COSTER LOYALTY

Taranaki Daily News, 7 August 1929, Page 11

COSTER LOYALTY

QUEEN IN EAST END. When the Queen opened the new Girls’ Hostel in Hoxton Street, Shoreditch, on June 13. it was revealed that Her Majesty had given more than half the cost of the institution. The total cost of the hostel, said Lady Bertha Dawkins, at the opening, was £16,000, and of that sum the Queen had contributed £BlOO. “The Queen,” said Lady Bertha, “was the first contributor to the building when she gave £lOO, and then she gave £6OOO from the proceeds of the exhibition of her doll house at Wembley. Last autumn, when -we did not know which ■way to turn for further funds, the Queen gave us another £2000.” The ceremony had originally been arranged for a Saturday, but as Hoxton Street is one of the biggest street markets of this part of the East End, it had been postponed till a Thursday. Saturday is naturally the coster’s busy day, and a Royal visit -would mean the temporary closing of the market. Representations were made on behalf of the costers, with the result that the ceremony was held on the early closing day. The costers’ gratitude -was -without bounds, says the Daily Telegraph. Early in the afternoon they cleared their stall away and washed the street so energetically with hosepipes that not a trace of a street market was to be seen. The officers of the Shoreditch Street Traders’ Association put on their resplendent badges —or, more precisely, sashes—of office and waited in a body at the hostel door for the' Queen. Among them were a couple of “pearlies,” one of whom was labelled “the Pearly King,” though his dynasty appears not to be recognised by the more democratic society of street traders, who are content to be mere secretaries [ and committee-men. PRINCESS MARY’S ARRIVAL. When Princess Mary, who is patroness of the hostel, arrived, she was presented with a bouquet by the five l year-old daughter of a Hoxton Street greengrocer. The Queen arrived a few minutes lated. Her Majesty, who was received by the Princess, was presented with a bouquet by a small boy, who was the son of the local butcher. Across the street there was stretched a banner bearing the word, “Hoxton shoopkeepers and street traders thank Her Majesty,” and the traders thenisetver turned out in full force to give thanks in person. The streets of this part of London are only too crowded always; on this day they surpassed themselves. To stand in the crowd among the older coster-women w-as to get an insight into the warm, old-fash-ioned loyalty of the East End; a loyalty with a curiosity vivid and personal element in it, something vital and beyond formality. After the Bishop of Stepney had blessed the new hostel the Queen opened the door with a silver key. The Queen, with Princess Mary,' Lady Bertha Dawkins, Mrs. Sara Rae (founder and president of the - guild), and Viscount Knebworth (who was “the master of ceremonies”) made a tour of the hostel. The hostel, which has accommodation for between fifty and sixty girls, has been a project of the guild for over eleven years. Princess Mary set the foundation-stone last year, and Miss Estelle Stead set a stone in memory of her father, W. T. Stead, with the inscription: “In memory of W. T. Stead, whose ‘Maiden Tribute to Modem Babylon’ inspired the founding of the Girls’ Guild.”