Tales from Rotherhithe Street: the Crunchy Frog/Waterside Studios - Sex Pistols, early music and fringe theatre by the river

It's 50 years since the Sex Pistols played their first gig, at Central St Martins art college (on 6 November 1975). But in the weeks leading up to this they rehearsed at various locations including at a venue known as the Crunchy Frog, 99 Rotherhithe Street, London SE16. The full story of that is told below, but there's much more of interest about this space, a former dockside building that became an important alternative culture venue in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Docks

99 Rotherhithe Street is located at the historic core of the old Rotherhithe riverside settlement with old St Mary's Church nearby dating back to the 13th century (and where incidentally my 4 x great grandparents Thomas Say and Frances Blackwin were married in 1790). The nearby Mayflower pub (originally the Spreadeagle and Crown) is named after the ship that sailed from Rotherhithe in 1620 carrying the 'Pilgrim Fathers' to New England, with the ship's Captain - Christopher Jones - buried in the churchyard. The pub, though, was only renamed  The Mayflower in 1957 having been substantially rebuilt after wartime bomb damage.

As the British Empire and global trade expanded so did the docks on this part of the Thames. The stretch of the river from Rotherhithe down to London Bridge became known as the Pool of London, the part of the river that was navigable by ships with masts.

99 Rotherhithe Street was built in the 1840s as part of  East India Wharf where there were two granaries and a barge building yard in the 19th century. No. 99 was a five floor granary  run by W W Landell and later by John Dudin  (1890s) and British Bluefries Wharfage & Transport (1930s).  The building was also known at one time as Archers Wharf.  The granaries were used to store grain at a time when Britain was importing most of its wheat and barley from abroad- mainly from Russia in 19th century and Canada in 20th century. This was unloaded from ships into riverside warehouses like these. 

 Like at most of the docks on both sides of the river, workers at East India Wharf took part in the famous dock strike of 1889. There is a statement from the 'South Side Central Strike Committee' confirming that workers at East India Wharf had agreed  to return to work having achieved a pay rise. It is signed by Tom Mann, who was a key organiser of the strike.

The docks went into decline after the second world war, partly due to wartime damage and the loss of empire but mainly because of containerisation from the 1960s. The larger ships transporting containers were too big for this part of the river and unloaded their cargo further out at places like Tilbury. Surrey Commercial Docks closed down in 1969.

After the London docks closed down in the 1960s, the The Greater London Council took on responsibility for much of the semi derelict dockside landscape. The original plan was to demolish these buildings on Rotherhithe Street but in 1970 it was designated as the St Mary's Rotherhithe conservation area.  No.99 is now an English Heritage Grade II listed building.

By this time the area had a bit of a reputation - for instance in 1967 Jack 'The Hat' McVitie was killed by Reggie Kray and his body left in a car by St Mary's Church.  On the other hand there was a boujee bohemian edge  - 59 Rotherhithe St, demolished in the 60s, was known as the 'Little White Room' where Princess Margaret secretly shacked up with Tony Armstrong-Jones before they got married and where various poshos partied including Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich and John Betjeman (the latter stayed there for a bit).  As discussed here before, Jessica Mitford had lived at 41 Rotherhithe Street in the 1930s.

The Crunchy Frog

With Rotherhithe Street saved from demolition but no longer needed for the docks others moved in, sometimes squatting for a while or negotiating short term leases and paying rent.

In 1974 Crunchy Frog, a film animation company presumably named after the Monty Python sketch, was granted a  temporary lease for no. 99. This film company doesn't seem to have last long  but various artists, craftspeople and musicians set up workshops there and it was renamed Waterside Studios (though people still referred to the place as the Crunchy Frog for a few years after).

The building was pretty derelict to start with, people had to build their own rooms and put in windows to fill the gaping holes in the walls where old windows had been removed.  Daniel Larson, an instrument maker, moved in during 1974 and has described how it was at the time: 'This building was a four-story structure built on the water's edge. An electric crane lifted grain to the fourth floor, and gravity pulled the flour through the grinding process down to bags on the ground floor. The milling machines were eventually sold for scrap…  The artist group turned the ground floor into a theater on the Fringe Circuit that hosted many experimental programs. A carpenter with heavy machines occupied the first floor. The second and third floors were divided into small spaces and used by light-duty craftspeople such as silk screen artists, knitters, and instrument makers'. 

It wasn't a place where people lived with the exception of a couple of barges that were moored in the Thames next to it, on one of which lived Mike Canty who was a potter and seems to have been a key figure in running the  place. Linsey Pollak, an Australian musician who had a workshop there for a couple of years told me that  in 1978 for a 'a while (1978) I squatted on the barge tied up to his [Mike Canty's] before ours sank'.

'Rotherhithe Warehouse' print by John McGowan shows the building  from river side c.1981 - 'From the late 1970s through to the early 1980s Maureen, my sister-in-law, lived on Barge ‘Olga’, which was moored in the Thames next to “Waterside”, a craft collective at 99 Rotherhithe Street'. See his Rotherhithe Suite of prints.

The space was run as a co-operative originally -  they set up a company called Waterside (Archers Wharf Ltd), everybody involved became a member of the company and was expected to contribute four hours a week to maintaining the building or doing admin.

