by Tim Bradford
On Tower Bridge Road sad-eyed cockney princesses in green uniforms serve at Manze’s pie and mash shop. Then, coming up to the area of the old abbey, is the beautiful little Bermondsey Antique Market. I browse for a while amongst what seems like the last dregs of tired Victorian bric-à-brac. Old ships, heads, brass stuff, cups, jewellery, candlestick holders, pictures, photos, books – Dickens, Boys’ Own stuff, Thackeray, a last gasp of Victorian London, each object with a story to tell. I see a pile of old Punch magazines from the thirties.
‘Are these yours?’ I ask a skinny bloke in his forties with slightly receding black hair.
‘Oh yeah, Honest John’s the name, honesty’s the game.’
Bloody hell.
‘I’ll wheeler deal you, son. Do you a deal. You’ve got shorts on. I like a man with shorts. I always wear shorts. I think a man should wear shorts. I even wore shorts to my wedding.’
‘Er, yes. It’s good to get the air on your legs.’
‘Good? It’s bloody marvellous.’
‘How much are the Punches?’
‘Six quid they are. But if you take five they’re a fiver each.’
‘I only want one.’
‘Hmm. All right, four quid then. I’m a dealmaker, I am.’
‘Phew, you certainly tied me up in knots.’
He laughs and puts them in a bag and shouts ‘Good luck, mate!’ and I walk off. I’ve gone about ten yards when I look in the bag and realize I’ve walked off with something – he must have given it me to hold while he made ‘the deal’ and rooted for change – some kind of antique bronze sculpture thing. I go back.
‘Excuse me, I think this is yours.’
‘What?? Oh, bloody hell, yes!’ says the super dealer. ‘That’s worth 350 quid. My Victorian candlestick. God, you’re good stuff, you are, mate.’ I try to protest that I hadn’t done it on purpose but he’s not listening. I walk off as he’s shouting to nobody in particular ‘I could do wiv someone like you, mate. Turned me over right and proper you did.’ He’ll be dining out on that madcap escapade for the rest of his life.
I turn right onto Abbey Street and walk through the little churchyard. Bermondsey Abbey was here. Let’s try and recreate life for a thirteenth-century monk. The area would have been crowded with cockney monks all praying out loud and probably selling holy relics to unsuspecting passers-by. In fact, the cockernee phrase ‘Leave it out, John’ refers to the monks’ request to the Order of the Knights of St John, who owned much of the nearby land after it had been confiscated from the Templars, to exempt their abbey lands from tax collection. Believable? You decide.
In the park there’s a monument erected in 1902 to the memory of James Buckingham Bevington of Neckinger Mill, who sounds like a character from an A. A. Milne poem.
James Buckingham Bevington of Neckinger Mill
Was known for a quite remarkable skill.
He could snort through his nose the lines from a top farce,
While banging out ‘God Save the King’ on his arse.
Hmm, possibly more Spike Milne [igan].
A stoned-looking bloke walks towards me, mid-seventies hair, mid-seventies clothes, grinning idiotically. I think that maybe he is actually from the mid-seventies but by some space/time error due to crazy drugs he’s stepped out of his front door thinking it’s 1973 and he’s slightly confused. Actually, not necessarily. Because if he’s just stepped out of his front door and I’m the first person he’s seen, he’ll think ‘Hmm, an unshaven scruffy-haired tinker with normal [seventies] shirt and his dad’s 8th Army shorts!’ As long as he goes back inside his house quickly, and back to his era, there’ll be no harm done. It makes me think of all the ghosts who must be walking the streets continuously. I mean, if you were the sort of person who picks up on that kind of stuff, it would be pretty confusing. Everyone’s seen a double-exposed photograph. This would be like a multi-exposed Super 8 film. People merging into each other, Victorian ladies being sold religious artefacts by cockney monks.
At Neckinger Street the atmosphere has changed. The air is different, not so sticky and claustrophobic. I’m closer to the Thames. A block of flats on the right in Wolseley Street is on what would have been Jacob’s Island. The Neckinger flowed down each side and met at the other end. This was known as the mill pond – or Folly Ditch at the time of Dickens – and was where Bill Sikes met his end in Oliver Twist, falling from a warehouse window, I think. I just remember Oliver Reed. I can’t think of Bill Sikes any other way. He turned into a werewolf at the end of Oliver! I seem to recall.
