This first-person account by a life-long local from East London tickled me so much that I had to share it with you here. Featured in the Australian magazine, Smith Journal, Volume 5. I adore this older gentleman, Joseph Markovitch.
~Joseph Markovitch, 85, has lived in Hoxton for his entire life~
Photo by Martin Usborne
Fixed Address
Writers: Martin Usborne, Andrew Breitenberg, Carlie Armstrong, Baden Pailthorpe
~Hoxton, East London~~Joseph Markovitch, 85, has lived in Hoxton for his entire life~
I was born right by Old Street roundabout on January 1, 1927. Some of the kids used to beat me up - but in a friendly way. Hoxton was full of characters in those days. The mayor was called Mr Brooks and he was also a chimney sweep.
When I was a kid everyone was a cockney. Now it's a real mix. You never know who you'll meet. I think it's a good thing: makes it more interesting, don't it?
Did you know that I stand still when I get trouble with my chest? Well, last Saturday a woman come up to me and said, "Are you OK?" and I said, "Why?" She said, "Because you are standing still." I said, "Oh." She said she comes from Italy and her husband is Scots-Canadian, and you know what? She wanted to help me! Then I dropped a 20-pound note on a bus. A foreign man - I think he was Dutch or French - said, "You've dropped a 20-pound note." English people don't do that because they have betting habits. They take your 20 pound and go put it on the horses. I think it's great people are all mixed up.
We used to have cabinetmakers and tailors and music halls. Now we have a big stadium. I'm not sure about it. There's a man I know, and his son helped build the Olympics. Now the son is redundant. They make people redundant when they don't want them no more. Once something's done, it's done.
I worked two years as a cabinetmaker in Hemsworth Street just off Hoxton Market. But when my sinuses got bad I went to Hackney Road, putting rivets on luggage cases. For about 20 years I did that job. My foreman was a bastard. Apart from that it was OK. But if I was clever, very clever, then I would have liked to be an accountant. It's a very good job. And if I was less heavy...you know what I'd like to be? I'd like to be a ballet dancer. That would be my dream. But I know what I definitely do not want to be is a funeral director. What a terrible job! Or what about those people that study the stars. That's a very good job. I'm interested in the universe. In how things began and what's out there on other planets and lumps of energy that are millions of miles away. It's more interesting than rivets. If a meteor landed in Hoxton Square, you think anyone could survive?
I find all the modern art very strange. I'm not used to things I don't understand; things what ain't paintings. I like the old paintings. I'm interested in Renaissance - you know what that is? Things what are ancient. Anything between 100 and 300 years old. I also like things that are produced by Picasso, people like that. Toulouse-Lautrec. He was not too bad, but he had an unhappy life. Do you know that Tracey Emin? She lived around here. You know that she stopped a skyscraper being built in Hoxton Square. I'd have liked to meet her.
I've never had a girlfriend. It's better that way. I have always had very bad catarrh so it wasn't possible. That's the thing, my health. And I had to look after my mother. Anyway, if I was married I would have been domineered all my life by a girl and that ain't good for nobody's health. I'm too old for that now. I would have liked to have had girlfriend but it's OK. I've had a happy life. I've seen the horse and cart: I've seen the camera invented: I've seen the projector. I never starved - that's the main thing.
Photo by Martin Usborne
The most important thing I own is my keys. And my bus pass. And my belt. You see, if you lose a cigarette or a pound coin you replace it. But if you lose your keys then you're left outside. And you can't get home because you've got no bus pass. And they won't let you on the bus if your trousers have fallen down. This is important stuff, you know.
Computers can start wars if you're not careful. You press the wrong button and a bomb goes off. In my time, if a woman wrote on a typewriter and she pressed the wrong key she just took the paper out and put in the basket. Now you press a button and the whole economy collapses. It's not right. And doctors...they don't look at you, they just look at a screen. The thing is, people are meant to be more efficient. But they're not. I still got sent the wrong glasses.
If I try, I can imagine the future. It's like watching a film. Pavements will move, nurses will be robots and cars will get smaller and grow wings...you've just got to wait. They will make photographs that talk. You will look at a picture of me and will hear me say, "Hello, I'm Joseph Markovitch," and then it will be me telling you about things. Imagine that! I also have an idea that in about 50 years Hoxton Square will have a new market with an amazing plastic rain cover. So if it rains the potatoes won't get wet. I don't know what they will sell. Maybe bowler hats. Nothing much changes around here in the end.
Photo by Martin Usborne