Waterside (Archers Wharf) Ltd co-operative rules - this and the Waterside drawing above are from a contemporary leaflet sent to me by Linsey Pollak.

 The Theatre

The Theatre at Waterside Studios started out in 1975 - confusingly at different times it was known as the Warehouse Theatre and The Waterside Theatre. In June 1975 the Greater London Arts Association awarded £5000 from its Theatre Conversion Scheme Fund 'to Crunchy Frog, a group working from a disused warehouse... to cover the conversion of the ground floor of the building into a theatre and to set up a rehearsal room and kitchen area'. In the following year structural alterations included turning the first floor level into a cafe/bar and part of the groundfloor bar into dressing rooms.

The Stage (1975) reports that the 'little theatre which us up to now has been known by the delightful name of The Crunchy Frog... is alas more prosaically retitled as The Warehouse.

1977:  'a much needed venture in a neglected area of London' with artistic director listed as Ann Colthart - I am wondering whether this was Ann Coltart (1941-2024), among other things a Greenham Common peace campaigner and chair of Bermondsey Labour Party in early 1980s.

1976 events at the 'Warehouse Theatre'

1977 events at the 'Waterside Theatre'

  The Theatre hosted lots of alternative, experimental and radical theatre performances Among those who performed there were:

- Belt and Braces socialist theatre company  - Gavin Richards later went on to play Tiffany's dad in Eastenders!

- Forkbeard Fantasy who presented 'The Cranium Show' in 1976 featuring Lol Coxhill - he played sax with The Damned for a while and was a big figure in the London improv music scene.

- Eastend Abbreviated Soapbox Theatre - who included later punk singer Patrik Fitzgerald

- the People Show, whose 1976 show no.68 included Mike Figgis, later film director (Leaving Las Vegas etc)

- Robert Llewellyn, who started out as a shoemaker at no. 99 then started hosting cabaret nights there and formed the alternative comedy troupe The Joeys. He later played Kryten, the android character in 1980s/90s sci fi TV series Red Dwarf.

- The Women's Theatre Group, which performed 'Pretty ugly' in December 1977, a musical show for 12 to 15 year olds.

- Incubus, whose 'Soon maybe boogie' (November 1977) was a punk influenced play featuring fictional band The Iron Jelloids who  'endlessly rehearse their unlovely, subversive and eventually super destructive rhythms'. Clearly modelled on the Sex Pistols, and possibly referencing their time using the space.

- Mutable Theatre, whose 'Stairway to Paradise'  (1975) was advertised as also including 'licensed bar and disco'.

- Les Oeufs Malades (Gerard Bell, Bryony Lavery and Jessica Higgs) performing  'I Was Too Young At The Time To Understand Why My Mother Was Crying' (1976) with music by Jam Sandwich.

- Dockwalloper Company staged 'Smile Please. You're on holiday' (1975), 

Nomads and Fools, 'Befooled' (1976)

Fine Artistes, founded by actor Pavel Douglas, performed there in 1976.

(the story of many of these alternative theatre companies is told at the excellent Unfinished Histories) 

Early Music

There was a strong musical connection from the start, interestingly including a quite niche link with the overlapping 'early music' revival and emerging 'world music' scenes. At this time both were seen as somewhat counter-cultural movements, exploring alternative sounds and instruments from history and around the world

 Linsey Pollak had a flute and bagpipe making workshop there from 1976-78. Originally from Australia, he came to England to study instrument making at the London College of Furniture in Whitechapel. Returning to Australia he has continued ever since playing and making woodwind and reed instruments and performing at numerous multi-cultural/'world music' festivals and events. 

Linsey Pollak 'every few months he and his colleagues put on a lively and informal musical evening when they play the instruments they make'. Source: Tony Aldous, The Illustrated London News Book of London's Villages, 1980. This book is based on a series of articles, one of which from 1977 focused on Rotherhithe. 

Outside Waterside in 1977 - Linsey Pollak with flute, Mike Canty holding poster.

Dan Larson, another London College of Furniture student, made early musical instruments including lutes at his Waterside studio and has continued to do this since in the USA.  Other instrument makers who used the space included Janet Bird (who made reeds and lived on barge with Linsey  Pollak), Jeremy Lowe (woodwind repairs, 1970s) and in the 1990s  Brian Stapleton (ukelele maker including for the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain) and Anna Dolling (lute maker)

A list of people based in the workshops c.1977

 The Sex Pistols connection

The Sex Pistols connection with the Crunchy Frog came at a pivotal moment in the formation of the band. In summer 1975 they were still trying out for a lead singer to join with Glenn Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones and they rehearsed a number of times at 99 Rotherhithe Street.

 Robert Neely, who describes himself as  'the original Cruchy Frog person' who found the warehouse around 1974 and leased it off the GLC' has recalled: 'yes the Sex Pistols started to practice there I jammed with them a few times. McLaren used to some along in a green leather suit'.

The venue had been suggested to Malcolm McLaren by Peter Christopherson who around this time was starting to rehearse with Throbbing Gristle. McLaren biographer Paul Gorman suggests that Christopherson knew the place through his work with album cover designers Hipgnosis who may have used it in some capacity. Gorman has also suggested that Cosey Fanni Tutti of Throbbing Gristle may also have worked at Crunchy Frog/Waterside at some point (though this is not confirmed).

