Visits To Brick Lane

A Memory of East Ham.

Further to my other memories. I have just found a picture of My Father & I having just returned from Brick Lane. Everyone knows Petticoat Lane by Aldgate East Station.
My Dad avoided it because he thought it sold mostly tat. We would always go further on to where all the Debris around Brick Lane were situated. On these ex bomb sites were 100s of stalls selling everything from China-plates (seeing those being chucked around whilst the stall holders dispensed machine gun chatter like it was going out of fashion, is still a fond memory) animals like pups (to be avoided because of poor breeding etc) & kittens & chicks each stall with their own unique smells. Chicks we bought a dozen at a time. These supplied us with eggs & a sunday dinner for the next twelvemonth until it was time to go again. Boots with real leather soles (were there any other then?) These to be broken in the hard way & fully studded with "Blakeys" & the like. They never wore out, they just got too tight & passed on to the next generation, or the kid up the road. Trousers (short version) were tried on in the street (by us kids) as were shirts & coats. If you wanted something a little better there were lots & lots of little Jewish Tailors. Made to measure? yes sir. To be altered? yes sir. How much depended upon how much you were willing to argue. Hungry? have a bagel, made this 5 minutes ago. Filling with what ever there was you could choose from (but that was not much) we arrived at about 9am & spent about 3 hours there & saw probably half of all that was going on. Odd that if you arrived late you probably got the better bargains, cash wise. But the choice was not as good. So we always were earlyish & argued a lot. We always went home happy as did the sellers. Home by 2pm just in time for dinner.