A treasure of a family album

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Tony Rich recently shared this photo album with me. The photographs were taken by his father and document his grandparents lives as traders in the East End.

Tony tells me:

My grandparents were market people. They were first-generation market traders in London. My grandfather’s family came over in the late 1870s, early 1880s and they were all involved in either making shoes or clothes, something they could do with their hands. And like many other families in the East End of that period, they would probably be, what we call, small family-run sweatshops where they would actually make products at home in their small tiny rooms and they’d either sell them or they would be given to a company to sell it on. My grandfather, whose name was Louis Rich and my grandmother Annie, originally Annie Feldman, came from Eastern Europe. He was a tailor and my grandmother also used to do tailoring work. So they would make things and as they were traveling, they would set up a stall. So coming into the UK, they obviously carried that on. They decided to create a name, which sounded much grander than it really was — it was called the Associated Trouser Company. Whatever they sold on their stall were things they made by hand at home. It was just the two of them. And even on my mum’s side, they are also shoemakers and tailors. And they would basically go to different markets, sell their stuff, go back home, make some more. I remember my father telling me about the time in the 50s even when they were hustled by British fascists. Because Ridley Road was the center of a community that was multi-cultural, they could sense that my grandparents were of Jewish descent. They were basically hustling people and calling names and being quite rude, and what I do know is that all the market traders from whatever background they came from basically managed to kick them out from the market. They clubbed together and kicked them out. And that element still applies to the area. It was a few years ago when there were riots going on in London and there was a whole crowd of people coming up from Shoreditch all the way to Kingsland High Street, and all the communities — Turkish and Turkish Cypriot communities, the Afro-Caribbean community and other communities, they all came out of their shops and blocked this road and said ‘You’re not getting beyond this point, we as a community of different people will not allow you to destroy our community or cause havoc or try and divide us.’

London snow and tamarind sweets

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I met Talbert Wilson at my postcard market stall for the first time. We had such a good conversation that we decided to meet again to talk more in-depth. Meeting Talbert was lovely. We took a walk down the market and the area talking about his childhood and life up to now. He told me about his and his family’s journey from Jamaica to England in the early 1960s, his memories of going to Ridley Road with his mother to buy food for a family of over 10 and his experience of being one of the first black traders at the market in the 1970s.

Here’s a short excerpt with relates to the photograph above, the sweets we shared during our walk.

“There’s a shop right down the other end of Ridley market, it’s called Jim’s Butchers. Tamarind grows in a tree in Jamaica, and it’s a sweet, you can buy it there. When I go there I buy it and bring it back to my brother’s wife and it gives here that Jamaica memory kind of thing. Everything you can see here if you’re Jamaican you’ll feel home.”

 

 

A market family spanning five generations

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I met Susan Baldwin a long time ago. She is possibly one of the first traders I have had the pleasure to get to know. Susan’s extended family, the Julian family, have a long history on the market spanning five generations. Many times I’ve talked to her at the egg stall where she helps her uncle Michael. She has shared some wonderful childhood memories of growing up on the market with me. The two photos here are of her father running the Ridley Arms pub and a relative at the Julian egg stall. I’ll share one of my favorite stories here. I hope it will bring alive old market times to you as it has done for me!

One of these shops over here, maybe that one, was a tobacconist, a huge tobacconist with a long high counter when you walked in, and all the shelves were stacked with cigarettes and tobacco. They sold sweets and chocolate as well. My grandfather used to send me along to buy tobacco. He used to smoke roll-up tobacco then and pipe at home. So every Saturday evening he would say ‘Would you go up to Charlie Morrison and get my order?’ It was a Jewish man, his name was Charlie Morrison. He used to stand there with one of those coats on, women used to be running about. My granddad would say ‘Go and see Charlie Morrison, this miserable old so and so.’ So I say to him ‘My granddad send me, could I … ?’ And he used to say ‘And how could that miserable old so and so have a nice granddaughter like you?’ 

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A 1975 photograph of a young trader…

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This is Colin Beacon working on Ridley Road market in his teens. He sent me this photograph when he got in touch with me shortly after I ran the market stall in the summer of 2017. He came across this blog online when he found himself researching Ridley Road Market, a place of his childhood. We met up and took a walk down the market which literally was a walk down memory lane for him. The last time Colin had been down Ridley Road was in 1975. He shared memories with me that were persevered since this time, indeed very special! I realised through his descriptions how language spoken on the market has changed in the last 30 to 40 years. Here’s a short excerpt. 

