The Hidden East End

I was brought up in the depths of the East End. My father was a stevedore in the London docks, and my mother lived through the London Blitz until she moved away to do war work. In a munitions factory. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I moved away from where I had been brought up when my father took early redundancy from the docks in 1969, one of the first wave of men leaving professions that they had lived for. In my father’s case, for 44 years.

My mother had always wanted to become a seaside landlady, and she realised her ambition, and to his credit, my father complied.

We therefore moved to Bournemouth, and I received a first class grammar school education. But I returned to London to go to university, and in my second year at University College London, the godless college in Gower Street, and in my second year I moved from university rooms in a shared house opposite the university itself, to live in a housing in the East End, not quite where I had been brought up, but nevertheless back to my roots.

Opposite the large block that the co-operative was set up to manage, there was a church, St Mary’s, and for a year I learned to ring the bells in St Mary’s. It was St Mary’s at Bow, but not the St Mary’s. That is in the city, and the one that if you are born within the sound of its bells, you are a Cockney.

And so I was a member of the USSR, the union of secular and socialist ringers. Sometimes I think visiting the pub after a session learning to ring the church bells was as important as ringing the bells.

I lived in the co-operative for several years, until I moved to Yorkshire to further my connection with cooperatives, but this time, to work within a co-operative not just live.

But when I lived at Bow, I Worked for about two years in a local pub, where I felt completely immersed in a culture that was very particular to that part of London.

Every Friday, we had a lock in, in the days when pubs really did close at 11 PM. But from 11 PM until about 1 o’clock in the morning, a pub pianist would entertain with his own particular brand of risque comedy and extraordinary piano playing.

I became very friendly with Jimmy, the pianist, and he always promised that he would show me something of the real East End. And one day he did, when he took me on from the pub to his next gig, which was in an illegal drinking den, at Limehouse, where a boxing gymnasium was suddenly transformed to a late Friday night Speakeasy.

I don’t think I have ever been quite so drunk, and I took with me a friend from university. I don’t think either of us remembered much about that night.

My journey to and from the pub was short but took me past a small local community centre, on which there was a blue plaque, commemorating the visit from Mahatma Gandhi in about 1937. It was the same centre in which Profumo worked for almost 20 years, cleaning the toilets as payback for his disgrace after his affair with Christine Keeler.

It seems as if everywhere in such a community there is history to be discovered.

Just up the road from where I lived, just past Mile End, there is the Blind Beggar, where the Kray twins shot and killed Jack the Hat McVitie. And a bullet is still in the wall over the bar.

A stones throw away is Cable Street, famous for when the Black Shirts led by Mosley were stopped by dockworkers from marching through the East End Jewish Quarter. I like to imagine my father, who would have been around 20 at the time, to have been one of those dockworkers.

It is just around the corner from Wiltons Music Hall, an extraordinary survival which has now been being restored and is once more a venue for performances. Even before it was properly licensed, it was used as the atmospheric set for numerous film settings, and I was fortunate to be able to attend a private party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Sixteen, and they performed a 16th century Oratorio from Venice.

History is everywhere if you look, and I suppose I was fortunate to visit my roots and to be able to see just a little of what still lies beneath the surface.

Rewriting History: The Most Reviled King

Coincidences can be very striking sometimes.

Only recently, I recorded a fascinating documentary programme, entitled enigmatically The King In The Car-Park.

This concerned the recent discovery in the centre of Leicester in middle England of the bones of Richard III, the last English king to have died in battle. And perhaps the most controversial historical Royal ever.

The controversy stems from the fact that he came to the throne of England in the 15th century in a most roundabout way.

And historical accounts, and indeed the history play written by Shakespeare concerning the life and death of the King paint him as a vile tyrant that killed his two young nephews in order to seize the Crown for himself.

Shakespeare was writing a century after the death of this King at the Battle of Bosworth.

And the history books give an account of this king that was to all intents and purposes written in order it seems to justify the rights of the Victor at the Battle of Bosworth, who became King of England in Richard’s place.

Henry Tudor had apparently a very slender right to the crown of England, and since history is written by the Victors, it seems that the stories about this most reviled of Kings may have been doctored so that he was painted to be a villainous and untrustworthy candidate for Kingship.

The major coincidence I referred to earlier is the fact that one of my carers, that is keen on reading to me whilst I eat my meals, has recently purchased an unlikely treat from a local charity shop.

This is a detective story written by somebody who goes by the pseudonym of Josephine Tey.

Written in 1951, a simple Google search has indicated that this mystery/detective story has been hailed as one of the best detective stories ever written.

