Author Archives: titan142

About titan142

I'm a "woman of a certain age" and mother to four beautiful cats, all girls. I'm a budding writer, and have been published for my non-fiction writing. (When do I get to call myself a real writer, I wonder?) Follow me at https://www.facebook.com/susan.shirley1 https://twitter.com/SusanShirley2 www.wizzley.com/Telesto

DARK AND HIDDEN LONDON

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Footprints of London has done it again! My friend Sheena and I went on the Dark and Hidden London walk, hosted by Paul Surma, on Saturday and had an interesting, informative and thoroughly enjoyable time.

If you take a look at Paul’s profile on the Footprints website, you will see that he has a liking for little alleyways and the history attached to them, and that was pretty much the point of this walk. I know how expensive it is to become a City of London Tour Guide (which Paul is) and I never cease to marvel at how much these guys know about the City – and other parts of London. A hard course to study, I think. Back to the tour.

We started at the Information Centre, near to St Paul’s Cathedral. I had assumed that it was just for convenience, but no, there was a purpose to that being the starting point which was soon to become obvious. I’m intentionally not putting the reason in here though, some it has to be left for you to find for yourselves.

Paul explained to us that the City of London (Londinium, as the Romans called it) was the old Roman city, and that in their day, the streets were based on a grid system, much like that followed in other major cities of the world nowadays. The Romans left England in around 410 AD so Londinium was left to its own devices. It wasn’t the weather that drove the Romans away, well, probably not; it was purely and simply that Rome itself was under attack and it was too expensive to keep an army in England. Austerity was alive and kicking in Roman times too, it seems.

Leaving Roman London to its own devices meant leaving it all to nature and anyone with a garden will know exactly what that means; if there was anyone left living there, which would have been only a few, they didn’t have the skills to maintain the Roman infrastructure. I’m not spoiling the tour by saying this, it’s a matter of record.

When the Saxons invaded in around 450AD they stayed well away from the Roman city and settled further west in what is now called Aldwych (taken from an old Saxon word Ealdwic, which meant old trading town or old market place). It wasn’t until around 900AD that the Saxons moved back to Londinium, which, by this time, was dishevelled and overgrown. So much for the Roman legacy. What did the Romans do for us? A story for another time.

The tour moved on. We came to Bow Churchyard, named after the church that stands in Cheapside, St Mary-le-Bow, the one of Cockney fame. (To be a true Cockney, you have to be born within the sound of Bow bells, and it is this Bow church, not the one in Bow E3. Back in the day, before cars and aircraft, you’d have heard the bells about five miles away, but not now. I wonder whether any true Cockneys are born nowadays?)

Cheapside is so named because it used to be a market, cheap being the Old English name for market. The street was much wider years ago; wide enough for jousting tournaments, gallows and other fun features. (Back in the day, it was a tourist attraction to watch a hanging and the like, and with some of the videos available on YouTube these days, I am not convinced that much has changed.)

A church has stood on the site of the church at St Mary-le-Bow before the Norman Conquest, but, like so many other buildings, it was destroyed in the Great Fire in and was subsequently rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. The one that was rebuilt wasn’t the first church on this site to be destroyed though, there was one in 1091 which was destroyed by the London Tornado. That was reckoned to be a pretty fierce tornado, with speeds up to 250 mph, it’s estimated.

It was an important church for many reasons, not the least being that the bells were used to sound the curfew when it was a walled city – if you didn’t get inside the city gates PDQ, you’d be spending the night in the country, which wasn’t nice back then. I wonder whether that is where all the stuff about Londoners getting a nose bleed if they go too far from home or the wrong side of the river comes from. (I can assure anyone who is not from London that this doesn’t happen. I even travel around London quite safely without my passport.) St Mary’s was considered to be the second most important church in the City (St Paul’s being the first) and so it was one of the first to be rebuilt after the Fire.

Our tour moved on to somewhere I’ve been before but I couldn’t remember the name of the place – the premises in question is now Williamsons’ Tavern in Bow Lane, but it used to be the residence of the Lord Mayor of London. The original building was built back in 1189 when the office of Lord Mayor was established, although the Lord Mayor has now moved to the Mansion House. I must actually go in this pub for a drink one day, just to get an idea of what it would have been like. (It’s been closed whenever I’ve gone since I’ve known of its existence.)

From here we made our way to a road called Watling Street. I always get very excited when I come here because I remember learning about the Roman Roads and Watling Street when I was at school. Sadly, this is not that Watling Street, although it is a Roman Road. Nonetheless, it does have some historical significance, it leads directly to St Paul’s, and there is a pub here called Ye Olde Watling, which dates back to just after the Great Fire. Wren had a huge workforce setting about rebuilding London and he realised that they would need somewhere to go and let off steam and have a bit of relaxation, so he had this pub built, reputedly from old ships’ timbers. It is also said that Wren used the rooms upstairs as his drawing office.

Further along Watling Street, in the opposite direction to St Paul’s, is a bronze statue check of a cordwainer. Paul explained that this street was once known as Cordwainer Street because that was the street in which most of the cordwainers were based. It was like that back in the old days – Bread Street = bakers, Silk Street = silk makers, and so on. The term “cordwainer” comes from Cordoba in Spain, and these were the people who made leather shoes. The cordwainers made it big in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, I suppose they must have been the Jimmy Choo of the day.

Another interesting thing that Paul told us (which I think I had known but forgotten) was that the well-to-do used to wear things called “pattens” over their shoes. The streets were pretty rough to walk in those days, no nice paving stones or tarmac on the road, and there was a lot of… well… to put it politely, the streets were used as drains, and I’m leaving the rest to your imagination. So pattens were early platforms and covers to protect the shoes and to ensure that the ladies’ lovely dresses didn’t drag in the dirt.

