Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Winkles and shrimps every Sunday: the death of a Cockney religious shrine
When I worked in the Clerkenwell area in the 1970s I often passed by the sign on a window in the Farringdon Road proclaiming "Winkles and shrimps every Sunday". It was emblazoned on the top glass panel of a green door. In the 1990s when I was again working in the area the sign was still there but was fading and peeling. This process has continued and the last time I was there six months ago it had all but vanished.
The sign is commemorated in the book Discover Unexpected London by Andrew Lawson. He notes:" This abrupt sign appears to be offering the sacraments of a new religion. In fact it marks the front door of...a popular shellfish stall holder. During the week he sells winkles and shrimps from the stall. On a Sunday, knowing that the London addict cannot go for twenty-four hours without a dish of winkles, he dispenses them from home".
The sign is commemorated in the book Discover Unexpected London by Andrew Lawson. He notes:" This abrupt sign appears to be offering the sacraments of a new religion. In fact it marks the front door of...a popular shellfish stall holder. During the week he sells winkles and shrimps from the stall. On a Sunday, knowing that the London addict cannot go for twenty-four hours without a dish of winkles, he dispenses them from home".
Labels: Clerkenwell, Farringdon, London, Shrimps, Winkles
The Bow Flyover
The concrete diplodocus of the Bow Flyover hunkers down over the A11 and the Bow Bridge. It has taken away some of the powers of the old bridge and bridges so they used to say needed sacrifices, whether human or animal to propitiate the gods of rivers and passage. When the old bridge at Bremen in Germany was demolished in the 19th century a skeleton of a child was discovered in the foundations. Similarly in 1867 an assortment of human and animal bones were found in the foundations of Blackfriars Bridge when it was being replaced by a new one. The original bridge had been built one hundred years before.When work began on Hammersmith Bridge in 1825 there was a Masonic ceremony with the Duke of Sussex officiating. With the participation of the Grand Lodge and a large crowd he performed a ritual that involved the fixing of a brass plate (praising the builders and over one of the coffer dams into which had been placed gold coins and a silver trowel. The Duke poured corn over it saying: 'I have poured the corn, the oil and the wine, emblems of wealth, plenty and comfort, so may the bridge tend to communicate prosperity and wealth.' Sometimes a cat or dog was walled up alive in bridges. At the very least money and precious objects were entered as witness the Hammersmith ritual. There was a sacrifice to the Bow Flyover so it was rumoured, not one at its inauguration but a little later when the remains of Jack the Hat McVitie and /or Frankie the Mad Axeman Mitchell were meant to have been enterred in cement in its foundations. This persistent rumour is probably untrue as the Krays had one of their henchmen, Freddie Foreman, dump the bodies into the sea from a boat off of Newhaven according to Foreman himself.. Similar rumours about the bodies of people who had vanished without explanation being buried in the foundations of Brooklyn Bridge also circulated.
The old nursery rhyme “London Bridge has fallen down” is sometimes alluded to as disguising the practice of sacrifice to a bridge. After various verses describe failure after failure to construct the bridge the final verse which at first appears to have no connection with the preceding verses talks about the arrest of a prisoner:
“What has this poor prisoner done? ...
Off to prison she must go.
My fair lady!”
The Flyover and roundabout beneath it have disguised the presence of the Bow Bridge which is the fourth one built over the Lea. And here we may have the origin of another nursery rhyme. Many people know about the story of Queen Matilda who is supposed to have ordered the construction of a bridge here in 1110 after she nearly drowned at the ford a little to the north. This incident is alleged to be contained in the rhyme “Skip to the Lea My Lady” which became a favourite banjo tune in the southern United States as Skip To My Lou. There is a fine version of Skip to My Lou by the bluesman Sonny Terry playing jaw’s harp backed by Brownie McGhee on guitar and J. C. Burris on bones.
The Bow Flyover was designed by Andrei Tchernavin. Tchernavin was born in Russia. His father Vladimir was a university lecturer and his mother Tatiana was a curator at the Hermitage in Leningrad. Vladimir was a zoologist and in autumn 1930 he was sent to the gulag for five years. Two years later with Tatiana and 14-year old Andrei, he was one of the few to escape from Stalin’s concentration camps to Finland. It took 22 days to make the crossing over the border. Two years followed living in Finland. Vladimir and Tatiana’s description of Soviet Russia and the scarcities there were of course derided by Western apologists of the Soviets like the Webbs who dismissed most of the content of their books as “hearsay gossip”.
The Tchernavins moved to London and Andrei went to school in Streatham. He eventually became a civil engineer and his greatest work was the Flyover started in 1963 and cost £1,784,500. The Bow Flyover was not the first flyover in London. Further to the south the Silvertown Way became London’s and indeed Britain’s first flyover in 1934.
Fine photo of the Bow Flyover from Diamond Geezer at his blog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/2785271306/
The old nursery rhyme “London Bridge has fallen down” is sometimes alluded to as disguising the practice of sacrifice to a bridge. After various verses describe failure after failure to construct the bridge the final verse which at first appears to have no connection with the preceding verses talks about the arrest of a prisoner:
“What has this poor prisoner done? ...
Off to prison she must go.
My fair lady!”
The Flyover and roundabout beneath it have disguised the presence of the Bow Bridge which is the fourth one built over the Lea. And here we may have the origin of another nursery rhyme. Many people know about the story of Queen Matilda who is supposed to have ordered the construction of a bridge here in 1110 after she nearly drowned at the ford a little to the north. This incident is alleged to be contained in the rhyme “Skip to the Lea My Lady” which became a favourite banjo tune in the southern United States as Skip To My Lou. There is a fine version of Skip to My Lou by the bluesman Sonny Terry playing jaw’s harp backed by Brownie McGhee on guitar and J. C. Burris on bones.
The Bow Flyover was designed by Andrei Tchernavin. Tchernavin was born in Russia. His father Vladimir was a university lecturer and his mother Tatiana was a curator at the Hermitage in Leningrad. Vladimir was a zoologist and in autumn 1930 he was sent to the gulag for five years. Two years later with Tatiana and 14-year old Andrei, he was one of the few to escape from Stalin’s concentration camps to Finland. It took 22 days to make the crossing over the border. Two years followed living in Finland. Vladimir and Tatiana’s description of Soviet Russia and the scarcities there were of course derided by Western apologists of the Soviets like the Webbs who dismissed most of the content of their books as “hearsay gossip”.
The Tchernavins moved to London and Andrei went to school in Streatham. He eventually became a civil engineer and his greatest work was the Flyover started in 1963 and cost £1,784,500. The Bow Flyover was not the first flyover in London. Further to the south the Silvertown Way became London’s and indeed Britain’s first flyover in 1934.
Fine photo of the Bow Flyover from Diamond Geezer at his blog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/2785271306/
Labels: Bow, Bow Flyover, East London
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Return from the Wilderness
After an absence of almost five years I am re-activating this blog.
Unfortunately the pressure of being a wage slave, being active in the local community and in a national organisation, as well as writing about 200 biographies of revolutionaries over at www.libcom.org put a stop to any activity here.
But now I'm returning.
Look out for features on the arcades of London, the lost river Bievre in Paris and loads more
Unfortunately the pressure of being a wage slave, being active in the local community and in a national organisation, as well as writing about 200 biographies of revolutionaries over at www.libcom.org put a stop to any activity here.
But now I'm returning.
Look out for features on the arcades of London, the lost river Bievre in Paris and loads more
