Spitafields Narrative Pt.1

The rain is still the same; streaming down the windows of the City of Glass. Early morning
winks but the sun is still shy; birds faintly tweet as the dismal street lights turn off one by one. The
smell of coffee burns the freshness of the washed out morning. The city boys clamber up the
Liverpool Street steps, late for their conventional jobs with surreptitious hangovers. An array of suits
with white faces confronts my struggling walk through the business crowd; a rainbow of distasteful
ties. The Evening Standard gets thrown about by a panicky red-faced Cockney.  The classes crash and
collide; a firework of newspapers. Cameron’s face floats around the Spitalfields sky. The towers of
glass disguise its unforgiving past; the poverty stricken streets are now a shadow of its success.

Walking through the fog of Petticoat Lane, the chimes of old Spitalfields Christ Church sleepily resounds in my ears. The tired bells have been heard by so many. The market stalls are opening with the weary cloud hidden sun. Plastic covers shelter the stale odour of clothes that have reeked through the centuries. Forgotten laced petticoats haunt the cheap consumer produced rags. The Victorian essence struggles for breath, suffocating from the bustle of bohemians. The slouching buildings dangle above the menace, forlorn for their fading character. They frozenly observe the rush of avaricious people at their foundations, scurrying like rats between their shackled heels. I creep behind the gormless crowd, following the imposing turret of bright Christ Church.

A flock of unfitting faces beseeches me to purchase their wanton rubbish. A muddling
mesh of society swarms the streets; a melting pot of nationalities, diverse in race and wealth. The
ragged, unfortunate and guilty are long gone now; their hunger entwined around the stars. The grand
and spacious avenue of Spitalfields market oozes the stench of exotic spices; a buzzing luxurious
ambiance plagues the building. The business boys sit in the surrounding chain restaurants and cafes,
gorging on their Panini’s whilst smugly watching the gluttonous mass. The home of the Victorian
half-fed creatures is now a dwelling of the chubby public and ravenous students with their bloated
student loans.

Every stall is different; Pop Culture t-shirts dangle from unreachable rails. Mounds of dried
fruits and nuts sit in sumptuous heaps of opulence. The air is fragrant of sugar and spice; the
redolence of stale vegetables is a far memory now. A market for Jewish paupers has become a lavish

display of class and culture from all over the world. I come across a booth of old grandfather clocks -stuck in their ticking hell. Each second is a daunting exhausted effort. Their faces watch me as I walkby, each one could tell a story better than the time. They witnessed the hardships and cruel hunger ofVictorian families first hand. They stand now like our own grandfathers, enduring every minute of the modern world.

Dry cleaned fur coats line up to be worn by hipsters to hide their shady pasts. Artists and
dandies run the stalls with nonchalance – poles apart from the frantic tradesmen and costermongers a
century ago. These markets were their choice of life and death. Each article they sold meant they
could live a little longer. They left their lives hopeless and spiritless through long suffering. These
people who walk past me will never experience true poverty and starvation. Never will their ragged
children endlessly swarm these merciless neighbourhoods.