Onwards to St Pancras’ Church Gardens, which would have been the site of St Pancras Church. It could only have been a little church and was one of 86 destroyed in the Fire. (There were originally about 110 churches and only about 50 were rebuilt.) This was one of those that wasn’t rebuilt but the churchyard continued to be used as a burial ground until 1853. It’s a lovely little churchyard, off the beaten track, with beautfully carved wooden seats. These benches are a fairly new addition to the gardens, designed by students from the City and Guilds London Art School.

Then onto St Stephen’s Walbrook, near to Mansion House. This is the last of the three churches that Wren built with domes – it rather seems that he was practising before building St Paul’s, and he got it right with this one. The original church on this site was another that was destroyed by the Fire.

From here to Change Alley, where Garraways Coffee House stood; it was rebuilt in 1874, another Fire casualty, but this was where tea was traded. There was a blue plaque on another building, the site of the King’s Arms Tavern, where the first meeting of the Marine Society was held on 25 June 1756. Marine society

Then we made our way to St Michael’s Alley and the Jamaica Wine House. I wrote a little about this in my post of 29 May, about Mark Rowland’s Walk in the City:

http://susanshirley.co.uk/?p=759

Although what I hadn’t realised previously that as well as trading sugar, and the like from the West Indies, as they would have been called back then, they also traded slaves. Naïve of me not to realise, I suppose.

Moving swiftly on after that charming note, to Leadenhall Market. I love Leadenhall, partly because all of the shops have their signages in the same design, as in the photograph below. So no matter what their trade mark and logo is, they don’t use them in Leadenhall.

Leadenhall Market used to be the cheese and poultry market, but is now a shopping area.

Paul told us the tale of Old Tom, a goose who had been taken to market to be slaughtered but escaped and then went on to become a local celebrity. Apparently, back in the day, around 34,000 geese would have been slaughtered over a two day period! That’s a lot of Christmas dinners!

Then along to Rood Lane, and the church of St Margaret’s Patten; you can guess what that’s about. This is one of the churches that has an exhibition in it, so somewhere I need to return to. Paul took us onto Plantation Lane something here where there are

The tour ended at All Hallows by the Tower, which is one of the oldest churches in London, dating back to the 10th century. It survived the Great Fire (Pepys stood in its tower watching the fire’s progress) but not the Blitz. It was badly damaged but has been rebuilt since. This is another church with an exhibition in the basement. I can see I’m going to have to have a day of visiting churches soon.

From here, Sheena and I made our way back down to Liverpool Street, to pick up some Prosecco in the Tesco there, and then wandered along to Brick Lane, to go to our favourite Aladin restaurant.

It was a good tour and a good meal. Paul was personable and knowledgeable and answered all the questions easily. I thought it was really nice that he thanked us all too, at the end of the walk.

HAIL ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

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I bought new telephone handsets the other day. Yes, I still have a landline, and I have more than one handset so I that don’t have to run at break-neck speed to get from one side of the house to another. That makes it sound as though I live in a mansion, and, of course, I don’t, it’s just that the kitties are not respectful of my jogging needs.

Back to my new handsets. I’ll be honest; I tend to go for pretty much the least expensive when buying these things. I need an answer phone and something that stores my most frequently used telephone numbers. Heaven forefend that I should actually have to start learning the numbers that I dial frequently again, that all went by the wayside when I started to use mobile ‘phones.

So I bought handsets that were reduced in price. They were advertised as call blockers, but I took absolutely no notice of that. Nope, I just needed new handsets. They looked ok, they did what I needed them to go, and so that was it.

When they arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only do they synchronise so that I only have to save the number one handset and it saves to all of them (my old ones, which weren’t that old, didn’t do that, which meant I either only dialled from the base handset where I’d stored the numbers or needed my mobile to hand), they actually do block unwanted calls! In the first few days, they have stopped me from having to take a number of dodgy old marketing calls. Every vulnerable person should have one of these.

It’s only when I’m home during the day that I realise how many nuisance calls I get, even though I’m ex-directory, am registered with the Telephone Preference Service, and almost never give out my home ‘phone number. And this little gizmo tells me how may calls it’s prevented. It’s amazing.

Of course, this all set me off on a train of thought; I’ve been doing quite a lot of that lately. I can remember when I got my first mobile ‘phone, back in 1998. I was a bit of a late starter in the mobile revolution, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of carrying around one of those house bricks. Do you remember those early mobiles? Even my first one was big and clunky compared to the Smart phones we have nowadays. It didn’t even show who was calling me, even if their number was stored in my ‘phone book. Or contacts list as we now call it.

I’ve gone through the card with mobile ‘phones since then. My first was a Motorola, and I stuck with them for a few years, then I changed my allegiance to Nokia and then back to Motorola. Then I got into Blackberries (Blackberry’s?). Oh how I loved my BB. It is true that they were a little limited in functionality compared to Smart phones but I liked being able to see e-mail messages when I didn’t have a signal, because they were stored on the ‘phone not the server. It was a sad day when I said goodbye to my last BB, but as my other ‘phone was a Samsung (one for work, one for personal), all was not lost and I got another of those.

All these changes, amazing that it was only about 20 years ago that mobile ‘phones were first introduced and the humble landline about 115 years ago. I marvel at all theses changes, in such a relatively short space of time.