The Pistols had a number of rehearsals with David Harrison as a possible singer, but seemingly they didn't feel he was the right fit. Harrison told Gorman that one of the things that didn't go down too well  was that he would comment on the Thames wildlife, saying things like 'look there's a cormorant' (Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, 2020).  

David Harrison - a nearly Sex Pistol

 In August 1975 John Lydon was famously auditioned miming to the jukebox in McLaren and Westwood's Sex shop on the Kings Road.  He was invited to a rehearsal scheduled for the next week at the Crunchy Frog and turned up there with his friend John Grey. But nobody else turned up. Lydon told Jon Savage 'I felt a fool walking round Bermondsey Wharf, it's dangerous down there, particularly the way I looked at the time' (England's Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock, 1991).  Glenn Matlock - who described  The Crunchy Frog as 'a hippy commune/warehouse/community centre by the Thames' - said that the rest of the band 'couldn't be bothered to go' and that he had been put off by the difficulties of bunking the fare across London. It is clear that Jones, Matlock and Cook were not keen on Lydon joining the band at this point.

So while the Sex Pistols may have rehearsed there, Lydon never did (as he confirmed in 2024 - see video below). Shortly afterwards, on 31 August 1975, Lydon rehearsed with the band for the first time at the Rose and Crown in Wandsworth.

In a 2022 interview with John Robb,  film director Julien Temple claimed to have stumbled across the band rehearsing at the Crunchy Frog while wandering as a film student round the area, hearing them playing The Small Faces 'I want you to know that I love you'  before they had played a gig. It is possible but if he did, Lydon wasn't with them. 

Later music

The Pistols association with 99 Rotherhithe Street was quite fleeting, but there was lots of music there in this period and after.  This flyer from 1980 (I think) includes Red Rinse (a  band who played for Rock Against Racism), Diz and the Doormen (with South African-born blues pianist Diz Watson) and the Red Lights (who I think were a Deptford punk band).

The folk band Blowzabella, still going today (as of 2025) also feature on this programme and played there a number of times. Cliff Stapleton joined the band as  hurdy gurdy player having previously  been involved in putting on 'drolls'  -  16th and 17th century street theatre  - at the Waterside Theatre. He later toured with Coil (2002). 

Mountebanck Zanies with music from English Folly (1977?)

Blowzabella poster for a 1979 gig, designed by Juan Wingaard

 There were disco nights there in the 1970s and in the mid-1980s Meltdown all nighters playing soul, reggae and African music. I believe Coldcut/Ninja Tune cofounder Jonathan More was involved with this night - he presented a Meltdown show on Kiss FM.

In the 1980s there were regular jazz nights  promoted by John Edge.  Musicians including Steve Berry, Django Bates, Dave Patman, Christ Batchelor and Steve Buckley played together regularly at Waterside, then joined the influential Loose Tubes.

In September 1985 the venue hosted a late night Jazz/Salsa Fish Fry  with Baz Fe Jazz & Andy McConnell plus the Tommy Chase Quartet. As Giles Peterson recalls, Chase was a key figure in 1980s London jazz scene. In this period Peterson himself was DJing at the Royal Oak in Tooley Street along with Nicky Holloway, and the latter was involved in putting on a warehouse party at 99 Rotherhithe Street.

source: https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/06/london-warehouse-parties-oral-history

I haven't found any trace of any live music events after the 1980s (happy to be corrected), but the space continued to be used for workshops until 2003 when it closed down and the site was redeveloped as flats. The history of the building reflects the dockside story on both sides of the river. Dockside industrial buildings falling into decline; empty buildings being used for a period as cheap space for arts, music, living; then being redeveloped for high end housing.

Thanks to Linsey Pollak, Cliff Stapleton and Chris Gunstone  for posters/flyers and memories. Would love to hear any other stories/memories people may have.

Last year me and Neil Controlled Weirdness did an episode of 'Drifting through the streets' all about this:

People's Habitat: a festival of Alternative Living' - Surrey Docks, 1976

Intrigued about 'People's Habitat: a festival of Alternative Living' which took place in Rotherhithe in May/June 1976. According to the magazine Undercurrents (June 1976) it was to be 'an all embracing  adventure into what the alternative society could be, given a chance'. It was intended to be a counter festival to the United Nations Habitat Conference taking place at the time in Vancouver.

This issue of the magazine included a series of articles on the People's Habitat theme, claiming that in contrast to the Vancouver event. 'At People's Habitat we ordinary mortals will be coming together to work out how we can wrest control of our living and working environments away from those, both capitalist exploiters and paternalist bureaucrats, who have stolen our freedom. We will  be exploring new ways of living and working co-operatively with, and for, each other in harmony with the rest of the natural world'

Not sure how it actually went, there was a less than effusive review in Freedom anarchist paper (26 June 1976) which described its best feature as a windmill aiming 'to pump water to the allotments on the filled in Surrey Docks' 

I believe Clifford Harper designed the poster for the event.

Anyone know any more about it?

Deptford & Rotherhithe: 'The Eastern Part of London' (1852)

'Katharine Beresford; Or, The Shade and Sunshine of Woman's Life: A Romantic Story' by Hannah Maria Jones Lowndes  is a novel from 1852. Not particularly remarkable but browsing through it I noticed that some of the action takes place at the St Helena Tea Gardens, the pleasure gardens which stood on the Lower Road from 1770 to 1881 (see post at Rotherhithe Blog). Also of interest is the fact that, as seems to have been quite common in that period, Deptford & Rotherhithe were described as being in East London rather than South London.

