Random Thoughts on Everything

Death by donut

On a recent, and very wet morning, a group of 13 excitable friends and acquaintances met as a group by the Kindertransport memorial, situated outside Liverpool Street station.

It was a Monday, when members of the boomer generation would normally be at their place of work. But tempted by a bagel feast at Rinkoff’s Bakery, one of the East End’s oldest family run bakeries … well … who could resist skiving off for a morning with walktalkbake on a tour through history? Rinkoff’s have been serving their wares in the East End since early last century, and Esther our wonderful guide is a Rinkoff.

We were a rowdy rabble, one member of our group had wandered off in the station to a different exit, two had decided to go in search of coffee, others went looking for those who were missing, three (including me) had invited themselves, and weren’t expected to be there at all. Esther accepted the larger number as a fait accompli, she raised her umbrella, opened it and moved off down the street as stragglers came scrambling across the wet cobbles outside the Andaz Hotel.

Crossing Broadgate, with its glass palaces, multitudes of office workers and sandwich bars, we dodged the traffic and entered the gentrified lanes around Spitalfields market. Smart new shops now line the edges of the expansive Victorian construction of 1893. They are a far cry from the fruit and vegetable merchants of yesteryear. Most, retail designer brands. An expensive looking puffer coat on display was especially tempting in the downpour. Boxed sweet danish are already on my mind as we stop for Esther to point out a famous peanut distributor. I think of flaky pastry and fruit fillings and wonder if the sooted house opposite, with a trendy looking grocery store on the ground floor, might be the same one Jeanette Winterson wrote about in her spooky, rather wonderful short story The Spare Room.

A literary theme continues with our progress overlooked from the far end of the street by the creamy spire of a church that would not be out of place in a Jane Austin novel. There is little sense of romance here for Mr Darcey on the scrubby piece of surrounding land once called Itchy Park. A name inspired by the many impoverished rough sleepers who used to doss here. I pull my hood tighter and Esther’s dark tales of poverty and lice fail to stop me dreaming of coffee and donuts.

Close to Brick Lane, the evocative houses of the Hugenought weavers stand like a film set. Preserved and stunning, their moody colours and wooden shutters meld with the rain in water-coloured brushstrokes. Along the way we swap stories of family and vanished lives, talking of streets and places that no longer exist. Businesses gone but fondly remembered. Forty official synagogues now reduced to less than a handful.

Esther is a story-teller. She repeats colourful tales of her husband’s family who arrived from the Ukraine at the start of last century. Close to the docks, London’s East End was a magnet for thousands of Jewish families escaping persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe. They worked hard and firmly believed the adage, ‘get yourself a trade and you’ll never go hungry.’

My dad was born in Mother Levy’s Maternity Hospital, Spitalfields. The middle child of hat-making parents. Although keen on photography he slept on his aunt’s floor whilst training somewhere in Petticoat Lane to be a butcher. He also had stories. On one memorable day he arrived at a small shop in a side alley that only sold mincemeat. There to collect an order he found the woman who owned it, bloomers around her ankles, sitting on the toilet. Not wishing to miss a customer she kept the door wide open for a view to her counter. ‘Stay darling,’ she instructed as he backed away embarrassed, ‘I’ll be just another minute, and don’t worry, after I flush I’ll be sure to wash my hands.’

As I remember this we are walking along an area called The Waste where shops sell phone covers, dusty luggage and halal kebabs. They also fly Palestinian flags from the grimy upper windows that overlook a bustling street market. I press pause on thoughts of Rinkoff’s donuts and crodoughs. It’s almost the end of our tour and suddenly I am feeling self aware. Perhaps it’s anxiety that tightens my chest. An acute sense of being ‘other,’ unwanted, despised. I have become an intruder walking the very pavements that echo back my own history.

We shrug, move on and take a discreet passage that leads to a courtyard where unabashed we squash up noisily around Rinkoff’s outdoor tables. No customers here seem bothered about religion or politics. It’s all about the food. Under a canopy, protected from the weather, we stuff ourselves with bagels, the clouds unexpectedly part and miracle of miracles, the sun comes out to welcome us.

Book a walking tour through instagram.com/walktalkbake

http://rinkoffbakery.co.uk/.

Visit: Rinkoffs: Jubilee St. Whitechapel, E1 3BS

In 2023/24 I was lucky to be chosen as one of the Genesis Foundation’s ten emerging writers. My debut novel is called The House in Mile End: romantic betrayal, Jewish East End gangsters and a mystifying legacy are woven together by a box of love letters from the 1920s. All I want for Chanukah is an agent.

Find me on instagram.com/s.i.royston