I don’t know whether children today do this, but I remember making a “telephone” out of two empty baked bean cans tied together with string. You had to ensure that the string was tight or it wouldn’t work, but you could actually hear each other. What I didn’t know then (and I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t either) is that this was known as the Lover’s Telephone. They work purely on mechanical vibrations. It seems crazy to think this now, but until the patent on Alexander Graham Bell’s electrical telephone ran out, mechanical telephones were more popular – there was no patent because they had been around since at least the 1600s although there range was very limited. No doubt this is the reason why there were so many local telephone companies in the US who didn’t charge for those calls – the operating costs would have been negligible.

Bell invented the telephone as a result of trying to make improvements to the telegraph, which had been operating successfully since 1839 on the Great Western Railway, from Paddington to West Drayton., a total of 13 miles. The principle of the two devices was the same, both were based on electrical signals but the telegraph was based on Morse code (dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash) making it a slower, one-way-at-a -time form of communication.

A number of people vied for the honour of inventing the telephone, and we will probably never know for sure, but I suppose it was a bit like an early VHS vs Betamax war (that’s dating me too, I suppose). The bottom line was, in the US, the fight came down to two people and Alexander Graham Bell beat Elisha Gray and so globally we now attribute its invention to him.

It appears that Bell had something of a musical bent (or maybe it was because his father and grandfather had been what we would now call speak therapists and voice coaches) which somehow enabled him to devise a system of transmitting several messages at the same time – the harmonic telegraph. It wasn’t until March 1876 that the first speech was transmitted over the telephone, and then only to Bell’s colleague, Thomas Watson, in the next room, but great oaks from little acorns grow.

Once the electrical telephone took hold, it was bound to grow in use and I suppose it’s a natural assumption that in a post-industrial revolution world, someone was going to come up with a telephone exchange and switchboard. I remember my friend Kate, and her mum, both working in the old style exchanges where they used the key and lamp system. Basically, a light showed you which line had the call and the telephonists connected it to the correct person by putting a jack in the right socket. The boards with the sockets on were big and both Kate and her mum have problems with their shoulders as a result – what we’d now call Work Related Upper Limb Disorder.

Of course, it’s all moved on since then, and it’s possible to have a switchboard in a different country from the one where the company is based. A far cry from the two baked bean cans and a piece of string…

ELVIS AT THE O2

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My friend Kate came to stay this week. We’ve been friends forever and although she only lives a couple of hours drive away, we don’t get to see each other anywhere near as often as we’d both like. To make up for that, we hook up for a few days two or three times a year, I go to hers and she comes to mine. Katewas born in London but moved away more than 30 years ago, so when she comes down, we do a bit of the tourist stuff: the London Eye, the cable car, the bus tours, that kind of thing. This year was a little bit different though…

Kate is a massive, massive Elvis fan and desperately wants to go to Gracelands in Memphis and I promised her years ago that we’d go one day. For a whole host of reasons, we haven’t made it there yet, but, this year, Elvis has come to us! Yes, there is an exhibition at the O2 and I got tickets.

The exhibition is billed as being the “largest Elvis Presley retrospective ever mounted in Europe” and boasts over 300 artefacts. Kate had never been to the O2 before, so the whole thing was a bit of an experience for her and we had a short time before our session at the exhibition started (you have to book a slot) to sit and look at the actual structure (something I’ve never done before) so before I go back to the exhibition, a little diversion into the Dome.

The O2 started its life as the Millennium Dome, and became the O2 in 2007, when the Dome was re-opened to the public. There are several restaurants and bars in the O2, as well as more outside, a club, the arena and the exhibition area, and it is just a short walk to the Emirates Airline Cable Car across the Thames.

The Dome is one of the largest of its type in the world, and is made from a PTFE glass fibre coated fabric that is 52m high in the middle, a metre for every week of the year. It has 12, 100m high support towers (one for every month of the year). It appears as a circular structure, 365m in diameter – a metre for every day of the year. So that’s the O2 and Kate and I enjoyed sitting looking before going into the exhibition.

The exhibition though, that was something else. It is billed as the “largest Elvis Presley retrospective ever mounted in Europe” with over 300 exhibits taken from Gracelands itself, including some of Elvis’ jump suits, hand written letters and photographs of Elvis with President Nixon. All the advertising says that Elvis pink caddy is going to be there but I’m pretty sure that the car I saw was a cream Lincoln Continental. Did I miss something?

It’s well laid out, the exhibition starts with Elvis’ early years and takes you through his youth through to his film career to what the O2 terms the Concert Years. Kate told me that his movie career was part of his downfall – the exhibition alluded to this but wasn’t explicit as the King’s uber fan Kate. In fact, I doubt that she learned anything new here, I rather think she could have told the O2 a few things. One of the things I did enjoy was that lots of the women there were singing along to the songs that were being played, Kate found herself a singing partner and even I had a bit of a sing and a dance.

We spent an hour of so looking around and then we went into the finale show – a 26 minute show of some of Elvis’ filmed performances. I really began to understand how he captivated so many hearts when I saw this, and, let’s be honest, even I like a lot of his music.

If you are an Elvis fan, I’d say it’s worth going. Even if you’re not, it might still be worth it, although it’s not particularly cheap – full price tickets total at £21.75. It was worth it for me because Kate liked it so much.

RUSH HOUR TRAVEL

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I’ve been a commuter for more years than I care to remember but this week has pretty much taken the biscuit. I haven’t had a week like this for many, many years.

Every day so far this week there has been a problem both ways on my line, the District Line, and it’s only Wednesday. I ended up getting a cab part of the way home on Monday because I was so late, and almost crying with tiredness. I’d had a very busy weekend. The cab driver went the slowest way in the world, although, in fairness, when I told him I wasn’t happy, he refunded some of the money. Still, you’ve got to love a tryer. (Do I look as though I came off last year’s Christmas tree?)

