At the Red Route: Judith Olley dines with Hackney Citizen

Judith Olley (left) with Red Route cafe manager Rachel Grasby. Photograph: Russell Parton

Judith Olley is a Clapton resident and, in her words, one of the “dying breed of East Enders known as Cockneys.”

She was born in Stepney in 1946 but now lives in Hackney where today she campaigns on behalf of pensioners as a member of the Hackney Pensioners’ Convention.

About two or three times a week Judith has lunch at the Red Route Cafe. Located in The Levy Centre on Lower Clapton Road, the cafe is a social enterprise built with funds raised following the 2011 riots. It is here she agrees to meet with me for a bite to eat.

Like other eateries in the neighbourhood, the Red Route Cafe is relatively new, though what distinguishes it from the crowd is that it exists to give young people work experience in customer service, food preparation or as baristas. Profits are ploughed into CSV Springboard Hackney, a charity based next door that helps boost employment prospects among the young.

Judith greets me with a copy of The Greater London Pensioner, a monthly newsletter that she and other members of Hackney Pensioners’ Convention distribute on Mare Street. Judith wears an Axe The Bedroom Tax badge on her dress and is not shy when it comes to talking about politics.

“My campaign is for the Hackney pensioner,” she tells me once we sit down. By the time we order we’ve already managed to rattle through her position on the state pension (she considers it under threat and wants it raised), universal benefits (they need to be maintained) and social care for the elderly (“there’s less and less care basically,” she says).

From a menu including sandwiches, paninis and various hot dishes Judith plumps for the Spanish tortilla while I choose the Thai noodle soup. “I grew up with meat and two veg so it’s a pleasure for me to have something that has got a bit of flavour,” she admits.

Judith tells me about growing up in East London. “The East End has always been an area where immigrants arrive until they can get on their feet and afford something different,” she says, remembering how in her childhood Jewish tailors lined the Mile End Road to negotiate their working conditions, and a hostel that helped immigrants with alcohol problems.

Most of her family have moved away, but Judith remains in Lower Clapton. “Did I lack the imagination to move out?” she asks. “I suppose when you get older you think about why are my circumstances like this or why am I here and not anywhere else, and you have time to reflect, I suppose. So I don’t know why I’m still here, but I am.”

Our meals arrive, and my soup is in a bowl shaped a bit like a starfish which, along with the refreshing aroma of the Thai spices, stops the conversation in its tracks. Judith’s tortilla meanwhile is jazzed up with kidney beans, broccoli and smoked paprika.

“It’s hard to adapt when you’re used to meat and two veg,” Judith explains. “Our generation couldn’t afford to play and be experimental and for it not to work out. I can remember my mum putting beetroot in a stew once. Of course it turned it bright pink – not a good idea.”

Although there’s a greater variety of places to eat and drink in Clapton these days, Judith doesn’t feel she has more choice. For her, the capacity to choose hinges on money. “I’ve always lived in social housing so I’ve tended to be re-housed and relocated rather than having a choice,” she explains.

It’s a state of affairs that of course applies to eating out too. “This place is reasonably priced and the food very flavoursome. But the alternative is either a working man’s caff or an exclusive restaurant around here,” she says.

Judith recently went to Theydon Bois for its Open Gardens Day. “They don’t understand the complexity of Hackney there,” she says, offering me a slice of the bread that came with her meal. “I think your outlook is determined by your economic situation really.”

Whether it’s chorizo and butterbean stew, omelette or homemade soup, delicious hot meals are for the gobbling at Red Route Cafe, and for less than a fiver too. With some good company thrown in it’s enough to brighten anyone’s outlook – or at least mine.

The Red Route Cafe
24 Lower Clapton Road
Hackney
E5 0PD