LONDON PRIDE

Playing the Riverside Pubs

By DAVID ROGERS

I N Wapping High Street a pigeon is uncon- cernedly pecking between the cobblestones. Some shafts of evening sun penetrate Limehouse Causeway and Ropemakers Fields, continue

across the curve of the Thames and spotlight a dinghy bobbing up against Hermitage Stairs, I lean against the wall opposite Wapping Tube Station and wait. The pigeon is still uncon- cerned and all is quiet. Indeed, the only concern there is, is in the face of the woman struggling to find her key to open the newsagents next to the station. She disappears inside as the Brunel gates open and the East End commuters are dis- gorged. Stiletto heels on the cobblestones, the rush for tea, and some tourists for the 'Prospect of Whitby.' The pigeon flies in haste and settles on a clump of weeds high on the dock walls.

'Sorry we're late. We went wrong at Aldgate East.' The echoes die on the cobblestones and dis- appear into the flats. We walk westward along a High Street unrecognisable to the adman with his sights geared to Lewisham and Luton. No cut prices. No bedroom suites for seven-pohnd deposits, no Odeon, no ABC teashops. But a master mariner who does Sails and Rigs (or did in 1889). 'Retas' for breakfasts and dinners, and a butcher who always has meat pie and mash available. The rest is wharf and dock and factory and stairs. Thirteen stairs survive from the days before the two Port of London Authority docks were built—Alderman's Stairs, King James Stairs, Pelican Stairs, Ballast Office Stairs, all with a history of access to the river rivalled only by Traitors Gate, under Tower Bridge. Outside the 'Town of Ramsgate' there Is a boy gazing at my car. As we go inside the pub he taps me on the arm.

'Ere, that your car?—why, 'ello, sir. Didn't expect to find you here. Why did you leave school? Your mate on the staff said it was 'cause you wanted to earn more money.' He grins proudly, 'I bin outside for a whole month now.'

'That's good—what are you doing?'

'Oh, well' He coughs. 'You know there's not much bleeding work for people like me. But I manage, you know what I mean.'

He pushes into the pub and insists on buying us whisky macs. On the terrace, he talks ex- citedly. 'I used to pick up Yanks at the Tube, take 'em down to the "Prospect," an' then up 'ere. Bleeding good, isn't it? You see those stairs. Judge Jeffreys was arrested there after having escaped and actually got on a ship. He came back to have a smoke and a light and lime, waiting for the tide, and some bloke recognised 'im and ran all the way to the Tower. I reckon he needed a light and lime after that.'

'But they didn't drink light and lime then.'

'No, but I do.' He laughs. 'See. I got all the right patter. Sets me up a treat, that does. But actually I prefer whisky.'

I try to move to the bar.

'No, it's on me. For all those history lessons. I've really cashed in. You know your mate, the one that done English? Well, he did a session on writing letters to newspapers. And I said to him I wanted to write to America. So he brings some book called Willis, I think, on them and Slob writes to the New York Tribune and the Washington Post and all that. Hundred we did. All saying "Come and see the riverside pubs and be shown round by a genuine East'Ender."

Whisky again?'

On the river the rubbish barges are making for Southend. A noisy boatload of trippers wave. Then there is silence.

'Yeah, bloody good it is. You get these Yanks and you charge them a couple of quid each— no income tax, see--and take them down to the "Anchor" and sit them on the terrace and let them get a basinful of Tower Bridge and all that And then down to the "Angel" and the "May- flower," and on to Greenwich to the "Cutty Sark," the "Trafalgar Tavern," the "Yacht". .

'How do you know what to say to them? You weren't all that good at history.'

'That's easy. Straight up, it is. You just look at the old A to Z. It's all there—Trinidad Street, Salmon Lane, Royal Naval Square—stands to reason. And then we come back through the Blackwall Tunnel, through all the singing pubs. the "Ironbridge" and the "Waterman's" and the "City Arms."' He sniggers. 'You got to be a bit careful there. And they have all heard of Cable Street.'

'But why aren't you doing it tonight?'

He waits and watches the wash from a police launch pulling into Wapping Jetty by the barge moored alongside the stairs.

'It's like that, you see. You make any tinY movement and you stir up a wash and people get disturbed. So I keep moving on to different things, but if you go down to the Blackwall Tunnel pubs you will be all right. You say you know me.'

He winks and disappears.

The riverside pubs have changed. The tourists are probably the foundation of trade. The locals help it—that is, if you can recognise the locals, David Bailey has gone west and has photo- graphed Jean Shrimpton, but the girl who lives in Wapping Dock Street has got a glossy maga- zine and no longer has to go to Commercial Road to have her hair done. There are a hundred Jean Shrimptons in the riverside pubs.

Late that night, when the noise of heavy lorries has gone from dockland, the taxis line up out- side the 'Prospect' and the E-types are going from the 'Trafalgar Tavern.' Some people will claim that their grandfathers knew Jack the Ripper, and certainly there is a continuing commercial streak in the East End Londoner. As we leave our last pub, to the strains of 'There's a hole in my Lisa, dear bucket, dear bucket,' an evil looking kid approaches me. 'I bin looking after your car, mistah, Worth ten bob that, isn't it? Otherwise next time you come down here you might find your tyres slashed. After all, you never know, do you?'

But at that moment my ex-pupil emerges from the shadows. 'That's all right. You leave him alone, he's a friend of mine. Go and get that

man in the Cortina over there. You see, us non- Etonians have got to make a living where we can.'

We get into the car and he taps on the window, 'Ere, do you want to know something?' 'What?'

'In 1658 they killed a bleeding great whale oat. there. Fifty-eight-foot long and sixteen-foot high.

He gazes at us appealingly. Eighteen years old and more worldly wise than most of his con- temporaries from any walk of life.

'You remember that lesson you gave us on careers? Well, I've bin thinking it over. You remember I said I had no chance to be Governor of the Bank of England? Well, I've bin think ing it over. I was right.'

Conned out of ten bob? Perhaps. As we drive beside the darkened Thames it is not difficult to imagine the days when whales did come up river.