September 2021 – Page 4 – derrickjknight

Burnt Out

This morning I scanned three more of Charles Keeping’s excellent illustrations to ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

‘Conveniently elevated above the level of the living, were the dead’

‘Tippins the divine’

The artist’s inspired evocation of Dickens’s ‘The whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels’ prompted me to post https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/11/a-knights-tale-32-the-great-smog/

On a still sultry afternoon we took a drive around the forest.

Dumped beside the entrance to the paddock on Braggers Lane was a burnt out Daihatsu Fourtrak.

Whoever left it there did not destroy the number plate.

Looking over the landscape at Rockford End. we could see a sunlit distant marina.

Jackie parked beside the very narrow lane while I wandered about with my camera and photographed

a grassy verge; tumbling farm buildings in an overgrown field; a dappled bank; and a gate into a similar field

From the lane up to Gorley Common and Hyde we observed a basking herd of deer.

At the top of the hill ponies shared the pasturage with cattle. One pony found its tail in a tangle; one cow stopped the traffic.

At North Gorley three donkeys were employed clipping a hedge, and

a huntsman and hound took note of the wind direction.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage and runner beans, with meaty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cepa Lebrel Gran Reserva Rioja 2011.

A Knight’s Tale (32: The Great Smog)

Today we are battling even greater global problems with air pollution than that of the smog Chris and I experienced in 1952. Smog is a term coined by compacting elided versions of ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’. One nickname for London is ‘The Smoke. The capital in those days was frequently visited by fog exacerbated by smoke from the burning of coal. It had been a problem in industrial towns since the previous century. The return home from school in December 1952 was expected to be in the dark. Normally, when we got off the trolleybus at Arterberry Road, even at night time, we could see the pillarbox at the corner of Stanton Road in which we lived, and the street lamps rendered the crossing as bright as daylight. Not so, soon after 4 p.m., when the great smog hit ‘The Great Wen’, another name for London. Imagine a gas lamp in a Victorian alleyway, glowing a dull, weak, egg-yolk hue, its halo vanishing into the darkness, and offering no practical illumination. This is what the street lamps of Wimbledon, and the headlights of passing cars looked like for a week of winter evenings. They had no impact on the pea souper that penetrated our lungs and our living rooms. Alighting from our bus, Dad having come to meet us, we felt our way along fences to the corner of Arterberry, peered into the depths of Worple Road, and hoped the lack of feeble car lights would persist until we tripped over the kerb and into Stanton Road on the other side. We then had to progress down to the dog-leg around which, over the road, lay our home. Fortunately there were very few cars on these roads at that time. Those that did emerge, crawled along, their drivers blinking into the gloom. I really don’t know how the bus drivers managed.

(https://www.streathamsociety.org.uk/blog/the-great-smog-of-1952)

I do not exaggerate these conditions. I see the all-enveloping obscurity blanket still. In 1956 the Clean Air Act, which introduced smokeless zones, came into effect. It was a direct result of the virtual blackout of December 1952.

It was interesting to find corroboration of my own memory in

‘Great Smog of London, lethal smog that covered the city of London for five days (December 5–9) in 1952, caused by a combination of industrial pollution and high-pressure weather conditions. This combination of smoke and fog brought the city to a near standstill and resulted in thousands of deaths. Its consequences prompted the passing of the Clean Air Act four years later, which marked a turning point in the history of environmentalism.

The phenomenon of “London fog” long predated the crisis of the early 1950s. Known as “pea-soupers” for their dense, yellow appearance, such all-encompassing fogs had became a hallmark of London by the 19th century. But polluted fog was an issue in London as early as the 13th century, due to the burning of coal, and the situation only worsened as the city continued to expand. Complaints about smoke and pollution increased in the 1600s, when ultimately ineffective legislation was passed under King James I to restrict coal burning. Rapidly increasing industrialization that began in the late 1700s made conditions even worse.

Air pollution reached a crisis in the 19th century with the spread of the Industrial Revolution and the rapid growth of the metropolis. The increase of domestic fires and factory furnaces meant that polluted emissions surged considerably. It was at this time that the fog-laden atmosphere of London portrayed vividly in the novels of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle emerged. The fogs of London could last a week, and fog-related deaths were reported on gravestones in the early 19th century. Despite the deterioration of public health, little was done to check the smog, given the plethora of jobs that new industry provided and the comforts afforded by domestic coal fires.

