Mixed up confusion

Sweet Thames Run Softly

It started well.  The day dawned fine, and Grosvenor Square was tranquil, though the strangely wrapped figure of Dwight David Eisenhower outside the Qatari remake of the US Embassy seemed an ominous portent:

Anyway, in one of the Halcyon Galleries on Bond Street I get a glimpse of early Hockney, where the women come and go:

And across the way Bob Dylan exposes his inner Marlborough Man with a little less finesse than Bradford Davey:

And then I work my way through the streets of Soho, past traces of earlier communications, now repositories of today's excess:

I note that Pink seems to be the in colour today, whether on your rickshaw:

Or with a casual glass of wine while trading al fresco:

Or as part of your biker gear:

Or if you are Queen for the day:

Then, where Kipling once lodged, I pass one of my favourite haunts, though now it's hard to get a seat:

With my special dragon bike I take a pedal up the river to Richmond and beyond, where the sun is out:

And a heron fishes, the cycle of life:

And where, in the 18th century, George II lodged Henrietta Howard, his mistress, in Palladian splendour, another cycle of life.

It is hot now, but the Sweet Thames runs softly, 

So I took her sailing on the river (Flow sweet river, flow),

From Putney Bridge to Nine Elms Reach
We cheek to cheek were dancing
Her necklace made of London Bridge
Her beauty was enhancing

Ewan MacColl

But this is where things start to go wrong.  The heat. The after effects of gothic strawberries, the press and confusion of London Town; even if it is French:

We dine upstairs, the food, the drink, the company, the wine, the digestifs.....

It may be my daughter's birthday, but the confusion is beginning to set in, my pulse beat racing, 

Well, there’s too many people

And they’re all too hard to please

Well, my head’s full of questions

My temperature’s rising fast

Well, I’m looking for some answers

But I don’t know who to ask

Bob Dylan

Mixed-Up Confusion

And so it goes......

But then, despite the gentle musings of Ewan MacColl, and the ebb and flow of Old Father Thames (without which, London would not be) I sink into oblivion, exhausted by the heat and confusion of the city. I long to be back in the calm of Norfolk, even though this yearning is a two-edged blade. I trip from MacColl to Edmund Spenser, and look to Prothalamion for solace, those sixteenth century lines like a cool gauze across my brow:

CALM was the day, and through the trembling air 

Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, 

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay 

Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;

And at dawn it is quiet now.  Oxford Street so near a desert:

Tottenham Court Road a pedestrian dream:

And all the fowl which in his flood did dwell 

Gan flock about these twain, that did excel 

The rest so far as Cynthia doth shend 

The lesser stars. So they, enranged well, 

Did on those two attend, 

And their best service lend, 

Against their wedding day, which was not long: 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

Edmund Spenser

Prothalamion

And, waking, as if from a confused state, I walk through Gordon Square, and hear a voice:

Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.

Rabindranath Tagore

But I’m walking and wondering

And my poor feet don’t ever stop

Seeing my reflection

I’m hung over, hung down, hung up!

Bob Dylan

Mixed-Up Confusion

*****

The nymphs are departed.

T S Eliot

The Waste Land

*****

To unwind, please see Christy Moore, with 

Sinéad O'Connor and Neill MacColl, singing Ewan MacColl's Sweet Thames Flow Softly....

https://youtu.be/Tgwtl-s0CNI

London 14 - The Thames & its Bridges

Liquid ‘istory

The river Thames is the aorta of England. It has played an essential part in our culture and history for more than two thousand years. As a division between kingdoms and counties, as a haven for seafarers and a thoroughfare for traders, and as a watermark on the fragile seals of parliaments, its importance is unrivalled.

While its currents are ever-changing, and its banks are never-the-same, the river has an entity that transcends ephemera.  From one end of London to another, the streaming tides are constantly washing the face of history, and as we walk along its length we stumble on shards of stories that shore up the life of this fragment of the world.

And as the centuries pass, despite its wilful energy, the Thames has been to a certain extent tamed, and leashed, and crossed and tied. Basins have been dug to shelter ships from excess; tributaries have been sheathed and tapped and dried; tunnels have been bored underneath, and bridges have been stepped across its mighty flow.

For two thousand years we have endeavoured to span the dangerous flow, and from the time when the river was practically impassable, to the 200 bridges, 27 tunnels, six public ferries, one cable car link, and one ford that today allow passage to humankind, the story has followed in the wake of man’s technological development, and has tallied the history of transport, politics and the language of this land.  Without Chaucer, Shakespeare might not have achieved such fame; without Spenser, poetry might not have flowed so free; without Dickens, our fondness for story and character might not have grown so florid.  And all of these, besides their imitators, have been shaped by the dark coursing waters of the Thames as it scours its way through London…..

Though other rivers far outstrip this stream in magnitude, from the Tagus to the Nile, and from the Mississippi to the Amazon, few may challenge the tales these waters can tell, and to this day, to my mind at least, there is little so pleasantly intriguing, so imaginatively distracting, as a walk beside our father, the Thames.