Here's the relevant quote:

'I don't suppose you know much about the Eastern part of London - Rotherhithe, Deptford, and thereabout?'

Milly replied that she had never heard of the places he named.

'No, I thought not,' he replied. 'Well, you see, Miss Shelburne, there are, on the other side of the river, over London Bridge, in fact in Surrey, very respectable places I assure you, and so quiet. Rotherhithe - Redriff some call it, but that's vulgar, I never call it so myself - Rotherhithe is remarkably quiet, a capital place...

There is a most delightful place of amusement, you see, at Rotherhtihe, or rather on the lower road to Deptford, - the Lower Road as it is called, for there are two roads - called the St Helena Tea Gardens... The Eastern Vauxhall, we call it. One of the loveliest places you eyes ever beheld. More romantic and much more select than any of the other places in London. There's a Ball-room and a Orchester, and such a Organ, it's worth going, if it's only to hear that'

Later there is a description of the St Helena gardens:

'an arbour scented with honeysuckle and jessamine, where a peep through the sweetbriar hedge commanded a view so rural - including a windmill with revolving sails, cottages, fields with cattle fielding, a secluded lane green as an emerald; altogether a scene which might have persuaded you that you were a hundred miles from the Great Metropolis; while on the other side were to be seen the masts of vessels rising above the green hedges, indicating the vicinity of the mighty Thames'.

St Helena Tavern and Tea Gardens (from Ideal Homes)

South London Herbs - Nicholas Culpepper (1653)

The 17th century London herbalist, astrologer and radical republican Nicholas Culpepper was the author of The Complete Herbal (1653). As well as containing lots of information about herbs and their (presumed) medicinal properties, Culpepper also records places where some plants are to be found growing, including various South London locations:

Langue de Boeuf -  'It grows wild in many places of this land, and may be plentifully found near London, as between Rotherhithe and Deptford, by the ditch side.

Juniper Bush - 'They grow plentifully in divers woods in Kent, Warney Common near Brentwood in Essex, upon Finchley Common without Highgate; hard by the New-found Wells near Dulwich, upon a Common between Mitcham and Croydon, in the Highgate near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, and many other places'.

Loosestrife, 'with spiked heads of flowers':   'It is likewise called Grass-polly. It grows usually by rivers, and ditch-sides in wet ground, as about the ditches at and near Lambeth, and in many places of this land.'

Mithridate Mustard: 'They grow in sundry places in this land, as half a mile from Hatfield, by the river side, under a hedge as you go to Hatfield, and in the street of Peckham on Surrey side'.

Mallows and Marshmallows: 'The common Mallows grow in every county of this land. The common Marshmallows in most of the salt marshes, from Woolwich down to the sea, both on the Kentish and Essex shores, and in divers other places of this land...  They flower all the Summer months, even until the Winter do pull them down. Venus owns them both'.

Cradle to Grave: Danny Baker & SE London

I've really enjoyed 'Cradle to Grave', the BBC comedy/drama series based on Danny Baker's memoirs of growing up in 1970s SE London (published as 'Going to Sea in a Sieve). Baker was born on the Crossfields Estate in Deptford and then lived in Silwood Estate SE16, going to Rotherhithe Primary School and then West Greenwich Secondary Boys School.

Baker gave a great interview about the show on 'Later with Jools Holland' last month, accompanied by Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze who have soundtracked the show and who of course, along with sometime member Jools Holland, also come from the SE London area. There was some funny discussion of how Northerner Peter Kay, who plays Baker's dad in the series, had to master the SE London accent - according to Baker a much faster version of its East London counterpart.

Asked to describe SE London, Difford said: 'I think we live in a wonderful world, it's almost like a mythological place full of fish and chips and ducking and diving'. The best bit  though was a great rant from Baker himself:

'My dad was a docker and my dad brought home lots of the produce of the docks... helping themselves... we've had too many university comedies, we've hard too many middle class comedies, people forget that working class aren't there to be demonized, they're not there to say "oo look they stole stuff and brought it home" because where the docks used to stand in London is now Canary Wharf, and that's where the banks are, that's where the hedge fund monies are, you want to talk about pilferage, let's not talk about a few stray bottles of Scotch, and that is the truth of it... sometimes people just get on with stuff and they get through this vale of tears the best way they can and usually it's with a lot of good spirit'.

South London marches on Westminster - John Henry Mackay on the World Metropolis in 1880s

John Henry Mackay (1864-1933) was a Scottish-born, German-raised individualist anarchist. His novel, 'The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century' was written in German and published in English translation by Benjamin Tucker in Boston in 1891.

