Conversation 2: Rox, Owner of Lady Tesla's Loose Leaves & Mud, No 9., CT9 1DD

Tea-sips leave subtitles

“That’s orange blossom oolong”, said Rox as she poured freshly brewed tea from spout to cup to cup again.  We sat in plush velvet armchairs, two windows pouring light into the shop one Tuesday morning in the month of June.   Routine transactions stirred the other side of the glass: occasional lorries slumbering the streets, some intrigued eyes glancing in, others pursuing the path ahead - chasing the daily drum. I had been so looking forward to talking to Rox, owner of ‘Lady Tesla’s Loose Leaves and Mud’ and creator of so much else.  We had her library of tea to ‘leaf’ through, a Curiosity exhibition catalogue from the Turner Contemporary on the table between us and inevitably, Margate’s seagull squawks to punctuate the silences (of which there were few.) 

Though I am often mindful of endings that meddle with beginnings I am going to begin temporarily where, in actuality, our conversation ended. There is no more apt an introduction to Rox’s shop than the tale behind the title of it: ‘Lady Tesla’s Loose Leaves and Mud’. The mouthful that just about fits, lingering a while after it’s spoken - though part of you wants to sound it out again just to hear it.  ‘Loose Leaves and Mud’: firstly, is New York slang for ‘Tea and Coffee’ – ‘mud’ substitutes nicely for coffee, as Rox hates the stuff. Also, a vivid reminder of children’s garden games, serving mud and leaves in plastic tea-cups to obliging parents who in turn mimic sipping. I delighted in this for it took me to memories of my own. ‘Lady Tesla’s’: this was ownership - ‘Lady’, a tongue in cheek add-on suggested by one of Rox’s friends, after the infamous ‘Lady Grey’. ‘Tesla’, Rox’s surname, and also she pointed out – like Nikola Tesla, the inventor who received no credit for his inventing. Layered thoughts listed, intervening introductions aside – let us begin…

 We, ransacking the library, found treasures: 'The Emperor's 7...' to name just one of many (not-by-the-book) blends

Talk turned almost instantly to tea-ology and the unfolding of leaves. Rox spoke animatedly of the importance of seeing the leaves for what they really are, “the pouchong opens up into almost a whole leaf and you’re kind of like ‘wow.’”  Though the tea yearns for exhibition, Lady Tesla’s doesn’t advertise itself as a café, a cup of tea is only available by request. And yet there was such enjoyment to be had from sharing tea in the window frame. I asked Rox what had stopped her from going down the café route. It was thoughts, percolating thoughts, lots of them. Rox said frankly, “firstly my dilemma was with the pots…” exhibit one: glass pots, perfect for tea voyeurism but also fragile and prone to smashing.  Nibbles? Nibbles meant even bigger dilemmas, some teas – maybe Green ones - could be served with Sri Lankian accompaniments, better referred to by Rox as “really-sweet-sort-of-little-cakey-type-sticky-things”, some with Indian sweets, after all, shortbread didn’t quite cut it. But then again, why overcomplicate by serving nibbles at all?

Chairs. Discuss. 

The intricacy and full-of-thought-ness of Rox’s shop was unmistakable and the beauty of it very much in its composition. A hushed curatorial work, we initially spoke in subtitles. Each of the objects invigorated curiosity and further unfolding, not of tealeaves now but of stories, of why’s and of where’s. “These are incredible, they look like they’ve been made for the shop almost – where did you find the chairs?” “They are all second hand, Northdown Road – it was so mad, I think I’d gone out to get cable ties or something ridiculous for Rough Trade, drove past the shop, saw them outside, I remember the last time I saw a set like this, I don’t know – they were 500 quid, so I carried on driving but then I thought, no go back and check and they were 50 quid for the pair!” “Oh my god!” “I know, and normally I’d haggle on everything, but these, I just thought, right I’ll have them.” The second set of chairs, almost identical, materialised fortuitously out of the back of someone’s car and were then snapped up in front of Rox’s eager eyes by Andrew who owns ‘Paraphernalia’, the shop opposite Lady Tesla’s. After watching him hover and wobble and deliberate for what felt like far too long, he agreed to – what would be a fleeting - purchase. “Oh no – then what?” I said. “Well, I went straight in and said ‘how much?’” Andrew didn’t argue. Rox put it down to the convenience of the sale for him. I think it may have had something to do with buyer’s gusto.