And now, as Janus looks back and forth, and it is the season of the quiz, I offer you a little game to play.  I realised just recently how often I have spent time beside the river, and then realised that over the years I have followed its course from Surrey into Kent, crossing and re-crossing both above and below the waves, so it seemed fair to create a game. 

And what better than a game of Bridge?

A Game of Bridge

1)     Who built the first London Bridge?  (a) Alfred the Great (b) The Romans (c) Boadicea? 

2)     Why did Old London Bridge fall down?  (a) Fire in 1212  (b) Neglect by Eleanor of Provence in the 1270s (c) Ice in 1281? 

3)     Until when was the Medieval London Bridge the only bridge across the Thames in London?  (a) mid sixteenth century (b) mid seventeenth century (c) mid eighteenth century? 

4)     Where is the 1831 London Bridge (which replaced the medieval one) now?  (a) at the bottom of the river (b) in Japan (c) in Arizona? 

5)     Which bridge carries the following notice:  All Troops Must Break Step When Marching Over This Bridge?  (a) Chelsea, (b) Hammersmith, (c) Albert? 

6)     Under which bridge was Italian banker Roberto Calvi found hanging on June 18^th, 1982?  (a) Blackfriars Road Bridge, (b) Blackfriars Railway Bridge, (c) Waterloo? 

7)     Which is the only bridge across the Thames east of Tower Bridge?  (a) Dartford, (b) Emirates Air Line, (c) Queen Elizabeth II? 

8)     Why is Westminster Bridge green and Lambeth bridge red?

9)     Between which two bridges does Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend begin? In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between ***** Bridge, which is of iron, and ***** Bridge, which is of stone….. 

10)  Earth has not anything to show more fair: Why could William Wordsworth not have composed any lines on the current Westminster Bridge? 

11)  Whose view might this be, and from which bridge?

12)  What is the name of this bridge?

13)  What’s the story here?

14)  Which is the oldest bridge across the Thames in the Greater London area?

15)  Which bridge was reopened in 2002?

And for a bonus point:

16) Between which two bridges are Joanna Lumley and Boris Johnson intending to get into a flower bed together?

Answers: 
1) b; 

2) All three; 

3) c; 

4) c; 

5) c; 

6) a; 

7) c; 

8) Because Westminster bridge is painted the same colour as the seats in the House of Commons and Lambeth bridge is the same as the seats in the House of Lords. 

9) Southwark, and London; 

10) The sonnet was composed in 1802; Wordsworth died in 1850; the current Westminster Bridge was built in 1862; 

11) James McNeill Whistler, from Battersea Bridge; 

12) Barnes Railway Bridge; 

13) The bridge on the left is Blackfriars Road Bridge; the one on the right is the new Blackfriars Railway Bridge; the pillars in the middle are what remains of the 1864 Blackfriars Railway Bridge which carried the London, Chatham and Dover Railway; the eastern line of supporting columns have been incorporated into the new railway structure; 

14) Richmond Bridge, 1777; 

15) London Millennium Bridge, originally opened in 2000, but closed for two years following significant wobbles!

16) The Garden Bridge will be a 366 metre long, 30 metre wide, copper-nickel structure across the Thames between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges.  Joanna Lumley and Mayor Boris Johnson are prominent supporters.  It is expected to cost at least £175 million.

How did you do?

For a tie breaker, can you identify from which bridge this photo was taken?  

For the answer, contact me.....


Cheers!

London 14 - Richmond upon Thames

A Royal Bend in the River

Goo now thy wey, this penaunce ys but lyte,

And whan this book ys maad, yive it the quene,

On my byhalf, at Eltham or at Sheene.....

So says Alceste, the queen of love (modelled on Anne of Bohemia) to the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women, in 1386, referring to two preferred royal retreats.  

In the year 1500, King Henry VII, Earl of Richmond (in Yorkshire) renamed the quiet royal manor of Sheen as Richmond - Richmond upon Thames.

Not for nothing are there pubs here named The Duke of York, and The Prince's Head.  It wasn't far away, in Richmond Park, in 1536, that Henry VIII stood on what is now known as King Henry's Mound to spy the smoke signal announcing the beheading of Anne Boleyn at Tower Green.  The following day he remarried.  From this viewpoint today it is possible to see the dome of St Paul's, ten miles away across the city haze (telescope provided by my uncle's firm).

In the town itself, at the end of King Street (or Duke Street, or Old Palace Row), lies Richmond Green, where jousts were held in the 15th and 16th centuries - though nowadays any game involving more than ten players needs special permission.  

The Gate House, Wardrobe and Old Palace Yard of the Tudor Palace (originally founded in 1299 but rebuilt by Henry VII after its destruction by fire in 1497) still remain (as do the 18th century houses of the Maids of Honour of Queen Caroline).  Both Edward III (1377) and Elizabeth I (1603) died in the palace here.

