Amen“

Long before the American writer Helene Hanff immortalised the street in 84 Charing Cross Road (1970) – an account of her 20-year correspondence with a buyer at the antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co – the area enjoyed a storied association with the city’s literary scene and its accompanying book trade. In its 1950s heyday, denizens of the nearby drinking dens of Soho, from Dylan Thomas to Auberon Waugh, would stagger from shop to shop, scanning the heaving shelves.

   By the turn of the century, that association was fast breaking down. Endless rent hikes and the rising popularity of online shopping led to the ousting of local institutions such as the feminist bookshop Silver Moon, which found refuge in the larger indie Foyles.

     Another casualty was Murder One, then the UK’s only crime and mystery bookshop. Gone, too, are the art specialists Shipley and Zwemmer and even larger rivals such as Waterstones and Borders. Quinto’s shop near the British Museum closed years ago and its labyrinthine Charing Cross Road branch was moved up the road. In its place today is a Patisserie Valerie.

    But the area’s remaining booksellers are fighting back. One recent Saturday, Rupert Street in Soho held its first “international book fair” – in reality, a few stalls manned by a couple of charities, a library and a small selection of central London’s indies. Despite the economic gloom, the mood was positive……….Where Paris protects its bookshops with subsidies and by fixing trading prices, London seems intent on catering for Starbucks and other corporate chains. I for one hope the indies’ emphasis on community and expertise saves them from ruin” Yo Zushi

http://www.newstatesman.com/

Trafalgar Square

On our way to Charing Cross Road we passed through Trafalgar Square but didn’t really stay long as BOOKS were our goal.

“Managed by the Greater London Authority, Trafalgar Square is a landmark in central London enjoyed by Londoners and all visitors alike. It is a lively place often used for a wide range of activities including: special events and celebrations like the Royal Wedding, Olympics One Year to Go, St Patrick’s Day and Chinese New Year; filming and photography; and rallies and demonstrations.” – See more at: http://www.london.gov.uk/

In 1843 Nelson’s Column, designed by William Railton, was erected, and in 1845, the fountains were built based on designs thought to be by Sir Charles Barry. – See more at: http://www.london.gov.uk/

The plinth was originally designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue, however due to insufficient funds the statue was never completed. In 1998 – over one hundred and fifty years later – the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) commissioned three contemporary sculptures by Mark Wallinger, Bill Woodrow and Rachel Whiteread to be displayed temporarily on the plinth. – See more at: http://www.london.gov.uk/

Currently on the Fourth Plinth Following the enormous public interest generated by these commissions, the Mayor of London began the Fourth Plinth Programme to continue this tradition and build on its success. The Fourth Plinth has since featured works including Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant (2005), Thomas Schütte’s Model for a Hotel (2007) Antony Gormley’s popular One and Other (2009), Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010), the recent commission Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Powerless Structures, Fig. 101’ (2012) and the new commission, Hahn/Cock (2013) by German sculptor Katharina Fritsch. – See more at: http://www.london.gov.uk/

Fourth Plinth with Blue Rooster

Walking towards the National Gallery

As the shops weren’t yet open, we walked along Charing Cross Road and discovered all kinds of things: a monument to Edith Cavell, the Public Library, the theater where Agatha Christie’s Mounstrap is playing, and a section of the neighborhood devoted to music. 

Edith Cavell

   “Edith Cavell was the World War I British nurse who is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers in Brussels from all sides without distinction. She and Belgian and French colleagues helped over 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. 

She was arrested, tried with 33 others by a German military court, found guilty of ‘assisting men to the enemy’ and shot by a German firing squad on October 12 1915  http://www.edithcavell.org.uk/

Charing Cross Public Library

http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/findalibrary/charing/

https://www.the-mousetrap.co.uk/Online/   I may have seen this back in the 80s with my pal Martha on our bike trip to England; but I can’t remember.  Hmmmm

“The play is a curious mixture of 1950s drawing-room comedy and murder mystery. The key, says Watt-Smith, is not to send it up. "You have to concentrate on the reality of the situation. Everyone is trapped in this guesthouse – they have no means of contacting the outside world, and the murderer is among them. No one is quite what they seem. They all have secrets. You have to encourage the characters to play the real backstory and then cover it up, which is a challenge."  http://www.theguardian.com/

84 Charing Cross Road    then…

“In June, 1971, a slim volume by a little-known, middle-aged American writer, Helene Hanff, was published in Britain. Called 84 Charing Cross Road, it was a most unlikely bestseller – simply a collection of letters between the impecunious book-lover Hanff, in New York, and the staff of Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop in London.

    The correspondence spanned two decades – from Britain’s post-war austerity to the height of the Swinging Sixties – and was full of warmth, humour and humanity. If our notion of the “special relationship” between Britain and America means anything at all, it is embodied in the pages of Hanff’s little book.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

http://www.84charingcrossroad.co.uk/

84 Charing Cross    now  or just next door : the plaque is just next to where this restaurant is located.

Musical instruments, sheet music, the Alley Cat Club….

Then it was time to find some coffee so we headed back toward the bookshops

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jan/16/claire-de-rouen is the obit for the owner of Clare de Rouen Books (the blue letters in the upstairs window) and it’s quite interesting.  It looked quite dark, but I read that it is still open.  The shop focuses on fashion and photography, but one day, if it’s really still open, it would be fun to go.  Not so sure about Soho Original Books next door.

Apparently the street level shop is a regular book shop and the basement shop isn’t a regular bookshop

Café at Foyles Books

Our scone with clotted cream and jam was only okay and my cappuccino was not hot so I don’t give the café high marks for food.  But the atmosphere was as it should be and you had access to the bookshop starting at 11:30 am though you couldn’t buy anything until noon.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/cafe-at-foyles says the food is good but misses the jazz that used to be there. 

