Stories Of London

During my younger years and right up until I left home to go to college, I cannot remember a time when we did not have a dog.  I say we, but what I really mean to say is that it was my father who had the dog for as far as dogs were concerned, both my mother and me were just there, merely people to help out and provide food and water when needed.

My father loved dogs – all dogs – big dogs – small dogs – intelligent dogs – and less than smart dogs.  He had a certain way with them that drew the animals to him.  No matter how bad-tempered a dog was, they would suddenly become well-behaved following a pat on the head and a stroke along the back by my father.

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It was not unusual for a host of dogs to follow my father along a road when he went out walking.  I did not realise that this was not a common practice of dogs until a young friend of mine drew my attention to the animals following him.  With the observation of my friend, I paid more attention to other people with animals and saw that what happened to my father was not altogether something you saw every day.  It was then that I started to think of my father as a kind of Pied Piper …….. to dogs!

The Pied Piper of Hamelin: The Children by George John Pinwell (1842-1875)

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From the time when I was very young until I was about 11-years old, we lived above a Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop (see later) on Cambridge Heath Road at Mile End Gate in the East End of London.  Mile End Gate was the site of the entry to the London-to-Norwich Turnpike (now the A-11 Trunk Road), which was demolished in 1866.

Mile End Gate is also where the Whitechapel Road becomes the Mile End Road.  The Pie Shop was just eighteen inches on the Bethnal Green side of the border between the Boroughs of Stepney and Bethnal Green.

Cambridge Heath, Mile End and the Whitechapel Roads were, and remain, very busy roads being major thoroughfares out of London.  Traffic thundered along these roads for most of the day, only falling off after midnight, but quickly picking up again at around four in the morning.  The noise did not impede our ability to sleep.  However, once we moved to Slough, it took us a while to get use to the absence of rumbling lorries and trolleybuses rumbling past our bedroom windows. Silence can be deafening!  As a result of the intensity of the traffic, most children of the area did not ride bicycles since parents considered these roads to be too dangerous.

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While we lived above the Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop, we were never without at least one cat and a dog.  If we had two cats, one became my pet and was allowed to come upstairs to live in our flat.  Generally the other cat remained in the shop, since he or she was not especially friendly towards me and much preferred to live and hunt alone in the cellar where mice and rats were constantly being imported with the huge flour containing bags needed to make pies.

Rank Flour

Each Monday morning, bright and early, the Rank Flour Company delivered great bags of flour to the shop and deposited some in the bake house for immediate use and the remainder in the cellar for storage along with giant sacks of potatoes. Should a mouse dare to climb the cellar steps and find its way into The Bake House, the poor thing never lived long.  All of our dogs, although many were small, displayed heart and a remarkable fearlessness and would leap on the offending vermin and end its life at top speed. My parents refused to allow me to go into the cellar often, as vermin had the reputation of biting small children and giving them nasty illnesses.  I disliked the cellar, as it had an odour thanks to the bags of potatoes stored there.

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F. Cooke’s Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop at The Broadway, London Fields together with Pies and Jellied Eels

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Despite the many organisations that help forgotten dogs, there are still many that remain homeless

The majority of dogs of our area of the East End of London at that time were not pets.  They were either working animals to help keep the shops free of vermin or either strays or feral beasts.  Working dogs generally stayed close to home and only left their working environment when taken on walks.  Strays and feral dogs were less common in this area of the East End since busy roads were especially dangerous to animals.  It was not uncommon for a stray or a feral animal to be crushed by a passing lorry, car or trolleybus.  In those days, vehicles did not stop to move the poor flattened creature to the side of the road or inform anyone of its demise.  The remains of the animal were left for the Street Cleaning staff to remove when they came by at night.  Life was cruel to these poor creatures, but then life was not much better for the human population either.

Dogs living on the street is a world-wide problem whether they are lost or abandoned

Click here to hear about a poor dog that was abandoned
and waited two years for his master to return

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I do not have sufficient fingers and toes to count the number of dogs that worked in our Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop!  Sadly, many were killed on the road while a few may have been stolen or ran away to lead the life of a stray.  All our dogs that we had were male since my parents did not want to have to deal with a brood of puppies.  East End inhabitants did not have money to have their working dogs neutered at that time and litters of puppies were constantly being born unless they were kept inside.

Tragically, not all puppies find good homes

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There was one thing that was amusing regarding my father’s dogs in that they each were given the same name, Fido!  No matter how much I tried to introduce a new name for the latest dog, my father always called them by the traditional name!  Perhaps it might be thought that he lacked imagination, but I suspect that it was more that he actually liked the name and naming each dog with the same name reminded him of all the other dogs that he had shared his life with.

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Our endless supply of dogs came from the Club Row Market that used to take place at the northern end of Bethnal Green Road close to Brick Lane.  A dog could be bought for a very small price: five shillings (referred to as a dollar in those days) seemed to be the average price, as I recall.  A number of lately weaned dogs were maintained in large open topped cages so that buyers and those just-looking could pat the dogs with ease without the animals leaping over the sides.  The dogs were eager to lick any hand held out to them and I always believed that this was due to them being hungry, but this theory has been vehemently denied by the daughter of an ex-dog seller.