The novel draws on the author's time in London in 1887, and includes some great descriptions of the city. It opens with the author crossing from Waterloo on what must have been the Hungerford bridge:

'In the Heart of the World-Metropolis:  A wet, cold October evening was beginning to lower upon London. It was the October of the same year in which, not five months before, had been inaugurated those ridiculous celebrations which gave the year 1887 the name of the “Jubilee Year,” — celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the rule of a woman who allows herself to be called “Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India.” On this evening — the last of the week — a man coming from the direction of Waterloo Station was wending his way to the railroad bridge of Charing Cross through labyrinthine, narrow, and almost deserted streets. When, as if fatigued from an extended walk, he had slowly ascended the wooden steps that lead to the narrow walk for pedestrians running beside the tracks on the bridge, and had gone about as far as the middle of the river, he stepped into one of the round recesses fronting the water and remained standing there for a short time, while he allowed the crowd behind him to push on. Rather from habit than genuine fatigue, he stopped and looked down the Thames. As he had but seldom been on “the other side of the Thames,” notwithstanding his already three years’ sojourn in London, he never failed, on crossing one of the bridges, to enjoy afresh the magnificent view that London affords from them.

It was still just light enough for him to recognize, as far as Waterloo Bridge to his right, the dark masses of warehouses, and on the mirror of the Thames at his feet, the rows of broad-bellied freight boats and rafts coupled together, though already the lights of the evening were everywhere blazing into the dark, yawning chaos of this immense city. The two rows of lanterns on Waterloo Bridge stretched away like parallel lines, and each of the lanterns cast its sharp, glittering light, deep and long, into the dark, trembling tide, while to the left, in a terrace-shaped ascent, the countless little flames which illumine the Embankments, and the Strand with its surroundings, every evening, were beginning to flash'

John Henry Mackay

The novel includes an account of the 'Bloody Sunday' demonstration in Trafalgar Square in November 1887. The demonstration against 'coercion in Ireland' and unemployment ended in violent clashes which resulted in the death of Deptford's William Curner (buried in Brockley Cemetery). Mackay reports the arrival of the South London contingent across Westminster Bridge:

'Before him stood an English acquaintance. His collar was torn, his hat soiled. He was in a state of the greatest excitement. After a few hasty questions back and forth, he said that the long procession from the south had also been dispersed...

“We gathered at Rotherhithe: the radical and other societies and clubs of Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, etc., met on our way the Peckham Radical Club, the associations of Camberwell and Walworth, and in Westminster Bridge Road also those of St. Georges — it was an enormous procession, with numerous banners, music bands, adorned with green, accompanied by an endless mass of people on both sides, which in the best of order crossed the entirely vacant bridge of Westminster.

“As was agreed, we were to meet with the procession from Lambeth and Battersea in Bridge Street at Parliament House. Then we were to march in a straight line from south to north, up Whitehall, to this place. Just imagine: a single great procession of imposing length, representing the entire south of London, the entire section of the city on the other side of the Thames — from Woolwich and Greenwich to Battersea and Wandworth! ...

“But our two processions had not joined each other, we had not reached Parliament Street, when the battle began. I was pretty far in the front ranks. Ah, the brutes, galloping on their horses into our ranks, breaking and tearing our flags, knocking down whatever comes in their way!”

“It was fortunate you did not get farther,” Auban interrupted him, “for I have heard that the Life Guards were held in reserve in Whitehall. I am surprised that they are not yet here, for the situation is getting more serious.”

“But we defended ourselves,” exclaimed the other, “with my loaded cane I gave one —”'

Bloody Sunday 1887

As with much writing from that time there is a very strong sense of a class-based division between East and West London, with areas like Deptford and Rotherhithe treated as part of the former. Mackay writes in a chapter entitled 'The Empire of Hunger':

'The East End of London is the hell of poverty. Like an enormous, black, motionless, giant kraken, the poverty of London lies there in lurking silence and encircles with its mighty tentacles the life and the wealth of the city and of the West End: those on the left side extending over the Thames and embracing the entire Embankment on the other side — Rotherhithe, Deptford, Peckham, Camberwell, Lambeth, the other London, the South separated by the Thames; those on the right side stealing round the northern limits of the city in thinner threads. They join each other where Battersea runs into Chelsea and Brompton across the Thames...

The East End is a world in itself, separated from the West as the servant is separated from his master. Now and then one hears about it, but only as of something far off, somewhat as one hears about a foreign land inhabited by other people with other manners and customs...'

The final chapter sees its main character reflecting again on London, this time from London Bridge:

'Two immense human streams surged across London Bridge; back and forth rolled, rattling and resounding, two unbroken lines of vehicles. The black waters of the Thames flowed lazily. Auban stood against the railing of the bridge, and, facing the east, contemplated the grand picture which presented itself: Everywhere, on both sides of the stream, towers, pillars, chimney-stacks, church steeples rose above the sea of houses... But beneath him a forest of masts, poles, sails... On the left Billingsgate, the great, famous fish-market of London... Farther, where the four towers rise, the dark, dismal structure of the Tower. With a reddish glare the setting sun, the pale, weary sun of London, lay on its windows a few minutes; then also its light was suddenly extinguished, and a gray twilight drew its streaks around the dark masses of the warehouses, the giant bodies of the ships, the pillars of the bridge...

By the clock on the  Adelaide Buildings it was already seven, but still the task of unloading the great ocean steamer at Auban’s feet was not yet completed. Long lines of strong men carried boxes and bales over wavering wooden bridges to the shore. Their foreheads, heads, and necks protected against the crushing pressure of their heavy burdens by strangely shaped cushions, they looked like oxen in the yoke as they staggered along under their weight...