A temptation; but I’ll wait and read it when I have my library card.

http://www.foyles.co.uk/bookshop-charing-cross  UK National Bookseller of the Year 2013 & 2012! Celebrating 110 years, est 1903. A UK registered company. Visit us instore & online. Foyles

We did buy a small, easy to carry, London street atlas and I bought Jewish London which tells Jewish history in London and offers maps and walking tours.

Playing for his supper.

On our way back toward the tube to go home we saw this young man playing tunes on a roadside cone.  He was quite good actually.

We did make a quick visit to the National Portrait Gallery which is free; except for the special exhibits

(I always like to see people with books!)

Maggie Smith                                                             Doris Lessing

There was a David Hockney self-portrait that I liked but no photos were allowed of that one.

A collection of “portraits” by Bob

“Internationally acclaimed musician and poet, Bob Dylan, introduces us to twelve enigmatic subjects, including Red Flanagan, Skip Sharpe and Ursula Belle. Rendered in pastel these sketches by Dylan offer an intriguing insight into his view of people and characters.” http://www.npg.org.uk/

http://www.theguardian.com/ makes me want to see them again.

Harry and William

I thought this one was quite good and really captured the boys.

“First painted double-portrait of Prince William and Prince Harry on show for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery    …….

     Artist Nicola J ‘Nicky’ Philipps (b. 27.08.64) trained at the City and Guilds School of Art and the Cecil Graves Studio in Florence. She has undertaken a number of high-profile portrait commissions including the writer Ken Follett. She exhibited in the BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2005.

     She says: ‘It was a great privilege to be asked to paint the Princes for the National Portrait Gallery. They were very good company and although I was commissioned to paint them in their official context, I hope I have also captured some of the brotherly banter that characterized the sittings.’  http://www.npg.org.uk/

8:10 Big Ben time

Our tour was scheduled for 9:15 am and we were to be 20 minutes early.  We arrived quite a bit early so went off for a walk.

Looking back at the complex that makes up Parliament

http://www.parliament.uk/

Now you take my pictuer…..

Boadicea and the London Eye Millennium Wheel

“In the Victorian sculptor Thomas Thornycroft’s splendidly fierce statue placed by Westminster Bridge in 1902, the rebel queen Boudicca – or Boadicea – is a heroic patriot. She stands triumphantly in her war chariot, a personification of British freedom and defiance. The real Boudicca led her people, the Iceni, in a rebellion against Roman rule in AD60 or 61. She destroyed London, Colchester and St Albans and massacred their inhabitants. Hastening back from a campaign in Wales, the Roman governor defeated and slaughtered the Iceni in the tribe’s last battle. Boudicca probably killed herself on the battlefield.”

http://www.theguardian.com/

http://www.londoneye.com/

Not in a million years will anyone get me onto this gigamtic bicycle wheel : this is as close as I get!

Walking back  across Westminster Bridge in the drizzle toward Big Ben : it alternated sun and drizzle making for interesting color.

I’m making myself crazy trying to figure out what the white building on the right is : I give up.

Oliver Cromwell had his faults; but he invited the Jews back to England after their expulsion in 1290 by Edward 1.  They were invited back by Cromwell in 1656.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Richard Lion Heart

We encountered him in North Cyprus at Kyrenia Castle and St. Hilarion Castle in North Cyprus on his way to the Crusades.  As we travel we continually find heroes in one country are seen as villains in other countries. 

Standing in the ticket line 20 minutes early for our 9:15 tour.  We definitely heard it gong gong gong on the hour.

  “The name Big Ben is often used to describe the tower, the clock and the bell but the name was first given to the Great Bell.

    The Elizabeth Tower was completed in 1859 and the Great Clock started on 31 May, with the Great Bell’s strikes heard for the first time on 11 July and the quarter bells first chimed on 7 September.”

http://www.parliament.uk/

Our tour time was 9:15 and our language of choice: English

We actually missed our slotted tour time because I was held up at the entrance as they went through my pack a zillion times thanks to a barrett in a small bag in my pack.  We took a slightly later tour.

The tour lasted almost two hours of walking or standing.  When we entered the House of Lords and the House of Commons we were allowed to lean on the seats, but not to sit down.  Not being a tax payer I couldn’t complain too much, but had I been one, I might have been quite annoyed having paid for and maintained those same seats. 

“Central Lobby,(between the two houses)  is where constituents come to ‘lobby’ their MPs and visitors come to attend meetings with MPs and Members of the Lords.” http://www.parliament.uk/

Member’s Lobby Statues

In Member’s Lobby, by the doors to the Debating Chamber, is a collection of statues and portrait busts of those who served the Nation as Prime Minister during the 20th century. In recent years Baroness Thatcher and Sir John Major have been added, but until now there were three historic gaps in the series…..

http://www.parliament.uk/

Our guide told us that not only was the statue of Margaret Thatcher the first female statue to be added but the first statue of a Prime Minister not dead for 10 years.   The person who lobbied for the change was totally opposed to all of Thatcher’s policies.  His reasoning was that when the revolution came and the statues were attached, he wanted her head to go first; at least that’s the story our guide told. 

http://www.parliament.uk/ shows the statue of Churchill inspecting the damage of the Parliament building

The Churchill arch

   The arch leading into the Chamber itself is known as the Churchill arch. It was Winston Churchill who suggested that the arch be rebuilt from the original bomb-scarred stone as a monument to the ordeal of war, and as a reminder to future generations of the fortitude of those who stood firm through those times.

