The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; . . . I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life.
Charles Lamb (1779-1834)
On 27 September 1960 Europe’s first travelator was ceremonially opened. Bank Station, which had been in service since late Victorian times had only one exit down a sloping corridor. By the 1930s the increased passenger volumes had made its use impractical. The war and post-war austerity had stopped the project, finally construction began in 1957 taking three years for completion.
On 27 September 1968 the musical Hair, containing nudity and drug-taking, opened after the abolition of theatre censorship, ending the Lord Chamberlain’s powers of censorship dating back to 1737
In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St Dunstan & All Saints, Stepney High Street
There are still 1,600 operating gas lamps in London examples are found in the charming Goodwin’s Court, Covent Garden
During the Great Fire of London in 1666, charred leaves of burning books were blown as far as Acton, an astonishing 20 miles distant
On 27 September 1940 during the Blitz, an astonishing 117,000 people slept sheltering in the Underground, authorities had tried to ban the public at night from the stations
First crafted in 1951, James Bond’s aftershave was Floris No. 89 – so-named because Floris’s shop is at 89 Jermyn Street, Mayfair
As a bet, Lord Lyttleton slept in the attic of 50 Berkeley Square in 1872, with his shotgun, he apparently fired his gun at several apparitions throughout the night
London has more functioning public baths and indoor pools that date from prior to 1939 than any city in the world – 18 public; and 5 private
The Victoria Line that runs between Brixton and Walthamstow Central, and is coloured light blue on the Tube map, is one of only two lines on the Underground that is completely underground
On Albert Bridge, a sign asks soldiers to break step as synchronised marching caused too much vibration! Wags change the sign to ‘break wind’
Gas street lights widely used in 1850 each with a luminousity of a 25 watt bulb, but by the 1930s only half of London’s streets had electric
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.
It now has been 17 years since I started pushing a cab around London looking for fares and in that time I’ve probably driven most post-war taxis. Even before I had qualified going to a trade exhibition at Islington’s Business Design Centre got me a test drive in one of those boxy Metros. They always had trouble shifting those utilitarian boring beasts.
When I was first let loose on the streets of London my baptism of fire was an old – no very old – FX4. Registered in 1982 at a time when air conditioning was something an East Ender massaged into their hair, and without power steering, your arms would ache negotiating its two tonnes of steel around London with a penchant for swinging left unannounced when squeezing between tight gaps.
When the old girl gasped its last (well the drive to the meter broke) it was saying just let me die in peace, I’ve taken my last paying passenger.
A succession of Fairways followed some you couldn’t lock the doors, others that the only means of exiting the driver’s compartment was via the window and opening the door from the outside. One vehicle accumulated rainwater beneath the for hire sign to ensure the driver had a shower whenever he had occasion to brake heavily.
I’ve owned a more modern TX1, its shape unfairly likened to a blancmange, as with most of its siblings it had the ability to track down top secret transmissions. Perplexedly at certain ‘hot spots’ (outside the Langham Hotel is one of them), the central locking on the fob key would fail to work, occasioning a complicated procedure punching in PIN numbers to get the vehicle started again.
I should have headed this post ‘Tickled Pink’ but some enterprising cabbie has beaten me to that for recently I’ve been driving what must be the most photographed cab in London – it is pink.
A neighbour, also a cabbie, declared that it matched my eyes, while I’ve received opprobrium from Aussies standing outside a local hostelry, “strewth mate!” I think was the refrain at the time.
My postman just had to knock to deliver a parcel which clearly fitted the letterbox, so he could voice his mirth at seeing ‘Pinky’ parked outside.
Ladies would choose my distinctive livery over my more conservative colleagues while many will strike up a conversation, rather a novelty for decades the fair sex have ignored my presence.
Henry Ford might have generated the quip ‘any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it’s black’ after he realized that drying paint took the longest of any step in the assembly line and had his factory switch to the fastest drying paint they could find, which, of course, was black. But I think old HF would be speachless at the sight of Pinky.
I have seen the West End, the parks, the fine squares; but I love the City far better . . . The City is getting its living – the West End but enjoying its pleasure. At the West End you may be amused; but in the City you are deeply excited.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1856), Villette
On 20 September 1991, the church of St. James Garlickhythe, was almost demolished when a 170ft crane crashed through the roof. Having survived the Blitz, narrowly escaping a 500lb bomb which failed to explode. The church’s name ‘Hythe’ is Saxon for landing place it was London’s most important Hythe. Garlic, a vital preservative, and medicine in the Middle Ages was unloaded here and probably traded on Garlick Hill.
On 20 September 2005 Battersea Bridge was struck by a gravel-laden barge causing significant damage and closing it for repair
In the early 1900s police used the ‘Bischoffsheim’ hand ambulance, basically a long handcart, to move awkward prisoners to the station
Westminster Cathedral (the Catholic one on Victoria Street, not the Abbey) contains 12 million bricks – two million more than the Empire State Building
St. Thomas’s, a medieval foundation, had to move to make way for a railway line; its new site was beside the Thames, where the air was now pure
“The dreadful truth is that when people come to see their MP they have run out of better ideas” – Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
The chimes of Big Ben broadcast by the BBC every evening since 1923 are live, transmitted via a microphone hidden behind the famous clock
The Penderel’s Oak PH, High Holborn is named after yeoman farmer, Richard Penderel, who helped King Charles I escape by hiding him in a wood
Before 1914 corner pavilions were common in British clubs. Fulham FC’s ‘The Cottage’ which opened in 1905 is the sole survivor
Victoria Line the world’s first full-scale automatic railway enables a driver to close doors travel to next station at the push of a button
The Swiss Re: or Gerkin Tower’s upper windows can only be cleaned by steeplejacks absailing by ropes from a trapdoor in the roof
A Cockney is defined as being born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside in The City of London not East London
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.
