Max Levitas & The Battle of Cable St | Spitalfields Life

Today, we remember the eightieth anniversary of The Battle of Cable St with Max Levitas, accompanied by Phil Maxwell‘s pictures of the fiftieth anniversary in 1986.

Max Levitas became an East End hero when he was arrested in 1934, at the age of nineteen years old, for writing anti-Fascist slogans on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. “There were two of us, we did it at midnight and we wrote ‘All out on September 9th to fight Fascism,’ ‘Down with Fascism’ and ‘Fight Fascism,’ on Nelson’s Column in whitewash,” he told me, his eyes shining with pleasure, still fired up with ebullience at one hundred and two years of age, “And afterwards we went to Lyons Corner House to have…

Source: Max Levitas & The Battle of Cable St | Spitalfields Life

Frost Bros, Rope Makers & Yarn Spinners | Spitalfields Life

Founded by John James Frost in 1790, Frost Brothers Ltd of 340/342 Commercial Rd was managed by his grandson – also John James Frost – in 1905, when these photographs were taken. In 1926, the company was amalgamated to become part of British Ropes and now only this modest publication on the shelf in the Bishopsgate Institute bears testimony to the long-lost industry of rope making and yarn spinning in the East End, from which Cable St takes its name….

Source: Frost Bros, Rope Makers & Yarn Spinners | Spitalfields Life.