   The archway is flanked by statues of David Lloyd George and of Churchill himself, the prime ministers of Britain during the First and Second World Wars respectively. One foot on each statue has been burnished bright by the hands of MPs, who touch them for luck as they enter or exit the Chamber. Opposite Churchill stands the statue of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the first person to be so honoured by the House whilst still living. http://www.parliament.uk/

Stop touching Churchill or Thatcher, MPs told (their statues, that is)

Touching statues of the former prime ministers is a gesture believed to bring good luck but is causing wear and tear.  The tradition of politicians touching images of former prime ministers as they enter the Commons chamber is a gesture believed to bring good luck. But the parliamentary authorities have warned that the statues of Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and David Lloyd George are now “seriously under threat” from the repeated wear and tear.

A "do not touch" sign will be put permanently on display and new MPs will not be informed about the tradition.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

Westminster Hall : the only part of the complex where photos were allowed.

“Westminster Hall is the oldest building on the Parliamentary estate. What makes it such an astonishing building is not simply its great size and the magnificence of its roof, but its central role in British history. In and around the Hall, grew up the major institutions of the British state: Parliament, the law courts and various government offices.

   Closely involved in the life of the nation since the 11th century, a journey through the Hall’s past is a journey through 900 fascinating years of our history.”

The Second World War and after

Having survived fire and death-watch beetles, the Hall’s next enemy was incendiary bombs during the Second World War.

  Worst attack

The worst attack was on the night of 10 May 1941, when the Commons Chamber and Westminster Hall were both hit by bombs. The Chamber rapidly became an inferno, while flames began to spread to the hammer-beams of the Hall.

     The Hall was saved by the decisiveness of Walter Elliot, a former Cabinet minister, who had hurried over from his nearby home.

     He was told by the Fire Service that it would be impossible to save both the Hall and the Chamber – it had to be one or the other. He had no hesitation in advising them to concentrate on saving the medieval Hall.

Irreplaceable

     After all, as he remarked to a friend years later, they could always build a new Commons Chamber, while the Hall was irreplaceable.

     Not content with merely giving advice, Elliot personally smashed with an axe an opening through the locked doors of the Hall, so that hoses could be brought inside to play on the burning roof. The Hall was soon out of danger, but the Commons was reduced to ashes and rubble.

     Repairs to the Hall

The south window of the Hall, built by Charles Barry, had been destroyed in an earlier raid in 1940. The new window now contains the coats-of-arm or monograms of the members and servants of both Houses who fell during the war, and below the window is a memorial to those who were killed during the First and Second World Wars.

    Another programme of repair in 1949-50 resulted in the replacement of another five per cent of the roof’s timber, and the six statues of kings were conserved between 1988 and 1994.

A new phase of repairs to the Hall’s floor and steps took place in 2005-06.

http://www.parliament.uk/

Brilliant and thoughtful idea

Leaving the Parliament building at 10:50.

While waiting in the ticket line I took some photos of this bride and groom

Bright white on a gray day, though just a few minutes later the sun was shining.

A dad capturing a moment with his kids

Helpful sign at the tube exit.  It also suggests that you can walk a little over half a mile in 10 minutes which is just about right.

This caught my eye as there’s a Graham-White Manufacturing in Salem, VA 

I spent the most time in the museum reading about the pilots who earned the title Ace.  You saw the person and read his story be he American, British or German. 

He was the only Ace whose religion was noted in the description

The Red Baron

American Eddie Rickenbacker

Booker Flew a Sopwith Pup, not a Camel like Snoopy

Ulrich Neckel was the Ace who shot down Booker.  He survived the war but died of tuberculosis in 1928

This is a Sopwith Camel named for its producer Thomas Sopwith of Sopwith Aviation

“The name “Camel” was derived from the hump-shaped cover over the machine guns. In order to combat Zeppelins, the Navy’s Camels were flown from barges towed behind destroyers, from platforms on the gun turrets of larger ships as well as from early aircraft carriers. A Camel 2F.1 successfully flew after being dropped from an airship, an experiment testing an airship’s ability to carry its own defensive aircraft.”  http://www.canadianflight.org/content/the-sopwith-camel

Too short for the US Air Services he became an Ace for the RAF : according to my least favorite source Wikipedia, Kullberg was born in Sommerville, Massachusetts

Wounded by Friendly Fire twice

Died because parachutes weren’t issued to fighter pilots.

“The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London has played host to the Remembrance Service for the past nine decades. But how did the monument become such an indelible part of the UK’s commemoration of those who lost their lives in past conflicts?

Originally intended as a small part of the Peace Day events of July 1919, The Cenotaph was designed and built by Edwin Lutyens at the request of the then Prime Minister Lloyd George

The Cenotaph – which literally means Empty Tomb in Greek – was initially a wood and plaster construction intended for the first anniversary of the Armistice in 1919. At its unveiling the base of the monument was spontaneously covered in wreaths to the dead and missing from The Great War. Such was the extent of public enthusiasm for the construction it was decided that The Cenotaph should become a permanent and lasting memorial.

The Cenotaph, made from Portland stone, was unveiled in 1920. The inscription reads simply "The Glorious Dead".

On the Sunday nearest to 11 November at 11am each year, a Remembrance Service is held at the Cenotaph to commemorate British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts. The monarch, religious leaders, politicians, representatives of state and the armed and auxiliary forces, gather to pay respect to those who gave their lives defending others.

The service has changed little since it was first introduced in 1921, hymns are sung, prayers are said and a two minute silence is observed. Official wreaths are laid on the steps of The Cenotaph. The ceremony ends with a march past of war veterans; a poignant gesture of respect for their fallen comrades.