What we used to do on a Friday – you know Friday evenings were ultra busy with drivers and clippies and ancillary workers. We used to do a massive splurge on bananas, we would drag the banana out, and I would just lay a bunch of bananas everywhere I could put a bunch of bananas, hanging them up from the top, laying them all, absolutely everywhere. People got used to us doing that. And we would have a queue that would start at the left hand side and go all around the way the front, to the corner, that’s where you would get served. And what would happen – Albert taught me: So someone would say ‘How much are these bananas, son?’ It was by weight not by number. And I would look at him. If it was you, I would say ‘4 pence a pound’. Some guy would come down with a whistle [whistle and flute = suit], I would say ‘8 pence a pound’. So I would judge what I thought they would pay. And I would be here, just shouting out and making noise, and then, when someone would get to Albert, he’d do this whistle thing, and that would be my signal. And I would look around and I would go ‘t and h’ and he would sell them for eight pence. And if it was you, with the 4, I would shout ‘rouf, yeah’ and he would know then to charge 4 pence a pound. If you’d come around with your jewels and you looked rich, I would say 10, now, 10 is coq and hen. Now that is rhyming slang. But four is rouf, that’s backwards or nearly backwards. Eigth, is th, and seven was neves which is 7 backwards. I’m trying to remember what they were. Carpet was 30, a pony is 25, a monkey is 20. A lot of it is actually back slang. And in fact, in Victorian times a lot of Cockney people just spoke backwards. 

The Bagel Shop

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Kossoff’s bakery in 1979 by Alan Denney
24/7 Bagel Shop taken 10 years ago © Danny P Robinson
Dalston Junction with Ridley Road street market, Friday evening, November, 1972 by Leon Kossoff

This week I’d like to to share two memories of a bakery on Ridley Road that was mentioned many times: the bagel shop. The bagel shop was called Kossoff’s bakery and is one of the postcard images. It was taken by Alan Denney in 1979. The bagel shop is now called Tasty Buds and painted purple.

Susan and her family have been working on the market for several generations. A few years ago, she walked down Ridley Road with me telling me about the places and people of her childhood in the 1950/60s.

Susan [2013]
This used to be a Jewish bakery when I was little. It was called Kossoff’s. They baked the bagels upstairs and had a delicatessen counter downstairs – there was sliced salmon, cream cheese and Jewish products. About 5 years ago an Indian man bought it, so alongside the bagels which they still carried on producing, they were selling Indian food.  And now, this year, a West Indian man bought it. So in there now, you can buy bagels, Indian food and Caribbean food.

In July, Ruth brilliantly described her teenage years memories on Ridley Road in the 1990s.

Ruth [2017]

We used to go to clubs in the area for soul, R’n’B and reggae music. When everybody finished at 4 o’clock in the morning we used to come to this cafe at the top here. We used to call it the ‘Bagel Rave’. We would buy bagels and cream cheese and salmon and hang out until 6 o’clock in the morning. So that was another party here on the market.
The last photo here is a painting by Leon Kossoff and called ‘Dalston Junction with Ridley Road street market, Friday evening, November, 1972′. Leon Kossoff was born and bread in Islington and Hackney and later painted Ridley Road numerous times. I don’t know if he was related to the family who owned the bakery but I like the coincidence.
I have been listening to a lot of the stories I was told last month and have been meeting up with people who I met at the market stall. It’s so good to speak to people one to one in a quieter setting to get an idea of all theses things that the street and market are about.
If there’s a Ridley Road story or perspective you’d like to share with me, please do get in touch. I look forward to hearing from you!

Last weekend of postcard / story trading. What does a Ridley Road Book need?

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What does a Ridley Road Book need?

This was my last weekend trading postcards with stories for now!

Even though it was a rainy and windy weekend I was told new stories and perspectives about the market I hadn’t come across yet.

A highlight was meeting 15 year old Leah who recited a poem she wrote about growing up in Hackney. She was positive saying how much she liked multicultural Ridley Road and how she’s experienced people being there for each other.

During the month of July, I collected and recorded the stories, memories and anecdotes of just over 100 people passing by my stall.

Thank you to everyone who shared their time and thoughts with me!!!

I asked people ‘What does a Ridley Road Book need?’ This will be an ongoing dialogue I’ll be having over the weeks to come…