Our November talk

"If someone can draw it, I can make it" – our November talk, by theatrical costumier Laura Holland

It wasn't a conventional start. Academically-inclined, in an ambitious school, Laura Holland was steered away from needlework towards a classics degree. She went on to work in business. 

But she was a competent needlewoman, making her own clothes. She left business to put herself through a costume course at London College of Fashion, at 30, without a needlework A level. Tutor Willie Burt gave Laura a chance. She learned how to cut and make costume, mask-making, corsetry, hats, 3D, photography, soft tailoring, dyeing, breaking down – everything that goes into a costume. The idea was that if you were posted to a remote theatre, you could do everything.

In her second year, she had to do work experience. She wrote to the big theatres. Nothing. So she made peasant blouses for a Cambridge theatre. A call came from the National Theatre. They had Judi Dench in a scene where her character cut up velvet on set. Laura's job was to piece it back together and overlock it. Laura expected to hear no more, worked on her final college piece, a Spanish court dress (pictured top). Then another call from the National Theatre, a few days' work a week and enough contacts to keep her in work for 28 years, at a number of theatres.

Willie Burt, to whom Laura owed a huge debt of gratitude, died of AIDS in 1994. Laura was told that she was his legacy.

We heard about the process: the theatre calls, says there's a costume to make and explains what it's like. They want a quote, then the measurements and the design come in for the cloth. Laura cuts the pattern, using an existing  block (cutout shape of the actor) or making a new one. For eight to ten costumes in a show, there are often eight makers; Phantom of the Opera had one designer and over 300 makers. 

Making costumes is like couture, 30% of it by hand. Most people are freelance, most theatres, and Angel's, have a workroom or workrooms for male and female costumes, some male staff ex Savile Row. Theatres' costume departments are at the top of the building so costumes have to be carried high – though three recent theatres have been built without costume departments.

Costumes are made with only a little wearing ease, though more allowance is made for physical performances. A lot of actors are interested in costume because it helps them with their character. Once used, costumes are reused, stored, altered, donated or recycled. Laura wondered what had happened to the shirts she had made for Regent's Park Theatre – then saw them on a washing line in Merry Wives of Windsor.

Laura passed around pictures of her work. There was a question about working with vague designs – Laura replied that she had had designs on the back of an envelope. Some designers like things to evolve. There are transformations: Laura prides herself on having made a man pregnant for a production short of women.

How much freedom does she have with a design? She did once design a leather jacket for a production but it's the part of the process after designers hand over that she finds most interesting.

Laura specialised in shirts for a while, in demand because of her finishing. She would be sent a bolt of linen. A question the origin of 'bolt' got a guess: that it was to do with the lead seals attached for bonded warehouses.

What sewing machine does Laura use? A Bernina 1090, a 1080 and a knee lift for the needle. 

Is an actor ever unhappy? If the designer and director are happy, that's it – but designers can have their own exacting standards. 

Does Laura get tickets? To dress rehearsals, yes but not the performance itself.

The best paid work is alterations, at £12-15 per hour. Making is £8-10 per hour. Film is better-paid but with long hours. Laura has also done TV work, a couple of ads, even documentaries for a friend who went on to do Egyptology. She got a call from Butlins to make costumes for Redcoats. Pantomime dames sometimes supply their own costumes, or only the main pantomime costumes are worked on.

What is Laura's favourite costume to make? Corsets, for dramatic effect. Most of her work is on period costume – she has enjoyed a recent job making Roman costumes for kids performing in the Roman theatre at the Guildhall. 

Costume is a tough career – you're only as good as your last job. Contacts fell through during the Pandemic and Laura's work included wedding dress alterations, a common segue from costume. Now, Laura teaches on Saturdays and works on commissions. 

Regrets? Laura did consider having her own workroom but making costumes for a tour of Riverdance that involved getting in people felt like being in the City.

Even Laura's outfit for the evening was her work, the jacket made from four pashminas, the skirt knitted on waits in journeys. 

A big East End WI thank-you to Laura for a fascinating talk. Find out more about her work here. (The logo on the website is by Lydia.)

Thanks also to Nigel Macmillan at Ayoka Charity Shop for lending us a mannequin for the talk.

Monthly meet-up for coffee: Friday 28th November, meet at 10.30 - 11.00, Oxford House Café

Derbyshire Street, Bethnal Green E2 6HG. Oxford House is accessible and like St Margaret's House, was founded as a settlement. 

Our November walk

Our November walk – a journey through local history

In place of an outdoor walk route, this month's walkers took a turn through time, visiting The Geezers' History Roadshow to explore its displays and stalls about Old Ford and Bow.

Fancy joining us for a walk or a visit? Look out for our next coming up blogpost.

With thanks to Carolyn Clark for event pictures top, second row right and above; and to Christine for pictures second row left and third row. 

Coming up in November

Theatrical costume, local history and coffee with heritage – coming up in November

Saturday 8th November

Our monthly walk – well, visit...

