I behold London; a Human awful wonder of God!
William Blake (1757-1827), Jerusalem
London Trivia: Built with sugar cubes
On 16 August 1897, the Tate Gallery was opened on Millbank, it contained a collection of 67 Victorian paintings donated by sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate. Starting a grocery shop, which grew to a chain of six stores by the time he was 35. Selling the grocery business, Tate became a partner in John Wright & Co. sugar refinery, and in 1872, he purchased the patent from German Eugen Langen for making sugar cubes.
On 16 August 2008 as Notting Hill Carnival drew to a close, 40 young men fought a running battle with police, a tradition repeated on many a August bank holiday
The 1950’s Teddy Boys (originally ‘Cosh Boys’) were first seen in London, mainly Elephant & Castle, and became Britain’s first youth cult
Pall Mall was the first street in England to be lit by gas by the splendidly named New Patriotic Imperial and National Light and Gas Company
Bread Street in the City of London, is the birthplace of 17th century English poet John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost
Found in Westminster Abbey after the Queen’s coronation: 3 pearl ropes, 20 brooches, 6 bracelets, a diamond necklace, 20 coronet gold balls
Contrary to popular myth, the statue of Nelson on his column in Trafalgar Square doesn’t have an eye patch
Green Park comes from when Charles II picked a flower giving it to the most beautiful woman, not his wife who ordered all flowers be removed
The Artillery Garden, Finsbury is the oldest venue for archery in the world, Fraternity of St. George 1509 uses traditional longbows
The reason London taxis are so high is so that gentlemen don’t have to remove their top hats, particularly when going to Ascot
Benjamin Franklin invented the lighting conductor and St Paul’s Cathedral was the first public building in the world having it affixed to it
Of the 700,000 dogs in London 10,000 each year end up at Battersea Dogs Home where contrary to urban myth only the old and dangerous are destroyed
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
Previously Posted: Mr Ormes’s parrot
For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.
Mr. Ormes’s parrot (09.07.13)
This time of year many are nervously in the throes of examinations fever. It’s an annual ritual performed for generations. Today with nothing better I can think to write about I’ll return to being examined while studying ‘The Knowledge’.
Unlike tests set by examining boards it was a rather fluid system with each Carriage Officer putting their own – and unique – interpretation on how the process should be conducted. Until recently all appearances [exams] were held on a one-to-one oral confrontation with examiners putting their quirky slant on how the process should be conducted.
A favourite ploy to test the mettle of candidates was to adopt the old practice of good cop/bad cop – well they were ex-police. Mr. Lippitt would be civility itself “Is your father in the trade?”/”Have you come far?” before giving you some apparently easy questions. Mr Ormes, his nemesis, would say on a subsequent appearance that your previous answers, with the implication that the questions were easy, were not up to his high standard.
John Mason Head of Transport for London’s Taxi and Private Hire recalls that examiners would place the chair in the appearance room facing the wrong direction so that the candidate was facing the wall and not the examiner, and would give an automatic fail to the student who dared to turn the chair around. I once was reprimanded for moving the chair closer to his desk when finding it positioned in the opposite corner of the room.
At an appearance you are given places in London [points] that you have to identify their exact location, if you give the correct answer you are invited to describe, road by road, the shortest route to be taken from one to the other. Dean Warrington who runs the WizAnn Knowledge School remembers one examiner who decided the start and end points of his questions by throwing darts into a map. Should the student feel this was unfair he would offer to let them throw the darts instead.
Another ploy was to be seemingly engrossed in some urgent paperwork leaving the hapless student waiting sweating wondering when (and what) the first question would be. As an alternative to that Robert Lordon recalls at View from the Mirror being asked a question in the corridor before even entering his office and on another occasion the examiner – Mr Ormes – walking so slow that he walked into his back and having to apologise for treading on his heels. The opposite would be the order of the day for Mr Price who one student recalls as putting his feet on the desk and proceeding to read a copy of The Sun.
A BBC Modern Times documentary focused on the climate of fear created by the examiners. And the most feared of all examiners was the aforementioned Mr Ormes who had a life size toy parrot sitting on its perch in his office. It was the stuff of legend that if the parrot was facing you Mr Ormes was in a bad mood. He was a lugubrious character with a bone-dry delivery, and in the documentary was seen asking one nervous candidate with a criminal record how to get to the Penal Reform Society.
He looked and sounded like a copper who had seen it all and didn’t believe your story. He once asked me The Adelphi Building to The Royal Society of Arts. When I queried that they were opposite each other on John Adam Street he replied: “It’s raining, I’m pregnant and I’ve got a wooden leg”.
When a Knowledge boy left his office he wouldn’t even remember his own name – a truly terrifying experience. “You can smell if people have what is needed”, Mr Ormes would say.
When I left that day I couldn’t recall which way the parrot was facing either. The parrot now resides at another cabbie seat of learning the Knowledge Point School.
London in Quotations: Lord Tyrconnell
The Filth, Sir, of some Parts of the Town, and the Inequality and Ruggedness of others, cannot but in the Eyes of Foreigners disgrace our Nation, and incline them to imagine us a People, not only without Delicacy, but without Government.
Lord Tyrconnell (1750-1805)
London Trivia: Appendicitis delays coronation
On 9 August 1901 after developing appendicitis on 24 June, Edward VII had recovered sufficiently to be crowned at Westminster Abbey on this day. The surgical skill of Sir Frederick Treves ensured that the 50-year-old monarch was well enough to attend the ceremony. Prior to the anaesthetic, the King made Sir Frederick a Baronet. Sir Frederick was known for his friendship with Joseph Merrick, dubbed the ‘Elephant Man’.
On 9 August 1967 Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned lover and playwright Joe Orton to death at 25 Noel Road, Islington
The Blind Beggar was the scene of another gruesome murder when street thief Bulldog Wallis stabbed a man through the eye with an umbrella
Bevis Marks synagogue is named from boundary marks of the Bishop of Bury St Edmonds’ house which was here in medieval times
The Old Vic 1937, Lawrence Olivier’s sword broke and hit a member of the audience, who was so startled he promptly had a heart attack
By tradition the Monarch stops at Temple Bar to ask permission of the Lord Mayor to enter The City and to surrender the Sword of State
Jeremy Sandford’s acclaimed 1966 BBC play Cathy Come Home directed by Ken Loach was partly filmed on Popham Street in upmarket Islington
Kettner’s in Romilly Street, Soho was founded in 1867 by German named August Kettner, rumoured to have been Napoleon’s chef
Blackheath is the site of the United Kingdom’s first rugby club, also gave birth to the world’s first hockey clubs, the first golf club south of the Scottish border
The requirement for cabs to have a turning circle of 25ft was instigated as far back as 1906, Nubar Gulbenkian asked why he bought one replied: ‘Because it turns on a sixpence; whatever that is.’
The weathervane on the Royal Exchange in the City is a grasshopper not a cock, the former being the crest of its founder Sir Thomas Gresham
Army barracks near Mill Hill East were named after Lt-Col William Inglis killed in 1811 battle who told his men to “die hard” – hence phrase
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
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