ABSTRACT
I started in the old-clothes business by accident. There was a wardrobe dealer at the top of Brick Lane, English chap. I think his shop may have been a ‘blind’ for another business because I never knew anybody to buy a suit out of there, although he had good clothes in the window. One day, he saw me in the street and said, ‘Will you do me a favour, a woman called in the shop to ask me if I’d buy some clothes off of her, she’d just lost her husband, that’s the address, would you like to go there for me? I’ll give you a few bob; I didn’t like to turn her down, but I don’t want to go down and buy ’em.’ I said, ‘All right.’ It was in Bethnal Green Road, it was in the Buildings there, right at the back o f the police station. I went there expecting to see a lot o f old tripe, ’cor blimey I had the surprise of me life - beautiful suits! He was a printer, in the printing business, he had wonderful clothes. I reckoned them up, I thought, ‘There’s a good few quid here.’ She said, ‘Are they any good to you?’ ‘Well, they’re very difficult to sell,’ I said, ‘especially if they know they’ve come off anybody who has died, you know how people are.’ She said, ‘I realise that, that’s why I didn’t try to sell them to anybody. Will £3 be too much?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I know you’re up against it,’ and I paid her the £3.
