Dock labourer carting sugar c.1925
Spitalfields Market 1912
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I worked in Spitalfields Market for sixteen years doing deliveries. People used to buy fruit in cases. The workers had hundreds of cases of fruit, and we had to put them in the warehouse. The buyers used to buy them, and then we had to take them out and deliver them. That’s what the fruit exchange was. I was a shop steward there.
Jack Martin
Everyone to their trade.
Alice Schreiber
My father went to the markets, and sold a bit of gear. He always took me with him because I was a good worker. He sold handkerchiefs, scarves, shirts, and hosiery. He did a bit of tailoring work on the machines.
Jack Martin
Sherry shipment at London Docks, equivalent to 600,000 bottles, 1961
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Jack Martin a.k.a. Kid Nitram, 2006
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I was over at the boxing ring at Devonshire Hall run by Jack Solomons, my manager. Then I boxed at the Stadium Club, opposite Holborn Empire, and during the war I boxed at Bristol, Carlton Hall. Not a lot of money at that time. I done about six rounds for 2 pounds. If I done eight rounds, two extra rounds, I got about 4 pounds. If you were top of the bill you’d get 8 pounds. It wasn’t bad money. It was hard going.
Jack Martin
Being a care worker is something that I’ve always enjoyed. I think its in me. I like to look after everyone else.
Caroline Patterson
I worked in all women’s factories in Underwood Street. I was a machinist on jackets and coats mostly. I did shoulders, side seams, sleeves, hem the bottoms. We all enjoyed it. We used to sing while we worked, “Here we are again, happy as can be, all good friends and jolly good company.” If two of the girls had a row we all used to sing the songs and they made up.
Alice Schreiber
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FACT: The 1934 Poverty Survey identified Bethnal Green, Poplar and Stepney as 3 of the poorest boroughs in the city of London
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Being a dock labourer dad had to pay his union dues. Otherwise you couldn’t get a ticket to get a job. So whatever else didn’t get paid, the union had to be paid. It was 4 pence a month, a penny a week. When he couldn’t afford a pint, he’d get me to go round the Green Dragon pub to pay his dues. I hated going there. I was only about nine. But I used to go in the side door, and all these old boys were quaffing back ale, and I just gave the money in and they stamped his card, and I’d take it home to dad.
Caroline Wheeler
Although dad worked hard they were still scraping.
Tony Fisher
I went to work in the markets with my dad. This was in the forties. We’d go to Romford, Chrisp Street, Woolwich. We used to take the horse and cart. We used to sell tin ware, baking tins, round tart tins. He’d pull up the horse, Tom he was called, put him in the gutter, put his nosebag on, and he’d stand there all day. Then dad would start shouting, “Here you are, 1 and 4 pence ha’penny, a four pint kettle!”. And you’d get a big crowd round you. We done very well, really, took a lot of money. I liked it, it was very good, but in the winter it was very, very cold. When I sat on the cart, I used to have a blanket round me. On these stalls you’re standing in one spot all the time, and in the winter it was terrible.
Hilda Kennedy
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Dock Strike 1931. Dockers outside union offices in Upper East Smithfield, London E1
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Chrisp Street Market c.1937
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| FACT: Adult male unemployment in London fell from 11.7% in 1931 to 2.7% in 1951
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Mother took in washing and I used to help her by doing the hankies in a bowl of salt water. We used to work hard.
Doris Nisbet
My mother worked down Brick Lane, past the brewery. You used to see her come down the end of the road, with a great big bundle on her arm, and she’d carry it all the way home. The next morning she had to take it all the way back. She used to do hand lapels, all the stitches and buttonholes, and the basting for the lining on the coats, all that sort of fine work. She used to do early morning cleaning as well. She’d be out at four o’clock in the morning, and she used to have to walk everywhere.