Tonight though, little Hot Chocolate and I were walking to Victoria together. It’s always a nightmare at that time of night, which is why we don’t often do travel at this time of day. We had almost reached the crossing closest to Victoria Station when a woman coming the other way barged into HC.

“There’s no need to push,” said HC.

“Oh yes there is,” said big rude blonde woman going the other way. (And I so hope you read this, you ignoramus. And if you don’t know what that means, look it up in the dictionary.)

HC and I were stunned. True, there were lots of people, and true, when you are trying to get onto a very crowded train, there is place for a bit of barging, but in what world do you think it is ok to barge into someone smaller than you who is not even trying to be difficult?

HC is a little firecracker usually so big rude blonde woman must have got her on a very good day. She was lucky. Very lucky.

HC and I went our separate ways and I went to my platform. The train wasn’t too crowded so I go on, and got a seat. (I usually tend to let trains pass if they are too crowded, I don’t generally do the whole sardine thing.) I got as far as Embankment when they announced a problem at Blackfriars. It was hot and crowded and I was already glowing so I got off, went back one stop and got on the Jubilee line. That was pretty crowded too, but not unbearable. And the AC is a bit better. I got back on the D line at West Ham, knowing I’d have to stand most of the way, and then a woman got on at the last minute, and pushed up very close to me.

Ok, I get this, I understand that travelling on a crowded tube is horrible, especially when you are short and can’t reach the overhead bars. (Hell, I can only just reach them when I’m wearing flats, which I tend to wear to and from work now.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I try to be considerate. I could see the woman wanted me to move my hands as I was gripping onto the vertical bar, so I did, which allowed her to lean her head on it. I’m there sister, I know how this feels. Then she nestled in closer to me. I am not crazy about people being close to me without permission, I’m very conscious of my own personal space and let me tell you, I can suck my teeth with the best of them, which did not go down a treat. Then something amazing happened. At the next station, the woman in the seat by me got up to get off and the little woman squooshed past me and took the seat!!!!!! (She was short enough to get under my – very clean and fragrant – armpits.) Actually, I would probably have let her have it, I’m fit enough to stand, even though I don’t like it, but how rude to shove past me like that! As it so happened, by the time everyone had disembarked at this station, there were enough seats for all of us.

I love London and this is the worst of it, and it is not at all typical, in my experience. I, for one, will give up my seat for people less able to stand than me, and many’s the time young men have given up their seat for me. (I know I should be grateful, but I’m really not that old. I’ve just had a hard life. Nor am I pregnant. Seriously though, it is sweet and I am grateful) I just think if we all had few more manners on the tube, it would make life easier.

Which includes:

Don’t play your music too loud. I’m not deaf although YOU will be if you keep playing your music so loud when you are wearing head ’phones. I know you are going to get upset if I ask you to turn it up so we can all hear it properly; I also know that it needs to be louder when the train is moving so you can hear it above the noise of the train if you are wearing those cheap little earpieces. So do us all a favour, and either (a) buy a decent pair of Bose or Dr Dre’s that will stop the surrounding noise interfering with you and you interfering with us, being cheap isn’t classy; or, (b) turn it off.

Have a shower and use deodorant. It’s really not difficult and I don’t care how poor you are, there is no excuse for being smelly. Fresh sweat may be full of apocrine pheromones and be a little erotic but stale sweat is not. HAVE A WASH. Honest to God, there is nothing worse than travelling in close proximity to someone who smells like a four-year old yak from the foothills of the Himalayas.

In the same vein, wash your clothes regularly. Think about where you are travelling. Much as I dislike it, people DO put their feet on the seats, and worse. Do I need to spell it out? Do you really want to be carrying that around with you for a long period of time? And if you can’t afford the dry cleaning bills, wear things that can be washed instead.

Mobile ‘phone conversations. In my opinion, the worst thing that LUL can do is to make it possible for us all to talk on our ‘phones on the whole of our journey on the underground. I really do not want to know the entire conversation you had with your husband/wife/son/daughter/boss/whatever. Your private life is just that: private. Or should be. Even I don’t tell you everything about my life here, and yet, in the space of half an hour, I know more about some people than you will ever know about me.

And while we are on that topic, when you are talking to your friends, do you think you could moderate the level of your voice? It is undignified to shout and I still don’t need to know everything, but be warned: if you speak loudly enough for me to hear, I may well use your conversation in a book or story. There is no copyright on what you say in public. Sorry and all that, but it’s your fault if you speak loudly. We writers love a bit of people watching and eavesdropping.

If that’s not enough to change your behaviour, I don’t know what is, until I take your photograph and blog about you (no laws broken there either folks, sorry, not in this country). Until the next time…

INKY STEPHEN’S HOUSE

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I went to a business meeting at Inky Stephens’ House in Finchley recently. When I was told the venue, I said, “Who?” I’d never heard of him. At least, I thought I’d never heard of him.

The House

Originally built in 1859, the house was renovated and enlarged in 1874 by Inky Stephens. The original house boasted a library, rooms in which the children were taught and, of course, the normal features of any house. When I say “house” I really do mean mansion, it’s huge. I couldn’t go into all of it (parts of it weren’t open to the public, and anyway, I was there out of hours, and I had a meeting to attend) but it was one of those places I should have loved as a child. Places where you could sneak and hide this way and that. More than one staircase (although one is now a fire escape and I expect would have been for use only by the servants back in the day, but when did children ever bother about things like that?

