English Texts

Lond-on-Line Diary

04.05.1996

Every Saturday at 11.00 o’clock Laurie Allen stands at the Underground Station Aldgate East, white-haired, with horn rimmed glasses, a blue folder in his hand. «Aldgate” was actually called earlier «Old Gate”. Here there was a town gate, here were the beginnings of the East End, Tower Hamlets, the villages in the surroundings of the Tower. One practiced with weapons – Artillery Lane, Gun Passage, the names are history. Petticoat Lane, the name of the famous Sunday market, originated from «petite coat” from the Huguenottes, who planted mulberry trees here, bred silkworms and wove. A Petticoat Lane doesn’t actually exist any more, the market is now to be found in the surroundings of Middlesex Street.

Laurie Allen says he would make the tour for a single person. Today we are six people – not bad – 3 Swiss, a Canadian couple and a student from the USA. Laurie was once a cook, then courier with London Transport on contract, meaning it was not a firm job. No more work. He had to find something else. «Go on a Jack the Ripper walk” he said to himself, I can do that too, after all I grew up here. «I’m a Cockney”; he said that with pride. He showed us the Canon Barnett School, where the teacher took Laurie and 3 other scholars on one side after the assembly, all the others were Jewish. Today the school is 100% Bengali.

Laurie is a self-taught local historian. His tour shows his love of the East End and its history. He is greeted here and there. Proudly he leads us into the courtyard of Toynbee Hall, a local centre with tradition. Here scholars already taught the poor East Enders in the last centuary. Today there are multi-cultural events, courses, a youth club «a quiet Oasis”. Laurie shows which tract the queen mother and which Prince Charles opened. And the children’s nursery where Princess Diana danced with the East Enders. «The Royals look after the East End”
Almost a bit forceful, Laurie obtained entrance to the famous 18 Folgate Street where Dennis Severs, a Californian, redesigned the house in the Huguenot fashion. The old porcelain vases and crystal glasses stand sombre and cool on embroidered cloths; there lays a pipe and the silver knife – the surroundings of the Huguenot refugees, who had come to England in the early 18th centuary and are today completely integrated into this community, is sensually present. Dennis meets his guests with a traditional Bowle, the exact same bowl as shown in the oil picture on the wall, complete with the exact same silver ladle.

The American slept, first of all, in each room of the house built in 1724, to be able to «hear” what it told him. He bought it in 1967, a ruin. Now he lives there exactly as it was, cooks on the fire, heats with the chimney and uses chamber pot and candlelight. It should not to be a museum, but a world of Athe past. Severs has said goodbye to his Californian origins and his material world.

Laurie’s tour, a walk through history and stories, finishes in front of the granite walls of Bishopsgate.
«Can you live from the walks” I asked him on a beer. Through his smile it seemed that the worry, the near despair seems to break. The bill is made quickly. He took Six times four pounds. He could never afford the 2000 pounds that an official town guide has to pay for the concession. So he now tries to build up his own enterprise, offers further walks – a «three park” walk for example. But the competition is vast. Laurie hopes that the speciality of his kind will become well-known.
We say goodbye, he is still sitting in front of the half-empty bier glass.

Translated by Pat Gerber