I try to imagine the dirt, smells and general cacophony. Cholera hit the area badly in the nineteenth century, especially near open tidal sewers. Jacob’s Island, whose residents got their drinking water out of the Thames, was one of the worst affected areas. Now there’s a bloke and his son sitting on a wall eating ice creams, a woman shouting and some blokes ambling around. There are various blocks of flats with Dickensian names – Dombey House. Oliver House. Pickwick House. Weller House (that’s Sam not Paul). Did-it-at-‘O-Level’-It’s-Really-Boring House.
I reach St Saviour’s Dock, the mouth of the Neckinger at high tide. Around the dock are mill wharves that are now mostly trendy flats, offices and design studios. Floating about are water bottles, Coke bottles, orange juice, lemonade, 7-Up and oil cans, wood, dust, shit and sweet wrappers.
It seems there was possibly a branch, maybe a man-made ditch, from the Neckinger that wound its way here from just in front of Waterloo Station. Nicholas Barton refers to it as the Lock Stream. Near the Bull Ring at the Waterloo Bridge roundabout there used to be a large encampment of homeless people in the catacombs between Waterloo station and the river, called Cardboard City. At night it was like a medieval scene with fires, echoing shouts, laughter and music. It smelled of piss and strong cider and mouldy sleeping bags. They were all cleared out a few years ago just before the Eurostar terminal opened. Perhaps they felt that French tourists would not take kindly to this very English (or post-Thatcherite English) scene. Now the Bull Ring has been done up; there’s an Imax cinema where only recently there was a large lake of urine. The area has always had a different pulse to the London a few yards away on the north bank. This was where the brothels and theatres sprang up in the Middle Ages because they were outside the City boundaries and therefore (in theory) outside the jurisdiction of City laws. It was a place where outsiders congregated, medieval Matt Dillons and Mickey Rourkes. On the lookout for chicks. Now it’s a sort of cultural pleasure garden.
Pupil: Sir, what did the olden days smell like?
Teacher: The olden days smelt of B.O. and cider wee.
It’s not been a bad summer. A decent amount of sun, and the London pollution hasn’t seemed as rough as in previous years. I’ve also, thanks to all my walking about, got a decent tan. Actually, it’s a farmer’s tan. My torso is pale and pasty, while my arms and neck are brown. My legs look a bit stupid. I’ve got a strip of brown on my calves and the rest is white. Tans have been ‘in’ with the In Crowd for the last year or so, but I don’t think my sort of tan is what they’re after. Not that I know any In Crowd people. The nearest people I know is my friend who works for a big tobacco company and therefore could, in theory, get everyone cheap fags. But maybe, just maybe, the farmer’s tan will become ‘in’. You probably need to have my farmer’s fingers too to carry it off properly. Not that they’re real farmer’s fingers. They’re farmer’s fingers when I’m playing the guitar or trying to paint something small and delicate, but when I’m doing gardening or DIY etc. they’re not farmer’s fingers but weedy illustrator’s fingers. Now, why is that?
About a mile east are the routes of what were known as the Rotherhithe Mill Streams. There were two main streams, one flowing from the southern end of Southwark Park to the Thames at Cherry Garden Pier in Bermondsey, the other further east. They’re possibly not real rivers – some of them might have been constructed by the monks of Bermondsey Abbey. On my 1851 map the eastern stream seems to be made
up of a series of millponds. Were these natural features or constructed by the monks for fishponds? They loved fish. Good for the brain.
I have a friend who lives on the route of one of these streams, near Bermondsey tube. But he’s not interested in underground rivers. His thing is Flashing Blade videos. He came round with one a few months ago and I was gobsmacked by the intricacy of the plot and the historical complexity. I don’t have the space to explain it properly here. But basically, The Flashing Blade is set in France in the late eighteenth century during the Franco-Spanish war. There’s this guy called Chevalier de Recci and his big-chinned mate Guillot who arrive at the beleaguered Fort of Casal which the Spaniards are doing all in their power to destroy before a truce can be called. The episodes deal with de Recci trying to get the message through to the French armies so they can relieve the fort. Along the way he has lots of adventures and scraps. But the best thing about it is the theme music. I wouldn’t mind that tune being our national anthem.
