Category Archives: celebrities

The Great Conjurer of Kennington

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From the archives, the third of our month of best history posts

Greater Kennington has always had its share of eccentrics, and a prime Victorian example can be found in magician, humourist and collector Henry Evanion (1832-1905) who lived his entire life in Kennington and Oval. During its dying decades Henry’s family sold sweets and tickets at Vauxhall Gardens, and it was there that he came into contact with mimes, jugglers, clowns and tight rope walkers. Supported by his wife Mary Ann and extended family who ran a sweet shop business at 221 Kennington Rd, he began to develop tricks of illusion and ventriloquism that evolved into a rather elaborate show. Delivered, no less, with a fake French accent. 

As Henry’s act evolved he began to tour the southeast and even performed for the royal family on three occasions, with the gig at Sandringham billed as ‘The Grand Feat of the Globes of  Fire, Fish and Birds’. Henry seriously milked this royal connection and it helped with bookings, but there were long stretches where our local boy had no work. He used this time to furiously research new ways to diversify his act, coming up with tricks such as ‘Vulcan’s Chain’, ‘The Mystic Parrot’ and ‘The Japanese Lady’s Reception’. At the time he was living in what is now Montford Place behind the present day Pilgrim pub. 

Henry’s long suffering and very patient wife would sometimes perform as his assistant (a kind of Victorian Debbie McGee) but she had a proper job running a sweet shop so this didn’t last very long. Henry decided to drag people in the crowd onto the stage to act as assistance, which was made easier by his jokiness and quick wit.  His shows were an assortment of magical effects, illusions, juggling and ventriloquism presented rapidly with trick following trick. Henry was also an avid collector of playbills, posters and items associated with magic and other forms of entertainment.

While working with mystic parrots, setting things on fire, and sawing people in half might sound very glamorous, it isn’t the most lucrative of professions and later in life Henry and Mary Ann fell on hard times. Living in the basement flat at 12 Methley Street, at the end of his life Henry befriended no other than the great Harry Houdini while he was in the UK. Houdini was fascinated and inspired by Henry, and on their first meeting spent almost 24 hours with Henry in Methley St. Houdini ended up purchasing some of Henry’s collection of magical ephemera. The rest of his collection was endowed to the British Museum, and gives us a fascinating insight into late Victorian light entertainment. 

40 Elephants

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From the archives, the first of our month of best history posts

Elephant and Castle has always been a haunt of the curious and suspicious type, and in the 19th was the home of several criminal gangs. The most fascinating was an all female crime syndicate who specialised in shoplifting and who existed for over a 100 years, 40 Elephants. A side hustle was blackmail and extortion, as you do.

In the 19th century, the 40 Elephant ladies were able to turn social mores distinctly to their advantage. The same outfits which were designed to conceal a scandalous bare ankle could also be cunningly deployed to conceal frocks, hats and scarves. And as they used their ill-gotten gains to ‘look the part’ in high end joints such as Selfridges, no one really questioned them when they came out of a changing room. They were also able to flout social mores in other ways, by supporting their husbands who were often idling away at home or weren’t quite as clever as the Elephants and ended up in prison. 

Unlike many unruly male gangs, 40 Elephants was a tightly run and neatly organised cell of gangs that operated out of E&C but extended beyond our fair area. Apart from shoplifting, the Elephants undertook daring and ferocious daytime raids which terrified both shopowners and customers. When they were not working clandestinely they would descend en masse on large stores and ransack the place, causing chaos and confusion by entering and leaving through various doors. The Elephants would escape on foot or later by fast cars, and if apprehended wouldn’t think twice about putting up a fight as formidable as any man. 

In the 20th century the most notable ‘Queen’ of the gang was Annie Diamond, below, who was raised in Lambeth Workhouse and was reportedly given the name for a predilection for punching police officers while wearing several diamond rings. She was also known for her ingenuity, for instance the gang never wore the clothes they nicked, but instead bought flashy new threads to minimise detection. While not punching officers, Diamond and her gang threw lavish parties with endless champagne and, in all likelihood, freebies liberated from Harrods. Some would call them entrepreneurs in a time when women had few options, others would call them criminals who frightened people. Either way, 40 Elephants knew how to take care of themselves. 

If you want to find out more about 40 Elephants, a very interesting YouTube clip can be found here. If that hasn’t calmed you down there is even a very posh bar called 40 Elephants in, believe it or not, Great Scotland Yard. 

