 Squeezed between Hampstead and Hendon, Golders Green is still regarded as north London's middle class Jewish enclave. It has in large measure outgrown that reputation. The high street is as much Turkish as kosher, and Bloom's - the Jewish restaurant which used to be a byword for stroppy service - has long since closed. Alan Dein - who showed me round his manor a few weeks back and is writing Curious Golders Green - tells me his uncle was the last Jewish waiter at Bloom's. In its latter years, almost all the staff were Greek Cypriots. But let's start at the beginning - or at least where I started walking, heading from Jack Straw's Castle, no longer a pub but top end flats, down the hill towards Golders Green tube and bus station. This curious periphery to Hampstead Heath has, in places, a distinctly rustic feel. Indeed the cluster of houses on and around Sandys Road, opposite the 'Old Bull and Bush' (rebuilt, alas, in the 1920s), has a village-like feel to it.  Close to Sandys Road - the house on the right is Ambridge Cottage  The design of this cottage on Sandys Road makes me wonder if it was once a local school  In Golders Green proper, the grander of the two landmarks, the Hippodrome, was originally a music hall, then home of the BBC Concert Orchestra. It's now a Christian centre with a largely African congregation. A little less imposing, but architecturally more pleasing, is the clocktower at the centre of a small roundabout, built after the First World War as a war memorial. The blue face of the clock (alas, not displaying the correct time) brings a particular charm and a burst of colour to what would otherwise be an excessively solid and sturdy structure.  Directly opposite the Hippodrome is one of the very few businesses close at hand which is identifiably Jewish - a kosher patisserie which feels as if its time is past, and certainly wasn't deluged by customers on this admittedly damp Sunday morning, but which does a tasty apple strudel. (They are baked not here, I was told, but on the premises of the main store at Finchley).
 As you walk through Golders Green. the shops and businesses become more kosher as you approach the railway bridge - and from there to the North Circular, the area is emphatically Jewish, with a synagogue, Jewish schools and a fair amount of Hebrew/Yiddish signage.
It's on the final stretch of the walk, approaching the North Circular, that I came across a wonderful ghost sign for an old launderette, boasting a double wash in twenty-eight minutes. Alan Dein had pointed it out on an earlier walk. And need I say - it's on the gable wall of what is now a kosher supermarket. 
1 Comment
Courtesy of eBay - and of the eagle-eyed Alan Dein, historian and broadcaster, who spotted it there - here's a wonderful 1954 book of what Ewan MacColl termed industrial folk ballads. It has a catching cover design (the artist simply signed as 'Brooke'), and was published by the Workers' Music Association - an organisation founded in 1936, when the CP was in its "popular front" stage, and which is still going. 'Few of these songs have ever appeared in print before', says Ewan MacColl in the preface, 'for they were not made with an eye to quick sales - or to catch the song-plugger's ear but to relieve the intolerable daily grind.' The songs inlcude 'The Colliers' Rant' and three others from A.L. Lloyd's Come all ye bold miners, one song gathered by the legendary Alan Lomax, and several gleaned from weavers, miners and rail workers. 'There are no nightingales in these songs, no flowers - and the sun is rarely mentioned; their themes are work, poverty, hunger and exploitation.' 