You’ve got to fight for what you want
For all that you may need
It’s right to fight for what you want
etc. etc.
As long as we have done our best
Then no one can do more
For life and love and happiness
Are well worth fighting for.
I make my way though the back streets to Southwark Park to check out the possible source of this stream. According to the map on display, there’s a pond there. The whole park is being reconstructed, even down to rebuilding the original bandstand from the 1860s. I focus on the bandstand and connect with all the Victorian third baritone players who’ve performed here and feel their existential dread and self-loathing. You don’t want to go there. Tame squirrels have been shipped in from a squirrel zoo and there are also specially trained friendly crows. Though they might be ravens. There’s a little visitor centre with a few old posters, some stuff on the history of the park and a heavy-boned bloke with tired eyes who sighs a lot and looks like he’d be happier at home eating crispy snacks and watching daytime TV. The pond is all dried up, drained and empty except for some sticky stagnant pools and lots of marshy mud with the obligatory booze bottles scattered about. The pond waders seem to love it and march about like goose-stepping Kate Moss dolls on speed.
A bit further on is what looks like a sculpture collection – mounds of earth, possibly modern references to the old millpond islands that stood at the western edge of the park, surrounded by pieces of piping and bits of concrete slab piled high, and huge blocks of rusting wire. Then I see the plastic slide and realize the kids’ playground has become a building site.
There’s a monumental drinking fountain, dated 1884, which was ‘Erected by public subscription to commemorate the life and labours of Jabez West working man and temperance advocate.’ The fountain doesn’t seem to be working any more. West was ‘a rare specimen of a rare class’ (Dr Burns – whoever he was). Working man and temperance advocate. I feel that I’ve met my antithesis. I notice a can of Superbrew on the wall next to the pavement. Someone, maybe from the council or tourist board, has already been here to mark the trail. I close my eyes for a couple of minutes and try to imagine the marsh, small boats, smell of shit, damp and windy, monks padding about. Then I open them and see people playing tennis and cricket. On the other side of the road is the comforting sight of the Stanley Arms: ‘Live music playing Sunday afternoon’. Inside a bloke with a synth and drum machne is killing ‘Summertime Blues’. Outside is a cockles, prawn and shellfish stall. I want some seafood. I’ve only got a quid.
‘What can I get for a pound, old lady?’
‘Some prawns, my lovely, crabsticks or ocean pinks for you.’
Ocean pinks. They sound exotic. Like something from the Karma Sutra.
‘What are ocean pinks?’
‘Ocean pinks are scrambled crabsticks with a bit of orange colouring on the side, moulded into the shape of a tiger prawn. They’re delicious and have the consistency of the inside of a golf ball.’
‘Where do ocean pinks live?’
‘I imagine at the bottom of the deepest ocean – they are descendants of the earliest life forms that swam in the primordial soup that must have been like a thin bouillabaisse.’
I walk away, greedily stuffing the ocean pinks into my mouth (after struggling with my farmer’s fingers to get the thin plastic packaging off), as the singer reaches the song’s emotional crescendo, past the Crown, a shabby local boozer with yapping young sarflandun geezerlads, eighteen or nineteen, outside at tables with pints of yellowy weasel piss in front of them, talking on their mobiles with really serious expressions as if they’re doing deals although really they’re just gossiping with their mates.
‘Yeah, Darren’s here. Nah, Dave’s on holiday. Wiv ’is mum and dad.’
‘Are you watching telly tonight. Yeah? Me too.’
On the left is a memory of the former landscape – the big Millpond Estate with perspex balconies, then the Millpond Tenants’ and Residents’ Association hall. I cross over Jamaica Road and continue towards the Thames. Past Sam’s hairdressers, and an illustration of two Matt Dillon lookalikes one black, one white, facing each other across the red shop front. Wet shaving and hot towel, French crop, flat top, short back and sides, undercut. The road slopes down here to the left and the stream possibly goes under one of the estates.
