Four People you didn’t know were from East London

EAST LONDON’S GRIM reputation does not die easily. It was dominated for more than 150 years by its docks, where industry flourished before dying a long, slow, oily death. For many who made this part of London home, life was unbelievably harsh.  Men scrapped with each other for jobs and hundreds died in the line of heavy duty. The area attracted the unskilled and semi-skilled classes, as well as waves of hopeful work-hungry immigrants with no place else to go. This image of the East End is the one which endures.

But as well as the myriad slum dwellings and fight for survival, East London’s leafier suburbs –  Manor Park, Forest Gate, Wanstead and Aldersbrook among them – flourished with the coming of the railways. Street upon street of respectable Victorian villas and large terraced houses sprang up, aimed at the emerging professional classes working in the city. These were the original “new money”.

Times changed, industry moved elsewhere and the service economy developed. New people are still arriving from far flung corners of the globe, making this part of London home. Some forever, others just passing through. It’s a busy, headache of a place, but so fascinating.

And why am I telling you this? Because I want to paint a picture of a complex part of London which has produced just as many great movers and shakers as well-to-do West London and the Home Counties. Because I want to illustrate that having a great idea or being innately talented at something or having the courage of your convictions to do what is right, is not and never has been the preserve of the extremely rich or the landed gentry. East London is a place where those with chutzpah have always managed to shine somehow.

Here are four inspiring people you may not have heard of, or may not have realised were made by or in East London.

Marie Lloyd: Queen of the Music Hall

Before film and television existed, music hall reigned supreme in the East End. Stars of the stage played to packed houses, and there were music halls on almost every corner. Their cheeky songs and tongue-in-cheek humour has influenced British comedy ever since. The undisputed queen of the music hall scene was Marie Lloyd, born Matilda Alice Victoria Wood in Hoxton in 1870. She was known and loved – not to mention loathed by the establishment – for her bawdy interpretations of otherwise innocent songs, and a gift for portraying the trials and tribulations of working-class life, particularly the lot of women. She first found fame at the age of 15, and took the stage name Marie Lloyd not long after.

A trailblazer in her own time, Lloyd’s lifestyle was extraordinarily modern for the Edwardian era. While many other women were struggling to survive, her popularity was such that she was able to command among the highest fees in music hall. Despite this, she still found time to go on picket lines in support of striking performers who were only paid a pittance.

Married three times, Lloyd’s unconventional personal life was a subject deemed fit for public consumption and analysis. She had been refused entry to the USA in 1913 for arriving with her partner, Bernard Dillon, while still being married to (but separated from) Alec Hurley. Hurley died later that year, leaving Lloyd free to marry Dillon. Hurley was himself a music hall star, but became eclipsed by his superstar wife, to the point where he was known as Mr Marie Lloyd. He is buried in what is now Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, where his forlorn headstone was rescued from obscurity and weeds in 2004.

Marie herself lasted another nine years. She collapsed on stage in 1922, and died days later aged 52. Her funeral was attended by 100,000 mourners, and she is buried in Hampstead.

Kamal Chunchie: Preacher and Race Relations Worker

The name Kamal Chunchie won’t be recognisable to many, but he made a significant impression on East London in the 1920s and 30s. Chunchie was a convert Methodist pastor born in 1886 in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) who came to Britain after serving in the Army during the First World War.

In 1921, he worked at the Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest counselling foreign-born seamen, some of whom were stranded, destitute. He became spurred on by the plight of these men, and sought to draw attention to their dire living conditions and the racial prejudice they faced. This prompted him, in 1926, to found The Coloured Men’s Institute in Tidal Basin Road, Canning Town, E16.

Here, in a dilapidated building (formerly a Chinese lodging house and opium den), he drew together black, Asian and mixed race families, helping them to get on their feet and finding them food and clothing. Chunchie was relentless in his quest: He toured churches to give talks about his work, and spoke to newspaper journalists about his mission and aims.

Chunchie’s work suffered a major setback when the building the Institute used was demolished just five years after the organisation was established. Undeterred, Chunchie continued to work out of any building he could, eventually dying in 1953.

Eastside Community Heritage, in their Hidden Histories project, made a fascinating archive of Chunchie with the help of his daughter, Muriel. They have published a book, The Other Eastenders, about his life and work.

Barrie Keeffe: Playwright

“I write plays for people who wouldn’t be seen dead in the theatre”

So said Barrie Keeffe, the newspaper reporter-turned-dramatist who was born in East Ham in 1945. He absorbed the atmosphere of an East End in flux and channelled it into sharp scripts that still resonate years after they were written. The EastEnders scripting team could learn a thing or two from the kind of punchy, gritty work Keeffe has consistently produced.

Two works which have brought Keeffe into wider public consciousness are the 1980 seminal Brit gangster flick The Long Good Friday, and the 1979 play Sus, which was made into a film in 2010.

The Long Good Friday, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, is probably Keeffe’s most famous work, and revolves around gangster Harold Shand. His dodgy past conspires against his plan to go legit by getting involved in the development of London’s Docklands as the site for a future Olympic Games – so far, so prophetic! However, its serious themes of gangland business conducted against a backdrop of crumbling docks fallen out of use were inspired by the kind of stories Keeffe had heard in his professional life as a local reporter in the 60s and 70s.

Sus is an altogether different tale, depicting the abuse of the stop and search laws in 70s Britain through the interrogation of a young black man arrested on suspicion of murder. The play, a suffocating and menacing three-hander set in a police interview room on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power, is both heartbreaking and gripping.

Keeffe’s deft ability for tackling hard-hitting subjects without treading clichéd ground led to his success as associate writer at Theatre Royal Stratford East, resident playwright at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and latterly as a dramatic writing tutor at City University.

 Alexander McQueen: fashion designer

The couturier behind the eponymous fashion house was born in 1969 and lived as a child in a council towerblock in Stratford, E15. He attended the rough-and-tumble Rokeby School where he got just one O Level in art. This did not deter him from pursuing his career of choice, and was promptly apprenticed to a tailor in London’s prestigious Savile Row.There followed a spell in Milan.

His portfolio of work amassed by 1994 was such that he was accepted at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design without any formal academic qualifications beyond his O Level. His graduation collection was bought by the influential Isabella Blow, and by 1996 he was working for Givenchy as chief designer.

Always pushing the envelope with his rebellious collections and theatrical display, McQueen used amputee models, sprayed his catwalk muses with paint and even had one model pose inside a glass case wearing a gas mask while moths flew all around her. Skulls were a recurring motif in his work, and he was credited with the creation of ‘bumster’ jeans.

Sadly, this force for excitement and intrigue in fashion was not to burn even brighter. Four-time British Designer of the Year McQueen took his own life in February 2010 at the age of 40, shortly after the death of his mother.

While his brand lives on in name and spirit, original pieces from his collections continue to change hands for princely sums. We can’t help wondering just what he might have gone on to achieve if only he’d stayed with us a while longer.

Who are your influential East Londoners? Drop us a line at go.londonandeast@gmail.com