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Paul Gambaccini @ Cinema Museum

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On Sunday 30 April the first granddaddy of pop, the award winning Paul Gambaccini, will be interviewed at the Cinema Museum on a one off night called ‘Desert Island Flicks’. So instead of talking about his passion for tunes, he’ll be chin wagging away about the movies that made him the DJ he is today and why he cares passionately about films. This will be presented in an interview format with film clips and a chance to ask questions to the great man at the end.  And there’s a bar…

In case you’re not in the loop, the Cinema Museum is housed in the former administration block of Lambeth Workhouse, which we wrote about in 2019.   The building would have been the dropping off place for a destitute Charlie Chaplin and his mum and many others on hard times, but for the past 24 years has served as HQ to the museum. The museum has a packed collection of film related ephemera including posters, projectors, scary mannequins, scripts, costumes and lights. Your ticket to this talk will allow you to whiz through some of the museum, which is rarely open to the public. It’s like being dropped into particularly tense episode of Scooby Doo*.

Paul Gambaccini’s ‘Desert Island Flicks’ is on Sunday, 30 April at 19:30, with the doors flying open at 18:30, and tickets can be purchased here. As it’s a couple of weeks away don’t forget to put it in that sparkly pocket diary that we’ve been nagging you good lot to buy for a number of years now. Did we mention there’s a bar? 

* If you’re too young enough to get this reference please ask your parents. 

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Greater Kennington’s Greatest Occult Painter

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The eccentric and independent nature of Greater Kenningtonians runs deep in our history and veins. In our midst we once had living a visionary artist who was cast out by the artistic establishment due to his refusal to accept to artistic norms and being from south London. Maybe this piece will go a small way in reviving his legacy. 

Austin Osman Spare (1886 – 1956) and his family moved to Kennington Park Gardens when he was a boy and Spare trained as an illustrator and artist. He got his first big break when he was just 17 with an exhibit at Newington Public Library (now the Art Academy) in Walworth Road. He followed this success with having a picture displayed at the Royal Academy, and was soon lauded as the new enfant terrible of his generation. This was spurred on by Spare’s wild hair and love of giving outrageous interviews. 

In spite of his increasing fame, Spare decided to pursue his own style which proved increasingly out of step with the art establishment. He dabbled into the furthest reaches of his imagination with coded paintings and illustrations depicting the unconscious, the occult, graphic images of sex, and paganism. Spare achieved this by painting in what he referred to as trance like states enhanced by mysticism. You can imagine his body of work was not exactly in step with post Victorian tastes as he was far ahead of his time and was marginalised as a result.

Unsurprisingly, as Spare’s art was not to everyone’s tastes he faded into obscurity and penury. However, our local boy continued to give interviews and churn out work from his tiny flat/studio at the top of Walworth Rd. He believed that art should be enjoyed by everyone, and he often displayed his art in local pubs. After his studio was bombed in WW2, Spare lost much of his collection and confidence and began to build up both gradually. The culminated in a large exhibition of his work at his local, the White Bear pub in Kennington Park Road in 1953. When this turned out to be a flop he retired and died several years later. What we are left with is his groundbreaking oeuvre of work and a realisation that we can all leave impressions after we’ve departed Greater Kennington. 

The best way to appreciate Spare’s work today is to examine online collections, as his work is still usually not on display. He also had an endearing side hustle in painting his friends and neighbours. The BBC clip below relates to a 2010 exhibit of his work at the Cuming Museum: 

Manor Place Baths

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From the archives, the first edition of our month of best of history posts

From Baths to Boxing to Buddhism

Victorians are well known for many things. We know they were sanctimonious and strived to make our minds pure, and the natural progression was to have clean bodies and clothes,  so for the health and hygiene of all the mortal bodies of Walworth, in 1895 work got underway to create Manor Place Baths. In addition to offering showers, it also had three swimming pools, private changing cubicles and large do it yourself laundry facilities. Think of it as kind of a Victorian water park.

Over the years the Baths became more of a community centre and also a place for people to obtain a bit of privacy in an era where privacy was at a premium. Women could trade children’s clothes, men could catch up in the men’s pool, and even children could come along. As the pools weren’t heated and our Greater Kennington forebears didn’t fancy losing their toes to frostbite, the men’s and women’s pools were covered over with wooden flooring in the wintertime, which gave said forebears a brilliant idea……Use it in the winter as a boxing venue. 

Manor Place saw its first bout in 1908 and went on to host a roll-call of the famous and infamous, including the Kray twins. It became so well known that when the BBC began to broadcast boxing they chose our little Baths as their first venue. For more than 40 years, The Metropolitan Borough of Southwark’s Charity Boxing Committee organised the bouts, which saw the cream of the boxing world come to Walworth, giving locals the chance to see top-flight, professional boxing on their own doorstep

Fast forward to the 1970’s. By then the now sadly extinct Heygate Estate had been built and most people had their own bathrooms. Domestic labour saving washing machines were now commonplace and those who didn’t found that newly opened laundrettes would do quite nicely. The final nail in coffin of Manor Place came when the new Elephant and Castle Leisure Centre opened in 1972, which put into sharp focus just how deteriorated and outdated Manor Place had become.

