Stories Of London

8 Paradise Row with a new Front Door (in 2015)

Number 8 Paradise Row was a narrow Victorian House consisting of three floors together with an Attic and Basement. The front of the house was covered with what my father said was Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). However, if I think about it now, I am convinced with it was covered with English Ivy (Hedera helix). My father was not fond of Ivy and spent the whole time we lived at the house in discouraging the plant from reaching the attic level. I liked the creeper and thought that it gave the house a rather grand look!

Ivy

Although there was no front garden, there was a very small back yard housing the Privee.  A number of well-worn stone steps led up from the street to the front door, which could be extremely dangerous to walk on in winter when covered with ice.

Each of the floors consisted of two rooms: one room overlooked Paradise Row and Gardens with Cambridge Heath Road beyond, and the other at the back of the house, overlooked the back yard or, in the case of the second floor and attic, railway tracks.  Each of the rooms could be heated by the burning of coal or coke in a small fireplace.  None of the floors was fitted with a bathroom only a sink in the back room.  The communal toilet was outside in the back yard and was not heated!

The rooms of the first three floors had very high ceilings, which caused them to be difficult to heat, and the flights of stairs connecting them, to be long.  The flights of stairs twisted round, making them difficult to mount at times, and creaked when trodden on, and could best be described as rickety!

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We viewed the rooms the following day, and to my mother and me, had we been offered a palace to live in, we could not have been happier with this little place. The rooms measured about six and a half feet in height with ceilings that, thankfully, did not slope. The low ceiling did not bother us in the slightest, as neither of a parents were tall and I was still short too!

The Greenery of Bethnal Green
A107 is Cambridge Heath Road & B119 is Roman Road
Paradise Row is found to the left of Paradise Gardens

Two very nice features about the front room of the attic were the presence of a fireplace and the view from the small windows that opened into the room.

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The view was a real bonus as the attic was situated above the tops of the trees of Paradise Gardens, which would form a delightful green canopy during summer months. Beyond the Gardens, and across Cambridge Heath Road, was Museum Gardens.

Upper Left: St. John’s Church on Bethnal Green & an entrance to Bethnal Green Underground Station; Lower Left: Museum of Childhood, entrance; & Right: Bethnal Green Library

Further to the left, one could also see part of the Museum of Childhood (formerly Bethnal Green Museum; a Grade II Listed Building), where my mother had spent many hours as a child. To the right, one could see St. John’s Church on Bethnal Green (a Grade I listed Building), where both my mother and me had been Christened (i.e., Baptism), and Bethnal Green Park.  Later, during winter months once the trees had shed their leaves, to the right, the Bethnal Green Library (a Grade II Listed Building) came into view.

Memorial to Alice Maud Denman and Peter Regelous in Museum Gardens who died
trying to save others at a fire at 423, Hackney Road on the 20th April 1902

My mother and I would spend a great deal of time sitting by the window and enjoying the view. We never seemed to tire of the vista presented to us and we also enjoyed looking at the different cloud formations that drifted by.

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Miss Kingston’s monthly income came from her Nanny Duties and from the renting of rooms in her house.  She kept the ground-floor rooms for herself and rented out the remainder of the house including the two rooms in the basement, which had extremely low ceilings and were very dark and dreary.

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Once we moved in, I quickly became fast friends with the lady that lived in the two rooms below our little home.  Her name  was Ann, which she told to call her.  My mother was not too-happy about this, as she did not entirely agree with a young child calling adults by their Christian names.  Apparently Ann had taken over the flat from her mother who lived there until she died.  I remember when I went to stay the night at Miss Kingston’s when my parents went out to a function meeting her mother.  She was a delightful old lady with white hair who wore a long black dress, sensible lace-up shoes and a shawl around her shoulders.  I remember spending sometime talking to her in her flat.

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Ann was in her forties and was what was once called, big boned!  This meant that she was more than slightly overweight, but was no where near to being obese.  She was not sensitive about the size of her bones, but she was annoyed by the fact that she had extremely fine brown hair.

Ann had a very friendly manner and was prone to laugh often.  She was great fun and I liked her very much and enjoyed spending time with her.  Although she was not a pretty woman, her vivacious personality more than made up for this.

