Here's why you should go check it out
What is The Last Tuesday Society?
It was an organisation that is traced back to the mid 19th century and the original Last Tuesday Society was performed by Vivien James. The organisation was based in Harvard University in America and then in turn we reformed it in London in the 21st century. The idea is the same it's where interesting people can come together.
The store recreates the concept of the 16th and 17th century Wunderkabinetts, which were small scale museums and predominantly owned by scholars and noblemen. People like Peter Graves and Charles the Second had their own cabinets of curiosity that they had collected to show off and the scholars had pieces to study. What they were trying to do was to recreate the entire world in one room. This would include items such as religious iconography, natural history and taxidermy to name but few.
Where are your items from?
A lot of the items are from auction houses and from various different travels. Everything is real even if it's fake like the angel mermaid and the angel bunny they're various parts combined. Occasionally people offer items to us, but we have to prove where they came from so that's always a factor that looms when accepting offers. The animals or creatures have to die from natural causes, pest control or for example road kill.
What made you go into Taxidermy?
First and foremost it's my love for the natural history museum and my love for live animals and their beauty.
What is the most popular item in store?
The most popular items would definitely be the crows and also the pigeon's people tend to want pigeons. An average crow costs around £120 so it's kind of affordable it's not too expensive.
It's strange but we don't get people coming into the store that are against what we do, it's quite the reverse actually. When we first opened we thought that they would be banging down the door, but a lot of people are just fascinated by the items and displays. It's curious, I think it's because we are not exploiting the creatures by law we are not allowed to, a cross section of our customers are vegans they admire the animals just as much as we do. We both share the fact that we don't kill animals but like to collect the beautiful creatures to admire them.
Another curious thing is that some customers are fascinated by the morbid and that they are mostly female. We do get a lot of people that say 'eurgh' or people that won't even come through the front door some think it's too horrible and scary. Some go downstairs and start screaming, there are things downstairs that make people scream, apparently.
What is the process of Taxidermy?
The skin is the only part of the animal that's theirs most of the time not event the skull is it's own, it's almost like having a fur coat actually. You treat the skin with preserving chemicals or the skin is tanned. Essentially you have to build a fake frame which is called the mannequin in the shape of the animal, to serve the purpose of filling out the skin. You place the skin around the frame and then you sew it back together again, finally you try to make the animal as life like as possible by carefully fixing the features.
The most radical thing I think we own is definitely the elephant bones they cost around £8000, we have shrunken heads that cost around £10,000 and we also have the polar bear which is my personal favourite item. It's hard to choose really.
How do you shrink a head?
You take the skull out first and then you treat the head full of herbs and then you put the head into hot sand for a certain period of time and when you bring it back out it's shrunk.
Who is the most interesting person you've had here?
Gosh well that's a tricky one, one of my favourite is a gentleman called Phillip Hall and he writes books about dandies and whales. Separately of course! I would love to see a dandy whale. He is a well dressed fellow that is fascinated by Moby Dick, he's very interesting to talk to.
You must get a lot of fun characters coming through the door?
Yeah well we do get a lot of Hackney characters, we have some people that think they are time travellers.
Really! like Dr Who?
Yeah, people that think they've travelled through time
Do you just play along?
Yes you just have to humour them be serious and go along with it. And just engage with them
Do they think they are from the past or the future? or do they not acknowledge modern day?
I think he doesn't acknowledge such a thing as the present day. If you travel through time there is no present.
(think Slaughter House 5 meets Back to the Future, based in Hackney. Note to future self: one helluva cool film pitch...)
Do you have any upcoming events?
We have an art gallery exhibition featuring a chap called Sebastian Horsely who was a famous artist, performer and dandy. He died a few years ago, his whole life was a piece of art really everything he did was to draw attention to himself doing the outrageous. He died from outrageous living and wrote a memoir called Dandy of the Underworld that will be on the 16th of June and that's running through to August. We have the Animal Ball on the 15th of June, we have various different events throughout the year.
You can keep up with the events by visiting:
www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org
www.theanimalparty.com
Or visit the shop which is only open on Saturday's.
After the interview we get the opportunity to visit the Little Shop of Horrors located under the shop, the sights are pretty amazing a vast collection of fascinating objects. Suddenly we learn why people ran out screaming, in a box behind a glass cabinet is a box of Russell Brands pubes.
Horror for sure.
Nobody should be subjected to that.
(Willingly.)