Instead of our monthly walk, we thought it might be fun to visit The Geezers' history roadshow at Bow Idea Store, 1 Gladstone Place, Roman Road E3 5EF (meet at the entrance at 11.00).

On Our Bow, The Geezers write: 'This will have a large exhibition about the history of Old Ford, a chance to find out more about the street where you live, the Geezers’ film show, the East London History Society stall and other history stalls, and an art workshop from 2pm until 4pm about the market. There will be refreshments available from 12pm.'

Thursday 20th November

Monthly Meeting – Laura Holland, theatrical costumier

7pm for 7.30 at St Margaret’s House, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL, entrance via the gate to the left. (If you’re joining us for the first time, feel free to email us and someone will meet you at the entrance on Old Ford Road.)

Laura will talk us through how a costume comes to be, from drawing to final costume, with a real example to look at on the mannequin. This will be followed by a quick gallop through Laura's career, with photographs – and if there's time, a little gossip on performers (and others) Laura has worked with.

Pictured here is the costume Laura has have made most recently: Columbine (Harlequin's partner) from Comedia dell' Arte. 

Picture from Laura Holland

Friday 28th November 

Monthly meet-up for coffee

Meet at 10.30 - 11.00, Oxford House Café, Derbyshire Street, Bethnal Green E2 6HG

For some of us this will be a return visit to an EEWI favourite; for others, a new venue.

An intro to Oxford House from its website: 'Oxford House is a community arts and heritage charity based in Bethnal Green. From being founded as a settlement house for University of Oxford graduates in 1884 to serving as the campaigning hub for anti-racist and anti-fascist activism in the 1970s, our history is as vast and diverse as the communities we serve.'

Our October coffee morning

Coffee and chat at Café Crème

Heather writes:

"5 of us made it on a lovely, sunny (but chilly) day to the friendly (and very reasonably priced) Café Crème. Only after I had left, had nipped into Ideastore, had an eye-opening trip to a "well known" bargain emporium with Tammy and set off home did I recall that we had not taken a photo! ... Lots of the usual good cheer and chat: having the builders in; reminiscences of bygone EEWI sessions; what/not to see on TV or at the cinema; the news from Wales; benefits of joining the WI Wanderers; travel adventures including Littlehampton, setting off to cycle in The Forest and so much more. Bet you wish you had been there! Still had time for health updates, encouragement and understanding; unsolicited advice, and good wishes for all our members – present or otherwise occupied today. Café Crème well worth revisiting." 

Fancy joining us for our coffee morning? Look out for our next coming up blogpost.

Illustration by Lydia

Our October talk

The Queen Bees – our October talk by Esther Coles

The Queen Bees is a podcast by Esther Coles, our October speaker, with her friend Jane Horrocks. Also at our meeting were producer Claire, a friend and former patient of our president Sally, and her daughter Eve. Claire had introduced Jane Horrocks to Esther after she had suggested making a podcast about her bee-keeping project in lockdown, as Jane had an allotment nearby. The podcast ran for three years and guests included Paul Whitehouse. They currently promote the podcast and bee welfare through talks, recently at Somerset House and Kew Gardens, and workshops in candle rolling and candle dipping.

This month, bees are seeking out ivy, the last nectar source of the year, so plentiful that it can make enough honey to store through winter. The ivy bee, which lives in tiny burrows in the ground and eats only ivy pollen at this time of year, is being out-competed by honey bees. There is a movement towards replacing European honey bees with British black bees, which produce less honey but are smaller, sturdier and well adapted to our natural climate.

When bees collect pollen they get it all over their body hairs, groom it off and put it in their knee pockets to take home, They also eat it, secreted as wax to build the cells. In early spring, one of the main jobs for bees is to collect water from puddles. They also circle the hive and cool it with their wings.

Honey bee keeping became popular cities, particularly in London through a campaign called Plan Bee, led by the Co-Op sixteen years ago, which is how Esther got started. There are now too many hives and too many honey bees for the forage available.

Esther advised us not to buy squeezy honey from the supermarket – it is watered down with sugar syrup for mass production – but to look for local honey instead. Esther's honey, from her Crouch End hives, had a distinct, delicious lime flavour from her local linden trees. 

We tried Zandax honey from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, which had a strong smell of caramel. Arbutus honey had a bitter flavour and a smell that some thought like disinfectant – it is being tested on cancer cells. Honey has historical uses in medicine, usually as antibacterial dressing for wounds. Sally had seen this in action, and said that while it's incredibly effective, it also stings a lot. Esther mixes a bit of honey with vodka when she has a sore throat. 

There was also a jar of propolis – the glue that sticks the hive together. This too has antibacterial properties. 

Esther explained the structure and use of the hive and the spinning machine used to pour out the honey from all of the frames at once. We heard about common practices to maximise production and things Esther allows – swarms, and wax moths, considered an infestation but in the wild they help clear out the wax in the hive without hurting the bees. 

