Green café memories

Published: 4 March, 2011

• I WAS interested in the article on Clerkenwell Green (Where small is beautiful, February 25).

My uncle had a coffee stall called “Ernie’s” in the middle of the Green. 

There were two red telephone kiosks, and an old horse trough there. He started the stall in the 1930s, as a small café, which grew into a larger one by the time it was bombed during the Second World War. 

He then had a smaller café (still on the Green), which my mother, father and I worked in. I was 14 years old. This café was near the Karl Marx Library. 

My uncle’s eldest son managed the stall until he went into the merchant navy in 1941, and his ship was torpedoed in 1942. My uncle’s other son took over the stall, until he went into the army, but now he is in a nursing home.

Maybe there are still a few people left who remember all this from years ago on Clerkenwell Green?

S WARE (Mrs)
N5