A strange feeling crept over Auban. Such was London, immense London, which covers seven hundred miles with its five millions of human beings; such was London, where a man was born every fifth minute, where one died every eighth... Such was London, which grew and grew, and already immeasurable, seemed to aspire to the infinite...Immense city! Sphinx-like, it stretched on both sides of the river, and the clouds of smoke, vapor, noise it belched forth, lay like veils over its panting body...

Lights after lights began to flash and mingled the warmth of their glow with the dampness of the fog. Their reddish reflections trembled through the twilight. London Bridge thundered and resounded under the burdens it bore. Thus day after day, week after week, year after year, raged that mighty life which never grew tired. The beatings of its heart grew ever more feverish, the deeds of its arms ever mightier, the plans of its brain ever bolder. When would it reach the summit of its aspirations? When would it rest?'

Suffragette Hoax 'Bombs' in New Cross & Rotherhithe

From the New York Times, 17 May 1913, reports of suffragette hoax 'bomb' packages being left around London, including 'outside a coffee house at New Cross' and 'in the public library' at Rotherhithe. The 'make-believe bombs... contained such innocuous materials as cabbage leaves, soot and earth'. This was in the same month that St Catherine's Church in Kitto Road SE14 was set on fire in a presumed suffragette attack as the campaign for votes for women reached its peak of militancy.

Osprey Estate Street Art

The mural on Southwark's Osprey Estate in Rotherhithe (on Tawny Way next to Surrey Docks pub on Lower Road SE16) was painted by Positive Arts in 2012.

Also on the Estate is one of several John Lennon images stencilled around the area.

Loretto Street Art SE1/SE16

Following last week's post about Loretto street art in Peckham, here's another of their pieces spotted in Pages Walk SE1 (photo by Controlled Weirdness). Lots more examples here.

This piece is on Southwark Park Road, opposite Galleywall Road junction (photo from Gemini City).

Estuary and Stevedores

I went to the Estuary exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, featuring the 'work of 12 artists who have been inspired by the outer limits of the Thames where the river becomes the sea' with its 'dramatic landscape – desolate mudflats and saltmarshes, vast open skies, container ports, power stations and seaside resorts'. It's on until 31st October, and is well worth a visit (admission free). I particularly liked Jock McFadyen's Dagenham (below).

In the permanent collection I also noticed a trade union banner from the London docks, specifically from Branch No.6 (Rotherhithe) of the Amalgamated Stevedores Labour Protection League. According to the Museum: 'This banner was created to commemorate the founding of the trade union following the Great Dock Strike of 1889. The large painted panel depicts a London stevedore shaking hands with an Australian 'Wharfie' or dock worker, in front of the figure of Britannia. The image recalls the financial support given to the London strikers by their comrades in Australia during the strike itself'. The banner was made made by George Tutill in the early 20th century. 

Incidentally the word stevedore derives from the Iberian words ofestivador (Portuguese) or estibador (Spanish), meaning a man who stuffs, in the sense here of a man who loads ships

History Corner: Jessica Mitford in Rotherhithe

The Mitford sisters became notorious in the 1930s and 1940s as aristocratic socialites who pursued widely divergent political paths. Unity and Diana both became Hitler enthusiasts, the latter marrying British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley.

Jessica Mitford (1917-1996) on the other hand ran away to Spain with her boyfriend Esmond Romilly to back the republic against Franco's fascist rebellion. Back in London and married, they ended up in 1937 living at 41 Rotherhithe Street in a large house 'wedged between warehouses' on the river. The house belonged to Roger Roughton (1916-1941), surrealist poet, who also stayed there. Another frequent guest was their friend the writer Philip Toynbee (Polly's dad). They held 'bottle parties... frequented by a motley crowd of journalists, writers, night-club singers, students' and spent a lot of time arguing about the merits of joining the Communist Party (Toynbee and Roughton did).

It's easy to mock the idea of a couple of upper class lefties slumming it in SE London, and indeed there is some condescension in Mitford's account: 'The bus ride from Rotherhithe to more familiar parts of London (Kensington, Hyde Park, Oxford Street) takes well over an hour. It winds past miles and miles of workers’ flats with such incongruous sounding names as Devon Mansions, Cornwall Homes. Five or six storeys high, these gloomy red-brick structures house a shorter and paler race of people than the inhabitants of London's West End. In appearance, dress and speech they form so radical a contrast as to give the impression of a different ethnic group'.

According to a 2002 Southwark Council Rotherhithe history map the former 41 Rotherhithe Street is now on Fulford Street,
the 'sole remaining terraced house from a whole row lining Thames'. So pretty sure this is it - or it could have been one of the now demolished adjoining buildings, where the Londonphile notes John Betjeman, Marlene Dietrich, Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret and Noel Coward variously hung out!

Nevertheless, despite living in a comfortable house, Mitford and Romilly were largely cut off in disgrace from their family wealth and struggled to get by. To an extent they did share some of the life of local working class people, eating 'fish and chips at the nearest Lyons teashop' and getting involved in the local Labour Party:

'The Bermondsey Labour Party was much more to our liking. At the monthly meetings, held in a shabby hall not far from Rotherhithe Street, vigorous discussions would take place on the important political events of the day. Tired, white-faced dockers and their wives would join in "The Red Flag", a popular Labour Party anthem in that part of London. Fund-raising campaigns for milk for Spanish orphans or for aid to Hitler’s Jewish victims were planned and carried out, often in defiance of the wishes of Transport House [Labour Party national HQ]. If they lacked the glamour and the special, high-flown language of some of our Communist friends, these members of the local Labour Party branch seemed to display a seriousness of purpose and a down-to-earth understanding of issues that quickly won our respect. The Labour Party in that section of London was considerably more militant than the Party's official spokesmen. It was said that the schoolchildren lined up to boo Princess Mary, symbol of hated charity, when she made her infrequent expeditions to the local orphanage.

