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Suresh Singh never uses the word multiculturalism. “It’s nonsense to me,” he said. “What matters is your actions. What does ‘multicultural England’ mean, when we still build our little castles and don’t even ask anyone round for a cup of tea?”
Singh, also known as “the Cockney Sikh”, has walked the streets of Spitalfields in east London for six decades. A teacher, architect, musician and author, he is often spotted in his three-piece suits and Lock&Co hat. This week he organised a nostalgic walking tour of the area, showing visitors its history.
“I was really sick of these Jack the Ripper tours, talking about killing women,” said Singh.
The tour also explored the area’s many immigrant populations over time. “Irish, Maltese, Hassidic Jews – it was such a mishmash of people,” said Singh. “But there was kindness. The Irish women would babysit me. The Polish Jews never got on with the Russian Jews, but they would always smile at my mum. Everybody somehow got on.”
Born on Princelet Street, Spitalfields, in 1962, Singh spent his teenage years on Brick Lane against a backdrop of far-right racist attacks. The National Front was headquartered nearby.
Reflecting on Tommy Robinson’s far-right “unite the kingdom” rally which recently marched in London – resulting in the arrests of 20 people – Singh recalled political violence witnessed by his family, both in Punjab and London.
“My dad saw the killing of yogis in India, tigers being killed – people forcing people to do this. Then there was the National Front,” said Singh. He also pointed to the racist abuse of Pakistanis.
“But my parents still kept going. They never said: ‘Oh, let’s pack our bags.’ They were never disheartened.”
As a teenager Singh was attacked by National Front members on Brick Lane, who broke his nose. “They cornered me, said: ‘You look like a Paki.’ But I thought what the skinhead was wearing was beautiful, Ben Sherman and stuff. And I got my head kicked for it.
“My mum never went to the police, because the City police were quite racist at the time. It was hard. My mum just nursed me, cleaned me – and then she said: ‘Not all white people are racist.’”
The real star of Singh’s walking tour is his late father, Jaginder. In 1949, he arrived from the Punjab region of India, settling in post-blitz London, shining shoes in Liverpool Street station and picking up fallen fruit and vegetables from Spitalfields market to feed his family.
“My father had this beautiful mechanism of fighting racism,” said Singh. “He said: ‘I’m going to dress the best, in the best British clobber, so people go: “Whoa, that brown boy’s looking better than me, mate!”’ It’s quite a beautiful way of fighting it.”
Over the following decades, Jaginder Singh photographed his life and family in London to send back to relatives in Punjab, creating a rare archive of Spitalfields life from the inside that now lives at the Bishopsgate Institute.
“Most people burned their pictures,” said Singh. “They didn’t want family to know they’d lived on Princelet Street, or peed in a bucket, or they had no hot water. People didn’t record or want to remember that. But my father always said there’s no shame in that, and they’ve become beautiful objects.”
With the encouragement of his father in the 1970s, Singh pursued music, becoming London’s first Punjabi punk. He was the drummer for the punk rock band Spizzenergi, and later toured with Siouxsie and the Banshees as well as the Cure.
“Sikh people would come round and say: ‘Why are you letting him? He’s a punk drummer, bruv. The skinheads will bottle him.’ But my father said: ‘Just do what you have to do. Tell the story.’”
Suresh later picked up a camera himself and began documenting life on Brick Lane. “I was sick of white, middle-class people coming to my area and putting a camera in front of Bengali women, my parents. It’s just about taking a bit of ownership and space.”