When Inky died in 1918, he left the house and gardens for “the enjoyment of the public,” which was very generous of him. The house is interesting but the gardens are beautiful, as the photographs show.

They were designed in the “gardenesque” style by Robert Marnock. Marnock was a landscape gardener and he included lawns and ponds, as well as a walled kitchen garden and a Bothy (I think this is a Scottish term but it just means a park-keeper’s house) in the design. A water tower was also installed and Stephens had a lodge, a coach house and a stable block built. He also had a number of rare trees planted throughout the grounds. I didn’t have time to go around all of the gardens so I missed the famous bench with a statue of Spike Milligan, as well as the Bothy Garden. Spike was a local resident and the statue was installed in the gardens by the Finchley Society in 2014. Another visited is called for, it seems.

When Stephens died, the house was being used as a Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital (basically, a hospital staffed by volunteers). It continued to be used as a hospital between 1919 and 1925 by the RAF. The grounds were formally opened to the public in May 1928. Since then, the house has been used as a public library and then council offices.

There was a fire in 1989 which completely gutted the east wing of the house, but fortunately it’s been restored. The house is now a Grade II listed building and is used as events venue (hence my meeting there). Part of the house is now a museum that tells the history writing materials, again, I didn’t get to see that on this visit.

Who was Inky Stephens?

Have you ever heard of the Stephens’ Ink Company? I didn’t think I had until I picked up a leaflet in the house and something clicked in my head that I may have seen it before. The logo for the company calls it “Superior Black Japan Ink,” and that does vaguely ring a bell. As someone who went to school when we had to use fountain pens (no, they didn’t didn’t have a quill, and don’t be so cheeky. Although if you didn’t have your own you could borrow something not unlike that, but just much plainer) it should have been familiar to me, I suppose. (I’m pretty sure that we were allowed to use ballpoints at my grammar school, but not at primary school. We graduated from pencils to proper ink.) I digress.

So, Inky’s father, Dr Henry Stephens, founded the company, which was first registered in 1832. He invented indelible blue-black “writing fluid” (that’s ink to you and me). The ink was used by the civil service, the military, and was even taken to the Antarctic by Captain Scott, so was presumably good stuff. Inky (also named Henry) inherited the company from his father, but he wasn’t just some poor little rich kid. He was a chemist in his own right, and went on to become a politician. He learned his trade and knew a bit about the business when he took over the running of it.

Inky was born in February 1841 in Lambeth, and died at the age of 67 in July 1918. Dr Stephens moved the family up to Finchley, to Grove House in Ballards Lane, where he was able to use the out buildings as a laboratory, in which to invent his indelible blue-black writing fluid.

Inky went to school in France for a while, and then returned to the UK to finish his schooling. He left school at age 16 but continued to study science, particularly chemistry and also started to learn the family business. His father died suddenly when Inky was 23 years old, so he took over. Inky had married the year before and he and his wife lived in the family home until he purchased Avenue House – now Stephens’ House – and ten acres of land.

He became a Conservative Party politician and became the Member of Parliament for Hornsey (which covered Finchley) from 1887 to 1900. Inky became known as the uncrowned king of Finchley because he became so popular for what he did – as well as being a businessman, he was also a lecturer and philanthropist.

You can find more details about the house and gardens, and the opening times, at

Stephenshouseandgardens.com
© Susan Shirley 2015

LITERARY SOHO

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I had booked my ticket for the Footprints of London Literary London tour, hosted by Alan Fortune, some time ago. At the time I hadn’t realised that 26 April was the same day as the London Marathon. Of course, I realised as soon as I got on the train. Not that it particularly mattered because the tour didn’t get close to the Marathon route.

Alan said, “If you are going to do a tour around Soho, a Sunday morning really is the best time to do it.” He was right, the rest of the week it is just heaving with people doing what people do, and certainly not wanting a group on a tour getting in their way. I have never seen Soho so quiet around before, but it was great for a walking tour.

We met at Piccadilly Circus underground station and made our way round to Archer Street. Alan stopped opposite a bar called Be at One which used to be a pub called the King’s Arms. It was here that two young Germans named Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used to discuss their political ideas back the 1800s. Together, they jointly wrote The Communist Manifesto, as well as writing other books independently of each other.

From here we went to Great Pulteney Street, to the house of John William Polidori. Polidori lived between 1795 and 1821 and was Lord Byron’s physician as well as being a writer. He was a bit of a smarty pants, because he graduated from the University of Edinburgh as a doctor at the age of 19!

On the way to our next main stop, we passed a pub called the John Snow, named after the physician who discovered the cause of cholera – drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food.

Then onto Marshall Street, where William Blake, poet and artist, was born. There is a huge block of flats there now. Alan told us a lot about Blake’s life, but you have to go on the tour to get all the details, there’s too much to tell for this blog.

Our next stop was D’Arblay Street, named after Frances (Fanny) D’Arblay nee Burney. Fanny seems to me to have been one of those interesting women from history. Fanny kept a journal in which she recorded events about London society and which she published. She went on to write several novels, and is reputed to have been an influence in the way that Jane Austen wrote. Fanny worked for George III and Queen Charlotte for five years as second keeper of the robes, although these were not particularly happy years for her. She married at age 41. The actual street was renamed in 1909 in commemoration of Fanny’s life.

Then we went to Dean Street, to see where Karl Marx had lived at one time, and then the Dog and Duck at the junction of Bateman Street and Frith Street, the haunt of a number of artistic people over the years, including George Orwell. Along Frith Street to Hazlitt’s which was built in 1718, and named after writer William Hazlitt who died there.