The Great Smog of 1952 was a pea-souper of unprecedented severity, induced by both weather and pollution. On the whole, during the 20th century, the fogs of London had become more infrequent, as factories began to migrate outside the city. However, on December 5, an anticyclone settled over London, a high-pressure weather system that caused an inversion whereby cold air was trapped below warm air higher up. Consequently, the emissions of factories and domestic fires could not be released into the atmosphere and remained trapped near ground level. The result was the worst pollution-based fog in the city’s history.

Visibility was so impaired in some parts of London that pedestrians were unable to see their own feet. Aside from the Underground, transportation was severely restricted. Ambulance services suffered, leaving people to find their own way to hospitals in the smog. Many people simply abandoned their cars on the road. Indoor plays and concerts were cancelled as audiences were unable to see the stage, and crime on the streets increased. There was a spike in deaths and hospitalizations relating to pneumonia and bronchitis, and herds of cattle in Smithfield reportedly choked to death. Though the fog lasted five days, finally lifting on December 9, its severity was not fully appreciated until the registrar general published the number of fatalities a few weeks later, which amounted to about 4,000. The effects of the smog were long-lasting, however, and present-day estimates rank the number of deaths to have been about 12,000.

After the events of 1952, the seriousness of London’s air pollution became undeniable. Slow to act at first, the British government ultimately passed the Clean Air Act four years later, in 1956, as a direct response to the lethal fog. The act established smoke-free areas throughout the city and restricted the burning of coal in domestic fires as well as in industrial furnaces. Moreover, homeowners were offered grants that would allow them to switch to different heating sources, such as oil, natural gas, and electricity. Though change was gradual and another smog crisis occurred in 1962, the Clean Air Act is generally considered a major event in the history of environmentalism, and it helped improve public health in Britain.

(https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Smog-of-London)

We Still Have Some Colour

This morning I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/10/a-knights-tale-31-mugging-more/

When shopping at Lidl yesterday Jackie discovered quite a number of empty shelves. In the central aisles she did find some flat-pack ones that she would like for the garden. She found them so easy to assemble and returned for more today.

She bought another four packs. There are now three alongside and one behind the Head Gardener’s shed. One is inside the building, but in too narrow a space for me to photograph.

I carried out so much dead heading that I needed to tour the garden to assure myself that we still have some colour.

These are a few views that are identified in the gallery, which can be accessed with a click on any one.

This evening we dined on succulent steaks on a bed of peppers and leeks; fried potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender spinach and runner beans, and meaty gravy, with which Jackie finished the Pinot Grigio and I dram more of the Dao.

A Knight’s Tale (31: Mugging & More)

One day when still in primary school I managed to get lost on Wimbledon Common with my friend Tom McGuinness. We were forbidden to do this trip on our own. Because we couldn’t find our way home, I did not return until 9 p.m., by which time my parents had involved the police in a search. Had we had a dog then my dinner would have been in it. I was sent straight to bed without a meal, but fortunately Mum relented and brought me a delicious tray of home-cooked food. Somehow that beats breakfast in bed.

It was among these trees that I was subjected to my first mugging. I was a rather large ten year old and had beaten a fifteen year old in a school playground fight not long before. I had admonished this lad for bullying a friend of mine. He had therefore challenged me to a fight at lunchtime. With considerable trepidation I had, at the appointed time, been led into the centre of a ring of what seemed to be the whole school. I can still hear the cries of “Fight, fight”, and feel the pushes of the excited audience whenever I stepped back a bit. Like all bullies, he was a coward, and collapsed as soon as I fought back. I was, however, no match for the three teenagers in the Wimbledon Common wood who sat on me and searched my pockets. This time I had ventured out on my own. Fortunately I had no money.

I never had another playground contest, although I was prevailed upon to join the boxing club at Wimbledon College. Not actually being interested I used the fact that my parents couldn’t afford the subscription as an excuse to decline. Unfortunately I was then told I would not have to pay. I knocked someone out in training and that was the end of that. Some time afterwards, a boy called Rickards, much smaller, but very handy with his fists, who kept a list of those he could beat up, decided it was my turn for the treatment. I offered no resistance, and was duly beaten up. I still remember the acute shame, but no way was I ever going to hit another boy. Mohammad Ali was much more successful when standing with his arms hanging down; perhaps he had more nimble footwork.