On May Day the entire community turned out, men, women and children, home-made banners proclaiming slogans of the "United Front against Fascism" waving alongside the official ones. The long march to Hyde Park started early in the morning, contingents of the Labour Party, the Co-ops, the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party marching through the long day... Everyone took lunch in a paper bag, and there was much good-natured jostling and shouting of orders, and last-minute rounding up of children who had darted away in the crowd. Philip and Roger taught us some new songs to sing on the way- parodies on Communist songs: “Class conscious we are, and class conscious we’ll be, And we'll tread on the necks of the the bourgeoisie !”, "Oh, ’tis my delight, of a dirty night to bomb the bourgeoisie!”, and a sarcastic version of "The People's Flag": "The People's flag is palest pink, It's not as red as you might think."

We had been warned that the Blackshirts might try to disrupt the parade, and sure enough there were groups of them lying in wait at points along the way. Armed with rubber truncheons and knuckle-dusters, they leaped out from behind buildings; there were several brief battles in which the Blackshirts were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the Bermondsey men'.

Sadly, they shared another feature of local life - the tragedy of infant mortality. In December 1937, Mitford gave birth to a daughter, Julia: 'She became the centre of my existence. Esmond gleefully watched her grow, learn to smile, learn to wave her feet and catch them with an unsteady hand. We planned her future, growing up among the rough children of Rotherhithe Street, born to freedom and May Day parades, without the irksome restraints of nanny, governess, daily walks and dull dances'. Within six months however the baby had died in a measles epidemic.

Later in 1938 they were forced to move out of Rotherhithe Street when they couldn't afford to pay their electricity bill, and the following year they moved to the United States. During the Second World War  Romilly, who had fought with the International Brigades as a teenager in Spain, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was killed in action in 1941. In the same year, Roughton committed suicide in the midst of despair about the Nazi-Soviet pact. Mitford remained in the United States where she lived a long and fruitful life as a writer and civil rights activist.

Esmond Romilly and Jessica Mitford

Source: Hons and Rebels - Jessica Mitford, 1960

Canada Water Library

At at a time when libraries are being closed down all over the country, it's rare to have much to celebrate on the library front. But an exception is the Canada Water Library at Surrey Quays, which opened earlier this year.

It's a striking buiding outside, located on the water front. It is also striking inside, with a large spiral staircase from the groundfloor cafe space.

The building is already busy, including lots of people studying. Canada Water shows that whatever the future of the printed word, there will always be a need for calm social spaces where people can gather free of charge to read, learn and think.



The building also features the Canada Water Culture Space, which is being run in partnership with the Albany.

Max Bygraves (1922-2012)

Max Bygraves, who died this week, was one of the biggest stars of  British 'light entertainment' in the the post-World War Two period.

His roots were among the dockers of Rotherhithe, where he was born close to Surrey Docks in Swan Lane Buildings (council flats) in Rotherhithe Street in 1922. His father was a casual dockworker as well as a boxer who fought under the name Battling Tom Smith. They were a Roman Catholic family, presumably of Irish origin like many who worked on the docks, and Bygraves went to St Josephs School in Paradise Street. According to his autobiography (Max Bygraves in His Own Words, 1997), he sang in the school choir including at a concert in Westminster Cathedral.

After leaving school, he worked as a messenger and runner for an advertising company and then a carpenter before joining the RAF during the war. His impersonations of comedian Max Miller earned him the nickname 'Max' - his real name was Walter William Bygraves. Apparently Bygraves had seen Miller perform at the New Cross Empire.

Bygraves got married and had a child during the war, and the young family lived in rooms in Plumstead Common and Woolwich before Max became a star via a BBC ex-servicemen's show.

According to Cinema Treasures, Bygraves' 1956 film Charley Moon was filmed in the New Cross Empire with 'many scenes filmed in the auditorium, on-stage and brief exterior shots' (including presumably the 'If I had three wishes' scene, below):



(The Empire, which was in Deptford Broadway on the corner of Watsons Street, was closed in 1954 but was used a location for films before it was demolished in 1958. Cinema Treasures reports that as well as Charley Moon, it features as an opera in Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle's "King’s Rhapsody" and in the 1956 film "The Long Arm" starring Jack Hawkins, with 'brief exterior shots and a side alley, plus a scene in the auditorium').

Swandown

Swandown at Dilston Grove (Cafe Gallery) in Southwark Park is an installation to accompany the film 'Swandown' about Andrew Kötting and Iain Sinclair's journey, in a swan-shaped pedalo, from Hastings to Hackney - a journey described by Sinclair as a kind of mute 'counter grand project' to the Olympics and similar initiatives. It is on until July 29th.

I went along a couple of weeks ago (1st July) to a talk featuring Sinclair and the writer Marina Warner in conversation about the complex mythology of the swan - as both graceful and violent, pure and terrifying, creature of the water and the sky. The many swan names in the river city of London were referred to (and indeed, though not mentioned, there is a Swan Road in SE16 and Swan Street SE1, as well as numerous Swan pubs).