Services of Remembrance are held at war memorials and cenotaphs throughout Britain and the Commonwealth nations. While the style and size of these memorials vary considerably from place to place, an exact replica of Lutyens’ Cenotaph stands proudly in London, Canada.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/cenotaph.shtml

http://www.cwgc.org/

In Georgetown Penang I visited the Jewish Cemetery and was told a British soldier was buried there and his grave was maintained by the British Government. I was able to search the website and find the cemetery and the soldier listed. 

PENANG (JAHUDI ROAD) JEWISH CEMETERY Malaysia  1

COHEN, LOUIS VICTOR Second Lieutenant  09/10/1941 23 9th Jat Regiment Indian  PENANG (JAHUDI ROAD) JEWISH  

Son of Sassoon Jacob and Seemah Cohen, of Calcutta, India.

We also drove by the Commonwealth Cemetery in Tunisia

Farewell to WW1 From memory to history

With the deaths of Harry Patch, at 111, and Henry Allingham, at 113, the last memories of fighting on the front in the first world war have gone.

Dec 17th 2009  |From the print edition The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/15108655

“The fact that it was not has made no difference. It remains a live wound. In Britain its chronology still overhangs the national curriculum. Its poems and songs—such poems, such songs, as if war’s horror and nonsense had never been articulated before—still lodge in people’s heads. Yet for men like Mr Patch and Mr Allingham, who were there, the sheer overload of the war—on senses, mind, spirit and body—was so immense that for decades they had nothing to say. Only when they passed 100, under gentle nudging from other people, did they break their silence. The words tumbled out then, unable to be suppressed. In the end, said Mr Allingham, though oblivion was what war deserved, “it seemed more disrespectful to ignore what had gone on than to talk about it.” They wrote a book each, bending close to the page to append a spidery signature; they gave talks to schools, colleges, servicemen’s associations, in voices that had almost worn away. Frail as birds, wrapped up as something precious and irreplaceable, they let themselves be wheeled to windswept beaches and cenotaphs. Journalists were received with spry, straight-backed politeness; and when they left the old soldiers continued to sit, erect but far away, with the sun gleaming on their medals…..

Allingham, meanwhile—having fallen in love with flying ever since he had watched an aircraft slowly circling as a boy—learned to fly Avro biplanes and Sopwith Schneiders, looking for German ships off the east coast of England. No sooner had flying been invented than it was turned to belligerence. His craft were just “motorised kites” made of fabric, wood and wire, with open cockpits, so that he needed to smear his face with Vaseline or whale-oil before going up. Like Mr Patch he had a Lewis gun, which at first had to be fired through the propeller. He also had an Enfield rifle. Two carrier-pigeons, in a basket, took the place of a radio; there was no parachute.”

School kids touring the RAF Museum

There was a display illustrating the history of diversity in the RAF showing people of all color and gender now being recruited and promoted within the ranks.

Images of tokens from the website of the Foundling Museum

My ears picked up when we were told that Thomas Coram had left England for New England and lived in Taunton, MA.  Taunton is just down the road from New Bedford and where my Great Aunt May and Aunt Rose lived. 

“The Coram Shipyard Historic District is located along Water St. and the bank of the Taunton River in Dighton. The historic homes in the district are privately owned and not open to the public. The shipyard is now the Taunton Yacht Club at 2125 Water St.; call 508-669-6007 for further information about the club.”

http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/maritime/cor.htm

http://www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk/ also tells about Thomas Coram. 

I believe information in the Foundling Museum says the Coram returned to England from Massachusetts in debt.  Nothing on the US National Parks Service page mentions that.  It does say he was parnters with a John Hathaway, another famous New Bedford name.  The Foundling Museum Front House Manager Nick Castell, a wonderful source of stories related to the museum, said that Coram left Taunton “on not the best of terms.”  But then he left the Foundling Home “on not the best of terms” either.  People of very strong beliefs and the zeal to accomplish what Coram did are not always the easiest of people to be “on the best of terms” with.

The Foundling Home held a lottery for admittance as there were too many foundlings for the space available.  And only one child per mother was allowed : these obviously weren’t only orphans but children unable to be cared for by their parents.  I mentioned that fact to Nick and he told us the story of an exception; Margaret Larney.  This is what I found about her on http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.co.uk/ a wonderful website and wealth of information.  Thanks ladies!

“ Margaret Larney’s story is told in a simple letter that served as a token. Margaret and her husband came from Dublin to London to improve their fortunes. But after a series of menial jobs, Margaret became involved with a group who shaved gold sovereigns. She was arrested and tried for "degrading the coin of the realm," a crime that was considered high treason and punishable by execution. Although Margaret protested her innocence, she was convicted. While she was in prison, her husband disappeared, and her older son was taken and admitted to the Foundling Hospital. Because Margaret was pregnant, her execution was postponed until she gave birth, and then that son, too, was sent to the Hospital. In the letter, lower right, (availabe to see on their site) (which she must have dictated) that accompanied the newborn, she begged that the two brothers would be permitted to know one another:

Dear Sir

I am the unfortunate Woman that lies under Sentence of Death at Newgatt. I had a Child put in here before when I was sent here his name is James Larney and this [second son] his name is John Larney and he was born the King’s Coronation Day 1758. And Dear Sir I beg for the tender mercy of God to let them Know one and other for Dear Sir I hear that you are a very good gentleman and God’s blessing and more be on you for ever

   Sir I am your humbel

   Servant Margaret Larney

It’s doubtful her final  wish was fulfilled. The baby born in Newgate Prison died soon after admission, and soon, too, after Margaret herself was executed at Tyburn by strangulation and burning. But the older boy – renamed George Millett – survived, and became a successful wigmaker in Shropshire: the kind of happy ending that the founders of the Hospital hoped for all their charges.”