Later in life our Baths were used as offices for Southwark Council and later rented out by a Buddhist organisation for use as a meditation facility. It was purchased by Notting Hill Housing Trust in 2017 and it is currently being developed into market rate flats and ‘affordable’ housing. The reason this is taking so long is that the building is, thank baby Jesus, Grade II listed and Notting Hill have to be very careful as to how it is adapted. 

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Always Be Comedy – Tommyfield

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Did you know that we have a top flight comedy night  right here in Greater Kennington? It’s called Always be Comedy, and is a favourite here at Runoff Towers after a stressful day of faxing and stapling . It takes place upstairs at the Tommyfield pub and is MC’ed by the effervescent James Gill. In addition to the comedy, James lays on fun games such as ‘who has the posher name’ (no mean feat with that lot)

On previous outings we’ve seen the likes of Mo Gilligan, Harry Hill, Joe Lycett, Katherine Ryan, Russell Howard, Romesh Ranganathan, Josh Widdecombe (whoops – better pick up those names we just dropped!), all for  £12. And some before they became famous.  The only trick is you need to be quick off the mark, and also some are billed as ‘secret’ so it is probably a good idea to be on their mailing list. And if you’ve never heard of the comedian, you might discover somebody new and only exerted a walk over and stumble back from Kennington Cross in the process. 

The crowd at ABC makes you feel a bit like you’ve stumbled across an audition for the next season of ‘The Apprentice’, but if you can move beyond that (and the pricey pints) then it’s a fun night. If you plan to make a night of it, for food we would give the Tommyfield a miss and suggest the excellent Korean/Japanese joint ‘Kuma’ a few doors down. ABC also do a night in Wandsworth, but that isn’t Greater Kennington so who cares.

There are people with actual full heads of hair at these shows

Mary Wollstonecraft in Greater Kennington

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Several parts of UK lay claim to the legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft. The  philosopher, writer, visionary, feminist and mother left tracks in Spitalfields, Yorkshire and there is a blue plaque in her honour just outside Greater Kennington. What is less reported is that she spent a number of her formative years living in Walworth, just off the Walworth Road.

By the mid to late 18th century what is now Elephant & Castle and Walworth became fashionable with the middle classes as it was surrounded by market gardens and provided easy access to the City. The result of moving around (and being female) meant that Mary was denied a systematic education, and this was the groundwork for her ultimate life defining work, ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’. But living in our area made her more curious about the world around her, to the consternation of her father. 

In 1775 Mary was introduced to the Blood family who lived in Newington Butts. Her friend Fanny Blood evolved into an inspiration for Mary and over the next decade inspired her unconventional life. Mary managed to remain close to Fanny for a period until life with her father became too unbearable, and her mother found her lodgings at the home of translator Thomas Taylor in Manor Place, Walworth. 

After an abbreviated life of writing and advocacy Mary died at 38 and left a number of unfinished manuscripts and pieces of work. She also left a 11 year old daughter Mary Shelly, who would go on to write ‘Frankenstein’ when she was just 21. For over a century Mary’s personal life overshadowed her achievements in a manner that would not have happened if she was a man.

A few artefacts of Mary’s era exist in the Cuming Museum (which we wrote about in 2020) at the Walworth Heritage Centre a stone’s throw from her previous abode. Among them is a calling card that Mary left for the Cuming family. If you do happen to find yourself on Walworth Rd imbuing your life with the legacy of Wollstonecraft, we recommend that you take a break by visiting the yummy Shawarma Hut. The history books are unclear as to whether Mary herself actually dined at Shawarma Hut, but we like to think that she would have.

The Currency in Newport St.

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When Time Out, or as we like to call it, ‘that listings site from a bygone era’ described the new show at Newport Street Gallery as ‘stupid, lazy, arrogant, crap art’ we knew we had to get over there as soon as possible.  This very controversial show is called ‘The Currency’ by Damien Hirst and features 10,000 of his dot paintings in several eras of existence. These range from physical paintings to photocopies and then cinder, as the artworks are torched on the first floor. 

For people not aware of Mr. Hirst’s oeuvre, he has spent a large amount of his career preserving dead animals in formaldehyde, sticking diamonds of skulls, and exterminating flies. We reviewed a previous show at Newport in October, 2020.  An abiding theme of Hirst is the repetitive nature of objects and their cycle from inception, to life, to being fetishized and worshiped, and eventual meaningless demise. 

Hirst’s interest in the repetitive nature of dots is well established, and last year he gave 10,000 people the option to buy an NFT .jpg dot painting for £2000. The NFT could then be traded for an original 8×10 work. About half the punters traded it for an original and the remaining suckers  folks stuck with the NFT option. It is these physical works which are on display in monumental floor to ceiling displays and ultimately dispatched into ashen bits above Vauxhall.  