Some thirty odd years after the attack on the common I was walking from my counselling room in Harrow Road, W9, along Portnall Road, when I noticed a left trainer with a leg in it very close to my own left leg. The next thing I knew was that someone was sitting on my back-pack which was on my shoulders. I also carried a bag of books. Although I remained standing I began to feel myself losing consciousness. I was aware that an arm was around my throat and I imagine pressure was being applied to the relevant point in my neck. It was not unpleasurable, rather like the moment of succumbing to gas and air at the dentist’s. Nevertheless I realised I’d better shift the arm, which I managed to do, just as I felt another pair of hands ferreting in the back pocket of my trousers. By then I was down on one knee, still clutching my bag of books. Remaining rather dazed, I rose, and turned to face my assailants, who decided to run off into the warren that was the Mozart Estate. In those days I would have stood a fair chance of catching them had I not been too dazed to run. Instead I walked after them, which was not much use. I passed a middle-aged man leaning against a skip. When I asked if he had seen two hooded young men he looked at me with hazy eyes, and said: ‘Want some hash, man?’. ‘What am I doing here?’, I thought. It was not until afterwards that I realised that the winder of my Longines wristwatch had gouged a hole in the back of my hand. Perhaps that was what they were after. Fortunately it has a very strong bracelet. All they managed to take was a train ticket for my return journey to Newark. Unless one of them was keen on a one-way journey to the Midlands, I imagine they were rather disappointed. For about a month thereafter I retraced that route hoping to come across my attackers again. Eventually I realised how stupid that was and put it behind me. I still have the watch.

Stinging Choice

We began a dull, humid, day with a shopping trip to Lidl, followed by a forest drive.

By the time the choppy waves of the open sea splashing over the quayside reached the sheltered harbour at Mudeford they were but ripples upon the dirty grey sandy shore.

Silhouetted pines with gnarly roots separate the two expanses of water.

Canoes are stacked and boats moored on the more sheltered side.

A few visitors with young children lingered on the green, now the older offspring have returned to school.

A patient dog sat waiting quietly for its walk.

A yarn decoration with a seaside theme adorns the oldest red pillar box in the Bournemouth area, which dates from 1856, the first on our mainland, following a trial in Jersey, had been introduced in Carlisle in 1853. The penny post had only begun in 1840.

‘Anthony Trollope, now more famed as a novelist, was, in the 1850s working as a Surveyor’s Clerk for the Post Office. Part of his duties involved him travelling to Europe where it is probable that he saw road-side letter boxes in use in France and Belgium.

He proposed the introduction of such boxes to Britain and a trial on the Channel Islands was approved. Four cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on the island of Jersey and came into use on 23 November 1852. In 1853 the trial was extended to neighbouring Guernsey. None of the first boxes used on Jersey survive. It is possible that one still in use on Guernsey together with another in our collection, originally sited in Guernsey, date from the 1853 extension to the trial.’ (postal museum.org)

At Avon Canada geese flocked on the river and on the fields, beside which I enjoyed an engaging conversation with a friendly young woman called Ali, who was conducting her own handwritten survey and confirmed my identification of the birds.

In London Lane a field is occupied by a pair of goats I have photographed before. One today was doing its utmost to reach stinging nettles outside the electrified fence. In the process it had chewed to the bare wire, which will be clear from the first picture when enlarged by accessing the gallery with a click. I suppose one sting is like any other to a goat.

Just outside Burley, a group of ponies were enjoying the slightly cooler weather with its lack of flies. One had gathered gorse and bracken headgear.

This evening we dined on pork steaks and chipolata sausages on a bed of leaks; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender runner beans and spinach, with which Jackie drank more of the Pinot Grigio and I drank more of the Dao.

Spice Cottage

Early this afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/08/a-knights-tale-30-the-heyday-of-local-cinema/

Afterwards Jackie drove us to Becky and Ian’s home in Southbourne where we enjoyed catch-up conversation until it was time to move on to Spice Cottage in Westbourne where the four of us dined on really excellent food with friendly, efficient service. My choice was spicy Naga Tandoori King Prawn; flavoursome egg fried rice; and a perfect plain paratha which I shared with Jackie. We shared onion bhajis, and saag paneer. Jackie and Becky both drank Pinot Grigio Blush, while Ian and I drank Kingfisher. The restaurant doesn’t serve alcohol, but we brought our own and they provided glasses. It was clear that most other diners have been regulars for some time. One gentleman keeps his own drinks in the restaurant fridge.

