Spitalfields Dances to Rhythm of Time ; City Lives

Summary

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IT USED to be easy to have a quiet lunch in Spitalfields because, a) there were no restaurants, and b) there were no shops. Most of us huddled together in the market caff, where you'd likely meet Gilbert and George over a bacon sandwich. Sometimes we bought the fantastic Indian food from the market stalls - properly made rice and dahl with fresh coriander for Pounds 2 - and sloped off to someone's Georgian parlour to eat in front of a fire burning skip salvage.

Spitalfields was so far removed from most people's idea of desirable that for those of us who lived here, it was rather nice. On Saturdays, when the City had gone home, even the rats stayed in. You could walk from Christ Church to Liverpool Street and not meet anyone. If you wanted to buy anything other than rice and bolts of cloth down Brick Lane, you took a bus up the West End; a pilgrimage so rare that my friend Jim, a furniture maker, wore a special pork pie hat to mark the occasion.

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Spitalfields Dances to Rhythm of Time ; City Lives

This week I went into our shop to get lunch from Taff and Harvey, and as usual they slopped, sorry,...

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