Quite an honour, and perhaps not easily granted.

But granted in this case by an organisation made up of peers of the writer, who perhaps can be well trusted in this matter.

It is one of five stories under this pseudonym that the authoress wrote with at its heart an English policeman of the old school, recuperating in hospital after having broken a leg whilst chasing a villain in the course of his duties.

Simply to keep his mind occupied whilst he spends time in bed in hospital, in 1951, a friend brings him a number of old prints.

Because he is a Detective, he cannot help but be interested in the faces of the people portrayed in these prints, one of whom is Richard third.

From that point on, we are drawn into the investigation this policeman undertakes, firstly as simply a hunch that this man does not look the kind of character to whom are attributed the crimes that after his death on the battlefield were laid at his door.

And so he begins to examine all of the historical evidence on the assertions about his crimes.

Mainly that he murdered his two nephews, sons of his own brother, over whom he was at first the Regent and Protector after his brothers’ untimely early death, after which he supposedly declared himself the King in his place.

A further coincidence (and of course, they always come in threes!) Is that the BBC has been televising a series entitled The White Queen, which seems to be inevitably moving towards this historic struggle between the Plantagenets and the Tudors.

We haven’t yet completed the book, but it is proving to be a fascinating read, and the documentary programme is in itself fascinating, in that the skeleton of this King has been discovered under the tarmac of the local social services building in Leicester. The most inauspicious possible site for such an important body.

Until this time, lost to history.

It seems that there is a surviving DNA match for this dead King, someone of Canadian parentage, and working quite innocently though aware of his hallowed origins as a furniture maker somewhere in the suburbs of London.

It is a fascinating story so far, and it is still unfolding.

A reminder if one were needed that indeed history is written by those that win victories in battle, and that we must be careful before we accept even the most stylishly presented histories, and you can’t get much more stylish than to have your story told by Shakespeare himself.

Watch It All Before You Judge

I recorded a film over the weekend, that I have seen before.

Although when I first saw it, I saw it only partially, several times. And had already decided that I did not consider it worthy to add to my collection.

The name of this film is unimportant, but the significance is that it was only when I did eventually see it from start to finish did I realize quite how good a film it is.

Of course, the same is true of so many things, we can so easily close our minds to them before we really have what they are properly before us.

It was fortunate for me that a good friend had the persistence to recommend the film to me, and to insist that I overcome my prejudices and see the film as a whole.

The net result is another addition to my ever growing collection of films.

Perhaps it isn’t the greatest of films, but it is so much better than my initial prejudices had taken it to be.

It is a fairly early film as a producer in the output of a prolific filmmaker, and in some respects, provides a useful insight into the role that this filmmaker must be playing.

Because it reads in part as a means whereby he is able to provide opportunities for younger filmmakers, perhaps by providing access to a cast that has used in other films.

But it is always helpful to see the breadth of a film-makers work, whether as a  director or as a producer.

As in some respects, this film seems to contain elements of other of other films, explored from subtlly different points of view.

Not A Dead Parrot Sketch

The humor of the Monty Python team is probably appreciated by a worldwide audience.

This I am sure does not depend upon a sophisticated understanding of English as a language.

Much of their humour is very visual.

Although as someone in their early 50s, my childhood was very much the time when Monty Python was being aired on British television for the first time, I saw very little of the original broadcasts.

It was not until I was much older that I have come to appreciate their style of humour, and find it extremely funny.

And of course, one of their most well known comedy sketches must be the dead parrot sketch.

It is so familiar to most people that I will not even contemplate providing a description here, confident that most people will instantly know exactly what I am talking about.

And one of the extraordinary things about this particular moment in cultural history is that it is possible to simply locate and play such snippets of television history at the press of a button.

And most people, as I was made aware this very morning, can simply access the Internet from their mobile phones.

For me this morning, it was my failure to be able to recollect the name of a poet. But I was able to remember one of his most famous collections, A Shropshire Lad.

In a matter of seconds, it was possible for my carer to discover that the forgotten poet was AE Housman, and it was possible to be reminded of one of his most famous poems almost instantly.

This is truly an amazing thing. Cynics might say that it will mean that we will lose the capacity for memory of any kind quite quickly, as everything that we need to recall can be obtained online almost instantly.

Personally I plan to retain my capacity to remember things, whether it be moments in history, snatches of Shakespeare, or indeed other anecdotes that I wish to retain for conversational use.

But all of this of course is simply a preamble, so that my blog article this morning, concerns a strange sect that I recently discovered.

