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.

Exploding the legend (02.11.12)

Ask most children what 5th November is and they would tell you that it is Guy Fawkes night celebrating a night in 1605 when Catholics in England expecting the new Stuart King – James to be more tolerant of them had decided to kill him. Their hopes were dashed when he proved to be the opposite and ordered all Catholic priests to leave England.

This so angered some Catholics that they decided to remove James and put his daughter Elizabeth on the throne ensuring that she was a Catholic.

This led to a plot to assassinate the king of England, but as we shall see it would devastate a sizeable area of Westminster and also kill everyone sitting in the Houses of Parliament at the same time as James opened Parliament on 5th November 1605.

Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators had rented out a house next to the Houses of Parliament and managed to get 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar under the House of Lords.

For an unexplained reason, it was decided this year to search the cellars prior to the opening of Parliament and Guy Fawkes was caught red-handed.

In celebration of his survival, James ordered that the people of England should have a great bonfire on the night on 5th November. This fire was traditionally topped off with an effigy of the Pope rather than Guy Fawkes.

His place at the top of the fire came in later as did fireworks. The East Sussex county town of Lewes still has the pope alongside Guy Fawkes when it comes to the effigies being burned.

Many conspiracy theories surround the 5th November plot but the use of gunpowder is an intriguing one.

The government had a monopoly on gunpowder in this country and it was stored in places like the Tower of London. How did the conspirators get hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder without drawing attention to themselves?

How was the gunpowder moved across London from the Tower of London to Westminster (at least two miles distant) without anyone seeing it? The River Thames would not have been used as it could have led to the gunpowder becoming damp and useless. Thirty-six barrels would have been a sizeable quantity, estimated to be 2,500 kilograms, being moved without causing suspicion.

Experts from the Centre for Explosion Studies, at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth have estimated that Westminster Abbey would have been destroyed and the blast zone would have stretched as far as modern-day Downing Street.

They found that within a radius of about 40 metres, everything would have been razed to the ground. Within 110 metres, buildings would have been at least partially destroyed. And some windows would have been blown out even as far as 900 metres away.

In the 2005 ITV programme The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend, a full-size replica of the House of Lords was built and destroyed with barrels of gunpowder. The experiment demonstrated that the explosion if the gunpowder was in good order – and there is no reason to believe otherwise as Guy Fawkes was an explosives expert – would have killed all those in the building. The power of the explosion in the experiment was such that the 7-foot deep concrete walls (replicating how archives suggest the walls of the old House of Lords were constructed) were reduced to rubble. Measuring devices placed in the chamber to calculate the force of the blast were themselves destroyed by the explosion; the skull of the dummy representing King James, which had been placed on a throne inside the chamber surrounded by courtiers, peers and bishops, was found a considerable distance from the site. According to the findings of the programme, no one within 330 feet of the blast could have survived. The explosion would have been seen from miles away and heard from further away still. Even if only half of the gunpowder had gone off, everyone in the House of Lords and its environs would have been killed instantly.

The programme also disproved claims that some deterioration in the quality of the gunpowder would have prevented the explosion. A portion of deliberately deteriorated gunpowder, of such low quality as to make it unusable in firearms, when placed in a heap and ignited, still managed to create a large explosion. The impact of even deteriorated gunpowder would have been magnified by its containment in wooden barrels, compensating for the quality of the contents. The compression would have created a cannon effect, with the powder first blowing up from the top of the barrel before, a millisecond later, blowing out. Calculations showed that Fawkes, who was skilled in the use of gunpowder, had deployed double the amount needed.

As a curious footnote, some of the gunpowder guarded by Fawkes may have survived until recently. In March 2002 workers cataloguing archives of diarist John Evelyn at the British Library found a box containing a number of gunpowder samples, including a compressed bar with a note in Evelyn’s handwriting stating that it had belonged to Guy Fawkes. A further note, written in the 19th century, confirmed this provenance, but in 1952 the document acquired a new comment: “but there was none left”.

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.

Riding roughshod (30.10.12)

Redolent of a gentler age conjuring up images of Edwardians wearing tweed knickerbockers riding sit-up-and-beg bicycles might seem the perfect mode of transport around London.

