A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London
On the night of September 8th, Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Mathy piloted Zeppelin L 13 across Central London, dropping bombs as they went. The trail of destruction led from University College London, via Russell Sq. to Gray’s Inn Farringdon, Smithfield and out past Liverpool Street to the East End.
Before World War One London was the centre of the largest Empire the world had ever known. It was the first great era of globalisation; international trade and Finance was booming. London was full of the mega-rich, but poverty and substandard housing was extensive. Inner London was still the home of Industry, and home to large immigrant communities. Political dissent was widespread, with the Labour Party beginning to erode the Liberal Party’s power base, and the issue of Female Suffragette was rocking society. Then, catastrophe as ‘the lights went out all over Europe’.
On October 1 1916, Mathy’s L31 Zeppelin burst into flames after attack by the Royal Flying Corp, and near Cuffley, Potters Bar he decided to jump out. He was found by farmers still alive and lying face up but died soon after.
Here, is a podcast originally written for a Zeppelin Walk for London Walks. It includes an eyewitness account by Hugh Turpin of the shooting down of the Zeppelin. Please ignore the dates of walks, as this was a couple of years ago. But I am planning to repeat the virtual tour during the winter of 2024. I hope to revise this post for the October 1st anniversary.
The Master of St Giles, National Gallery. ‘St Giles and the Hind’ This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
Today, is St Giles’ Feast Day. His story is mostly unknown, but he was thought to be a hermit who had a pet Hind in the Arles District of France perhaps in the 9th Century. The hounds of King Wamba (a Visigothic King) were chasing the deer, and shot an arrow into the undergrowth. The King and his men followed to discover Giles wounded by the arrow, protecting the hind, who he held in his arms. The hounds were miraculously stayed motionless as they leaped towards the hind. Wamba apparently means ‘Big paunch’ in Gothic. He was also called Flavius. Giles was injured in the leg, although the image above shows the arrow in his hand.
St Giles is, therefore, the patron saint of disabled people. He was very popular in medieval Britain, with over 150 churches dedicated to him, including four in London. Perhaps the two most famous are St Giles Without Cripplegate in London and St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.
St Giles Cripplegate, photographed by the Author at night from the Barbican Centre.
St Giles Cripplegate was built in the 11th Century, and rebuilt in the 14th Century and again in 1545-50 after nearly being destroyed by fire. It survived the Great Fire of London, being just beyond the extent of the Fire. It was badly damaged in the Blitz, but the Tower and the outer walls survived. Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier here. John Foxe of the Book of Martyrs, John Speed, the Cartographer, Martin Frobisher and John Milton were buried here. Milton’s coffin was opened in 1793 and he was said to have looked as if he had just been buried. One of those present, then tried to pull Milton’s teeth out, which a bystander helped by hitting them with a stone. The few teeth Milton had left in his head were divided between the men, who also took a rib bone and locks of his hair. The Caretaker then opened the coffin for anyone who wanted to see the corpse!
From the London City Wall Trail.
Cripplegate, one of the Gates in the City Wall (originally the North Gate of the Roman Fort) may be named because it was a good place to gather for those trying to beg alms for their disabilities. Although it has also been said that there was an underground tunnel from the Gate’s Barbican to the Gate which in Anglo Saxon is a Crepel. Or because of the cure of cripples when Edmund the Martyr’s remains passed through the gate in 1010.
The Corner Tower of the London City Wall, the Barbican in the background, and the tower of St Giles’ Church behind the Tower. Photo by the author
Kalendar of Shepherds illustration of September showing harvesting grapes and the astrological signs for Virgo (August 23 – September 22) and Libra (September 23 – October 22)
It is that time of the year when you say ‘Where has the Summer gone? It can’t be September already?’ But, metrologically speaking, Autumn starts today. September 1st was chosen on a numerical basis for ease of measuring rather than any profound floral, agricultural or solar reason. So, there are three Gregorian Calendar months for each season, and each season starts on the first of the month. Autumn comes from Latin (autumnus) which went into French and then into English. The season was also called Harvest (which went into Dutch herfst, German Herbst, and Scots hairst -Wikipedia) or from the 16th Century the ‘fall of the year’ or ‘fall of the leaf’ which spread to America.
It still feels like summer this year, with flowers doing well in my garden and not looking too tired. In England, we often have a glorious September, and an ‘Indian’ Summer.
