By Eithne Cullen

This month, we continue with our theme of misunderstandings and I’ve selected quite a mix of pieces for you. But I’ll start with a little explanation of my thoughts.

During Lockdown, I had the pleasure of attending some online creative writing sessions. The programme (facilitated by Claire Steele and Carole Pluckrose and supported by Pen to Print) was called ‘Love Letters To The World.’ it was a very collaborative writing process, using ideas generated between the participants. One of the common threads was the inclusion of place names from Barking and Dagenham and I was fascinated by the ones they chose.

If you don’t know the area, you might be surprised to learn that the history of this Outer London Borough was tied up with the river: important for trading (Barking Creek), and the access it gave to traders and the sea via the Thames Estuary. Funnily enough, many people wouldn’t know this, but there are plenty of clues to this history in the names of places around the area. You’ll find references in pub names: The Pilot, The Ship, The Merchant, The Army And Navy, The Moby Dick, The Anchor And Hope… and more besides. You’ll see references in place names: Whalebone Lane, Freshwater Road, Fleet Road, Quay Road, Fresh Wharf… to name but a few.

If you didn’t know the places, you might think Barking and Dagenham are two seaside towns and here’s where the misunderstanding crept in. On several occasions, when the call was joined by people all over the country, writers responded to the prompts, describing the places purely on name. Someone who didn’t know Whalebone Lane as a busy traffic thoroughfare wrote about it as a fabulous seaside place, with the smell of salt in the air and spray coming off the tides. It was beautiful and not the only example of how place names can lead us up a different stream of thought; up the creek, you might say.

If you do get along to the waterfront in Barking, you’ll find a thriving community space called The Boathouse, which has many connections with Pen to Print and Write On! magazine. Its director, Carole Pluckrose, is proud of how she’s built it up to become an important arts and community space. I was lucky to be part of the celebrations when The Boathouse turned ten. Carole wrote this poem for the celebration and she references the history of the area and the influence of the river and the sea on the lives of the people who lived and worked around there. I’m glad to be able to share it here.

We’re All Passers By

A poem written on the occasion of The Boathouse 10th Anniversary 2024

And the river has its own song, doesn’t it?
Here where we gather, let me take you back,
Back to the 1860s
Six sail makers,
Five mast, pump and block makers,
Five shipwrights and boat builders
Four rope and line makers….
Four marine store dealers,
Four slop-sellers.
Two ships chandlers,
Makers of ship’s biscuits, sea boots, kegs, casks and nets.
And still the river, always the river.
And the Short Blue Fleet set out to the North Sea
With its orphan fisher boys
Many not to return.
And still the river, always the river.
And the Irish weavers and spinners who came,
reddening their fingers at the Jute works
right here on Fisher Street,
With their plaid shawls and braided hair
And the army of women sewing sacks at home.
And still the river, always the river.
150 years breathed in a beat
The smacks gone, the Creek quietened
Factories rise and fall
Detritus, explosion and stink
And still the river, always the river
And one way or other the boats and the houses,
The artist dwellers on the waters.
And dear Johnny, the guitar singing boat whisperer.
The anchor.
A grin as broad as the creek itself,
At one with the elements.
Gone.
And still the river, always the river.
A new century fresh with hope.
Olympic promises
Rooff *
And then to the Boathouse
All to play for in the changing days
And play we did and hard.
The crew steers, more or less,
Forecast watching.
The storms have their own rhythm.
Passengers hop on and off
On their way to wherever they dream of.
Water and flow,
The boat is a home,
The house is a shelter,
Then and now converge in one space
Ghosts sing of the past
Children sing of the future.
Water sustains us.
And still the river, always the river.
Present laughter springs again in the walls,
And the empty spaces belong to whichever passer-by
Chooses to imagine, add their voice, their melody,
Their mark for a moment
Or a lifetime.
And so it is with the river of life
And the stories we tell and the stories our children’s children will tell.
And the rites we share and will continue to share
Here in this magical space.
And still the river, always the river.

* Rooff is the name of the company that owns the building.

© Carole Pluckrose, 2024

Thanks, Carole, for this evocative piece, which also shares the rhythm of the river and the life it brings.

Connect with the Boathouse Studios through their website: boathousebarkingstudios.com and connect with Carole on Instagram: @carolepluckrose

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On a similar, historical note, Danny Baxter shares a story of an event in Barking’s history from a hundred years ago.

Barking Revival

Most people are unaware this year is the centenary of a major Christian evangelistic outreach mission that happened in Barking, having a significant impact on the whole of East London. Dubbed by the local newspapers as the Barking Revival (aka The East London Revival), the event was held at the former Barking Bath Hall in the town square, in the form of a series of meetings taking place between 18th January to 15th February 1925.

Led by revivalist preacher, Steven Jefferys, it was reportedly attended by thousands, with hundreds being turned away at the doors at almost every meeting. Estimates of people converting to Christianity were put at around one thousand and many people were healed of various physical ailments and disabilities.

The newspapers go on to detail names and addresses of several people who professed they had been healed. From the mission event, six churches were founded, starting with the former building of Barking Elim Church. The newspaper articles are preserved on microfilm and held at the archive of Valence House Museum.

Barking Elim Church conducted an event on 18th January of this year, including a church service and an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Revival mission.