We went from here around Soho Square onto Greek Street, pausing to look at St Barnabas House which is a Grade I listed Georgian building. Since 1862, it has been a charity to help the homeless.

Further along Greek Street is the Pillars of Hercules public house. This pub was originally built in 1733, and was featured in Charles Dickens’ book A Tale of Two Cities, then onto Old Compton Street to pass the location where Richard Wagner composed The Flying Dutchman. Back to Dean Street for the French House and all the history that went with that and then onto St Anne’s Church, a church of which Sir Christopher Wren was co-architect. The ashes of Dorothy L Sayers, of Lord Peter Wimsey fame, are buried here.

We ended the tour in Gerrard Street which housed the site of the Turk’s Head Tavern where Dr Johnson and Joshua Reynolds attended The Literary Club, and opposite, the site of one of the homes of poet and playwright John Dryden.

This was a lovely tour, very informative, and Alan was a joy to have as a tour guide. I knew that London had a lot of history, but this told me more than I knew before and I hope I’ve given you a flavour for what you can expect, although no review can ever match the experience, you need to “walk the walk.” I wholeheartedly commend this one to you.

BELLY DANCING

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I love all kinds of dancing – ballet, ballroom, street, etc but the two types of dance that fascinate me most are belly dancing and tap dancing. Belly dancing because the dancers look so graceful, even when they are moving quite fast, and they can do things with their muscles that I think are amazing and I want to do. Tap dancing, I suppose because of watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in those old films, and it just looks amazing to watch a troop literally tapping in time.

I haven’t tried tap dancing yet, but I went to my first belly dancing class last week. It was great fun and I really enjoyed it, even though I wasn’t very good at it.

Our teacher, Sadiyya, was great. She has a fantastic sense of humour and was really helpful to all of us ladies. Only a few of the ladies had done it before, and most of us had two left hips as well as two left feet! Sadiyya explained that muscles on one side of the body can be stronger than on the other, depending on how we stand or habitually move. Makes sense. She came round to each of us in turn to help us with out techniques and explained that it would probably take a few months before we started to become proficient in the moves. Sadiyya also told us that we needed to start working on strengthening some muscles to make it easier for us to perfect our technique.

Regular readers will know that I like to research my subjects as well as writing how I feel about something, so I was surprised to find so little information about the history of belly dancing on the internet.

It seems that it started its life in the Middle East – Egypt and Turkey appear to be the countries in which it is most prolific. It was one of those things that women and girls did between themselves, when there were no men present. At least, when the women danced at their weddings, there would be no men present. Maybe that’s why, when I was researching this, the first article I found was “Why I can’t stand white belly dancers” by Randa Jarrar.

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/why_i_cant_stand_white_belly_dancers/

Ms Jarrar believes that white women who belly dance are continuing a long tradition of appropriation. I didn’t go to the class for anything like that, although there were actually only a few white women in the class, I went because it seemed like fun and besides, I really want to learn to do that thing with my head. If you’ve every seen Eastern dancing you’ll know what I mean. Anyway, apologies to Ms Jarrar and anyone else who is offended, but it won’t stop me going back. I don’t intend to perform in public; I just want a way to help keep fit where I can enjoy myself and have a bit of fun.

Traditionally, the dance is either a social dance or a performance art. The social dance is performed by men and women, as well as children, at celebratory events, and the dancers tend to wear their ordinary clothes. The performance art is less of social, folk type dance and may introduce other less traditional elements to it. Unsurprisingly, performers are not considered respectable in the Middle East. I don’t mean that disrespectfully either, but Islam is the main religion in these countries and is strict in its rules about women interacting with men outside of their family, let alone displaying flesh in public. Not dissimilar to Christianity a few hundred years ago. Those are the rules and I accept them for what they are.

Belly dancing in Egypt is distinct from belly dancing in Turkey. Egyptian dancers who performed in public were traditionally known as Ghawazi, from the Nawar people. Egyptian belly dance (called Raqs) is believed to have been a way to entertain the kings. Turkish belly dancing is known as Oryantal Dans or just Oryantal, and tends to be more gymnastic and energetic than Egyptian. These dancers usually use finger cymbals or zils. It’s considered poor show in Turkey if a dancer can’t use the zils as well.

More from Sadiyya's dance class — More from Sadiyya’s dance class

I’m not sure whether Sadiyya’s dance is Egyptian or Turkish and I’m not sure that it really matters. You can’t do this dancing well without a lot of muscle control. All I know is that she is a great teacher and that t was fun. Her class is at the Soho Gym; see her face book page for more info.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sadiyya-Vahed-Dance-Company/107316269345906?fref=ts

WORKERS’ LUNCH AT THE CRITERION

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The Beautiful Boys (Dave, Paul and Stephen) and I went for lunch at The Criterion in Piccadilly Circus yesterday. Paul and I went there for lunch a few years back, so we were confident of a good meal, but this was one of those “deals” that you get with Amazon Local. I’m not quite sure who named this series of lunches the “Workers’ Lunches” but it’s because we four are the only ones left of our cohort working for the same employer. We go out every few months, and if we can get a deal, we do.

If you’ve never been to The Criterion, you need to go. It has the most amazing mosaic ceiling, very high, very elaborate, very beautiful. It was built by Thomas Verity in the Neo-Byzantine style, and it opened in 1873. It is a Grade II listed building.

I feel that in some of the restaurants that we’ve been to for these deals, we don’t always get quite the same treatment because we have a deal. This was most definitely not the case at the Criterion. The service throughout was very attentive, empty glasses and dishes were cleared quickly. It’s always a bit of a pet hate of mine when empty plates and left on the table, so that earned them many house points with me.