Of course, for the real Autumn, we have to wait for the Equinox, the beginning of Astronomical or Solar Autumn. This year (2024) on September 22nd.
The stars signs for astrological September are: Virgo which is linked to Aphrodite (Venus) the Goddess of Love and Libra is linked to Artemis (Diana), virgin goddess of many things, including hunting, wild animals, children, and birth.
Star signs for September
September gets its name from the Romans, for whom it was the 7th Month of the year (septem is Latin for seven). Later, they added two new months so it became our 9th Month. (For more on the Roman year, look at my post here).
It is called Halegmonath in the early English language, or the holy month, named because it is the month of offerings, because of the harvest, and the mellow fruitfulness of September? Medi in Welsh is the month of reaping, and An Sultuine in Gaelic which means the month of plenty.
Roman personification of Autumn from Lullingstone mosaic
Here is an early 17th Century look at September from the Kalendar of Shepherds – for more on the Kalendar, look at my post here.
From the Kalendar of Shepherds
The Kalendar has an additional shorter look at September and continues with its linking of the 12 months of the year with the lifespan of a man – 6 years for each month. So September is a metaphor for man at 56 years of age, in their prime and preparing for old age.
September from the Kalendar of Shepherds. The last sentence beginning ‘and then is man’ shows the link between September and the beginning of the autumn of life.
Keats (1795 – 1821) wrote a great poem about Autumn:
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Written September 19, 1819; first published in 1820. This poem is in the public domain and available here:
Screenshot concerning the new Logo of the Museum of London
I was quite surprised to see the image above appear in an email to my inbox. The London Museum (was the Museum of London) announced the Pigeon and Splat as the new logo to replace the old Dick Whittington one. I received the email on the 27th July 2024.
Is this a breath of fresh air? An unfussy humourous joke which 5 year old will love? Is a Pigeon uniquely London? Is the Splat too clever by half, or is it completely daft?
I’ll leave it to you to decide. However, a visit to the London Museum Website on 15/08/24 reveals the Pigeon logo displayed without the Splat!
Screenshot of London Museum’s new logo without the Splat!
Further down the page, is an article on the history of Pigeons and London, where there is a vestigial splat!
It seems to me there has been a climb down since I received the email on 27th July. Or are they phasing the Splat! in? Comments please.
For more on the new logo look at the Museums Associations’s Web site here. ‘The pigeon was chosen to symbolise the brand as “an impartial and humble observer of London life”, the museum said in a blog post on the redesign.’
Screenshot from the London Museum Web site with image of a Pigeon with a vestigial Splat!
The Ashwini kumaras twins, sons of the sun god Surya. Vedic gods representing the brightness of sunrise and sunset Wikipedia
The Divine Twins, aka the Dioscuri, were horsemen, patrons of calvary, athletes and sailors, one of many indo-european twin gods. Pollux is the son of Zeus and Leda (raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan). His twin brother has a different and mortal father, the King of Sparta to the same mother, Leda. So they are examples of heteropaternal superfecundation as Mary Poppins probably didn’t sing.
One is therefore immortal and the other isn’t. They had many adventures including sailing with Jason as Argonauts.
According to some version of the story Castor was mortally wounded, and Zeus gave Pollux the option of letting his brother die while Pollux could spend eternity on Mount Olympus. The alternative was to share his immortality with his brother. He did the good thing, and the twins spend half their year as the Constellation of Gemini and the rest, immortal, on Mount Olympus. Thus, they are the epitome of brotherly love.
Their sisters were no less than Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. They were also twins, Helen the divine daughter of Zeus and, Clytemnestra, mortal daughter of the King of Sparta.
It happened like this. The Swan was being pursued by an eagle, so Leda protected the Swan and took it to bed. On the same night she slept with her husband Tyndareus of Sparta. Two eggs were fertilised, each split in two to give two sets of twins.
Never mind the Brothers, what Sisters! Helen you know. But Clytemnestra? She was the wife of Agamemnon, the arrogant leader of the Greeks. On the way to retrieve Helen from Troy, the Greek Fleet was becalmed. So, on advice, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia, on the island of Aulis in exchange for a fair wind to Troy. (read Iphigenia at Aulis by Aeschylus, a great play which I studied in Classical Studies at University)
Meanwhile, Queen Clytemnestra, abandoned at home, broods on her husband’s heartless fillicide. She takes a lover. After 10 years of war, Agamemnon comes back, in triumph from the destruction of Troy, with his prize, the Trojan Princess, Cassandra. Strutting with arrogance, he demands Clytemnestra prepare him a bath, and, so she does, she gives him the hottest bath possible. With the help of her lover, she hacks Agamemnon to pieces with an axe.