Margate’s Old Town is distracting. That’s what conversing with Rox clarified for me. Our conversation was sprawling and easily distracted by the conundrums that life on King’s Street posed. Before we had finished unfolding the objects within the windows drew us outside. “Was ‘Paraphernalia’ here before you?” I asked. “'Paraphernalia’ is a funny – well for me – it’s a funny story. When it was empty I kept walking past it thinking I really want to buy that but I can’t afford it. In the meantime I’d gone to an auction and there’s this great big black sort of ebonized, gothicy style dresser. I’d been bidding on it and lost out to this guy, who I realised, it was obvious he’d got big pockets and there’s no point me bidding on anything else against him cause if he wants it – he’s getting it.” Rox’s phone rang, a man enquiring about a hair cut. “Anyway, back to the shop, the following week I walk past and I thought, do you know what – I will take that shop – I’ll just go with it – but it had gone, it had been let, so I thought oh bloody hell silly me – always too slow.”  Mid track, the door to Lady Tesla’s opened, someone wanting to buy tea bags for use in a neighbouring restaurant. They promised to return on Thursday and left. “Anyway – where were we? Oh yeah – then I walk past again a few weeks later, and my cabinet that I bid on was in there and I was just looking at it and thinking what the fuck.” “Oh god – no - taunting you!” Needless to say, Rox went back and bought the cabinet  - woodworm and all, but the shop for all its potential was a different story. “Yeah I was too slow on the uptake on that one – but then a year later, this one came up. I suppose, that’s where fate says I was meant to be. Well – possibly...”

Rox's dog Pip, of Silent Observations. Sometimes Lady Pip, of Great Expectations.

Done with the insides for now, we continued to span outward. Next, to Rox’s brainchild – ‘Rough Trade Margate’ which she set up in November 2011.  I confessed that 'Rough Trade' was something I’d seen, looked round and never really understood before. Rox clarified that the ‘Rough’ in ‘Rough Trade’ is very much about managing expectations – to put it diplomatically. “It’s about using the area as it is and making the most of a meanwhile space for as little money as possible and being a bit creative with it – you don’t have to move in to a shop and spend thousands doing it up.” A congregation, no a collaboration of traders in one spot, between 8 and maybe 15 to be imprecise, and some traders only rent a shelf.  Everyone works together to sell each other’s stuff; a different day of the week means a different face at the point of sale. I asked Rox about the sort of traders it attracted, and the answer was all-sorts: “for some people its that kind of harping back to old Kensington or Camden if they’re from outside of here, for other people they just find it a bit bonkers that you’ve not even cleaned the cobwebs off the rafters, and then there are other people that just think, oh my god I never really thought about…” – trace of a blank canvas lurched in to the air, Rough Trade is somewhere to assemble new ideas. The concept is simple, liberating and it works. Rox tracked back to a street side conversation she’d had with a neighbouring trader, Joe, owner of Margate’s retro/general store who had postulated about the beginnings of a ‘Margate Utopia’. The Old Town, an island where ‘the air breathes upon us […] most sweetly’. In one sense, the collaboration of traders conforms to this, exhaling advice and inhaling knowledge in a shared space. In another sense, the realism of making a living underwrites the utopia. Daytime stirrings interrupted again, Rox’s expertise was needed – “can you come up to Rough Trade a minute – I think something’s wrong with the roof!” Duty called and Rox darted quickly. It was evident that she is fast becoming ‘mother-hen’ of Margate Old Town. Later in our conversation there was room for confession: “that’s the really really odd thing, people are now like ‘go and ask Rox.’ I never saw myself in that position, I just did what I did because I wanted to do it.” she says, incredulously. Fade to black.

