Beattie Orwell, Veteran Of The Battle Of Cable St

Last City of London tour of the season tomorrow. Click here to book Commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Cable St Portrait of Beattie Orwell by Phil Maxwell It was my delight to accompany photographer Phil Maxwell to visit one hundred and five year old Beattie Orwell (1917-2023) and sit beside her in her cosy flat while she talked to me of her century of existence in this particular corner of the East End. A magnanimous woman who delighted in the modest joys of life, Beattie was nevertheless a political animal who was proud to be one of the last living veterans of the Battle of Cable St – a formative experience that inspired her with a fiercely egalitarian sense of justice and led to her becoming a councillor in later life, acutely conscious of the rights of the most vulnerable in society. In spite of her physical frailty, Beattie’s moral courage granted her an astonishing monumental presence as a human being. To speak with Beattie was to encounter another, kinder…