We started with a Bellini… Just the way to start a meal, in my opinion. There were, I think, five or six choices for the starter, four for the main course and four desserts. The point of this deal was that the wine was selected for us depending on which dish we chose. I went for the smoked salmon to start, Stephen went for the ham terrine, I think that Paul had the smoked salmon too, Dave chose the soup. The salmon was served with soda bread, but The Criterion had gluten free bread in stock for me. (Not just for me, obviously.) Trust me when I say that I’ve been to restaurants before (admittedly a few years ago) when they had to go out and buy some, and more recently, I’ve been to restaurants where they couldn’t cater for me at all, so this was another plus point for me.

I selected chicken for my main course, but wasn’t sure whether that would contain wheat – our waitress immediately offered to check with the chef for me, and luckily it was suitable. And delicious.

Normally, I would have stopped after the main course, but as dessert was included in the price, I went for the peanut and chocolate mousse with honeycomb. It was divine; moreover, we were all extremely impressed with the choices of wines, even the dessert wines were not so cloyingly sweet that they were unpleasant to drink. In fact, the one I had with my dessert was bordering on a fortified wine and rather pleasant.

We were served complimentary petit fours with our coffee, which the boys said were delightful. I just couldn’t fit anything else in at that point. We’d paid for the meal when we purchased the deal, but thought we had to pay service at the restaurant. We did, but only on the teas and coffees, so we ended up only paying £5 per head on the day! Very impressive.

The Criterion was built for wine merchants Spiers and Pond, who held a competition for its design and build. It took two years to complete and cost over £80,000 (which would be over £8 million at today’s prices). It was built with five floors – the ground floor dining room, more dining rooms on the first and second floors, a ballroom on the third floor and a theatre in the basement. The restaurant opened on 17 November 1873.

The restaurant was home to the Royal College of Science’s First Annual Dinner, when the chairman was none other than H G Wells. Filming for scenes of “Batman, the Dark Knight” took place here, as were scenes from Downton Abbey. Many other famous people have taken afternoon tea or dined here, including Christabel Pankhurst, one of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.

From the The Criterion, we went for a quick drink in the Queen’s Head, which is an old pub, famous for dog fights a hundred odd years ago. And from there to the Bar Americain in ZL. The Bar Americain is downstairs and is a lovely little bar, even if it did charge £9.80 for a glass of Sancerre!

We had a great afternoon and evening, and even saw some ex-colleagues in the bar. Looking forward to the next one, boys.
© Susan Shirley 2015

CORAL REEFS

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A couple of friends and I visited the Natural History Museum on Sunday, we went to see the Coral Reefs exhibition. Without a doubt, this was one of the most beautiful and interesting exhibitions I have ever visited. Beautiful, but quite frightening too, in many ways. I knew that coral reefs were endangered but didn’t really know why.

I also didn’t know until Sunday that the coral reef is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet, providing a home to at least 25% of marine species. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet, and the coral triangle in South-East Asia has the highest diversity of marine life in the world! Corals are of immense use to humans in a number of ways – for example, they absorb the impact from waves hitting the shoreline; they can take in up to 97% of their energy, serving to protect both the coastline and the people living there. It really is worth our while to look after them.

Coral reefs are made up of thin layers of calcium carbonate which is secreted over animals known as coral polyps, which are quite simple organisms. They seem to form these layers in tiny hexagonal shapes, something that appears quite a lot in nature as it’s strong. Not only are they invertebrates, they don’t have any bone structure at all, nor any of the complexities that are associated with so-called higher organisms.

There are two kinds of corals – hard and soft. The hard corals have a rigid exoskeleton, the soft ones don’t, and these are the ones that we see swaying with the ocean currents. Both forms are sessile, ie, they do not move about, and tend to have tentacles that they use to catch prey. Every gap between different parts of the coral is inhabited, which serves to make a more stable structure. They may be considered lower life forms, in evolutionary terms, but they have complex relationships with the other creatures that exist around them, forming symbiotic associations with algae – algae produce food and carbon by photosynthesis and the coral provide protection. It’s these algae – zooxanthellae – that give the beautiful colours to the reefs.

As well as the algae, there are many other creatures that live in the reefs: oysters, clams, shrimps, crabs, sea worms, star fish, sea urchins, jelly fish, sea anemones and turtles, to name a few. There are fish known as Gardener Species such as Parrot Fish play a part in keeping the reefs clean and tidy, and Clown Fish (as in Finding Nemo) forms a symbiotic association with sea anemones – both protect each other from their specific parasites, the sea anemone provides food for the Clown Fish and the Clown Fish helps the sea anemone with its parasites. Far too many different fish and organisms to mention here.

Many species of coral reproduce during mass spawning events, when the adults release thousands of eggs and sperm pretty much simultaneously on just one day of the year. The sperm are guided by moonlight and once they have fertilised an egg, they attach to a suitable place on the reef and start to build their limestone skeleton. Who said romance was dead?

Like most ecosystems that are left to their own devices, corals are very resilient to natural events such as hurricanes and the like, and can recover pretty quickly. Many coral reefs are in trouble though, largely through man’s interventions or, some would say, interference. Corals are intolerant of wide ranges in water temperature, salinity or pH of the water. Any change outside of a narrow range can stop growth, for example, too much sunlight will cause the coral to expel the algae (coral bleaching), and if the coral can’t find more food, within a few weeks it will starve. This is when we are left with the barren, skeletal type structures with no fish or other organisms swimming nearby. Conversely, too little light prevents growth. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing ocean acidification which slows down limestone secretion.