Ann did not drink tea often and preferred coffee, which was not commonly served in homes in those days.  She smoked and often used a cigarette holder.  Her preferred brands were Senior Service and Dunhill cigarettes.

Ann enjoyed a little drink on occasion and also liked to go out …… or rather, to be taken out.

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I don’t believe that she had ever married, but I gained the impression that she had been close to being so on a couple of occasions.  Despite there being no ring on her finger, Ann was not without men-friends (the term boy friend was not in common usage for older men in those days and was reserved strictly to describe young men or boys).

The man-friend-of-the-moment sadly for her never remained for long.  Change occurred most often after an argument that was generally accompanied by the sound of crashing objects, which came from her throwing them at the man as he left.  Once he was gone, she would call my mother down and tell her about him while she wept copious tears.  Since I was still very young, and thought not to understand what was being said, and since I could sit quietly and pretend to read or else draw, my presence was oftentimes forgotten, and so I became privée as to what the-man-of-the-moment had done, or perhaps not done, and thereby learn why objects had been hurled across the room !

In most cases, the fight would start as a result of an ultimatum being given to her companion: Ann wanted to get married and do so now!  Her friend either did not or else was already married and in no rush to leave his family.  I felt sorry for her and her situation since I liked her very much.

Allow Judy Garland (1922-1969) to break your heart while listening to her sing
THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY

and then allow Liza Minnelli (1946) to offer hope with MAYBE THIS TIME

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Ann was always kind to me and treated me nicely.  She was fun to be with and would allow me to take the occasional puff on her cigarette, which I appreciated very much.  I also liked to go shopping with her on Saturday afternoons in order to buy nylons, that were still in short supply at that time, from the stall of her friend Jack in the Roman Road Market.

We always walked to the market. which was at the far end of the Roman Road.   I remember that she was nice enough to allow me to linger as we crossed the bridge over the Regent Canal.  I always lived in the hope of seeing a horse pulling a barge on the Canal.

The Regent Canal in Bethnal Green
Left: Roman Road crossing the Canal; Top & Lower Right: views from Roman Road Bridge 

I had become fascinated by this since seeing such an event once before when I saw such a poor creature pulling a barge when I was sitting on the top deck of a London Double Decker Bus and had been greatly impressed with the sight.  Sadly, I only ever saw this sight the once in my life, and never again.  I have to smile since I still do not fail to look and hope whenever I cross over a canal!

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I enjoyed walking around the market with Ann.  I liked Jack.  He had a stall in a strategically well-placed area of the market.  Jack was a true East End character and had, what was known as, a patter, which was to say that he had a particular way of speaking that he used while flirting with every female that came to his stall.

Buying Nylons

Jack’s chat always caused the girls, as he referred to them regardless of their age, to burst into gales of laughter.  Jack was kind to me and never failed not to give me sixpence along with some advice, which was generally a warning to watch out for the women once I got older!  I found him a delight and very funny.

Earlier Versions of Jack

I don’t recall our ever buying much else in the market for Ann did her regular shopping, as we did, along Bethnal Green Road early on a Saturday morning.  However, we would browse the stalls and examine a host of things, but rarely bought any of them.  On our way home, Ann always bought  me a bag of chips followed by a cake.  I looked forward to these delicacies and savoured then during the walk home.  Occasionally, when it rained, we would take the number 8 bus home.

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Ann worked for the Iraqi Petroleum Company that had its offices close to Great Portland Streetat that time.  She always dressed very smartly to go to work and was obviously proud of her position at the Company.  She left home every morning at 8.15 a.m. and took the Central Line of the Underground at Bethnal Green Tube Station to Liverpool Street Station, where she would change onto the Circle/Metropolitan Line and travel to Great Portland Street Station where she would alight and walk to her place of work.

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There is much that I could write about Ann, for she was indeed a colourful character, but this piece here is A Tale of My Father, and so I will next write about my Father and Ann’s cat, a particularly unpleasant creature named Figgy!

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Visitors to Paradise Row, October 2018.
The gentleman’s grandfather had lived at 8 Paradise Row prior to the Second World War.