I am a dog lover, and my dog is regularly walked by a dog lover that has recently purchased an African grey parrot.

This was an expensive animal to purchase, and some might think twice about spending such a sum on something that may well outlive you.

Because I believe the lifespan of an African grey parrot can be as much as 70 or 80 years.

So, if a reason for updating ones' will were needed, this is definitely one of them.

The strange fact that I have learned from the proud new owner of this parrot is that avocado is a parrot poison.

I had not known this, and although I was aware that chocolate is similarly dangerous for dogs, perhaps there will be many other species specific toxins that I am not aware of.

This did remind me of the fact that the tomato and the potato are both close relatives of the Deadly Nightshade, a common hedgerow plant in Britain.

And since I have that kind of mind that still retains useless facts, I suddenly remembered how the South American Natives had given potatoes to Sir Francis Drake, who then brought them back to Britain to give to his Queen, Elizabeth I, in the hope that they would be poisoned by them.

The natives themselves would not eat the potato, unless it had been carefully and ritually prepared by priests, which I believe involved cooking for fairly extended periods.

Of course, the modern potatoes that we purchase for daily use have been bred to be relatively harmless.

But it's still remains the case that green potatoes should not be eaten, as they are harmful.

We have in English the proverb that one man's meat is another man's poison, but I had not quite translated it to the idea that avocados should at all costs be avoided by parrots.

The Other Invasion: Always Forgotten

In the emotional outpouring that accompanies memories stirred over the D-Day landings, it is often forgotten that it was not the only invasion that brought about Victory In Europe.

That other invasion is less well publicized, though just as important, and highly significant in that it created the pincer movement that so distracted the German
High Command, and led inexorably to the defeat of Germany.

My own father took part in that invasion, and the campaign that preceded it.

He was a Desert Rat, fighting Rommel in the desert war, part of the Eighth Army under Montgomery, and indeed it was a famous ploy of the British, to persuade the Germans that it would be from here that the major part of the invasion of Europe would come.

And so Sicily was well fortified, and equipped with troops, at the expense of Normandy.

But the invasion of Sicily did take place, shortly after D-Day itself, and troops from North Africa fought their way up the leg of Italy, burying many of their comrades on the way, often finding fierce resistance at such places as Monte Cassino.

It is perhaps quite typical of the British Tommy, the equivalent of the American GI, that they should have created a poem about themselves, which for its first six or seven verses, comes across as a mocking accusation that these soldiers were really simply dodging D-Day.

But in that final verse, they talk about the truth that none would care to discuss with their families later, and my father never did.

That the price of this second invasion was high, especially at such places as Monte Cassino.

But as Italian resistance faltered, and units were rushed to the aid of the beleaguered northern troops, it became possible and indeed imperative that this second invasion be successful.

And so the self-deprecating legend grew of the D-Day Dodgers, many of whom like my father would have already fought at El Alamein and Tobruk.

But they did their bit, and the war finally ended.

My father had a varied selection of stories that were suitable for general consumption about his experiences during the war, but those around him quickly tired of these sanitised anecdotes.

And thus he probably appreciated the company of his peers, in the life that he led after the war. He was a pigeon fancier, and this solitary pursuit was perhaps shared by many others that had a similar experience, to be spoken about only rarely over beers during meetings of the pigeon fancier’s club.

My father never did wish to travel abroad after the war, she always would say that he had done enough traveling.

And indeed he had.

When he was finally demobilized he was in Palestine in 1948, and that was no easy posting.

And he did not even have to enlist. As a dock worker in the Port of London, he had worked in what would have been a reserved occupation.

But Dock workers flock like pigeons, and in 1940, a whole blend of brothers relented and joined in the war, perhaps having more choice over their destinations because of their willingness to enlist.

My father joined the Royal Engineers, and if he ever achieved a promotion from the ranks, he lost it just as quickly, probably because of drunkenness, another characteristic of dockworkers.

He did hint occasionally at spending time in the glasshouse, army slang for detention after minor misdemeanors.

But the truth has died with him.

He died in 1998, leaving my mother as an elderly widow, with little social experience. Her man was not exactly well prepared for civilian life after what he had experienced in eight years of service.

And they had only married in 1938.

My mother’s war service was equally stretching in its way, so that she became a munitions worker, and later a Capstan Lathe Turner. At least this work took her out of the London Blitz, as she had been living in the East End of London.

My mother is still alive, at 94 years of age made of strong stuff. All those years of severe rationing have probably contributed to that strong mix.

Survive the war, and the aftermath is just another campaign for which you have been well prepared.