As a horrible footnote Nick said that unline male coin shavers who were hanged, female coin shavers were strangled and then burned at the stake.  I assumed she was still alive, but after reading about Catherine Murphy, hopefully Margaret was also already dead when she was burned. 

1789: Catherine Murphy, Britain’s last burning at the stake

On this date in 1789, Catherine Murphy was led past the hanging bodies of her husband and their other male codefendants at Newgate Prison, secured to a stake, and put to the last burning at the stake in English history.

The convicted coiners — counterfeiting rated as high treason at the time — were the last heirs to gender-specific execution methods before the Treason Act of 1790 gave coin-shaving ladies equal access to the halter.

Though Murphy thereby earned an unenviable historical footnote, the de factopractice on the scaffold had long since been changed to spare lawmen the spectacle of a woman roasting to death. Murphy, in fact, was killed by hanging — and the “burning” part of the sentence only imposed upon her corpse. (This, however, was still more than enough: NIMBYing prison neighbors appalled by the stench of burning flesh had lent their support to the Treason Act’s reforms.)

http://www.executedtoday.com/

On a lighter and happier note….

Exchange: 1,000 Good Deeds at the Foundling Museum

14 June 2013 – 15 September 2013, 10:00 – 17:00

Free with Museum admission. Booking not required.

5 SEPTEMBER – General Reception.

To Celebrate International Day of Charity, the museum is allowing EVERY visitor the chance to take part in Exchange (until cups run out!). One day only the day we were there!

Pick a cup, agree to do the “good deed” and the cup is your to take.

So many to choose from: I wanted one that said to leave a copy of your favorite book in the tube station for someone else to read.   But I walked to the far end and took the furthest cup available.

These cups had all been taken.

Donate £5 to a London Museum : Leighton House Museum. 

I took the cup so agreed to visit the museum and along with the admission fee, donate £5

I had no clue what the museum was concerned with so asked Nick, knower of all things, and he made it sound quite interesting.  You’ll have to wait to find out until I actually go, sometime before we leave England.

My cup has a number so I am to email them and tell them about my experience.

St Paul’s  http://www.stpauls.co.uk/

John says no photos allowed inside so if you want to see that you’ll have to look at the website.  We’ll visit it one day.

Great place for lunch!

Even chopsticks on the patio.  Lots of pigeons too though there’s only one in this photo.

We selected our picnic from Marks & Spencer fast food, just across the way; was quite good : there were at least 100 people in there selecting their choices and then going through one of the many pay lines.  I unfortunately picked one of the self-check-out lines and had no clue.  Luckily there was a helper who picked out the correct coins and showed me how to feed them to the machine.

After lunch.  You could probably do some kind of survey as to what are the most popular takeaway places near St. Paul’s.

Not a fake horse, which arrived with a second mounted police just as we were leaving.

Along the way there was lots to see  of London life.

Will have to try this sometime!

http://gourmet-girl.tumblr.com/post/11944554560/hardys-original-sweet-shop

London Street Scene

I liked the sign and the woman READING.  I think she’s wearing the same shoes as the woman having lunch at St. Pauls.  http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/ is this interesting restaurant’s website.

http://www.theguardian.com/ is a review of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn which this woman is reading.  She seems engrossed in it so maybe that’s a recommendation.

A frequent scene, Randal and John trying to figure out how to get where we’re going; but we’re close!

Samuel Johnson’s House…very tall

“most quoted Englishman after Shakespeare..”

You have to ring the bell to get in.

My first stop as defined by Samuel Johnson

“In 1737, Johnson moved to London where he struggled to support himself through journalism, writing on a huge variety of subjects. He gradually acquired a literary reputation and in 1747 a syndicate of printers commissioned him to compile his ‘Dictionary of the English Language’. The task took eight years, and Johnson employed six assistants, all of them working in his house off Fleet Street.

The dictionary was published on 15 April 1755. It was not the first such dictionary, but was certainly the most important at that time. In Johnson’s lifetime five further editions were published, and a sixth came out when he died.”  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/johnson_samuel.shtml

Randal was fascinated by these moveable walls that could turn the space in the middle of the two rooms into 3 rooms.  Reminded me of Thomas Jefferson’s innovations.

Facsimile copies of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary

Leave it to me to find where the books had been bound incorrectly….

There I am

Looking out the window and back down the stairs

Court year outside the home; statue to Johnson’s cat with a £ sitting there too in the mussel shell.

Not sure why the £ is there as it doesn’t look part of the sculpture.

Walking home where we will pass by St Paul’s again

Blue trees and Red Hat

http://www.kondimopoulos.com/2011/11/blue-trees/

This environmental art installation was commissioned by Trees for Cities and sponsored by Bloomberg.

As a sculptor, performance and installation artist, I create artworks that are grounded in my sociological and humanist philosophies.

In my environmental installation, The Blue Trees,  the colour and the Tree come together to transform and affect each other; the colour changing the Tree into something surreal, something out of this world. While the Tree, rooted in this earth reflects what we may lose.

This change is important not only as a means to highlight ecological issues, such as the ecocide of our forests, but also that it may effect a transformation in the psyche of people by raising our social consciousness.

With The Blue Trees, the colour and the Tree become a sculptural work referencing people’s lives, their daily existence and how individually and collectively we shape the world we inhabit.

I have always known that art is and has always has been an extended part of nature and that art can effect social change.

For that to happen one has to move out of the art institutions and galleries and move outside among nature and human beings in their living spaces.

