Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I
On 27 August 1990 one of the highest profile court cases of the year was concluded at Southwark Crown Court. Defendants Ernest Saunders, Gerald Ronson, Sir Jack Lyons and Anthony Parnes were convicted of involvement in a conspiracy to drive up the price of shares in Guinness during a 1986 takeover battle for drinks company Distillers. Lyons lost his knighthood and the other were sentenced to jail terms.
On 27 August 1967 Brian Epstein, manager of many groups including The Beatles was found dead at his Belgrave home, from a sleeping pill overdose
In the 18th Century pick-pockets where known as ‘divers’. A prolific London pickpocket was Mary Young, renamed ‘Jenny Diver’ by her gang
Whetstone is named after a whetstone a block of stone used to sharpen knives, a large stone outside the Griffin pub could be the original
On 27 August 1877 at 35 Hill Street, Mayfair co-founder of Rolls-Royce, the car manufacturer, Charles Rolls was born
According to local legend Theydon Bois in Epping Forest was the site of the last stand by Queen Boadicea against the Romans in AD 60
Picturesque Browning’s Pool forming the junction of Regent’s and Grand Union Canals was named Little Venice by Victorian poet Robert Browning
Europe’s first cable car ran up Highgate Hill it operated between 1884 and 1909, which was followed by a second cable line to draw trams up Brixton Hill to Streatham
The ‘New’ Wembley Stadium cost £798 million to build, it’s predecessor cost less than one-thousandth of that at £750,000
The London Passenger Transport Board was nationalised and became the London Transport Executive in 1948
Greenland Dock was renamed in the 18th century when it became the base for the Arctic whaling fleet, it was once twice the current size and one of the largest in the world
A stone obelisk in New Wanstead whose base is a remnant from a Roman road was once an important mile marker stone between Hyde Park and Epping
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.
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.
The Oxford English Dictionary claims that the first use of the word cockney as a reference to native Londoners was in 1521, and since I did The Knowledge I’ve been telling anyone who cares to listen that I’m a cockney, blithely ignoring the fact that I was brought up in a leafy North London suburb.
For to be a cockney you have to have been born within the sound of Bow Bells, and contrary to the widely held belief the bells in question are not from Bow Church in East London, but St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside in the City of London. Being born in Fitzrovia, I thought, erroneously, I easily came within its audible catchment area.
A church has existed on the site since Saxon times, and the subsequent Norman church was known as St Marie de Arcubus or Le Bow because of the bow arches of stone in its Norman crypt. The current building was built to the designs of Christopher Wren, 1671–1673, with the 223-foot steeple completed 1680. It was considered the second most important church in the City of London after St Paul’s Cathedral, and was one of the first churches to be rebuilt by Wren for this reason.
On 10 May 1941 a German bomb destroyed the Wren church including its bells made famous in the children’s nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons.
Restoration was begun in 1956 and the bells only rang again in 1961 to produce a new generation of cockneys, a full 14 years after my birth.
Now according to research at Lancaster University a cockney accent will soon no longer be the hallmark of Londoners. The distinctive accent now known as Estuary Speak is more likely to be found in the Home Counties of Essex and Hertfordshire. The linguists claim that ever-increasing numbers of people in the capital are speaking Jafaican. The hybrid speech, created by successive waves of immigration is a mixture of cockney, combined with Bangladeshi, African and West Indian.
The London dialect could have disappeared within another generation and cockneys in their 40s will be the last generation to speak like stars from BBC soap. Now the dwindling ranks of cockney speakers are being asked to record their voices for posterity.
But hope is at hand, the newly built Kings Place Arts Centre near King’s Cross has posted a downloadable recording of Bow Bells on its website so that cockneys that have moved away can still let their children be born within the sound of its famous chimes..
For 14 years I’ve been posting a daily piece of trivia on Twitter – sorry now X under @cabbieblog. Well, the 1st August’s: ‘The London Cab Trade is the oldest regulated land passenger service in Britain licensed in 1654 – 150 years before the horse-drawn bus #LDNTrivia’ managed, at the time of writing, to garner 3,369 views; 44 likes; 18 retweets, sorry reposts; and 4 comments. Possibly a record for this scribe.
We’re four days from Ulez and I’ve been listening to LBC’s Nick Ferrari. I know each presenter has a political bias, with an audience of like-minded listeners. It has to be said that Sadiq Khan isn’t the flavour of the month with this broadcaster, but I’ve yet to hear a caller agreeing with Ulez – or Khan.
I’m now on book three of Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May books: Seventy-Seven Clocks: It’s late in 1973, strikes and blackouts ravaged the country during Edward Heath’s ‘Winter of Discontent’, and sundry members of a wealthy, aristocratic family are being disposed of in a variety of grotesque ways – by a reptile, by a bomb and by a haircut. Bryant & May, the irascible detectives of London’s controversial Peculiar Crimes Unit have little time to catch the culprit.
Our new neighbours have rewilded their garden (that’s a euphemism), and as a consequence of the overgrown vegetation a pair of foxes have taken up residence. It’s great to watch them every day.
Within hours of August’s start my wife received: ‘It broke fell and broke mum im so stressed out i dont know what to do i need your help x’. These spam merchants really need to improve their grammar.
One hundred and fifty years ago on 23rd August 1873, the Albert Bridge opened. A toll bridge meant even pedestrians had to pay to cross. The toll houses, two at each end, remain, as does the notice to tell soldiers to break step.
When I started The Knowledge I was shocked to see so many rough sleepers in shop doorways. Now a cross-party group of London Councils report that nearly 170,000 people in London are homeless, i.e. they’re living in hostels, bedsits, or other temporary accommodation. That’s an increase of about 17,000 from last year and means that one in 50 people in the city are now classed as homeless. Most depressingly, “the organisation estimates that this includes more than 83,000 children”.
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