Club Row Dogs

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The dogs that interested my father were not pedigree dogs.  His dogs were always mongrels of questionable ancestry.  My father believed that these dogs made the best workers and also, and perhaps of more importance, the best companions for his dogs were not only true companions to him, but were also friends.  His dogs loved him and hated when he went out without them.  They all followed him to the shop door where they waited for him to come back.  When he did, there was much wagging of the tail, licking of his hand and general leaping up to show their delight at his return.

Waiting for the master to return

My father’s dogs spent the whole of his working day in his company and watched as he made pies and prepared Hot and Jellied Eels in The Bake House.  The dogs lived here in the warmth and shelter and had a little bed that my father had made for them of a few old flour bags that were positioned in a prime location.  Their place was never hidden away, far from it, it was positioned off the ground and on a stable structure that they were able to mount with each, and which brought them up to waist height were they might observe everything that he did.  As a result, my father was able to see his dog  while working, and as important, his dog was able to see him.

Greyfriars Bobby (1855-1872) who sat at the grave of his dead Master for fourteen years

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I recall a very amusing story involving my father and a dog, which took place on a Sunday evening on one summer evening while we were out for a walk.   My parents enjoyed walking and it was common place for us to walk from the Pie ‘n’ Mash Shop to The Tower and often beyond or else up to Victoria Park and then wander through it.  These were not short distances, but in those days, one often saw families out for a Sunday Evening Constitutional during good weather.

As I said, my father dogs and dogs loved him.  Strange dogs often came to him and followed him down the street.  The tale does not involve a dog that was ours, but despite this, it is one of my favourite stories of my childhood.

My father had the annoying habit of never walking with my mother and me when we were out.   He walked between five or ten paces, often more, ahead of us.  This annoyed my mother, as I, being young, could not keep up with his pace and she had to constantly call out to remind him that we were with him!

Anyway back to the story: we were walking along Whitechapel Road with Gardiner’s Department Store nearby.  As were approached the store, I saw a very large boxer dog loping along the street and heading for my father!  The dog was a formidable looking creature and of an enormous statue and was easily my height while remaining on all fours!  I have to admit that I was frightened by this monstrous looking beast!  I need not have worried for the dog would ignore me, and everyone else for that matter, as it made a bee-line for my father.

I was surprised to see that the dog, once he came close to my father, who was at the time looking at the garments on display in one of Gardiner’s windows, he stopped lopping along the road at a great pace and walked up to him and nestled his face against one of his lower arms.  My father was standing still with his hands in his pockets, but once he registered the nestling nudge, removed them.  Following this, the gigantic creature licked one of his hands!  Without making a sound, the dog now reared up on his hind legs and placed his huge front paws on my father’s shoulders!  Now, my father was not a tall man, he was an inch over five feet although quite broad.  The beast, now standing erect, was easily the same height as my father.  I remember that he next turned his head a little and came face-to-face with this terrifying creature!

From a safe distance, I could see the dog’s vast open jaws lined with dangerously looking sharp teeth.  His long tongue hung out of his gapping mouth and was dripping with saliva!  It was obvious that the beast was about to lick my father’s face when my turned his attention from the shop window and so became fully aware of his position.  As my father turned, the dog moved his paws so as to fully face him.  The weight of the dog pinned him to the shop window, and it was at this precise moment, that my poor father completely appreciated his position!  I am sure that it was at this exact moment that he believed that this creature was about to do him harm!

According to my mother, and somewhat unfairly I must say, my father was not considered brave.  And who would be brave when suddenly confronted by a slobbering relative of The Hound of the Baskervilles?

Like any reasonable person, my father was now gripped with fear.  Looking at those gaping, dangerous looking jaws with the saliva covered tongue, who would not be?  He tried to move, but the weight of the beast kept him in place.  This evidently led to him to give the deepest and truly blood-curdling cry, the like of which I had not heard either before or since!

Mercifully for my father, the poor dog was obviously startled by his response and probably disturbed that his obvious sign of affection was being rebuked in such a surprising, and to him, unwarranted manner!  Immediately, the creature released his deadly grip on my father, and perhaps feeling wounded and rejected, and ran off at high speed in mild panic presumably to find his analyst.

What actually made this interaction all the more amusing was that I, along with the dog and my father, were the only ones to observe, and indeed, notice it!  Our fellow walkers and window-shoppers including my mother did not so much as to turn their heads in response to the blood-curling cry as it escaped my father’s mouth!

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I have to confess that over the years, whenever I am feeling despondent, I recall this event and I am soon convulsing with laughter.  This was the only time that I ever saw my father respond to a dog in such a manner.  Following the encounter, I remember that he quickly composed himself, and without saying a word or even noticing our presence, resumed his walk and took off down the Whitechapel Road, leaving us and our fellow strollers to stand and stare and marvel at what we had seen. I don’t recall my father ever mentioning the interaction again.

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Click here to GO to 
PART TWO: THE FIDOS