Tatt’s amazing

One man from Hackney was so proud of his roots that he had the borough’s logo tattooed on his hand,while another had the Shoreditch overground symbol and logo inked on his back.

The odd choice of tattoo was etched on by 42-year-old James Glover who works at the Happy Sailor Tattoo parlour on Hackney Road. But Glover wasn’t surprised by the 23-year-old care worker’s weird choice.

“We get loads of people coming in and getting tattoos of their postcodes and stuff. People are proud of where they come from. I have done it all, on all parts of the body, everything and everywhere you can imagine, even private parts,” he said.

Celebrity clientele have travelled from far and wide for a bit of Happy Sailor’s ink. “Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil caused commotion from fans when they popped in. I have also done a tattoo for EastEnder’s Kat Slater. I don’t think of them as celebrities, they are just like any other customer.”

The parlour has also had the pleasure of decorating Elijah “Frodo” Wood’s stomach with a fake tattoo for the Green Street Hooligans movie. “He is definitely very short in real life and the guy doing his tattoo was very tall, which was pretty amusing” laughed Glover.

Rose Stimpson, who also works at the tattoo parlour, said: “I’m from Yorkshire so I wouldn’t get anything Hackney related but I could go for a Yorkshire pudding tatt.”