On 16 September 1967 at the last night of the Proms Sir Malcolm Sargent came onto the platform at the end of the concert to huge applause and made his traditional Last Night speech. He died seventeen days later on 3rd October. Since 1968, the year after Sargent’s death, the Proms have begun on a Friday evening rather than as previously a Saturday, and in memory of Sargent’s choral work, a large-scale choral piece is customarily given.
On 16 September 1977 Marc Bolan lead singer of T.Rex died aged 29 when his car crashed into a tree in Barnes a memorial is there
Newgate Prison was renovated with funding provided by London’s famous mayor, Dick Whittington, with a bequest in his will of 1422, the gate and gaol were pulled down and rebuilt
Under Cleopatra’s Needle a time capsule contains cigars, a razor, Queen Victoria’s portrait, newspapers and pictures of 12 English beauties
During the plague a sage said breathing on a chicken for self-diagnosis: if you’re infected the chicken becomes ‘roupy’ and lay rotten eggs
At a Twickenham public park 8 naked ladies disport on fountain rockery so startlingly white during World War II their bums were sprayed grey for the blackout
When Animal Farm was published in 1945 George Orwell was living at 27b Canonbury Square he moved there in the autumn of 1944 after their flat in Kilburn was hit by a V-1 flying bomb
Tea made its first appearance in London in September 1658, when the new beverage was advertised in a pamphlet by Thomas Garraway, a coffeehouse owner
Griffin Park Brentford FC’s home since 1904 is renowned for being the only English league ground to have a pub on each corner, and the ground is named after one of these
Blackfriars is London’s only station to have entrances on both sides of the Thames, it is world’s largest solar-powered bridge having been covered with 4,400 photovoltaic panels
19th Century ‘pure finders’ wandered London collecting dog faeces required by the many South Bank tanners to purify the leather
Street names that sadly no longer exist include Shiteburn Lane, Pissing Alley, and more than one Gropecunt Lane
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.
