Eerie East London

Whatthefeck?
I love Spaced and Father Ted - I have the DVD box sets of both. Saw the first episode of Early Doors but it didn't make me watch more.
Anyhoooo ...
To vaguely direct the thread geographically:

I'm also a fan of Al Murray and also have the DVD box set of Time, Gentlemen, Please. Well observed (I recognise some situations), very funny, and while the exterior location was filmed in Ladbroke Grove, W10, the whole thing has echoes of East London boozers of my (ample) experience. Not sure how the Guv would react to a pub ghost - he could swing between self-inflicted fear and exploitation.
As long as he got a carvery out of it.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I haven't ever seen Spaced.
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Stop what you are doing immediately and either download or buy the box set. Thank me later.

maximus otter
 
My apologies for having dragged this thread right off course (all the way to Stockport, indeed - a wrongful act in and of itself).

I've let everyone down....again.
 
I thought I’d post this on here – well technically it is East London (well Eastern Central to be precise just off Fenchurch Street)

The view from my office window. What remains of the medieval All Hallows Staining. Built circa 1320, which survived the great fire, but fell just 5 years later due (according to wiki) to the amount of remains buried in the churchyard which unbalanced the foundations. All that remains now is the tower of the old church.

The Fortean aspect to this, is that whoever commissioned the building of the office block due to be built surrounding All Hallows, was told by the City of London Corporation that any human remains found underneath were to be taken away to a protective place, until such time that the remains could be reinterned for burial in the crypt of old Tower and once the new office block had been built.

A few weeks back I saw workman taking away hundreds of carboard boxes, presumably the human remains that were found.

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Further to All Hallows staining in Fenchurch street. It seems as if the archaeologists have arrived, so they’ve found something interesting. Normally in the City, it’s Roman remains.

How exciting, although if it is something important it could delay the building project by something up to two years. I remember when they found that Roman house when they were developing Spitalfields market, they seemed to be there forever


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Jeepers. Ghost of the past.

I was bought up in Whitchapel next door to Bethnal Green. Pellicci's was famous as a cafe even up to the late 2010's. On the walls inside were loads of pictures from years gone by. It was then still run by the same family.

I seem to remember a member of the family dying and then it shut down.

In my childhood 8, 9 or 10, years old, mid 1960's, I remember it as a place where if I moped the floor or swept the street outside or cleaned all the tables I'd get a free cheese and onion sandwich and a cuppa or sometimes a really posh ice cream in a glass. They were of Italian descent and loved kids.

I was last there for a cafe type meal in maybe 2019/20 and the food was still excellent and at a good price. The waitress now into her late 50's, as was I, well a bit older than 50, remembered me from all those years ago. How incredible is that? We had a great chat about times gone by.

Pelliccis's was almost an institution of Bethnal Green High Street. They'd been there that long.

Sadly, what was the East End is now long gone. Pellicci's was one of the last remaining vestiges of the East End. When that went, that was it. Rather like the Elves leaving Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings.

There's still a few old style cafe's but they will succumb soon to be replaced by nail shops, barbers, coffee shops, noodle shops, etc.

I haven't been back to that horrible dump that is London for 5 or 6 years and I never want to go back there again and I never will.
 
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Yithian said:
Nothing weird about them in themselves, but these very evocative photographs of East End cafés in the 70s by Keren Luchtenstein help set the scene for many a mental tale:

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2025/03/26/keren-luchtensteins-cafes/

See links at the end for similar galleries.
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Interesting and evocative, though not my part of the world.

My inner (who am l kidding?) 14-year old alerted to two things:

a) “Driving round London on a motorbike with my boyfriend, Willy Smax…”

b) This café:

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Male FTMB-ers of a certain age will recognise that surname. Lovely Linda’s Wikipedia entry notes that her dad was born in Hackney, and she was brought up in Palmers Green.

maximus otter
 
Very atmospheric photographs.

kesavaross said:
...Sadly, what was the East End is now long gone. Pellicci's was one of the last remaining vestiges of the East End. When that went, that was it...
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For a while back in the mid 90s I lived at Priam House, just off Cambridge Heath Road, and a few minutes walk north of Bethnal - sorry, Befnal - Tube station. I was a fairly regular customer of various caffs, including Pellicci's – which was still there when I last visited a couple of years or so ago, and I believe was (is?) owned and run by the same family.