I think of the Blue Trees as a project that has a strong regenerative aspect to it, an organic artwork that is continually changing and evolving from site to site. From season to season the trees grow through the cycles of nature and the colors also begin to change and disappear. There is a sense of time as a part of the concept. Time that determines our own existence is measured through these trees.”

The City of London offers on one square mile

history, feudal governance and global finance

By Andrew Stevens

24 June 2013: The landmarks of the area covered by the historic City of London Corporation are known to many – St Paul’s Cathedral, the Old Bailey, the ‘Gherkin’ and soon the ‘Walkie-Talkie’ and the ‘Cheesegrater’, to name but few – but less is known about the Corporation itself. The City of London is often confused with Greater London (the area covered by the Greater London Authority), but the two concepts are indeed very distinct and separate.

The City of London relates to the historic ‘square mile’ at the geographic centre of the region of Greater London. It is only one of 33 local authorities in Greater London, the other 32 being known as London Boroughs. For this, and several other reasons, local government structures in London (both the city and region – often referred to as “the capital”, though this term is technically meaningless) are very anomalous.  http://www.citymayors.com/government/london_corp.html

http://www.iwm.org.uk/  is the site for the Imperial War Museum also on our list to visit.

Our Street  by Gilda O’Neill

“This book focuses on the lives of Londoners in the East End during the Second World War. Showing the concerns, hopes and fears of these so-called ‘ordinary people’ it illustrates these times by looking at the every day rituals which marked the patterns of daily life during WWII. It is an important book and also an affectionate record of an often fondly remembered, more communal, way of life that has all but disappeared.”  recommended by the Imperial War Museum is one I’ll add to my list.

Depression London

Newspaper article explaining the Chinese custom of visiting the dead.

Jewish history is more associated with the East End and  the Museum of London Docklands which we’ll visit one day. 

Victorian Mudlarks

   The mudlarks generally consist of boys and girls, varying in age from eight to fourteen or fifteen. For the most part they are ragged, and in a very filthy state, and are a peculiar class, confined to the river. As soon as the tide is out they make their appearance, and remain till it comes in. These mudlarks are generally strong and healthy, though their clothes are in rags. Their fathers are robust men. By going too often to the public house they keep their families in destitution, and the mothers of the poor children are glad to get a few pence in whatever way they can.  http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/09/29/the-life-of-a-mudlark-1861/

By noon we were ready to move on for lunch and then a visit to Dr. Johnson’s Home…..

London Wall

  “Built c. AD 200, the Roman wall not only provided defence and security to the citizens of London, but also represented the status of the city itself.

Once around 4km long and enclosing an area of about 134 hectares, over time it was modified, adapted and added to, before finally being obscured and partially destroyed as new buildings were constructed around it. Today however, many of the buildings which had formerly hidden it have been cleared away, and visitors to the site can enjoy a clear view of the monument that defined both the size and shape of the city for over a millennium.”  http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/london-wall/

Randal and John looking at the map finding the way to Dr. Johnson’s House

Everyday Londoner at work

Police Phone

The wooden police call boxes familiar from Doctor Who have disappeared from our streets but there are still a few examples of the sturdier phones on posts. Made of cast iron, painted blue, they were for the use of both the police and the public in the days before police radios or mobile phones.

Their most common use was for members of the public to call for help with pregnancy or ‘sudden illness. The first UK boxes appeared in 1891 and went out of use after the introduction of the 999 system in the late 1930s.  http://www.secret-london.co.uk/Phone_boxes.html

Images of the Lost Metropolitan Police Boxes

PoliceBoxes.co.uk is a project to collate photographs of  Metropolitan Police Boxes in their original location. The ‘Doctor Who’ type design by Gilbert MacKenzie Trench featured mainly in London from 1929. By 1953 there were 685 police boxes on the streets of London. If you have a photograph of a real TARDIS-type Police Box before it was removed, please let us know. Click on a map icon to see information.

http://www.policeboxes.co.uk/

Sculpture in front of Starbucks reminds me of Av

Randal and John : Museum of London

Young people and their relationship to London and to Roman London.

“The young people curating the exhibition are part of Junction, the Museum of London’s youth panel. Members of Junction worked closely with Museum of London staff to choose objects, write text panels and even appoint Olly Gibbs, the illustrator responsible for the exhibition’s visual identity. Other young people from a number of partner organizations across London have created artistic content for the exhibition. http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/Whats-on/Exhibitions-Displays/Our-Londinium-2012/

The St. Paul’s that burned in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/greatfire.htm

A Turkish treasure in the Museum of London : one feels differently having lived in Turkey about where these treasures should actually be.

Great Fire of London 1666

http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/game  fun interactive way to learn about the fire from the Museum of London website

Trying on a fire hat

Aunt or Grandma…great to have them.  I listened to this woman’s husband explaining to the boy how the fire buckets were used.

Highlights (to me) of the London timeline.

Glad this has been improved!

In American women weren’t “granted” the right to vote until 1920.

An Icon if there ever was one

“In 1910 Harry married Noel Nisbet and moved to Battersea Park Road.  Shortly thereafter they set up a studio at 19 Queensland Ave., Merton Park.  This property and the surrounding suburbs, which were featured in many of Harry’s paintings, helped earn him the title of The Painter of the Suburbs.” http://www.rehs.com/Harry_Bush_Bio.html

Lord Mayor’s Coach… but it was the horses that got me and seemed so real!

Anglo Pacific Undertakes Transatlantic Six Horse Shipment for Museum of London

“Last month, international removals company Anglo Pacific was entrusted with the unique task of transporting six life-size fibreglass horses from New York across the “pond” to the Museum of London. Now on permanent display in the City Gallery, the steeds arrived safely and are proving very popular with visitors.