Cassandra prophesizes that she too will be a victim. She has been gifted with the ability of accurate prophecy, albeit twinned with the inability to get anyone to believe her! She is also slaughtered.
I visit John Collier’s painting of Clytemnestra at the Guildhall regularly and am fascinated by her grim expression.
In the 18th/19th Century rich people were into ‘attitudes’. For example, Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, would be invited to present an attitude in front of a dinner party of mostly male aristocrats. She would dress up in a flowing revealing unstructured classical gown and stand on a table presenting herself as: Helen or Andromache or any other classical beauty guests might fancy an eyeful of. She would assume an appropriate facial expression and posture for everyone’s pleasure.
Detail of Emma Hart modelling as Iphigenia by George Romney in ‘Cimon and Iphigenia’
Being Clytemnestra is difficult! I imagine Collier’s model being prompted to look both sad at the loss of the daughter; outraged at the arrogance of the husband; horror at the gore of the murder but overall to portray a grim satisfaction that the bastard got exactly what he deserved.
Lord Leighton had a famous model who was exceptionally skilled at adopting poses for his paintings. He determined to help her with an acting career. As part of the plan he helped improve her cockney accent, and it is said this inspired Bernard Shaw’s story Pygmalion which, in turn, inspired My Fair Lady and Eliza Doolittle.
Leighton’s model was Dorothy Dene. She became a famous actress, outstripping the fame of Ellen Terry and Lily Langtry. She modelled for the famous painting ‘Flaming June’ which sold 500,000 print copies in 1895. Lord Leighton went somewhat out of fashion and the original painting was purchased for £50 by the rather marvellously named Museo de Ponce, Puerto Rico where she still resides.
I have one of those half million prints on my bedroom wall.
Print of Flaming June by Lord Leighton
Before we finish, do have a look at John Collier’s Wikipedia because he is the most ridiculously well-connected painter you can imagine! Related to half the Cabinet and married to TWO daughters of Darwin’s Bulldog T.H.Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley).
For more on Flaming June see my blog post of 12 July 2024
European Twin Gods
It is suggested that twin male gods are a feature of Indo-European religions, and that the Twins are associated with horses/chariots and are responsible for moving the Sun and the Moon. Their use of a horse above the water means that they can rescue people lost at sea. St Elmo’s fire was said to be the way they manifested their divinity to sailors. Diodorus Siculus records that the Twins were Argonauts with Heracles, Telamon, and Orpheus. Further, he tells us in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”.
On the 10th April 2023, Heritage England announced on its webpage, that they had listed a Bank which contained the world’s first ATM Machine. Barclays Bank chose its Enfield Branch for this honour which opened on 27th June 1967. Above, you will see local celebrity, Reg Varney (in hat), a star of a very popular and ‘corny’ sitcom called ‘On the Buses.’ opening the new machine. It miraculously delivered a £10 note without any human intervention, and offered access to money after banking hours.
1967 Ten pound note
Barclay’s had previously launched the UK’s first credit card, and selected Enfield to be the place where they launched an automatic machine to dispense money – nicknamed ‘money machines’ in the UK. The customer was issued a ‘punched card’ and had to enter a PIN for the magic to be initiated. Barclays were developing the idea of a magnetic strip on a card at the same time.
Google Street View image of the Enfield Barclays Bank (screenprinted 15/07/23)
The building, which has a plaque and a gold-painted modern ATM, is Grade II listed and so should be protected from development in future. The building itself is an interesting, almost typical, late Victorian red brick commercial building, with fine details in the Flemish Renaissance style by William Gilbee Scott. Scott lived in Enfield.
I look forward to visiting it on my next visit to Enfield Lock on my narrow boat Mrs Towser.
First published in June 2023 and republished in 2024
North Atlantic chart of weather for June 6th 1944. Showing occupied Europe with observations obtained from the enigma machine
In 2014 or thereabouts I went to a play by David Haig which was based on the true story of weather forecaster James Stagg’s advice that the weather on June 6th 1944 would be the best day to go ahead.