A Knight’s Tale (30: The Heyday Of Local Cinema)

On August 5th 2012, in my house in Sigoules, my friend Don and I spoke of cinema. I had been a regular cinema-goer during my teens in the pre-television era. What we found we both had in common was weekly visits as small children to Saturday Morning Pictures, not far away from each other in South London. I went with Chris to the Odeon, Wimbledon, and Don attended the Granada, North Cheam.

An early entertainer was Tony Hancock who, in ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’, had us glued to the radio. He allegedly lived in Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. My friend, who lived in Cheam for twenty years, could find no matching location. The only reference to East Cheam he knew was a corrugated iron hut housing a religious establishment including East Cheam in its title. Hancock followed his radio series with one on television. The most famous episode is ‘The Blood Donor’, in which he bemoans having to part with ‘very nearly an armful’. As Don is a few years older than me, our trips to the cinema were not quite contemporary, but near enough.

I still remember the words of : ‘Here we are again, Happy as can be, All good pals, And jolly good company’, in which the MC led crowds of excited children at the start of the proceedings. This would be accompanied by an organ which rose from the orchestra pit. There followed a programme of cartoons, comedies, and Westerns. Cartoons would be Disney or Looney Tunes. Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton were the funny men.

(Photo: sensesofcinema.com)

I remember Buster Keaton being sped along on the front of a steam train. Don’s recollection is of Harold Lloyd being suspended from the hands of Big Ben. These men performed all their own stunts without the benefit of modern technology. Big Ben must have been a made-up model. The Westerns offered a different thrill. I particularly remember Kit Carson. We would be treated to twenty minutes of a serialised film starring the cowboy hero which would leave us all on tenterhooks until the following week. He would be left surrounded by Indians on the warpath, or tied up by villains. We had to wait seven long days to see how he would extricate himself. Other such stars were Roy Rogers and Trigger; the singing Gene Autrey; and The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Magical stuff for children who had no screen at home. We all vociferously joined in.

Later, Don and I, still unaware of each other, would visit the newsreel cinemas at the London Terminal Stations. We would watch Pathe news covering the previous week. These eventually became cartoon cinemas and those offering subtitled foreign films. My venue was Waterloo station in my early commuting years.

Don’s story of a recent visit to the theatre in Bungay where the audience consisted of eight people reminded me of Charlie Chaplin. Just after the film ‘Chaplin’ came out it reached Lincolnshire. This was a biopic, starring Robert Downey Jr., brilliantly playing the acrobatic comic. Jessica and I drove out to the small town of Sleaford to see the performance. It was showing at the Odeon. Not one that has been split into several cinemas with multiple screens. One of the huge, possibly earlier music hall, establishments, which were either adapted or built in the brief heyday of the local cinema. There was a staff of two. A very tall gentleman, who must have been in his eighties, ushered us to the ticket desk in the vast foyer, which was serviced by an equally elderly woman we presumed to be his wife. We bought our tickets and entered the auditorium. Our usher was waiting inside where he tore our tickets in half, gravely presenting us with our respective sections, whilst retaining the others. Before the show began we established that we were an audience of twelve. There was plenty of room and it was very cold. At the interval a beam lit up the ice cream girl. As you’ve probably guessed, this was our ticket seller. The ice creams were a bit hard, and, for a while, beyond the capabilities of the wooden spoons. Perhaps the vendor had mentioned the temperature to her colleague, for he came round and asked us if we would like the heating on. Naturally we all would. He disappeared, and returned with a two-bar electric fire which he placed in the centre of one of the side aisles. It was an excellent film and and a most entertaining experience. Probably a retirement project.

Another relic of the heyday of the cinema is the Granada, Tooting, in South West London. In that brief period of a few decades it showed films in a splendid setting with three or four thousand seats, and ornate boxes in tiers high above the stalls. A Grade I listed Art Deco style building, it is now what has been termed ‘the finest bingo hall in the land’, home to Gala Bingo Club. Many years ago I attended there my only bingo session with my Auntie Stella. I fell asleep during the proceedings.

Back in the early 1950s, I discovered ‘Push Bar To Open’, which was the sign accompanying the emergency cinema exits. One afternoon, as I left, the door would not close properly. This phenomenon was always worth investigating in order to gain free access.