Marina Warner and Iain Sinclair talking in the swan

Dilston Grove - built in 1911 as the Clare College Mission Church, this early concrete building
is now Grade II listed. The church itself closed in 1966. Clare College Mission was a philanthropic
settlement linked to the Cambridge University college.

Among the documents in the exhibition is this 1987 flyer for an appearance by
Sinclair and Brian Catling at Rasp - seemingly a poetry night held at 67 Balfour Street, SE17

Actual swans in Southwark Park

History Corner: the New Cross Boys

Gangs are not a new phenomenon. In his book Gangs of London (2010), Brian McDonald mentions numerous South London teenage gangs from the 1950s: Balham Boys, Brixton Boys, Bermondsey Boys, Borough Boys, Rotherhithe Boys, the Elephant and Castle Boys, Wandsworth Boys, Lambeth Boys (yes it was a bit of a boy thing!). Then, as now, there was sometimes violent conflict between gangs - in 1953 for instance a gang fight on Clapham Common led to the death of 17 year old John Beckley.

New Cross Boys

According to McDonald, 'perhaps the largest of London's 1950s teenage gangs, the New Cross Boys... roamed from Canal Bridge to Deptford, causing mayhem at Millwall Football Ground, youth clubs, cinemas and dance halls. The only noted puncher among them was Freddie 'Ginger' Simmonds, who gave a creditable performance in a stand up fist fight with future gangster Eddie Richardson. This occurred on a snow-filled pavement outside the Trocadero cinema at Elephant and Castle, after a snow ball fight got out of hand... In a clash with rivals from Peckham's Goose Green, over 200 teenage youths fought running battles over a period of three days in 1956'.

In another of his books, Elephant Boys, McDonald mentions a fight involving the New Cross Boys in the New Cross House pub.

Deptford Red Hands

He also mentions 'An earlier Deptford gang, the Red Hands, so named for the red armband that identified members, came unstuck in 1926 when one of their team was stabbed to death after attacking a rival Rotherhithe Boy. William Shillibeer, aged fourteen, was convicted of the manslaughter of thirteen-year old Albert Hannah'.

This case was discussed in Parliament after the trial in March 1927, with  Frederick Pethick-Lawrence MP asking 'the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the remarks made by Mr. Justice Acton in the trial of William Arthur Edward Shillibeer, of Rotherhithe, at the Central Criminal Court, for murder, to the effect that it was quite clear that he was in the first instance wantonly and gratuitously insulted and provoked by a gang of boys gathered together for such purposes, and afterwards assailed by a number of those boys, who gave every indication of an intention to act together in attacking and doing violence upon him'.

Music Monday: Controlled Weirdness

Neil Keating aka DJ Controlled Weirdness has been DJing since the 1980s, playing out all kinds of bass and beats in London, New York, Berlin and many other places (I first came across him at Dead by Dawn in Brixton in the mid-1990s). While best known for hard breaks and electro-tinged sounds, he is also a formidable authority on disco (especially it's crossover into early rap)  as I can vouch having once spent time crate digging with him in Friedrichshain - check out some of his mixes at Ill FM.

Controlled Weirdness recently at the Bussey building in Peckham

From his Rotherhithe tower block HQ he has also released numerous tracks under various guises on his own Unearthly Records and other labels. He has recently started uploading much of his back catalogue on to Soundcloud (he has made some of the tracks featured here temporarily available for download so get busy). 

The Deptford Market Arcade Classics EP (2003) was 'Inspired by rooting through the debris and detritus of South London. The sound at the start of Docklands Battle Breaks is the Thames river rushing through one of the old dock gates in Deptford'.

'South London Bass' (2005) is a classic; the title is self-explanatory.




His latest upload is the previously unreleased 'I'm the Guvnor'.



'Let's all have a South London Acid House Party'  - great late 1980s sample at the beginning: 'Saturday night in South London, hundreds of young people are gathering for the latest craze - an acid house party in a disused warehouse'



Neil has written an excellent article in Datacide magazine about clubbing and warehouse parties in 1980s London, You’re too Young to Remember the Eighties – Dancing in a different time:

'The Saturday night ritual was to head to the Spice of Life pub on the Charing Cross Road. This is where all the various clubbers would congregate before heading out to different parties. Here you would hear about these illegal warehouse parties that had started taking place in the run down old docklands areas near the Thames and around London, Blackfriars and Southwark Bridges. This area was pre regeneration and was full of empty old warehouses with nobody living near by. You would get the address and head down after midnight and try and find the party. It would be Five pounds to get in and you could buy Red Stripe beer for a pound which was sold out of dustbins crammed full of ice. Some of these parties were massive and you would get a real cross section of people crammed into a dirty warehouse and dancing all night. The music was usually rare groove which was basically obscure funk 7 inches that DJ’s had started digging up. There was no door policy like at the some of the trendier night clubs so you’d get people dressed up in designer clothes next to punters in jeans and T-shirts dancing all night'.

As mentioned here before, Tooley Street by London Bridge was the location for some of these warehouse parties.

Controlled Weirdness is playing at the Festa Junina Brazilian festival in Berlin in June, and has some other nights lined up a bit nearer home. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter for details.