BLOWN INTO THE THAMES. Police Constable Albert Condery is believed to have met with a tragic death by being blown into the Thames during a storm last night.

It is learned that Condery, who has been in the City Police Force for 20 years, left Cloak Lane Police Station last night to go on duty at Billingsgate Market. He was seen there by the sergeant, but later he was missed, and his helmet was found floating on the Thames near the market. The body has not been recovered.”

There were many strange events across the City. In November 1902, papers had the headline “EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR AT BANK OF ENGLAND – ATTEMPT TO SHOOT THE SECRETARY. A sensation was caused in the Bank of England yesterday by the firing of a revolver by a young man who had entered the library. As he seemed about to continue his firing indiscriminately the officials overpowered and disarmed him. The police were called in, and he was removed to the Cloak Lane Police Station.”

He was unknown by anyone in the Bank of England and whilst at Cloak Lane, he was examined by a Doctor, who came up with the diagnosis that “the man’s mind had given way at the time”.

The very last report mentioning Cloak Lane Police Station was from December 1965 when an article titled “Foolish Driver in The City” . He was arrested on suspicion of being drunk and taken to Cloak Lane Police Station, where he “had to be supported by two officers because he was unsteady on his feet”. And so ended eighty years of policing from Cloak Lane.

YOU CAN STILL VISIT OUR CROWDFUND PAGE & CONTRIBUTE HERE

Today we remember artist John Dolan who died a year ago, on 20th October 2022, aged fifty. He is survived by his dog, George.

John Dolan and his thoughtful dog, George, became an East End landmark in recent years, sitting patiently day after day in the same spot opposite the petrol station on Shoreditch High St while the world and the traffic passed by. Yet, all that time, John was watching and, after a year of looking at the same view each day, he picked up a pen and began to draw what he saw before him. Soon after, John’s drawings were published in a local magazine and it proved to be a life-changing moment.

“That’s when I knew in life what I should do,” he assured me, standing in the Howard Griffin gallery where he had his first exhibition. The show was just across the road from the spot where John used to sit and had been a sell-out success, leaving him inundated with commissions and a book deal. Yet George took it all in his stride even if John was rather startled by the attention, gratefully embracing this opportunity to forge a new identity for himself as a artist. “None of this could have happened without the support of Roa, the street artist,” John admitted to me, in relief at this twist of fate, “It’s got me away from breaking into shops to steal money.”

When you met John, you were aware of a restless man with a strong internal life and he looked at you warily, his eyes constantly darting and moving, as if he might leave or take flight at any moment. But although John may have had only one foot on the ground, George planted himself down and surveyed the world peacefully – as the natural counterpoint to his master’s nature.

“I’m from King’s Sq, Goswell Rd, and I could walk from my door to St Paul’s in five minutes when I was a kid,” John revealed, speaking with affection for the neighbourhood in which he spent his life, “From my window I could see the three towers of the Barbican and the dome of St Paul’s. At fourteen, I climbed up the to the top of St James Clerkenwell when it was covered in scaffolding.” John’s minutely detailed urban drawings were equally the result of an observant sensibility and an intimate knowledge of the streets and street life of Shoreditch.

A few years ago, a series of misadventures and spells in Pentonville Prison led to a low point when John found himself bereft. “I was spending my days in day centres and only mixing with homeless people and I couldn’t relate to my family at that time,” he confessed, “but having this exhibition has been a way of getting back to them – when they came on the opening night, they were very impressed. It’s been called ‘a successful debut show’ and you can’t get much better than that.”

“I got rehoused in a flat in Arnold Circus after I had been living in temporary accommodation on Royal Mint St and before that I was homeless,” he explained, “In the recent benefits shake-up, I had my benefit cut to £36 a week and, each time I appealed, they cut it down more until I had nothing. I’ve got arthritis in my legs and I can’t walk very far, so I came down here to Shoreditch High St and started begging to get some money. But I’m no good at it, so I put a cup in front of George like he was begging and people gave him money. Then I got bored and I started drawing the two buildings on the opposite site of the road.”

John outlined to me how he acquired George, the dog that gave him the new focus. “When I was living in Tower Hill, I used to let homeless people come and live with me and there was this couple – and one of them, Sue, she was offered the chance to buy George for the price of a can of lager by a Scottish fellow, so she gave him £20.” John recalled, speaking in almost a whisper, underscored by an emotional intensity, “He was a pretty violent guy who would go round robbing homeless people.”

“George is my first dog in a very long time, I had a dog from the age of ten until I was twenty-three – Butch. He was named after a dog that my grandfather had that was legendary. It was so painful when Butch died, I said I would never have another – but George was such a lovely dog and needed a home. When the Scottish fellow came back and told people he was going to take the dog off me and expecting money every time he saw me, I had to have serious words with him.”

John gave me a significant look that indicated he and George were never to be separated. “I went to Old St Central Foundation School and the only thing I was good at was Art,” he informed me proudly, puffing on his cigarette in excitement, “The teacher said I was so bad at Geography it was a wonder I could find my way home.”

Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien

You may also like to read about

An Afternoon With Roa

Ben Eine, Street Artist

Consider supporting us as a Patron and receive a signed fine art print by Doreen Fletcher, signed photographic prints by David Hoffman and Sarah Ainslie, plus an inscribed copy of my forthcoming book.

I believe in the primacy of books because – even if the web gets wiped out tomorrow – they will endure. Publishing is not an easy task, yet I am passionate to do it when I find stories that I want to cherish, that I know people will love, and that deserve to be dignified in our time and for posterity.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR CROWDFUND PAGE & CONTRIBUTE

Stoke Newington Old Church

It is my great delight to publish this selection of splendid recent works by painter Nicholas Borden, seen publicly here for the first time today, and glowing with rich jewel-like tones and densely-populated, intricate compositions.

