 There was some brilliant music on the streets of London's East End today - and the Great Yiddish Parade were the best of the lot, playing klezmer-style while making their way through the streets of Whitechapel and Stepney. This was once a Jewish stetl - an area where many Jewish migrants fleeing religious oppression made their home and where once Yiddish was the language of the streets. 90 years ago exactly, on 4th October 1936, Jews and other East Enders took to the streets to prevent the British fascist leader, Oswald Mosley, and his black-shirted followers from marching through what was then a mainly Jewish locality. The "battle" of Cable Street is regarded as a great victory for anti-fascism, a moment when the community came together to keep the hard right and the politics of hate out of their locality. And it was so nice to hear Jewish street music performed on the anniversary march. I'd estimate there were perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 people on the march. There was little sign of the Labour Party beyond a couple of local banners and I spotted just one Labour MP (I initially said there were no Labour MPs, but Apsana Begum was present). And not a Green in sight. So it was trade unions, local community groups and the far left which turned out. Whitechapel and Stepney, once Jewish areas, are now home to more recent migrants, principally from Bangladesh - and many men and women of Bangladeshi heritage joined today's march.  It's curious that 'Cable Street 90' was transliterated into Hindi on the front-of-march banner and not Bengali. And a little surprising that that Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets and leader of a local political party Aspire, should take pride of place behind the banner. Aspire only contests local elections in Tower Hamlets, nowhere else. It consists almost exclusively of people of Bangladeshi heritage and has an unimpressive record on women's empowerment.  90 years ago, the battle of Cable Street took place as civil war was raging in Spain. Both were aspects of the struggle against fascism. And among the sea of banners and placards were some that continued to make that connection.    There were many Palestinian flags and pro-Palestine chants, and a large contingent of Irish republicans drawing parallels between Cable Street and the recent Unionist attempt to march along the Garvaghy Road in Drumcree. My nomination for best banner? That has to go to the East London Knitters who say 'Balls to Fascism. No Pasaran!' 
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 I spotted this plaque at Golders Green crematorium yesterday. H.M. Hyndman was indeed the founding figure of social democracy - in its late ninteenth century meaning of Marxist-style socialism.  Hyndman was a privileged Conservative until coming across the writings of Marx. In 1881, he founded the Democratic Federation. This became two years later the Social Democratic Federation, and a generation after that was renamed the British Socialist Party. The BSP was in 1920 a constituent in the new British Communist Party, but by then Hyndman - always a bit of a jingoist - had broken away to form the unfortunately named National Socialist Party. In my library, I have a book by Hyndman - his 1883 title The Historical Basis of Socialism in England - which was presented to him (surely he already had a copy!) by the SDF's Islington branches.  The book was dedicated by Hyndman to his first wife, Matilda - who is remembered in the tablet at Golders Green. This particular copy is inscribed by Hyndman to his 'dearest betrothed' Rosalind Travers, who became his second wife later in 1914 and who is also named on the tablet. The funeral service yesterday, by the way, is the only one I have ever been to which included a reading from Leon Trotsky. It was an excerpt from On Optimism and Pessimism, and the officiant was so taken aback by the choice that he announced it as by - or were my ears deceiving me? - Leo Tolstoy. The funeral was that of Martin Upham, socialist, educator, choral singer, and labour historian - and one time member of the Revolutionary Socialist League. He was a friend.   A suburban London station is not the most obvious venue for stimulating art. But the elegantly refurbished Richmond station is an exception. On the steps down to the platforms, it has a wonderful selection of the work of Cyril Power - many of them featuring trains and buses - and they are magnificent.  Power's modernist, machine-age linocuts (the work on display at Richmond isn't the original artwork) were produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when Power was approaching 60. Several were designed as posters for public transport. He worked closely with a younger colleague, Sybil Andrews - a brief but very productive professional partnership.
Not all the work on display at Richmond is about transport. My favourite is this wonderful linocut of youngsters dancing. What a sense of energy and dynamism!  And above the entrance to the platforms, there's a really stunning depiction of skaters. So you can get your fill of rewarding art when arriving at Richmond before even getting to the ticker barrier.   This was a wonderful find at our local street fair today - a set of tokens issued by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. The society, based in Woolwich, flourished from the 1870s to the 1980s. These tokens were not used as cash or given as change, but established a claim on the 'divvy', the dividend that this mutual society provided from its trading surplus to those customers who were members. This site explains more: The co-operative movement, which expanded rapidly after originating in Rochdale in 1844, was based on the concept that its profits were returned to the members in the form of a dividend, calculated as a proportion of each pound spent. The dividend could not be declared until accounts were made up, and it was not easy to keep track of every member's spending in the meantime. A commonly adopted solution, especially in the early days of the movement, was to give an equivalent face value in tokens with every purchase. When the dividend was declared, all tokens brought in were exchanged at the dividend rate. The redeemed tokens could then be issued again. Even for a small society, and many began as a single shop, the system required tokens in substantial quantities, and the cheapest and easiest method of production used a single die in a hand press stamping thin blanks of tinned iron. The process is rather like that used to emboss notepaper. Tokens made in this way are termed bracteate with the design appearing on both sides, but only the raised impression reading normally. What was cheap to produce was also easy to counterfeit, and in time many societies used tokens of a more conventional style in brass or bronze ordered from a commercial maker. These tokens are made from what seems to be die-stamped tin, very thin and lightweight, with the exception of the £1 token which is brass. This probably dates the tokens from the 1950s or earlier, before the switch to plastic tokens. They are not particuarly valuable or rare, but they are emblematic of an aspect of daily life which has largely been lost.   This is quite extraordinary. Tucked away amid a new development in the heart of Islington, just a few feet from The Angel tube station, is a pillar to that esteemed radical and freethinker, Tom Paine. Who knew?!! I certainly didn't until I stumbed acorss it the other day. As pillars go, it's neither very old nor (to be candid) all that stylish. But a tribute to Tom Paine! Splendid!!  The Thomas Paine obelisk, to give the monument its formal title, was erected in 1991 to mark the bicentenary of Paine's most renowned book, The Rights of Man. This was written, it's said, while Tom Paine lodged nearby at the long gone Angel Inn.  The artist was Kevin Jordan, and the pillar features a likeness of Tom ...  ... and some of his wise words.  There's quite a competition to claim Tom Paine, with Thetford in Norfolk and Lewes in Eastr Sussex also in the market.  Islington's case would be stronger if anyone knew this obelisk was there. It's in Angel Square, just off Torrens Street. If you exit The Angel tube heading north, take a right as soon as you are out of the station, and there it is.
