Walking around bomb damaged London with Granny and Great Granny - Letter 2

Monday the 11th of October 2021 (close to the eve of the Battle of Hastings)

Granny and her Mother (Minnie Margaret was your great grandmother) used to go walking in London especially near the end of the Second World War. They lived in Cannon’s Park in Edgware - there was a mansion in the park that belonged to Handel (he was an organist and composer for Lord Chandos). Granny lived in a house in Rose Garden Close which was named after the part of the estate of the mansion house where it was situated. As there was also Orchard Close, Lake View, and other names. Granny’s house overlooked a school that she later went to as a primary school called North London Collegiate School and it was founded by Miss Spiel and Miss Buss. On Founder’s Day, we all had to take a daffodil to school, which were collected up as we went on the train to Camden Town where the original school was the place. I have a photograph of us all lined up spelling out FMB (Frances Mary Buss) by the seniors of the school and the juniors were underlining it. Amazing to think that Granny still remembers this after all these years. 

Edgware used to have a smithy, a blacksmith, where supposedly Handel listened to the music of the blacksmith working a piece of hot metal on the anvil with a hammer. Sadly, this was a made-up story by a publisher of music from Bath to make more money. When Granny went to see Aunt Margaret at Finchley, they went through Whetstone and they stopped by the whetstone where people had sharpened their swords before the battle. It was still there when Granny was a child. 

When we were driving from Edgware, we used to go up Highgate Hill and there was a black cat, which was a statue. This was to commemorate the Lord Mayor known as Dick Whittington. The statue of the black cat was able to see the streets of London. You may have heard of him from a pantomime and he famously put cats on ships to catch the mice and rats. 

There was a horse’s drinking trough on Highgate Hill and on the trough, it said, “Please release the bearing rein before proceeding up the hill.” The bearing rein kept the horse’s head down so that it look nice. But that didn’t help when it was going up a hill, it couldn’t see where to go, and releasing the rein helped it pull more weight.  

Granny is saying that from our house, I can remember my father taking me to the balcony and showing me the fires of London reflecting in the smoke and him saying, “That this fire is London.” So back to Granny and Great Granny as they walked around the remains of London after many buildings had been bombed. We saw a flat space where there were plants growing, this was known as fireweed or rosebay willowherb. The only piece of architecture standing was part of the Roman wall that surrounded London or Londinium. We went to Temple Church - this church was built by the Knights Templar (Granny has just finished listening to a book on this subject) - the Knights Templar were an order of Crusading monks founded to protect pilgrims (people who travel to a holy site) on their way to and from Jerusalem in the 12th Century. The Church has two parts. The Round Church and The Chancel. The Round Church was consecrated (made holy) in 1185. Just over a hundred years from The Battle of Hastings. It was designed to recall the holiest place in the Crusader’s world, the circular church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is a numinous (filled with a sense of the presence of divinity) space and has a wonderful acoustic for singing.  

Granny also went to the Guildhall with Great Granny, this is a huge building in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It has been used as a town hall for hundreds of years and it is still used for ceremonies and paper-pushing bureaucracy (where you get bits of paper signed). When Granny and Great Granny were visiting it, there were still air raids from the German planes dropping bombs. Granny remembers seeing the statues of Gog and Magog. These are two characters that are found in the Hebrew and Christian Bible as well as the Quaran. It is said, in the Book of Ezekiel, that Gog is a person and Magog is his land. But in the Book of Genesis, Magog is the man and Gog isn’t even mentioned. It is all very confusing and then some refer to the two as warring nations. But anyway, these two statues were originally used in one of the Lord Mayor’s Show in around 1672, the pageant master Thomas Jordan said that he hoped the statues wouldn’t be demolished. A few years later, the wickerwork and plasterboard statues were eaten by rats and mice. Another pair were carved by Captain Richard Saunders and these lasted for over two hundred years before they were destroyed in the Blitz. Just after Granny had seen them. The two statues once again were remade and presented in 1953, the year Granddad came to the farm, representing the links between the modern institutions of the City such as the Banks and the other businesses found there and the old city of the Romans.   

Granny wore a metal disc around her neck during the war, this was her identity number. It may have been used if she were found in a bombed building and they would know who the body belonged to, she thinks she remembers the identity number and it is 205/3. Do you think we should have similar numbers? I still remember my old passport number as I used to have to quote it when I stayed in backpacking lodges around Africa. I am sure your Daddy could also remember his old passport number.  

Great Uncle George Lawrence took Great Granny in one of the last Hansom Cabs which were drawn by horses. These were replaced with Black Taxis. Uncle George’s wife said it was an awful expense. But Uncle George said she would remember it, she did. Great Granny also took Granny on one of the last trams along a tramway between Embankment to Kingsway. The Kingsway was opened by King Edward the VII in 1905. Granny still remembers that journey. 

Next time, we go up into St. Paul’s Cathedral.