Jewish commercial centres in the world. had bought it from an antique shop years wild fashion. As I approached, I heard
Despite the global nature of the busi- before. When I examined it I found a his shouts were in Yiddish. I called his
ness, the street retains a distinct village date on the back, 1seven.oldstyle8nine.oldstyle. This was the pe- name and he turned towards me, spray-
atmosphere. Everyone knows one other, riod when the French demanded smooth ing cof_fee and scraps of salt beef all over
gossip is rife and, much like in the former court weddings rings that felt like silk his companions as he did so. He came
Eastern European shtetls, there are plenty gloves.’ The rings Zuki was making with over to where I was standing, shook my
of schlemiels, menschs and other intriguing this drawplate, over two hundred years hand vigorously and we spent some time
Jewish characters making up the com- after it was manufactured, had the same talking. I told him about the book I was
munity. profile as eighteenth century rings once writing at the time about Brick Lane and
One of these was Eli Zukerman, much in demand by French royalty. he smiled. ‘I grew up here,’ he said, in
known with af_fection to all as Zuki. For Zuki was well liked and respected his lisping Yiddisha accent. ‘Not far from
over half a century he regularly made by everyone in the community. I often where we are now standing.’ He began to
weekly rounds to the shops and suppli- saw him around the area, chatting on tell me stories from his childhood, cover-
ers in the street, personally dropping of_f the street corners with shop owners, or ing me in a fine film of spittle as he did
his much sought after ‘specials’: French standing with Hasidic diamond dealers so. He told me about the hidden mikva
court wedding rings, made by Zuki to in a tight huddle on the pavement, heads behind the great mosque, his visits to the
order, by pulling lengths of gold thread down, magnifying glasses out, examin- Russian Steam Baths and tales from Black
through dif_ferent sized holes on a draw- ing some tiny object, usually a rough dia- Lion Yard: ‘Those guys in the workshops
plate with a large pair of tongs until he mond. He retired from the Garden some there used to see the kids down in the
got the right measurements. Each time time ago and no one had seen him for a street and throw pennies to them,’ he
the threads were pulled through they had long while when I happened to bump said, chuckling and choking at the same
to be quenched and then reheated again. into him by chance in 2004 in Brick time. ‘But they’d heat them up first with
It was hard physical work and Zuki had Lane, arguing with a couple of homeless- the flames of the welding torches, then
tremendous strength in his upper body, looking men outside the Bagel Bakery. laugh when they tried to pick up the hot
although he was nearly lame in his right He didn’t notice me at first. He had a salt coins.’ I asked him if he remembered
foot. He worked from a small attic room beef sandwich in one hand and a cof_fee Rodinsky (the intriguing local figure I
near to Holborn Circus and it seemed in the other. Hot, brown liquid was spill- had written about in another book). He
unlikely that his operation was commer- ing from his polystyrene cup on to the thought he probably did. ‘He was one
cially successful. The process involved pavement as his arms waved about in a of the Whitechapel cowboys I think,’ he
in making these rings was lengthy and
Zuki was scrupulously honest and never
overcharged. He raised his prices by the
bare minimum when the cost of gold and
platinum went up and never added on a
penny if the quality of the metal declined,
causing his rings to crumble and break
halfway through the making.
Zuki’s life story was shrouded in
mystery. He dressed like a tramp, always
wearing old trousers tied up with string
and a dirty old mac, but there were ru-
mours he owned millions and lived with
a young blonde wife in a large house
in Essex. He’d come limping into the
shops, energetically dragging one large
flat foot behind the other and sit down
with a sigh, wiping his bald head with
a dirty handkerchief pulled from his
pocket. Sometimes he would come into
the back of the shop and have a cup of tea,
telling stories about his time as a flight
engineer during the war, assigned to
Lancaster bombers. Once he told me how
he acquired the legendary eighteenth-
century drawplate, which he used to
make his rings: ‘I bought it in the 1nine.oldstylethree.oldstyle0s
from a second-hand wedding ring manu-
facturer who had gone bankrupt. They
nine.oldstyle
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18