With endorsements from our Mayor, although the sight of him precariously perched on his own bike, might give you cause to question his rationale. Seeing the personable Bradley Wiggins and the tearful Victoria Pendleton now appearing on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, you would think that journeying around our Capital was the perfect mode of transport undertaken by the most amenable of fellows.

All the publicity generated by City Hall would seem to endorse that notion and has encouraged an astonishing number to commute daily by bike. On a weekday evening, the Clapham Road bus lane is full of cyclists, prohibiting its use by the buses.

All well and good if the proper provision had been made for the tsunami of two wheels enveloping our streets. Alas, cyclists have become more vulnerable than ever.

A recent report by The Department of Transport has found that cyclist casualties rose by 10 per cent from 3,775 to 4,160 in the comparable first three months of this year, and cyclists incurring fatal or serious injuries rose by 13 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Accidents involving cycles and motor vehicles statistically blame seems to be split 50:50 with half of the accidents caused by cyclists, and considering how vulnerable you are now pedalling alone on London’s crowded streets only 1 in 100 bother to go on a training awareness course.

Local authorities have given scant attention to designing safe traffic-free lanes for two-wheels; usually painting the road blue seems to be the solution as if the colour was a cloak of safety, while in fact many cycle lanes are shared legally by motorists.

When the authorities have created safe cycle pathways many users ignore them. In Bloomsbury, enormous effort has been given to provide bike lanes only to be shunned by foolhardy cyclists.

Road users, it seems to me, cannot be expected to behave responsibly. All bikes should be required to be licensed and insured for 3rd party risks, with an identifying plate.

Any child on a bike or seated in one of those daft trailers should be required by law to wear a helmet.

Authorities should be mandated to provide safe bike lanes – Clapham Road for example could easily be provided with one such lane.

Fines should be imposed for motorists encroaching bike lanes, and more importantly, cyclists penalised if they refuse to use one if one is available.

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.

Making History (26.10.12)

This week three hundred and sixty-five years ago a series of debates took place in what was then the village Putney in the county of Surrey, Putney now has been subsumed into London.

After seizing the City of London from Presbyterian opponents in August 1647, the New Model Army had set up its headquarters at Putney. The year before in 1646 John Lilburne, John Wildman, Richard Overton and William Walwyn formed a new political party called the Levellers, which sought to give more power to the people. The debates to introduce those rights began at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, by the river Thames at Putney Bridge.

From the 28th October to 9th November 1647, soldiers and officers of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army, including civilian representation, held discussions on the constitution and future of England.

Should they continue to negotiate a settlement with the defeated King Charles I?

Should there even be a King or Lords or an abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords?

Should the people have the civil right to vote or should it be limited to property-holders? Some wanted a constitution based upon manhood suffrage (“one man, one vote”).

Should there be bi-annual Parliaments and a reorganisation of parliamentary constituencies?

Should complete religious freedom be allowed?

Could an end to the censorship of books and newspapers be implemented?

Should man have the right of trial by jury?Could they end taxation of people earning less than £30 a year and introduce a maximum interest rate of 6 per cent?

Would these democratic changes lead to anarchy?

This historic event saw ordinary soldiers take on their generals to argue for greater democracy and provided a platform for ‘common people’ to make their voices heard.

The Levellers started publishing their own newspaper, The Moderate. They also organised meetings where they persuaded people to sign a Petition supporting their policies. These debates, forced by the Levellers, paved the way for many of the civil liberties we value today.

The Guardian newspaper ran a reader’s competition to unearth which neglected event in Britain’s radical past most deserved a proper monument. St. Mary’s Church Putney, the site of the Putney Debates was the worthy winner.

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.

End of the road (23.10.12)

They were once described in Parliament by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as “Hansom cab are the gondolas of London”, and in a recent poll by Hotels.com based on responses from 1,600 travellers found that passengers were more than twice as likely to ‘become amorous’ in a black cab, with 26 per cent of global travellers having kissed in the back seat.

The poll which put London cabbies ahead of all other cities’ cabs, passengers admitted to feeling so safe that 56 per cent had nodded off in the back seat. But this commodious form of transport more akin to gliding through London’s streets with the air of a liveried gentleman is threatened with its very survival.