The play was called Pressure and was great because it really conveyed the enormity of the decision that Ike, Churchill and others had to make. To go ahead in bad weather risked enormous casualties and the failure of the Landings. To postpone, might mean Hitler discovered the location of the invasions and disaster.
Major characters portrayed in the play included Ike and his driver, Kay Summersby with whom he was very close, and an American forecaster who disagreed with the British meteorologist James Stagg. How much of the play was for dramatic effect and how much is true, I’m not entirely sure but it is a fascinating D Day story.
The maps were hand drawn and partially based on intercepted data decoded by the enigma machine. Stagg recommended postponing the landings one day from the 5th to the 6th of June, when it was hoped the ideal combination of calm seas, low water at first light and a full moon would occur.
The Hoover Building in Perivale NW London, photo Kevin Flude
I published this piece in April, but for some reason to do with the fact that I published the posts from my phone rather than my computer, no email was sent to subscribers.
So, here is a chance to see it.
What makes owning a narrow boat so wonderful, apart from enjoying living amidst nature, is the accidental discovery of undreamt of wonders. Last week, I moved my narrow boat from Westbourne Park, on the Grand Union Canal, to Perivale. A 3-hour boat trip of less than 10 miles to a frankly uninspiring suburb. But, as so often, mooring in an uninspiring place uncovered surprises that transform the mundane to the delightful.
Paddington branch of the Grand Union Canal heading west from Westbourne Park. Photo Harriet Salisbury
We set off on a beautifully sunny April morning to move the boat the requisite distance to satisfy licence terms. Rain at 12 prompted a premature end to the trip. We trudged to Perivale Underground Station, bemoaning our failure to get to Southall, to enjoy a Dosa In London’s Little India.
The road to Perivale is dull suburbia. But we stopped at a library boasting a cafe, which turned out to be a really nice bit of early 20th Century library architecture, with a cheerful volunteer explaining they were keeping the library from closure due to council cost-cutting.
Perivale Library photo Kevin Flude
They had made the library really cosy with sofas and comfortably sitting areas. Sadly, the promised Café was not open.
Perivale Library. Interior. Photo Kevin Flude
The volunteer pointed us in the direction of a sandwich at the Tesco in the Hoover Building. I had no idea this icon of Modernism was a short walk away, so we jumped at the chance to see, at close range, one of my favourite London buildings.
The Hoover Building (photo K Flude)
I regularly point it out to the groups I take to Oxford. But I have never seen it up close nor standing still. Not only is the building a fabulous cream and green, but it has a backstory of interest to London’s history. As road transport began to remake the geography of London in the early 20th Century, factories in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lambeth, and other Inner London Boroughs closed, and new factories were constructed on the roads out of London, mostly manufacturing consumer goods. Park Royal, Greenford, Slough and Staines were among the areas to develop as consumerism powered the 20th Century with the production of irons, kettles, hairdryers, radios, washing machines, vacuum cleaners and suchlike delights for the workers and families. The fields around were turned into rows of semi-detached houses to mortgage to the workers.
What made this trip even more special was that one of the original buildings has become a Hotel, in which we discovered a massive Indian Restaurant. There, we found it full of about 500 people eating a fast-breaking Eid dinner. £26 to eat as much as you can, all self-service, with scores of chefs serving their delicious tureens of Asian food. Such a great cultural experience, and rather better than the tasteless Tesco sandwich we were expecting.
If I’m passing the factory on a tour, I tend to read to my group Sir John Betjeman’s patronising poem ‘Slough’ which is about the horror of the new consumer society. ‘Slough’ is wonderful to read and, yet, also, awful, not just the Oxbridge author looking down his long privileged nose at the lower classes but going to the extreme of suggesting Slough would be better off bombed to smithereens.
Guernica was bombed on 26th April 1937 and ‘Slough appeared’ in a Betjeman collection called ‘Continual Dew’ in the same year (I havent located a reference with the actual date of publication). Bad taste in the extreme, hardly mitigated by the fact that it was originally written in 1928 and was about trading estates in general rather than Slough in particular. Still, despite all it is still one of my favourite poems for the insight it gives to attitudes of the British class system.
So, here it is.
Slough
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air-conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town- A house for ninety-seven down And once a week a half a crown For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin Who’ll always cheat and always win, Who washes his repulsive skin In women’s tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak And smash his hands so used to stroke And stop his boring dirty joke And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add The profits of the stinking cad; It’s not their fault that they are mad, They’ve tasted Hell.