Another less savoury aspect of this form of entertainment was that if you were on your own you risked a man with a raincoat across his knees moving into the seat beside you. A hand would then caress your thigh. You would then get up smartly and occupy a seat as far away as possible.

A Dazzled Spider

With our dry heat now reaching 30C we carried out watering this afternoon before retreating indoors where I posted: https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/07/a-knights-tale-29-early-interviews/ ,

read more of Dickens’s Our Mutual friend and scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s Inimitable illustrations.

‘The objectionable Sloppy’

‘She folded her hand round Lizzie’s neck, and rocked herself on Lizzie’s breast’

‘Riderhood looked amazedly from his visitor to his daughter’

‘Limehouse Hole’

‘Betty Higden gravely shook her head’

Early this evening as we sat drinking water and Diet Coke on the decking the unrelenting sun beat down so hard that all was silent.

A wood pigeon confused its claws with fleur-de-lys.

Sunlight dazzled a spider which dropped its dangling prey;

after which Jackie photographed it on its trapeze.

This evening we dined on pork shoulder steaks; tasty gravy; fried onions and mushrooms; crisp Yorkshire puddings; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots and cauliflower, with which neither of us imbibed.

A Knight’s Tale (29: Early Interviews)

In the summer of 1952, I spent a considerable amount of time in the public swimming baths at Latimer Road in Wimbledon. It was there that I taught myself to swim. I needed to do this in order to pass the scholarship. This was a name applied to the eleven plus exam which would take us to grammar school. I had no idea what it was, but I wondered how I would be able to pass it if I couldn’t swim. With that daft conception in my head it is a wonder I did pass it. Without getting wet.

Speaking recently with my sister Elizabeth, we realised that a visit by our great aunts Mabel and Evelyn to our home in Raynes Park, followed by individual invitations to tea, was probably a series of interviews resulting in Dad’s inheritance of Mabel’s house in Wimbledon.

In 1953 I was to experience another life-changing interview. Having passed the eleven plus examination I was entitled to attend a grammar school. Admission to the Catholic Wimbledon College, pictured above during my time there, required getting through another test. This was an interview with Fr Wetz, one of the three Jesuit priests from the school whose obituaries I was later to read in The Times. The only exchange I actually remember is the sporting one. I, who had never played any formally organised game in my short life, was asked which sports I liked best. Knowing the school’s bent, I replied “rugby”. “Oh”, was the response. “Where have you played that?”. “With my brother and sister”. I lied lamely. I must have been marked up for quick thinking.

On 22nd January 1965, the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was to appoint Anthony Crosland Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her biography published in 1982, Susan Crosland wrote that her husband had told her “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales, and Northern Ireland”. I will be ever grateful that I finished my period of education long enough before he succeeded. My schooling ended earlier in 1960, when the result of the trial of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ meant that it would be possible for the Crosland quotation to be printed in full. I have no doubt that copies would have been widely circulated by those boys attending later that year.

The book, by D.H. Lawrence, was published by Penguin Books who were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959. The verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was “not guilty” and resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it was the kind of book “you would wish your wife or servants to read”.

Someone nicked my copy, so I took this image from the many on the internet.

Refurbishing Garage Door Planting

This morning I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/06/a-knights-tale-28-three-monarchs-in-quick-succession/

While we continue to experience the dry scorching heat of an Indian summer, our containers need watering at least once a day. Occasionally diverting for a little dead heading I carried out this task this afternoon while Jackie

completed and photographed the progress of her refurbishment of the front garden garage door planting.

Later, while we sat on the decking with Diet Coke for Jackie and fizzy water for me, I photographed the little fuchsia Mandarin Cream; a bushy hibiscus; pretty petunias in hanging baskets and on the decking itself with lobelias, impatiens, variegated ivy, and jasmine whose flowers are over; views of the Dragon Bed and the gazebo; a stand of begonia pots; and shadows cast on a New Zealand flax.

I then stepped into the Rose Garden and photographed hydrangea Lanarth White: two different stages of Aloha, the red of which fades to pink over time; Gloriana, now too high for me to reach with secateurs; deep pink Special Anniversary; and the ever golden Absolutely Fabulous.

This evening we dined on succulent roast chicken; tasty gravy; boiled new potatoes. crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and fried mushrooms, with which Jackie drank more of the Pinot Grigio, and I drank more of the Dao.