Pellicci's was (is?) quality, but some other cafes were awful. And - let’s be honest - when you take away the veneer of nostalgia, and the character which it is easy to apply to a place when one doesn't actually have to avail oneself of its services, some of the images on the link in @Yithian's post look really quite grim. I am lucky to have a hardy constitution, and modest requirements in regard to the surroundings I feel comfortable in - but however desirous I was of a bacon wedge and a cup of splosh I would most certainly have walked past some of those cafes in order to get to others.
 
The old joke about looking at the stains on the cooks apron and pointing to the one you want yourself?

(My London cafe was the Shephards bush one)
 
Spookdaddy said:
Very atmospheric photographs.



For a while back in the mid 90s I lived at Priam House, just off Cambridge Heath Road, and a few minutes walk north of Bethnal - sorry, Befnal - Tube station. I was a fairly regular customer of various caffs, including Pellicci's – which was still there when I last visited a couple of years or so ago, and I believe was (is?) owned and run by the same family.

Pellicci's was (is?) quality, but some other cafes were awful. And - let’s be honest - when you take away the veneer of nostalgia, and the character which it is easy to apply to a place when one doesn't actually have to avail oneself of its services, some of the images on the link in @Yithian's post look really quite grim. I am lucky to have a hardy constitution, and modest requirements in regard to the surroundings I feel comfortable in - but however desirous I was of a bacon wedge and a cup of splosh I would most certainly have walked past some of those cafes in order to get to others.
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You're right. I just checked on the internet and it is still open and run by the same family. A friend who still lives in Befnal Green told me it had shut down. Out of interest I'll phone him later.

It opened in 1900.

https://epellicci.co.uk/our-story/

Bethnal in old English is taken as meaning 'a happy corner'. I'd hardly describe that dump of a place as 'a happy corner'.
 
kesavaross said:
You're right. I just checked on the internet and it is still open and run by the same family. A friend who still lives in Befnal Green told me it had shut down. Out of interest I'll phone him later...
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Must've found that same source about the same time you did.

I have to admit that my own attitude to the area and the way it's changed is generally more positive. It felt a bit like hard work when I was there in the 90's - a bit grim, a bit grey, the whole gig somewhat foreshadowed by a run in, on my first visit to a local boozer, with a very pissed, very aggressive, very foul mouthed arsehole in the Salmon and Ball (turned out he worked there - great advert for the place).

Now I find myself concurring somewhat with one of the current owners, quoted from local community news outlet, The Slice, back in late 2021:

The cafe has withstood a lot of changes in the area, but Nev is far from concerned. ‘When I was younger we would have to go to the West End to go out – now it’s all here! If people move to the area and want to embrace it, brilliant, I don’t care who they are. Most people want to make this area the best it can be. I love the fact I can go out with the kids and enjoy different kinds of shops. We’ve just got to make sure we maintain the East End soul too’.

It's actually a really nice article - very positive and oddly uplifting for something about a local greasy spoon.

I was worrying that we were veering off thread here, but I suppose this is all part of the dense psychogeographical composition that makes London in general, and the East End in particular, so interesting, and so prone to the attentions of the odd, the unexpected and the not quite right.

Link to article from The Slice here: https://bethnalgreenlondon.co.uk/e-pellicci-cafe-anna-nev-interview/
 
Spookdaddy said:
this is all part of the dense psychogeographical composition that makes London in general, and the East End in particular, so interesting, and so prone to the attentions of the odd, the unexpected and the not quite right.
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this!

having context and depth and colour is really important. Especially if it isn't an area you know which, lets face it, is most of the world!
 
I'm not sure I would want to eat in those old places but I loved the photographs. Something is certainly triggered by the décor and even the old type-faces used for signage. I'd guess that the art deco look was a post-war catch-up on American de luxe styling of the forties.

Shorpy.com has some lovely pictures of luxurious American boutiques and department-stores from way-back. You feel that a Knickerbocker Glory bought under such signage would taste of dreams! :loveu:
 
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