The Golden Heart

Liverpool St Station

Christ Church

Brick Lane Market

Sclater St Market

In Sclater St

Brick Lane Market

In Sclater St yard

Columbia Rd Market

Columbia Rd Market

Arnold Circus

Gasometer by the Regent’s Canal in Bethnal Green

Regent’s Canal at Victoria Park

View from the artist’s kitchen, under snow

Paintings copyright © Nicholas Borden

Email nicholasborden100@yahoo.co.uk to enquire about any of these paintings

You may also like to take a look at

Twenty New Paintings by Nicholas Borden

Nicholas Borden’s Lockdown Paintings

Nicholas Borden’s Latest Paintings

Catching Up With Nicholas Borden

Nicholas Borden, Artist

Nicholas Borden’s East End View

Nicholas Borden’s Winter Paintings

Nicholas Borden’s Spring Paintings

Nicholas Borden’s New Paintings

Nicholas Borden’s Recent Paintings

Consider supporting us as a Patron and receive a signed fine art print by Doreen Fletcher, signed photographic prints by David Hoffman and Sarah Ainslie, plus an inscribed copy of my forthcoming book.

I believe in the primacy of books because – even if the web gets wiped out tomorrow – they will endure. Publishing is not an easy task, yet I am passionate to do it when I find stories that I want to cherish, that I know people will love, and that deserve to be dignified in our time and for posterity.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR CROWDFUND PAGE & CONTRIBUTE

Thank you for all you do to document and celebrate the human history of the East End. Hugh Valentine

I am so looking forward to the publication of these books – I always read your blog and really enjoy your writing. Good luck! Sarah Lewington

All the very best of luck with this venture. Dina Fawcett

To support GA, the authors, artists, illustrators & photographers in the production of more beautiful books. Hellen Martin

May you and Spitalfields life, blog, community and books continue to inspire, flourish, stir and resist..thank you. Silvervanwoman

Good luck. I’ve got quite a few of your books and will look forward to more. Alison Pilkington

I have great admiration for The Gentle Author. TGA works incredibly hard and deserves all the support that we can give. Tim Sayer

Valuable historically and personally memorable for different aspects of the East End to be recorded, visually and orally so the streetscape, cultural vitality and diversity of voices are not lost. Jude Bloomfield

The daily blog from Spitalfields Life is life affirming. Best wishes with the publishing venture. Kate Amis

The Gentle Author brings great enjoyment to me every morning. Lynn MacKay

Looking forward to all three books – especially the mosaics, scattered like stardust, and free for all to enjoy…as all great art should be. Josephine Eglin

Dear Gentle Author, I am a great admirer of Tessa Hunkin’s work and would like to support the publication of your book about her and her mosaics. Many thanks for the work you do for so many and the interesting stories you share with all of us readers. Best of luck with this and warm crispy autumn wishes, Matilda Moreton

Good luck with the publication fund raiser. I loved working with Sarah Ainslie on various Spitalfields Life pieces, and I’m excited for her work, and the others, to be published in book form. Rosie Dastgir

I love the books! Good luck! Mary Winch

Love the books – hope the funding project succeeds. Edward Gillman

Good luck with your worthy venture. Keith Brennan

Amazing books … keep going. Sophie Alderson

Precious publications from a very special place … Oh here’s to Spitalfields lives ! Sophie Thompson

I am a great-granddaughter of man born in Bethnal Green. Proud to be an East Ender! Pamela Henning

Wonderful projects. Sensorinet

Cracking beautiful relevant stuff !! Bonne chance xx Oliver Lazarus

I love your books, which would not be published anywhere else. Long may you continue. Melanie McGrath

Books open worlds, make great companions, are lovely gifts, and keep our minds from growing stale. And they ask for little in return! Long live books! Jennifer Newbold

So pleased you’re re-launching SL Books, which are all beautifully produced and feature the work of such excellent photographers, artists and writers. Julia Meadows

Good luck – your books are brilliant. Joan Isaac

Today we preview David Hoffman’s book:

A PLACE TO LIVE: ENDURANCE & JOY IN THE EAST END 1971-87

David Hoffman’s bold, humane photography records a lost decade, speaking vividly to our own times. Living in Whitechapel through the 70s, David documented homelessness, racism, the incursion of developers and the rise of protest in startlingly intimate and compassionate pictures to compose a vital photographic testimony of resilience.

“I was born in the East End, but my upwardly-mobile parents moved away to the green fields of Berkshire and then back to the safe suburbs of South London. By the time I drifted back to Whitechapel as a young man in 1970, I found myself in a world I had never imagined.

I encountered bomb sites still rubble-strewn from the war, smashed windows, empty shops, rubbish-scattered streets and many lost, desperate people wandering aimlessly, often clutching a bottle of cheap cider or meths. Then I was broke, unemployed and clueless, and it was scary to imagine a future amidst this dereliction.

I found a room in a damp, rickety slum in Chicksand St and began to explore, soon discovering the Sunday market in Cheshire St where I picked up a warm coat and a blanket for next to nothing. The market was surreal, with people sitting on the kerb hoping to sell a couple of old shoes and a broken razor. Other stalls were stacked with the debris of house clearance – carpets, furniture, pictures, kitchenware and books – whole lives condensed and piled up for sale.

Yet I found the market inspiring. Unregulated and chaotic, the unifying emotion was of hope bubbling through desperation. Even at the very lowest end of poverty, these people thronging the streets had got up early, pulled together a carrier bag of junk and headed off, sustained by the possibility of seeking a few pounds to get them through the next day or two. No matter how badly things had turned out, they were not giving up. It was this hope-filled resilience that buoyed me up and showed me a way forward.”

David Hoffman

Photographs copyright © David Hoffman