     Head of Design for the Museum of London, Leigh Cain, explains, “The magnificent Lord Mayor’s Coach has been the centrepiece of the City Gallery for some time now but we felt it deserved an added flourish to bring it to life so our patrons, the Harcourt Group, commissioned the creation of half a dozen horses. We chose British-born but New York-based sculptor, David Hayes, a specialist in concepts for museums film and advertising, for the role and the end result has been perfect. The Lord Mayor’s Coach is now getting the extra attention it deserves.”

     David worked in discussion with Leigh to capture just the right look for the sculptures. Crafted in tough but lightweight glass reinforced plastic, the horses are 16.5 hands high, reddish-brown bay colour and a cross-breed of Hunter and Draught horse. To give the most lifelike finish, the animals have been sprayed with flock fibres combed into place to give a realistic hair pattern and the mane and tails are the genuine article. The horses are harnessed with copies of those used to pull the Coach during the Lord Mayor’s Show each November with the front left horse saddled ready for the postilion rider who has control over the other five.

http://www.anglopacific.co.uk/newsletter.htm?article=24

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/

Museum Goers…..

If this were a Winslow Homer painting you’d think that the 3 people were examples of loneliness: being together but not being connected.   When I took the photo I was just trying to capture the woman so focused on what she was seeing; I didn’t even notice the other people in the picture.  Always some surprises when I actually look at the photos I take.

Thames River Barrier Gate G

About to go through as we had the Green Arrows and not the Red X

Looking back to the Thames River Barrier and the different gates

“The Thames Barrier is one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world. The Environment Agency runs and maintains the Thames Barrier as well as the capital’s other flood defenses.

The barrier spans 520 metres across the River Thames near Woolwich, and it protects 125 square kilometres of central London from flooding caused by tidal surges.

It became operational in 1982 and has 10 steel gates that can be raised into position across the River Thames. When raised, the main gates stand as high as a five-story building and as wide as the opening of Tower Bridge. Each main gate weighs 3,300 tonnes.” http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/38353.aspx

The Thames Estuary is particularly vulnerable to flooding for a number of reasons. The South-eastern corner of the British Isles is slowly tilting downwards and sea levels are rising. As a result, the high tide in central London is rising at a possible rate of 75cm per century.

   There is another more compelling reason. When an area of low pressure – perhaps hundreds of miles across – moves eastwards across the Atlantic towards the British Isles, it raises the level of seawater beneath it by up to a third of a metre. If this ‘plateau’ of sea water passes north of Scotland and then down into the shallow basin of the North Sea, perhaps further heightened by strong winds from the north, it can cause excessively high surge tides in the Thames Estuary of up to four metres leading towards London. When a surge tide also coincides with a spring tide (which occur twice monthly), flooding would be a serious possibility.

     The problem is made much worse when floodwater from upstream meets a high surge tide coming up from the Thames Estuary.

     Teddington Weir is where the Thames becomes tidal.

On a typical summer’s day about 3,000 million litres of fresh water will pass over it. On a typical winter’s day the quantity will be at least four times greater, and sometimes eight times.

     In the winter of 1947, the peak flow at Teddington was 61,698 million litres a day. This flow was nearly three times that of a typical winter’s day and more than 20 times that of a typical summer’s day.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/38351.aspx

My going to London ssssoooooocccccckkkkkkssssss!  which I bought in Gosport to wear under my gray rubber boots in the winter.  Fun!!

I think we’re finally on the Thames!  Pronounced TEMZ.

A working river for sure.

Rat stoppers on the huge cargo ships.

Loading cargo

Following the chart to know the obstructions and shallows.

Climbing the rigging…

Instead of a bridge; this ferry carried people and vehicles across the river

Thames River Barrier Gate G I think for smaller craft

About to go through as we had the Green Arrows and not the Red X

Looking back to the Thames River Barrier and the different gates

Reminder to monitor Channel 14 on your VHF radio

Barclay, HSBC and Citi Banks

Randal checking the chart

We drove in sitting on the flybridge for better visibility.  And it was fun since it had warmed up and the boat wasn’t rocking around.

A factory that looks like a church, sort of like the Brookline Waterworks  and probably built the same time period.

We have just passed Greenwich and changed from East to West on our Longitude as we cross the Prime Meridian, not quite the BIG DEAL as crossing the Equator…which we have done.

Part of the Greenwich complex

Approaching SKD which is just before the Tower Bridge on the right side of the photo

Pulled into the lock facing the marina

The back end of the lock, the Thames from whence we entered, and the Tower Bridge visible behind the tree.

Tied up at the dock in West Marina at SKD

Getting our London map and London Tube map just outside the entrance to the Tower of London a 5 minute walk from Doramac

River travel is more complicated than ocean travel, like driving down a highway but the surface changes by the hour. 

Red Sands Towers

“At the outbreak of World War II, the Port of London was the busiest port in the world. As such, a large proportion of supplies to the UK entered by ships navigating the Thames. The German Navy quickly sought to put a stranglehold on this route, and to this end, utilised a new secret weapon – the magnetic influence mine. Whilst there were different variants of this mine, in simplistic terms, the mine was detonated by the presence of a large magnetic object – such as a steel hulled ship – passing in close proximity, without having to make physical contact.

So successful was this that in the first few months of the war, over one hundred ships were sunk in the Thames Estuary alone. It was clear that urgent action was needed to stem these losses, and as most mines were laid by aircraft, ships were requisitioned and used as mobile anti aircraft units. However, this was not altogether successful, and a more satisfactory solution was needed.In the early years of the war, Guy Maunsell, a civil engineer, had produced plans for offshore defences.