The exhibit is peppered with TV screens featuring live footage of the works being prepped and torched. When the fires aren’t on, there are clips of Mr. Hirst in conversation with actually responsible people such as former Bank of England boss Mark Carney and Stephen Fry, with topics ranging from the absurdity of the art market to the meaningless value of money. Try telling that to the single mum who can’t heat her home at the moment. But we digress. 

Damien Hirst: The Currency is on now until 30 October and is free. Even if you find the theme distasteful, the exhibition itself is quite thought provoking as the paintings/photocopies begin to incrementally disappear. There is also a great gift shop. The fact that over the past 12 months the NFT market has crashed is just a side giggle. However, we at the Runoff would never capitalise of personal loss as that would make us no better than a Florist. 

Kennington Tandoori

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We recently visited local stalwart Kennington Tandoori for a bit of North Indian action. We always had a soft spot for KT before it went all swishy a few years back, so our visit this time was to ascertain value for money. 

Your scribe started with four Momos (think Himalayan gyoza) filled with chicken and a very spicy and pleasing dip.  My dining partner modestly proclaims themselves to be an *coughs* onion bhaji connoisseur, describing their starter as ‘first class’. They were huge (were talking tennis balls) which gave them a great chew offset with external crunch. It was also served with a delightful hot sauce. And to soak up our mains we had an Afghan naan with onion seed hot out of their on-site tandoor. 

  • Tennis, anyone?

For the mains your scribe consumed the king prawn bhuna which consisted of four huge prawns in a tomato sauce with caramelised onion. There were added chilies for a kick with a very well measured amount of kaffir lime leaves. My dining partner felt a bit disappointed with their aubergine and potato masala mains, describing it as a bit bland and not well seasoned. However, this was compensated by the tarka dhal with its rich, warm spices. And of course the Cobra beers just emerged after each course, but we can’t imagine why.

  • Prawn
  • Aubergine

As with so many restaurants, KT is one that appears full even when it isn’t. When our food took a while we initially queried this but when we witnessed the volume of ‘Just Eat’ bags going in and out we realised that much of their custom is virtual, so prepare yourself.  Other than the helmet clad couriers the crowd is a good mix of younger and older locals.  On a visit a few years ago we had the sublime honour (or horror, depending on your persuasion) of sitting between no less than Anne Widdecombe and Ken Clarke. We can’t guarantee that your visit will reach such giddying heights/lows, but you are within the division bell so you never know.  

Is it good value for money? We would err on the side of nearby Ghandi’s, but if variety is what you are after it’s a good change. 

Paladar

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The extremely hip restaurant ‘Paladar’ has been on our radar since it opened in 2018 but our attempts to review the place have been consistently rebuffed by Runoff senior management.  They’ve alternately stated that it’s too expensive, that it’s not technically in Greater Kennington, and then tried to maliciously insinuate that we weren’t ‘hip enough’. When they relented last week we grabbed our chance. 

Paladar is a Latin American fusion restaurant in St. George’s Circus near Elephant & Castle/Lambeth North. The restaurant doubles as an art space, and on our visit featured work by Ecuadorean artist Ulises Valarezo. The crowd is more West End chic than we would expect in these parts, and in fact we were sat next to ‘Leave a Light On’ pop star Tom Walker and loads of people laughing while flicking their hair. 

  • Pork belly
  • Lettuce hearts

The menu is, you guessed it, sharing plates and five items served two people just fine. We were served by a precise, chirpy and professionally drilled service staff who knew quite a bit about what they were serving and actually spoke Spanish to one another.  Highlights were  texture rich tuna tartare tostadas accompanied by a fragrant salsa which  reminded us ever so slightly of a delicious, yet expensive, hand soap. The pork belly tacos had an interesting Chinese crispy duck sticky quality and were wrapped in lettuce leaves as opposed to a tortilla. On the veggie front, we enjoyed compelling, deep fried tapioca croquettes which were savory but just verging on being sweet. We also indulged on chargrilled lettuce hearts with a nut based topping.

Croquettes and Tuna

It is rather amazing that restaurants such as Paladar survived the Covid maelstrom, which partially explains why they send you about a dozen confirmation emails after booking. With a bottle of wine the total bill came to £84 which is by no means cheap but it will teach the management team a thing or two before they accuse us of being less than cool. Money well spent even if you don’t get the chance to sit next to a minor pop star in a bobble hat. 

Paladar also sell South American wines in their adjacent wine shop.  We enjoyed a divine £26 Montes Colchagua Valley Merlot which was less than a tenner more than was going in the shop.