At least one other royal connection can be traced around this bend of the river.  Ham House, just beyond the village of Petersham, owned by the National Trust since 1948, is 17th century baroque and was gifted by Charles I to his whipping boy, William Murray, later 1st Earl of Dysart. Apparently, the house was also where King Charles II secretly met with his Cabal (his policy-making committee, named after the initials of its five members).  

The river flows.....  Central to England and its history.  The bridge here, 91 metres long, opened in 1780, is the eighth bridge to span the Thames in Greater London, and the oldest surviving, and it connects the two parts of the Borough of Richmond, the only London Borough to exist on both sides of the river.

The river flows.....  For centuries the Thames was the preferred means of transport from west to east, and vice versa.  The railway arrived in Richmond in 1840, but the river is still busy with craft of many kinds, though these days more for pleasure than for business.

And as it flows, it floods too, with spring tides still causing difficulties for local residents and patrons of certain hostelries.....

And as it floods it washes the pastures, with Petersham meadows being the nearest true farmland to London.....

And rising above the meadows, with the only view in London protected by Act of Parliament, is the Grade II listed Royal Star and Garter Home, built by Sir Edwin Cooper, based on a 1915 plan by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (of the St Pancras Hotel and Bankside Power Station - Tate Modern -  amongst other things).  This great building, which occupies the site of the popular Star and Garter Hotel on Richmond Hill, was built to care for servicemen who had been severely disabled during the First World War. Queen Mary, with George V at her side, inaugurated the home in 1924.

The Royal Star and Garter Home, Richmond Hill; sold for £50m in 2014

The Royal Star & Garter Homes is a charity that provides nursing and therapeutic care to the ex-Service community. Having sold their property on Richmond Hill, they now have two homes, one in Solihull and the other in Surbiton, though they plan to open one more in High Wycombe.

The London Square Company (founded in 2010, the company has already created a development pipeline worth over £1 billion) is now working closely with the Borough of Richmond upon Thames, English Heritage and the local community to create a residential scheme which respects and complements the wonderful heritage of this Grade II listed building. 

It is a relief to know this: some people might have worried that the edifice would just be converted into flats.....

For house hunters who are not into makeovers, Richmond has a range of properties, from this five bedroom Terraced house (valued at about £3m) ....

Or for a similar price, but with one less bedroom, there is Wick House, built in 1772 for the painter Joshua Reynolds, who died here twenty years later....

Though for a two bedroom cottage in Old Palace Lane the price would be a much more affordable one million....

Richmond attracts. Clearly the royals of yesteryear found it healthy and restful, and so apparently do the nouveau riche of today (Sir Michael Jagger being but one householder in the area).  Others from the stage and screen have retired here:

And almost exactly one hundred years ago an earnest, slightly stressy couple moved, initially, into a flat above the delivery entrance to Boots, escaping the intensity of Bloomsbury.  

Virginia Woolf had attempted suicide in 1913, and her husband Leonard fancied that Richmond would be more relaxing.  The lady soon settled in and was often to be seen walking her dog, Grizzle, near the river, which she referred to as my river.....

Unfortunately her recovery was short lived, and just as the couple was about to move into Hogarth House in March 1915 she had a breakdown and was admitted to a nursing home.  Leonard moved in himself, and then Virginia joined him in April, attended by four nurses.

 

They founded the Hogarth Press in March 1917, using a small, hand-operated press, and began by publishing some of their own short stories.  

Then, in November 1918 they were visited by an American who had just turned thirty-one. Within a couple of years, with a little help from Ezra Pound, Thomas Stearns Eliot produced The Waste Land, first published in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. Virginia had noted that this was a very strange young man.  On June 18th, 1922, he recited the poem to the Woolfs (Woolves?) in their home. Mrs Woolf noted in her diary that He sang it and chanted it, rhymed it. It has a great beauty and force.....  What connects it together, I'm not so sure. 

In September 1923 the Hogarth press published 450 copies of the first UK book edition of the 434 line poem.  The type was set by Virginia herself.

Trams and dusty trees.

Highbury bore me.  Richmond and Kew

Undid me.  By Richmond I raised my knees

Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.

My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart

Under my feet.  After the event

He wept.  He promised a ‘new start.’

I made no comment.  What should I resent?

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

A Bend in the River

V S Naipaul

(NB: Naipaul's river was an unspecified African one, probably the Congo, but through gossamer threads I linked his bend and his river to Conrad, and Eliot, colonialism and nothingness - though I realise I am probably stretching all this beyond acceptable limits!)

St Mary Magdalene, Richmond Town Ministry

Elizabeth and Leicester 

Beating oars 

The stern was formed 

A gilded shell 

Red and gold 

The brisk swell 

Rippled both shores 

Southwest wind 

Carried down stream 

The peal of bells 

White towers 

Weialala leia 

Wallala leialala