As part of my Barking Revival Project, I produced a design to be made into a flag to celebrate the centenary and also to make reference to Barking’s history and its current Regeneration drive. Barking Elim’s Pastor, Lloyd Cheshire and wife Joanne, have been extensively researching the revival as well and we have often found ourselves comparing notes. I was therefore delighted to present the church with their own print of the flag this Sunday – emblazoned with the Barking revival logo, as pictured below.

© Danny Baxter, 2025

Danny created some artwork to celebrate the event and has shared it with us.

 

Connect with Danny on Instagram: @dan_lbbd

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Next, we have Write On! regular, Vic Howard. Vic has been submitting pieces about his early life in Barking and Dagenham from the very start of the magazine, alongside stories about Sweden, where he now lives. This piece is all about misunderstanding – or, as he calls it, Misconception.

Misconception

What a lot of rot is written about Fika, which is the Swedish word for a coffee break. It’s often spoken of as being something unique to Sweden, which is a nonsense. I can’t think of any European country where people don’t stop for a morning coffee, or elevenses, or whatever it might be known as locally. Sweden does have coffee shops, generally known as Konditori, but these are getting lost in the maze of American-style coffee shop chains that operate complex coffee-making machines from Italy.

To an old-fashioned Swede (as I have become), a cup of coffee is slightly smaller than a teacup and is filled with a black liquid that looks like boot polish. Swedish coffee is strong and delicious and quite unlike the watered-down version Americans call coffee. Italian espresso is even stronger but usually served in thimble-size cups and would probably be better taken as an injection. I think you need to be born Italian to appreciate it fully.

Coffee has always been important to Swedes, just as tea was always important to the English before the invention of the 1950s-style coffee bar. Antiques shops and charity shops today are filled with second-hand coffee services of small cups, saucers and plates which were once prized by the grandmothers of today’s Generations XYZ, who prefer a large, hand-warming mug filled with what used to be called café au lait.

The ritual of the coffee party, kafferep, held by ladies of a certain age, meant coffee presented in small cups perched dangerously close to the edge of the table and a plate holding seven different cakes. The hostess was obliged to bake, never buy, seven different very small cakes and each guest was expected to take one of each. Cups were refilled frequently while conversation flowed and the tiny cakes consumed. Today’s giant cinnamon buns were uncommon.

The old-fashioned Konditori, of which there are few left today, were furnished with small tables and delicate chairs for ladies taking a rest from shopping in the city for a new hat. Taking coffee was a very civilised ritual. The cakes on offer were larger than the traditional seven but usually the same range in every Konditori: a Napolean (thick wedge of cream-centred wafer), a Weinabröd (better known in England as a Danish pastry), the Dammsugaren (which resembles a vacuum cleaner), and perhaps a small cinnamon bun.

But times change. The ladies who used to buy hats are no longer with us. The coffee cups are bigger and so are the cakes, along with people’s waistlines. Konditories have also grown and turned into shops that sell a range of coffees at outrageous prices. Elegance has gone out the window. Any surviving coffee drinker of the old school is thrown into confusion by the list of coffees that have odd names and don’t include a normal black, unless it is espresso. On a visit to London a few years ago, my dear wife called into a Starbucks for a coffee. She asked for a black coffee and the American waitress reeled off a list of coffee types including cappuccino, latté, American, etc. (Run on here.) “Or,” she added, “just a cup of black without milk?” 

“I’ll take the latter,” said my wife, who speaks perfect English. The American waitress, who didn’t understand English, gave her a latté.

I came to Sweden in my late 20s, so had become a fully-fledged Englishman before being confronted by Sweden and its peculiarities. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sweden for many reasons, but the average daily Swedish timetable for somebody who had spent many years working in laid-back London advertising agencies was impossible to accept.

For some reason I have never been able to fathom, Sweden likes to start work before the birds are awake and finish at around four pm. This means that any man who works in industry or wears blue overalls must go to bed at nine pm in order to get eight hours’ sleep before starting work at seven am. This is not so bad during summer, but can be hell in winter. I can’t start a day without a lazy breakfast, but the poor Swedish workman who starts work at seven am is allowed half an hour between nine and nine-thirty to eat his breakfast. As a newcomer to the country without any language, I had to work in industry at first and found this timetable a nightmare. Why not start half an hour later and eliminate the nine am break? Fika was not included in this timetable. I started by getting up even earlier to eat breakfast at home. By 11 am I was ready for my elevenses, fika, but my workmates were then off to the restaurant to eat a large, cooked lunch – and only allowed half an hour to eat it. It seemed inhuman.

You can imagine what an incentive this was to learn the language as quickly as possible and climb out of the blue overalls. But office life is not a great deal better for the poor Swede who has to earn a living. Starting work at eight am is still uncivilised in my world, so there was no alternative but to live off my wife’s hard work and become a house husband. It worked, too. I even learned to cook better than the camping style I was used to as a bachelor. Best of all, I was able to keep to my old timetable. From then on, I worked from home and the only change necessary was to start calling my elevenses fika!

© Vic Howard, 2025

Vic has provided this lovely artwork to go with his piece.

© Vic Howard, 2025

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Finally, I’ll end by wishing you a month free of misunderstandings, some joyful spring celebrations and a Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Issue 23 is out now. You can find it in libraries and other outlets. Alternatively all current and previous editions can be found on our magazines page here. 

You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify.  

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