It’s not their fault they do not know The birdsong from the radio, It’s not their fault they often go To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars In various bogus-Tudor bars And daren’t look up and see the stars But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care Their wives frizz out peroxide hair And dry it in synthetic air And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough To get it ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now; The earth exhales.
850 new factories were built in Slough before the outbreak of world war two, and the Trading Estate was first seen here. And yes, they are bleak, and Slough is even now, not the most exciting or architecturally sophisticated of towns. But to imagine bombing a town in a time when there was a real fear of mass destruction from the air?
I particularly object to the line about tinned food because I was brought up on tinned beans, peas, steak and kidney pudding, pineapple chunks, peaches, and rhubarb. And exactly what is wrong with a hair-dryer?
Before I read Slough, I recount an experience I had years ago with an American group who suddenly started laughing for no reason. I enquired, and they pointed to a huge advertising hoarding with a poster about the Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner. Its location near the Hoover building, I imagine might have been deliberate, but what made the Americans laugh was the slogan:
‘Nothing sucks like an Electrolux’
To a British person, the slogan works in a positive sense and we appreciate the wit. For the Americans, it made them all laugh with shock as to why anyone would pay to say their vacuum cleaner was complete pants.
Oh, and second best? Well, the best Modernist Building in London is the Daily Express Building, Fleet Street.
At the end of the May Day/Beltane Festival Helston in Cornwall holds its Furry (or Floral) Dance. It is normally on the 8th May, but it changes date if the 8th is a Sunday or a Monday (Helston’s market day) but it isn’t so the Floral Dance was held this year on Wednesday 8th 5th May.
Padstow holds, perhaps, the most famous May Day festival on May 1st. Padstow feels more of a ‘pagan’ festival, while Helston is a more sedate, gentlemanly, dance. Padstow is more fuelled by a belly full of ale, while Helston by a Pims No 1, or a Gin and Tonic?
Do, have a look at both youtube videos and watch the Padstow one until at least you see the ‘obby ‘orse and the teaser dancing.
Children born between the two days, May 1st and May 8th are considered to have been ‘born with the skill of man and beast and power over both.’
Swarm of Bees, Hackney (Photo Kevin Flude 30th May 2018)
Tusser’s ‘Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry’ published 1573 suggests we should:
‘take heed to thy Bees, that are ready to swarm, the loss thereof now, is a crown’s worth of harm.’ The loss was particularly hard in May or June as the country verse tells us:
A swarm in May Is worth a load of hay A swarm in June Is worth a silver spoon A swarm in July Is not worth a fly.
In 2018, on 30th May, I was perturbed to find a swarm of Bees hanging outside my front door. Frightened of leaving my house, I rang a local Bee Keeper who came around to take possession of the Bees and take them to a new home.
Swarm of Bees, having moved 20 yards to a second perch, being ‘rescued’ by a bee keeper. You can see the swarm above his head
According to Hillman’s ‘Tusser Redivus’ of 1710, swarming in May produces particularly good honey, and he advises following the bees to retrieve them. He says:
‘You are entitled by custom to follow them over anyone’s land and claim them … but only so long as you ‘ting-tang’ as you go, by beating some metal utensil – the sound whereof is also said to make your bees stop.’
Much of the above is from The Perpetual Almanac of Folklore by Charles Kightly.
Bees swarm when a new Queen Bee takes a proportion of the worker bees to form a new colony. They will latch unto a branch or a shrub, even a car’s wing mirror, while sending bees out searching for a suitable new home, such as a hollow tree. There may be hundreds or even thousands in the new colony, and this may be very alarming, as I found, as I could not go out without walking through a cloud of bees. But, at this point, they will not be aggressive as they do not have a hive to protect. Look here for more information on swarming.
An average hive will produce 25 lbs of honey, and the bees will fly 1,375,000 miles to produce it, which is flying 55 times around the world (according to the British beekeepers Association (and my maths)) https://www.bbka.org.uk/honey
Bees are still having a hard time as their habitats are diminishing and threats increasing. In July, DEFRA hosts ‘Bees Needs Week’ which aims to increase public awareness of the importance of pollinators.
They suggest we can help by these 5 simple actions
Grow more nectar rich flowers, shrubs and trees. Using window or balcony boxes are good options if you don’t have a garden.
Let patches of garden and land grow wild.
Cut grass less often.
Do not disturb insect nests and hibernation spots.