Esther's local gathering place for bees is the Alexandra Palace golf course. The drones and queens meet for mating in late summer, before late August - September when the drones are dragged outside by the workers and killed before winter. 

Through winter, the colony forms a ball around the queen to keep her warm and the beekeeper needs to check and rearrange frames to keep them close to the bee ball in winter. 

Once fertilised, the queen produces around two thousand eggs a day. The larvae hatch in their cells and are fed by the workers before being shut inside with a wax plug to transform into a bee. A worker bee’s first job is to clean out the wax from its cell, ready for another egg. In summer the life cycle of a bee is about thirty-six days. The queens can live up to eight years, although most professional beekeepers kill their queens after two years, when their egg production slows.

Bees can produce new queen cells simply because they don't seem to like the current queen, or they produce multiple queens, usually because the colony is too big: they swarm to increase odds of survival while looking for a new site. 

Bees may ball around an unpopular queen and overheat her until she dies, or a new queen may challenge her. During the fight, the other bees will produce a high piping sound. When queens die accidentally, beekeepers can allow an 'emergency queen' to develop or order one through the post. Signs of a declining or unpopular queen can be increased aggression – if bees are flying around you near your eyes, ears, mouth or nose, or in your hair, they are considering sensitive areas to sting you and you should inform your local beekeeper. Esther had an aggressive hive in an allotment area that she had to rehome.

A hive has a shared pheromone for identification, though bees separated from their colony are sometimes allowed to join another if they give a snack of pollen to the guard drones. The hive is very dark inside. The bees communicate, usually about the best new sources of pollen, by standing on the combs and waggling their legs about, producing vibrations. They will argue, drowning each other out, secreting stronger pheromone or pushing each other off the combs. 

The Queen Bees is available on Apple Podcasts. 

And perfectly timed for our talk, our member Christine had received in some change that morning a new pound coin – featuring honey bees.

A big buzz of thanks from East End WI for a fascinating (and delicious) talk with a chance to try some candle-rolling.

Thanks also to Hannah for this month’s notes and to Christine and Heather for pictures.

Our monthly coffee morning and meet-up – Café Crème

Friday 24th October, 10.30-11.00, 566 Roman Rd, Bow, London E3 5ES, bus routes 339, 276, 488 or No.8.

It's back to one of our favourites this month. The welcome is always so warm here.

Our October walk

 

A Whitechapel walk seasoned with stories

We had a map: one of Graham Barker's East End walks packed with interest. We also brought our stories – family tales, childhood memories and the places we've called home. 

We paused at the Albion Yard brewery, its cobbles still ready for dray horses. We looked up at The Blind Beggar's pub signs, through the railings of the Trinity Green almshouses and we were treated to a peek into a hidden row of cottages where there were glorious Autumn colours. 

We heard the story of the Spiegelhalter jewellery shop punctuating what was once Wickham's department store. There were the two statues, facing each other, of William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army. Across the way, the passageway in to East End institution Rinkoff bakery and the gates where Captain Cook set off. 

Towards Stepney Green we admired a ghost sign and walked on to Dunstan House, once home to the marvellously named anarchist Rudolph Rocker. Then, the clock tower commemorating Stanley Atkinson, local councillor and guardian of the poor, and a water fountain with a touching tribute to Leonard Montefiore.

A walk through Stepney City Farm (its goats striking a pose) led us to St Dunstan's and All Saints Church, the church of the high seas. At the pretty Mercers' Cottages, we had fascinating insights from one of the residents on their layout and history, social housing for over 300 years.

On, then, to our final stop for the day, the Ragged School Museum's café.

Fancy joining us for a walk? Look out for our next coming up blogpost.

Coming up in October

 

Steps in Stepney, Queen Bees and a warm welcome – coming up in October

Our monthly walk – Whitechapel to Mile End

Saturday 11th September, meet at 11.00 outside Whitechapel Station (the old entrance on Mile End Road)

Though close to home for many of us, Graham Barker’s route reveals some fascinating facts about the area. A copy of the route and info can be found here.  

Our monthly meeting – meet the Queen Bees

Thursday 16th October, 7pm for 7.30pm at St Margaret’s House, 21 Old Ford Road, London E2 9PL, entrance via the gate to the left. (If you’re joining us for the first time, feel free to email us and someone will meet you at the entrance on Old Ford Road.)

Queen Bees is a passionate initiative dedicated to educating adults about the fascinating world of bees through interactive workshops and engaging talks.

Their sessions are designed to inspire and inform, covering essential topics such as:

• The vital role of bees in ecosystems
• Pollination and its impact on food production
• How individuals and communities can support bee populations
• Sustainable beekeeping practices

...and these busy bees are going to teach us the art of rolling beeswax candles.

Our monthly coffee morning and meet-up – Café Crème

Friday 24th October, 10.30-11.00, 566 Roman Rd, Bow, London E3 5ES, bus routes 339, 276, 488 or No.8.

It's back to one of our favourites this month. The welcome is always so warm here.