At the time his ideas were considered somewhat eccentric, but he was asked to submit plans for an offshore fort as an effective means of dealing with the laying of the mines. Plans were drawn up, and after some modification, approval was given for the manufacture and installation of four offshore forts. These were of mainly reinforced concrete construction, built on land on a lozenge shaped reinforced base, and towed out to sea where they were sunk onto the seabed.

Each fort accommodated approximately 120 men, housed mainly within seven floors of the 24’ diameter twin reinforced concrete legs. These forts were under the control of the Navy, and were individually known as HM Fort Roughs Tower, Sunk Head Tower, Tongue Sands, and Knock John. They were all placed in position between six and twelve miles offshore between February and June, 1942. They became operational immediately.In early 1941, Maunsell was contacted by the Admiralty to design defences in the Liverpool bay area of the Mersey. Seabed conditions dictated a different form of construction.

Each tower was built off a reinforced concrete base of ‘Oxford picture frame’ design. Four hollow reinforced concrete legs of 3’ diameter supported the 36’ x 36’ steel house of two floors, with the military equipment installed on the top deck. Each fort comprised seven towers linked by tubular steel catwalks. In addition to the Mersey forts, three forts of similar construction were built in the Thames estuary, between May and December, 1943. They were known as the Nore, Redsand and Shivering sands Army Forts.”   http://www.project-redsand.com/history.htm  tells the whole story.

“As with the other offshore platforms, after the war ended, pirate radio operators eagerly boarded the platforms and set up their tall transmitter masts – the configuration of the forts was ideal for such a construction.

First it was Radio Invicta, commencing on 29th July 1964, broadcasting from 6am to 6pm on 306m – the transmission times were limited as overnight transmissions would have been swamped out by a foreign radio transmitter using the same frequency. The station went off air in February 1965 and the fort was soon taken over by KING Radio, transmitting on 238m.

Then on 25th September 1965, Radio 390 took over with a more easy listening kind of programme – light jazz and Mantovani and his Orchestra could regularly be heard all over the south east of England on their 35KW transmitter. All stations were eventually closed in 1967 when the UK changed the law with regard to radio broadcasting.”  http://subterrain.org.uk/maunsell/part4.html

Wreck of the Sir Richard Montgomery

Wreck of the ammunition ship The Richard Montgomery forced a detour in the Medway

“‘We’re on a constant knife edge because of that thing out there,’ says David Robinson, 71, who has stopped to chat to me on the deserted promenade.

‘I’ve lived here all my life and not a day goes by when I don’t think about what will happen if that b***er blows.’

He points out to sea where, little more than a mile from the beach on which children still build sandcastles, the masts of a sunken ship can be seen jutting eerily above the waterline. Officially, this wreck is known as the SS Richard Montgomery but locals have another name for it . . .

When it sank in these waters towards the end of the World War II, the Montgomery was loaded with 7,000 tons of wartime bombs.

It’s estimated that anything from 1,400 to 3,000 tons of explosives are still packed in its water-logged hull, and it has been said that their detonation would cause one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever — 700 times the size of the bomb which claimed 168 lives in Oklahoma City in 1995.

One of nearly 3,000 ‘Liberty’ ships built in America to replace Allied cargo ships torpedoed by the Germans, she was part of a convoy due to be escorted from the Thames Estuary to France. On the morning of Sunday August 20, 1944 she was anchored off Sheerness when strong winds blew her perilously close to shallow water.

In the pre-dawn light, other ships in the area sounded their sirens in warning but she was soon grounded, her welded plates cracking and buckling with a loud bang as the tide dragged her to and fro. The 81 crew members were evacuated to nearby Southend and salvage work began — to save the bombs which were needed for the war effort, rather than the ship herself.

A team of stevedores got roughly half the explosives aboard back to shore but then, after five days, the ship broke in two and began to sink beneath the waves.

With the stevedores demanding danger money for their work, the Admiralty decided that retrieving any more bombs was too expensive.

Buoys and warnings signs were placed around the wreck and after the war it became as popular a tourist attraction as the resort’s band stand, amusement arcades and mini-golf…..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195590/3-000-ton-timebomb-shipwrecked-Thames-estuary.html   tells the complete story.

Grain Power Station and Tower

“From the Spile you can continue on the same course to the buoyed channel leading into the Medway. This will take you some way to the right of the prominent chimney of Grain power station which marks the entrance to the river and is visible from many miles away. The diversion is necessary to avoid the shallows to the east of Sheerness. When you get to the buoyed channel, on no account enter the prohibited area on the far side marked by large yellow buoys. This marks the grave of a WWII ammunition ship, which should your keel touch off the unexploded ammo might seriously damage the paintwork.” http://www.yachtpilot.net/medway.html

Sheerness side of the Medway opposite the Grain Tower

The moorings that were too small and the Grain Tower in the distance : we’re tied to the concrete barge

We were worried about the depths of the river but obviously this captain knew where to go.  We were much more impressed with this ship than with the Clipper sailing boats that arrived later.

One of the racing ships coming in.

The Clipper 13-14 Round the World Yacht Race starts in London on 1 September 2013 and returns on 12 July 2014 – at 40,000 miles it’s the world’s longest ocean race.

It is the only race in the world where the organisers supply the fleet of twelve identical 70-foot, stripped down racing yachts – each sponsored by a place or a brand – and manned with a fully-qualified skipper, employed to lead crews safely around the globe.

The event was established by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston to give everyone, regardless of sailing experience, the opportunity to discover the exhilaration of ocean racing.  https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/about

The helpful Queenborough Harbour guys attaching one of the racing ships to a mooring for the night.

A lovely evening in Queenborough Harbour