Industrial run-off, human sewage and other toxic waste, be they from pesticides or other sources can increase the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous in the water, which can in turn affect the natural balance of organisms living in the reefs, or even just poison them. Removal of trees near to the water’s edge can increase the amount of sunlight reaching the reefs. Land clearance can cause soil erosion which can then bury corals.

Fortunately, all is not yet lost. A number of countries with coral reefs nearby are taking proactive steps to protect the reefs, eg the United States has a Coral Reef Task Force and there are coral reef initiatives such as the Coral Triangle Initiative. These are all aimed at addressing the threats to coral reefs, and if we work together, we can give them a chance to repair themselves and/or grow again.

If you are interested in learning more about protecting coral reefs, check out

MARK ROWLAND’S CITY OF LONDON TOUR

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The actual name of the walk is called,

“Wren, Romans and Liverymen: A brief history of the City of London.”

A brief history it may have been, but Mark managed to pack a great deal in, making it not only a very interesting walk, but teaching me a lot in the process.

This was my first walk with Mark, and, as with all tour guides, you never really know what to expect until you meet them. I needn’t have worried though, Mark’s enthusiasm shone through, making this one of the best walks I’ve ever been on.

What amazed me most (to be fair, this doesn’t just apply to Mark, but most London tour guides) is the depth of knowledge that he had, all stored in his head. I know he studied hard to learn all of this information, but even so. He carried a binder only to show us artists’ impressions of the way the City might have looked, or photographs of the way things were. In a few hours, there was limited time for Mark to tell us what he knew, but he had a really good go at it.

We were a fairly small group so people felt free to ask a lot of questions (sometimes I think we all feel a bit constrained in a larger group) which Mark answered without any hesitation.

The walk around the City was very comprehensive and covered the founding of the City through to the plague of 1665 to the Great Fire of London right up to the present day. If you know the City even slightly, I’m sure that there must be things that you wonder about? That’s certainly the case with me. For example, why is Lombard Street so called? I know the answer now, and I also know why we used to have Lsd (not the drug, but pounds, shillings and pence) – libri, soldi and denarii.

Our tour started just outside Tower Hill underground station, in full view of the Tower of London; from there we walked a short way to see some of the remains of the old Roman City Wall. (I now know how to tell whether a wall is Roman!)

We then paused outside St Olav’s Church in Hart Street, where 300 plague victims were buried, including the woman who is alleged to have brought the plague to the City. Both Samuel Pepys and his wife are buried here. The depictions above the gate to the churchyard are a bit grisly, which may have been why Charles Dickens nicknamed it “St Ghastly Grim!” This was a church that Pepys liked to use when he was alive; working in the Admiralty, so fitting that he is buried here.

Of course, we made our way along Lombard Street but you have to go on the tour to find out why it is called that.

The photo below shows a quick stop in our tour – I thought this was a beautiful building that was once someone’s great home. Turns out it was originally a vinegar warehouse…

From there onto Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started. The Monument to the fire stands near to the bottom of Fish Street Hill, which was once a main thoroughfare into the City, and which was the site of fish market way back in the time of Henry III. If you were to look at a map of where we’d travelled at this point, we were still very close to the start, and yet it seemed as though we had walked miles, but in a good way.

Then onto the Jamaica Wine House in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill. The plaque on the side of the pub says,

“Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee’s Head 1652.”

Pasqua worked for Daniel Edwards who was a trader in Turkish goods, including coffee, and he helped Pasqua set up the coffee house. It was sometimes known as the Turk’s Head. I wrote about coffee houses a few months ago – see my blog:

http://susanshirley.co.uk/?tag=coffee-houses

Different coffee houses grew to specialise in different discussion areas, unsurprisingly, I suppose, when you consider how you get a different type of clientele in different pubs, bars, etc.

What surprised me was to see how close together the buildings were around here, and, notwithstanding that they had been modernised, you could see how the Great Fire spread so quickly. The photographs below give a bit of indication but really don’t show the full closeness.

Keeping in the food and drink theme, we went to what is said to be the oldest restaurant in town, Simpson’s Tavern in Ball Court. The tavern was established on this site in 1757, but ladies weren’t admitted until 1916! No going out for a romantic dinner back in those days then? I had a look at the menu, and this is somewhere that I’d definitely like to go.

We visited several other stops before we found ourselves outside St Alban’s in Wood Street. This church was medieval but had been rebuilt and was then destroyed in the Great Fire of London and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, completed in 1685. Unfortunately, the Blitz caused serious damage to the church, and the remains of the church, minus the tower, were demolished in 1965. All that remains is the tower, which is now a private dwelling designated a Grade II listed building.

Then onto another stop by a different part of the Roman Wall, at the edge of where the Roman Fort would have been. Part of the wall is underground and guided tours are available from time to time courtesy of the Museum of London.

Our tour ended at an extra stop at Number One, New Change, where Mark took us up to the roof terrace, with its fabulous views of St Paul’s Cathedral and across London.

If you only do a short visit to London, really try to do this walk, it was absolutely fascinating and informative and I’ve only briefly touched on it here. There was far more to it than what I’ve described. I will be doing more walks with Mark soon, so hope to see you on one of them.

You can find out more about Mark’s walks at http://footprintsoflondon.com/ or https://markslondonrambles.wordpress.com

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DARK AND HIDDEN LONDON

HAIL ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

ELVIS AT THE O2

RUSH HOUR TRAVEL

INKY STEPHEN’S HOUSE

LITERARY SOHO

BELLY DANCING

WORKERS’ LUNCH AT THE CRITERION

CORAL REEFS

MARK ROWLAND’S CITY OF LONDON TOUR