The symbol of quiet dependability and polished tradition is under threat as Manganese Bronze, the company that has made the iconic cab since 1947 but has not made a profit since 2007 has now been put into administration.

The black cab’s demise will come as little surprise to its owners. The FX4 which first appeared on London’s streets some six decades ago was a beautifully engineered vehicle and a quantum leap in comfort and reliability from the other vehicles plying for hire on London’s streets. Its successor, the Fairway, which went some way to resolving the issue of the FX4’s brakes which seemed to have a mind of their own, is now to be withdrawn from London’s streets at the behest of Transport for London.

Beset with reliability issues, the recent incarnations by Manganese Bronze, the FX1, 2 and 4 have been prone to leaks (don’t ever leave anything not waterproof in the boot), spontaneous combustion and most recently steering problems. Seemingly cobbled together from parts made by other manufacturers, driving one seems to take one back to the early 1970s when British cars were synonymous with shoddy workmanship.

There has always been something pleasingly dignified about a bespoke vehicle for London rather than using vehicles which can be bought at a local car showroom. With ample headroom and legroom, it has none of the scrunch and squeeze of a regular automobile or looks like a converted van by a quality German manufacturer.

But it looks that unless something appears at the 11th hour the gondolas of London are doomed to be replaced with the ubiquitous black vans manufactured in Germany or Japan.

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.

A Cabbie’s View of London (19.10.12)

As any artist, writer or photographer will tell you, professionally they will observe the world around them in ways that others can take for granted, it is that same attention to detail that’s needed when one undertakes “The Knowledge”, the qualification required to become a London cabbie; every street, club, bar, church, hotel and even blue plaque must be committed to memory.

In pursuit of all these facets of London the Knowledge student discovers that there is more to London than is apparent at first sight. Just like a writer they stop looking at the features of London in isolation and try to put them into some context linking them together and discovering their relation to London’s history and its people.

The Knowledge was introduced in 1851 after complaints by visitors to the Great Exhibition that cabbies didn’t know where they were going, now after 160 years we are regarded as the world’s finest taxi service. But our pedigree goes back even further; London was the first city in the world to have a licensed taxi trade and the licensing can be blamed on a little-known English playwright called William Shakespeare, his productions were so popular that all the carriages that arrived to pick up and drop off the theatre-going public would cause a “stop” – in modern day parlance a traffic jam; and just to show that red tape is not a modern phenomenon, it took the authorities about 40 years after Shakespeare’s death to introduce licensing – on 24th June 1654 the City of London authorised the use of 200 licenses for Hackney coachmen. With such a long history it is hardly surprising that anachronisms abound in the cab trade: the modern cab has a high roof so that gentlemen wearing a top hat may leave them on when travelling to Ascot; while a cabbie is required to carry sufficient hard food for his horse’s midday meal this is now interpreted as having a boot large enough to take a bale of hay; and to show some consideration to the poor old cabbie in a time of need, he may urinate over the rear nearside wheel if a police constable is in attendance to protect his modesty by shielding him with a police cape; but should he wish to stop at a Cabbies’ Green Shelter he may eat and drink tea but political discussion is forbidden by the philanthropists who originally donated the shelters.

While studying the Knowledge a student discovers that some streets in the City: Milk Street, Poultry, Goldsmith Street, and Ironmonger Lane are named after the goods once sold there; or Old Jewry was an area set aside for Jewish money lenders. On the Knowledge when given London Stone to locate in Cannon Street a little research suggests that London’s prosperity for many years was thought to depend on the Stone’s safekeeping and that the Romans could have used this limestone block as the point in which to measure all distances from Londinium.

Above all else the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson should be the mantra for any prospective Knowledge student: “Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”

Johnson was right, the city isn’t just a collection of buildings, roads, lanes and courts; its magic is in Londoner’s belief that this complicated friend can fulfil the dreams and aspirations of those residing within its boundaries.

It is this belief that has given London its longevity as the world’s premier city, the result of generations of these resourceful, hard-working individuals coming together to improve their lives and in so doing adding another strata of history, business and culture to this incredible city for future Knowledge students to go out and discover.