At Bermondsey Wall East lies the Angel, a pub since the fifteenth century which has had many famous patrons, such as Samuel Pepys, Whistler and Turner. It’s also where the monks of Bermondsey Abbey used to sell their beer. Monastic inns with nice beer gardens got a lot of their business from country monks visiting London. It’s like that story of the town monk and the country monk. The town monk goes to stay with his country-based colleague and every day it’s prayer, prayer, prayer, chant, dry bread, water, prayer, prayer, chant. Then when the bumpkin friar hits London he’s taken on a rollercoaster ride of alcohol, fine food, pornography, music, prostitutes, crime and black magic and ends up shooting up strong ale with the Pope. You must have heard of it.
After Bermondsey Wall East I arrive at a lovely quiet bit of river. This part of the Thames is called the Pool. Lads are fishing on both sides of Cherry Garden pier and laughing, as water gently laps against the river wall. On the other bank of the river are old buildings right up to the water. It’s high tide and the river seems smaller here. Halfway along the pier a young Spanish guy is filming his grandad, who appears to be singing some old folk song while staring out at the Thames. Perhaps it’s a Spanish TV programme called Grandad Sings The Major Waterways of the World.
El Padre Viejo Thames
Padre Viejo Thames
hay mucha agua en usted
Londres antepasados des veneraron los toros dirigen
empujamos el toro de las torres viejas de la iglesia
¿Dónde están el whitebait?
¿Dónde el whitebait es?
La madre rodillas Marrón están arriba.
Old Father Thames
Old Father Thames
There is a lot of water in you
London’s ancestors worshipped the bull’s head
We pushed the bull from the old church tower
Where are the whitebait?
Where are the whitebait?
Mother Brown’s knees are up.
London Stories 14: Welcome to Shakespeare Country – Britain’s Heritage Industry
* * *
Back in the summer of 1989 a new form of entertainment appeared in London. Famous actors would lie down in front of bulldozers at a building site on the South Bank and tempt Irish lads in yellow hard hats to drive over them.
‘Feck me, I think I’ve got Peggy Ashcroft.’
‘Was she the one in Driving Miss Daisy?’
‘No, you are thinking of Passage to India.’
It was gripping stuff. I worked nearby and at lunchtimes would buy a sandwich, get out early to find a good spot then sit down and enjoy the show, h
oping, like the rest of the bloodthirsty crowd, to see a Shakespearian stalwart crushed – or, at the very least, a mass brawl of some sort. With ultra-theatrical scratching and hair-pulling.
Earlier that year a property company, while digging for foundations to build a crap bland glass office block that nobody would want to use, had discovered (much to their horror) the remains of the Rose Theatre, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed in the early seventeenth century. Soon afterwards Sir Laurence Olivier, from his cryogenically sealed oxygen tent in space, beamed down the message ‘Cry God for Harry, England … and the Rose’, and the campaign for the site’s preservation had begun. The next stage of the actors’ strategy was to get Ian McKellen and Judy Dench to lie down in front of the bulldozers. I always secretly hoped that one of the bulldozers would actually come off its safety catch. (Bulldozer owners will be slapping their foreheads at this point and shouting ‘Who is this bloke? Bulldozers don’t have safety catches they have an electronic braking mechanism.’). Anyway, there’d be lots of excitement, a sort of stand-off, an arms race – they had the bulldozers but the others had the clipped accents and oration skills. At the time it seemed like an obvious conflict between two different Englands – working man wanting to get the job done and the toffs who cared more about old remains than middle managers having somewhere to put their computers. Now I realize I was completely wrong, and the workers were simply lackey jobsworths doing the bidding of the international property firm. The actors were trying to save our heritage. We’d be up in arms if they did it in Texas or Tehran. Or Afghanistan.
It seemed pretty obvious that the actors would win, so it was something of a surprise when a new building rose on the spot. Evil and ugly with lots of glass. Eventually the government made a decision, which being Thatcherite bastards meant that they sided with the property company and declined to declare the site a national monument. However, some kind of thespian arm-twisting must have prevailed, for subsequently the developers created an area to preserve and display the remains of the Rose and leave them where they were.1 It was all photographed, then covered up with sand again. Everything now lies underwater.