 It won't happen again in my lifetime - and the 90% solar eclipse visible in London last night was an event. Eclipse glasses sold out everywhere. The higher points of London - such as Parliament Hill and Highgate - attracted throngs of the curious. This is what the sun looked like. I didn't manage to get safety glasses, but as I walked around at the height of the eclipse a kind soul lent me his glasses for a few seconds. And this (not my photo but lifted from the internet) is more-or-less what I saw.  My neighbours resorted to the colander method, using one to provide pin-hole camera images on a white sheet. Not bad!  On a piece of higher ground by the church close to my home, others were using much the same technology - though with a single pin-hole.  And how did that deliver? Well, take a look ...  There was quite a crowd by the church, though nothing like the assembly on the Heath. And the nice thing about the eclipse is it brought people together - a shared moment in an atomised world.    Pearl Binder's family name was Binderofski. Her father, a tailor, moved to Britain from Eastern Europe in 1890. She was born in Salford fourteen years later. She ended her life as Baroness Elwyn-Jones. Her husband, Elwyn Jones, was a barrister and Labour politician who, in 1964, became attorney-general. A decade later, he was appointed Lord Chancllor and made a life peer.  This blog is about Pearl Binder's art: politically committed, wonderfully humorous, sharply observed and deftly executed. It's part of a much bigger - and enthusiatically recommended - 'Comrades in Art' exhibition at the Towner Gallery in (I know it's a strange location given the subject matter) Eastbourne.
Pearl Binder's drawings and lithographs depicting the Jewish East End of London in the early 1930s are particularly enthralling. Here we have 'Jewish Restaurant, Brick Lane' and 'Jewish Bookshop, Wentworth Street'.  She is known particuarly as a book illustrator. But she also wrote, sculpted, made stained glass ... and was a champion of the Pearly Kings and Queens, one of the enduring emblems of Cockney working class life in inner London. She was also, in 1933, a founder member of the left-wing, communist leaning, Artists' International Association, which is the focus of this exhibition. There is a mischief about her art which is really appealing. Take these examples -     If you can get down to the Towner Gallery, then go! The exhibition is on until October. 
The ice cream was yummy - creamy with very different (but gentle) tastes. I had the Ube, which is the one that looks like it's blueberry. The other one we tried is, I think, Pandesan, and that was good too. Mamasons, by the way, is an abbreviation of 'Mama and Sons', and their ice cream brings a touch of class to the locality. And it's good value!   This spectacular mural is on a gable wall in Poplar in London's East End. On the left is Queenie Watts, a singer, pianist and local pub landlady, particularly at the Iron Bridge Tavern on East India Dock Road. She died in 1980 and the pub is also long gone. On the right is the acclaimed artist Francis Bacon, one of many painters, poets and actors who frequented this part of the London. Both have a connection to Poplar, an area of the East End which doesn't quite have the cachet of Spitalfields or Stepney, but which is worth the effort to get to know.  The historian Ken Worpole introduced me to the mural - and to Poplar - on a well-attended walk this weekend with the title 'High Rise and Low Life: a Poplar Journey'. Ken has a real enthusiasm for and knowledge of the area. One of his forbears is listed on a memorial to local parishioners who died in action during the First World War. This part of the East End only has small clusters of ninteenth century buildings. It has been knocked around by wartime bombing and post-war slum clearance. It has several eye-catching murals and some really striking modern architecture, both high rise (such as Goldfinger's Balfron Tower) and the more initimate Aberfeldy New Village.  The Queenie Watts and Francis Bacon mural is the work of Zabou and JimmyC and is part of an 'Untold Stories' initiative supported by the Greater London Authority. Zabou's bird's eye view of is taken from his web page on the mural,   This is the famous round church in Bowmore, the capital of Islay - in as much as a Scottish island of 3,000 people can have a capital. I visited it for the first time this month. But I feel as if it's a familiar part of my life. I have had on my walls for many years two prints of Islay village-scapes by Nigel Abercrombie, I got these from my parents. I don't know for sure whether they ever visited Islay but I guess they did. And it was wonderful to see this elegant 1760s Church of Scotland church dominating, brooding over, the tiny town of Bowmore.  On the other side of the sea loch is Port Charlotte, often described as the prettiest of Islay's handful of villages.  This was very much the view that Abercrombie had in 1977 when working on the piece of which formed the basis of his print. He has emphasised the geometrical aspect of the village scene, but as you can see it has hardly changed - indeed, it simply hasn't changed - in the past half century.  So here we have Islay in art and in real life. Both are enchanting.  |
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