Vera Caley
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 Doris Nisbet as a toddler c.1930
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Emily Pickett on a work Beano to Margate, 18th July 1945
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I was a machinist at Plosky’s in 1945. I made soldiers’ uniforms, and their heavy overcoats with the big collars. I worked there thirty-seven years. I really liked that firm. It was that guv’nor who got us all together and made a Beano. He bought us all flowers, we all had our photo done, and we went to Margate. We used to go every year to Margate.
Emily Pickett
Hilda Kennedy outside the Theatre Royal, Stratford, 2006
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In the evening Dad would go to work scene shifting at the Theatre Royal, which was opposite where we lived. I could go in there when I liked, and I loved it. I used to watch all the chorus girls coming in and out. These were the days of the music hall, so you had lots of turns. There was a woman who did poses, naked poses. The law was then, if you did a naked pose, you were not allowed to move. She was in a sort of box, and the curtains were drawn, and somebody would be commentating. A man would say “Dawn”, and the curtains would open, and she’d be posing, with nothing on. The rule was that mydad had to hold her coat when she came off stage. My mum wanted to pick a row with him. The turns would last for a week, and on the following Monday you’d get another lot of people coming in.
I could go in the stage door when I liked, because my dad worked there and they all knew me. I used to stand there all night and watch. The lady who had the troupe of chorus girls said to my dad “I want to take Hilda to be in my troupe,” and my dad said no. I cried, because I wanted to go. They looked lovely in all their sequins. But he was right; they had a terrible life. They had no money. They worked there for the week, left on the Saturday night and had to find lodgings on the Sundays. Then off they go again, rehearsing on Mondays. Whether any of them got to stardom I don’t know. When you look back, I could have been a star, who knows?
Hilda Kennedy
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The paint factory was in Carpenters Road in Stratford. It was a street full of factories, all stinking smells. There was Yardley’s, there was a pie factory, there was a chemical factory. You walked along to where you worked with hundreds and hundreds of people.
Hilda Kennedy |
Fruit stall in Hessel Street Market 1936
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My mother’s family were all butchers. They had a Jewish butchers shop in Hessel Street, which was the only Jewish market in the whole of London.
Marion Davies
Unemployed march against the Means Test and relief cuts c.1934. Passing along East India Dock Road
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I was born in the East End in 1915. In the East End it was all poverty years ago. I signed on the Dole, and I got 8 shillings - 40 pence a week. I hated it. How can you live on 8 shillings - 40 pence a week?
Jack Martin
In the 20’s and 30’s the East End was full of people out of work. It was very hard.
Jack Martin
My husband was in the building trade. It was a good job. Kept us going.
Margaret O’Carroll |
I arrived here from Ireland, Boxing Day 1947. I started work the next day at Twinings Tea Warehouse in Cable Street.
Lil Murley
I took on a night job setting silver jewellery. Takes your eyes out but my eyes were all right then. We used to drill it with a drill like a dentist, make little holes and put the mark in. The silver was pretty soft so we worked it with special tools.
Lotte Tendler
My father was a boilermaker. My mother used to do all little jobs to keep the family. My sister had to look after the young ones, and go to work as a flour packer at MacDougals Flour Works in the docks.
Walter Broom
I joined Canning Town Glassworks, had a nasty accident there. Ten or twelve-hour shifts, three shifts a week. Very hard work. Cyanide was used to help make the glass. I worked on the machine, double time. Heat, bottles coming out, all your jam jars, milk bottles, every type of bottle. But they only employed Asian people because of the heat. They give us ordinary gloves, they weren’t heat resistant so you’d get burned. The union wasn’t much good. I got cut and lost my finger there, off to Poplar Hospital. Still had to work.
Mack Mascarenhas |
Tailoring. Schneiders, Duswood Street E1 c.1916
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My father was a tailor and he had his workshop at the top of our house. He used to make the uniforms for the guards at the Tower of London, so every button and buttonhole and stitch had to be perfect. He’d be working all night sometimes.
To the day he died, bless my father, if he met a person in the street he’d always say, “Hello”, but he’d have to touch the person’s lapel to see if it was hand stitched. Every time.
Marion Davies
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