London – bobmcgee

Naturally …

Where my interest in nature came from is anybody’s guess, none of my family shared in it. It was evident very early, by age eight I was off on my own making lists of the birds I came across. Whipps Cross was my patch.

When I was older and got a bike I could venture further afield. I tended to concentrate on larger birds, I didn’t own any binoculars until much later.

I counted it a particularly successful outing if I managed to see a Jay or a Great Crested Grebe.

So, naturally, I managed to fit a little birding in between seeing the sights of London, starting with Whipps Cross where I saw both a Jay and a Great Crested Grebe plus a couple of birds that were not present in my young days, Little Egret and Egyptian Goose. Interestingly I didn’t come across Chaffinch or Yellowhammer.

Other spots that I visited included Fisher’s Green near Waltham Abbey. This was a place that I used to fish at. It’s changed a great deal since then. Some old powder mills are gone. Gravel extraction has produced extensive shallow lakes. It’s now a great place to see water birds and even an otter if you’re very lucky.

Another old favourite was the Lea Valley reservoirs running from the back of Hackney Marshes out to Tottenham. Arriving there I found that Europe’s most extensive urban wetland was in development and would open October 20th. The place where I saw my first Smew was being recycled as Walthamstow Wetlands.

Although it wasn’t yet open it wasn’t all that closed either so I found my way in and had a wander and found perhaps the most exciting bird of the UK trip …

In flight it showed triangular white patches at the base of the tail. The photo shows the patterned plumage and the white supercilium. It’s a Whinchat, exciting because quite unexpected on the outskirts of London. It’s a summer visitor to Britain, I may just have been lucky to see it as it made its migration southwards.

But it’s not all about the novel or the rare. It’s nice to spend time with old friends.

Problems, Opportunities, Accidents …

Claudius, the unlikely Emperor of Rome, needed a military conquest to earn a little respect. In AD 43, he sent four legions to invade the Catuvellaunian kingdom in Britain. They were successful and Claudius was able to make a visit soon after. The Catuvellaunian capital was given a Romanised name and Colchester became the accidental capital of Roman Britain. It took another thirty years for the Romans to subdue the rest of the country.

Dover sits at the narrowest point of the English Channel. It was settled and used long before the Romans but they fortified it and set up lighthouses.

Between Dover and Colchester there’s a problem, the Thames. The Romans built a bridge. The site was obvious it had long been in use. At low tide it was shallow enough to ford, at high tide you could take a boat. Why exactly there? Because a natural causeway to the south bank through an otherwise marshy area sits opposite a high point on the north bank.

The river was now an opportunity, ships could come up the Thames, goods could be transported north or south. A village grew up around the bridge.

London Bridge came before London. Once it got started it grew apace.

Between London and Colchester there was another problem. The River Lea. Just how do you spell it, Lea or Lee? You’ll find both so neither is wrong but in some contexts one is more right than the other. But the more important problem is negotiating the marshes and crossing the river. Traditionally at Old Ford, Hackney.

Bear in mind that the prevailing wind is from the west.

Problems, opportunities, accidents. A bridge, a growing town, a main road that runs northeast, the River Lea, it’s marshes, a west wind … these are some of the things that made the East End, and the East End made me.

Docks grew up on the Thames, associated industries grew nearby, ropemaking for example. Some industries are smelly, tanning for instance, put it down wind from the richer citizens. Or hazardous like making gun powder. The big city needs grain and fresh water, take it by barge down the River Lea. It’s tidal … harvest the tide for milling grain.

In 1720 John Strype described London as consisting of four parts …

the City of London, Westminster, Southwark, and “That Part beyond the Tower”.

That part beyond the Tower was spreading northeast up the main road into the countryside. It was constrained by the marshes and the River Lea.

East End. No end. Grey streets, grimy streets, streets without number, streets without meaning, streets that spread on and on under the dull, dreary eastern sky until, somewhere out past the miles and miles of docks they dissolve like an estuary, into a sea of nothingness. East End. Dead end. The East End was not a place, it was a state of mind. London, Edward Rutherford.

And not necessarily a sober state of mind. In 1736, the Middlesex Magistrates complained …

It is with the deepest concern your committee observe the strong Inclination of the inferior Sort of People to these destructive Liquors, and how surprisingly this Infection has spread within these few Years … it is scarce possible for Persons in low Life to go anywhere or to be anywhere, without being drawn in to taste, and, by Degrees, to like and approve of this pernicious Liquor.

The pernicious liquor was gin.

London …

I was born in Hackney and largely grew up in Leyton. I left home to study at Sheffield University and never lived in London again. I migrated to Australia when I was 26. There is much that I don’t miss about England but much that I do. I had just three days to scratch the surface.

My good friend Kathy had one day planned to perfection. To Stratford by tube, to Royal Victoria on the DLR (Driverless Railway), across the Thames on the Emirates Cable Car. A quick walk around the ‎O₂. Up the river on the Thames Clipper. Stroll on the Embankment and home on the tube. A chance to see some of the wonderful sights that I love from forms of transport that were not yet in existence when I left town.

As you can see, the weather hasn’t improved.

The ‎O₂ is the low rise circus tent just right of centre. Like the Tardis, it is much bigger inside than you could possibly imagine.

You catch the Thames Clipper nearby and travel west past the Greenwich Naval College before getting glimpses of St Paul’s and The Tower.

Winnie’s statue outside Westminster Abbey, no doubt erected to commemorate his encounter in 1946 with Bessie Braddock, a plump Labour MP and Tory-hater, who told him: “Winston, you are drunk.”

“Madam, you are ugly, I will be sober in the morning.”