Spotlight: Rox and Margate go a while back – 12 years or so. The perennial inventor, Rox took a workshop in Margate Old Town before the work had even begun. Blankness was everywhere “it was empty and it was still quite rough – I liked it.” The more she sat, the more she thought and the more frustrated she became. Frustrated with the nonsensical market that only happened once a month, frustrated with the magnolia walls and office chairs of the ‘Old Town Action Group’ meetings and frustrated with the allusion to a ‘right sort’, a ‘right kind of people’ for the Old Town. “This used to bug me, what do you mean the right sort of people? Cause you know, on the face of it – I’m actually the wrong sort of person.” There was a sense perhaps, that Margate, frustrated by its own demise built its own internal prejudices to compromise. Rox’s definition of the ‘right sort of person’, was refreshing: “the right sort of people are the people who want to do things, make change, who’ve got energy and who aren’t stuck in the mud. People who have their own personal little vision which adds to everything else – its not the overall dominance of the area, its just their little bit, adds their new little cog.” Evidently the cogs are already whirring, at an alarming rate. Personal visions are springing up all over the place, but as Rox cannily points out – no one knew what would work until it worked, until it whirred. From King’s Street, which has somehow become the Retro Street to the Cupcake Café with its own, independently, quintessentially pink feel, “where you’d bring your mother to have her once a year treat off of you or whatever”, to Lady Tesla’s, which Rox described as her 'growing up', growing out of market spaces - a more pragmatic and thoughtful reaction to the way Margate was moving.

Potty Pragmatism

With so many 'whirring cogs' in place, I wanted to know how Rox pictured Margate and what it could offer to day-trippers now. “Where would you recommend for a Margate day trip?” I asked, not quite in earnest – I think everyone has a Margate, or at least a curious piece of it to exhibit. Rox’s was an endorsement of fellow traders, just up the road, round the corner, along a bit and on your right hand side: “I always try to get people up to the Shell Grotto and Ronnie Scott’s cause they’re in close proximity to each other and can be neglected." Spread the word. Rox conceded, "Ronnie Scott’s isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea that goes to the Shell Grotto but its still an interesting place […] you get the wow factor when you’re in there. It should evoke loads of other things, about your life, about your time in Margate…” Your time in Margate. There is an undeniable sense that 'time' in Margate demands to be owned. It asks for an element of nostalgia that can only be mechanised by individual perspectives - personal visions of the here, the now and the then. Of course, clock hands still conform in Margate, it's not 'less of time' in that sense.  Real time runs very much in parallel. Although Rox and I had shared a pause to archive a conversation, the day-to-day still had a habit of interrupting. Hence, timelessness in Margate comes from the visions ascribed to it, tracking ceaselessly back to time passed, and tracking forth again to what makes it real for now.

More tales to tell

"Are you alright for tea?" Rox said. Real time chimed loudly and I really had to leave. Before I did, a last introduction to the unnamed man who stood silently looking at Rox's shelves of tea. Rox addressed him kindly, "you alright there? I can't remember your name...?" "No name" he said, eyes still scanning the shelves ahead. Rox and I fudged around other topics of conversation until he left. "See you later" she said. No answer. Subtitles ensued: "that fella always comes in, he's lovely, very quiet as you can tell. That Ledger down there - that's what he's after." I asked Rox how she knew, it turns out he'd attempted to persuade her to sell a Ledger before and offered unspeakable amounts of money for it. He comes in, as often as three times a day, looks at the Ledger, opens it sometimes - turns the pages and puts it back. A silent ritual.  "It is a very nice Ledger!" I said. "It is, and most of its blank which I love. People always try to sell me Ledger's with other people's bits in, but I want to use them for myself". Blank pages always demand more scrawl. 'Does he ever speak back?' I asked. "Occasionally, I do try to talk to him. The description of him used to be 'the man with the gaffa taped shoes.' [...] That was Margate's descriptive value of him. The man with the gaffa taped shoes." For any subtitle I might hasten to scribe, there will always be visions dancing across the blank pages of a Ledger that we may never hear of. Visions of a man muted by life or otherwise. Speaking to Rox had affirmed that there was so much beneath the surface, so many layers of thoughts and invention – tried, tested, discarded - and so many more yet to come. I think we could have carried on talking out Margate for hours, we hadn't really got to the bottom of it but then again - I had hoped we wouldn't. As I left another Trader entered, seeking Rox's wisdom or maybe a bag of her delicious tea, the daily drum hummed on.

This, this is the No. 9 to which I returned
fast; against tocks already ticked I came for -
this: sky stirred now stilled.

You can find Lady Tesla’s Loose Leaves and Mud at 9 King Street, Margate, Kent, CT9 1DD or on Twitter @LooseLeavesNmud.