What a remarkable film clip! This is Max Bacon - a radio and music hall comedian - performing 'Cohen the Crooner, the Crosby from Mile End' in a 1936 movie: 'Soft Lights and Sweet Music'. Part of it was filmed on location at Mile End market. I owe this to Alan Dein. He's just bought a 78 rpm copy of this number at his local charity shop. And scouring around the internet to find out more, he came across the wonderful YouTube clip posted above.  As you can see, the sleeve of the disc Alan bought (thanks Alan for screening it and sending the image on) shows that it originally came from a shop in - yes - Mile End!  There's a brief biography of Max Bacon here. He was a drummer with the renowned Ambrose orchestra, and did occasional comedy songs, before later going into variety and making radio appearances. He is on the left on the accompanying photo of two Jewish comedians - an image I came across on a site I warmly recommend, run by Phil Walker and devoted to the Jewish East End http://www.jewisheastend.com/london.html Doing my own digging about the song and the singer, I found another YouTube clip - which said it was Adele performing 'Cohen the Crooner'. Really?!!! Well, yes and no - not that Adele, but worth watching all the same: And the lyrics of the song, courtesy of mudcat ... all together now! As I push my barrow along You'll hear me sing the latest song I'm Cohen the crooner The Crosby from Mile End. I sell peanuts penny a bag To the tune of Tiger Rag I'm Cohen the crooner The Crosby from Mile End. I sing jazz or [h]opera My customers to suit, But I don't give a hoot So long I sell my fruit. Radio singers may be swell But they can't sell you fruits as well Like Cohen the crooner The Crosby from Mile End.  Peggy Seeger + Ewan MacColl, thanks to www.peggyseeger.com _ I may be coming late to the party, but I have only just found out that the great Peggy Seeger once wrote a song about a big rent strike and bust-up here in Kentish Town in north London. I owe this 32-carat nugget to the broadcaster and oral historian Alan Dein, who has spoken to veterans of the rent strike. And of course, there's a good story behind the song. Back in the summer of 1960, a long standing grievance among tenants of the borough of St Pancras brewed up into an almighty row. It reached a climax in September when two tenants - yes, 'Cook and Rowe', Don Cook and Arthur Rowe - sought to challenge eviction orders by barricading themselves in their flats. They used bedsteads, barbed wire and a remarkable number of old pianos to keep police and bailiffs at bay.  The key battle ground was at Kennistoun House on Leighton Road, where there is to this day a plaque 'in memory of Don Cook and the rent battles of 1959-1964'. One evening in late September, hundreds of police descended on Kennistoun House. Yes, literally - breaking into one of the flats through the roof. A large crowd quickly assembled in support of the rent strikers. The photo below - which Alan Dein sent me - shows Peter Richards (like Cook, a former soldier and a CP'er) addressing a meeting in support of the rent strike.  Peter Richards / Kings Cross Voices You can get a marvellous sense of the drama, and the level of political engagement, in a wonderful Pathe news reel of the rent strike available to view on line, Eviction Battle On! It features both Don Cook and Arthur Rowe. The forced evictions and protests they triggered were big news - and clearly attracted the attention of Peggy Seeger, who wrote 'Hey Ho, Cook and Rowe' and recorded it with Ewan MacColl. If you click below, you can here the full recording - posted here with Peggy Seeger's blessing - distinctly dated, but wonderfully so. And below there's a taste of the lyrics - you can find them in full, with much other background, here: _ HEY HO! COOK AND ROWE! (or: The Landlord's Nine Questions) Words and Music by Peggy Seeger As true a story I'll relate (With a) HEY HO! COOK AND ROWE! How the landlord told Don Cook one night, (With a) HEY HO! COOK AND ROWE! You must answer questions nine (With a) HEY HO! COOK AND ROWE! To see if your flat is yours or mine (With a) HEY HO! COOK AND ROWE! CHORUS: Hey, ho, tell them no With a barb-wire fence and a piano, Took a thousand cops to make them go, Three cheers for Cook and Rowe! What is higher than a tree? (With a, etc.) And what is lower than a flea? My rent is higher than a tree, And the landlord's lower than a flea. (CHORUS) There's another photo of the rent strike, and some links to sites with more information, at the bottom of this web page. A wet, cold, miserable morning - about the worst imaginable to go on a walk almost the entire length of London's Caledonian Road. But that's what I've just done - in the company of the oral historian Alan Dein abd about twenty others.
The organised walk is linked to the entirely wonderful sound map that Alan and The Guardian's Francesca Panetta have recently posted on The Guardian's site: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/interactive/2010/apr/26/caledonian-road-sound-map It's a fantastic piece of audio - strong voices, specially commissioned music and magical production. (And the images and web design are also impressive). Alan took along a ghetto blaster so we could hear some local voices and stories as we walked. We started close to what was once the Caledonian market (the clock tower and the railings are almost all that survives) - a live meat market from the mid-nineteenth century which turned in to London's largest flea market but came to an end with the Second World War. On through the Caldeonian Estate to Pentonville jail - there's a road just to the north side, a public throughfare leading to blocks of warders' housing, which doesn't appear in the A-to-Z, I suppose in a nod towards security. Then under the Ferodo bridge (I didn't know that Ferodo had a deal once with a big building concern to feature on all their bridges) into the Cally Road proper. It's a haven of family-run shops and small businesses. Hardly any chains. Prosperous Barnsbury to the east - slightly run down social housing to the west. Towards the canal, we walk past a recycling bin for kinives - an attempt to tackle gang-related street crime. Then on towards what used to be the Geberal Picton - a local turned gastropub, The Drivers, with a vertical garden on its exterior walls. A sign of the gentrification that is increasingly evident at the southern extremity of the road. I just hope Housman's bookshop survives. |
Andrew Whitehead's blogWelcome - read - comment - throw stones - pick up threads - and tell me how to do this better! Archives
March 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed