Gordon Bennett – you couldn’t make this stuff up!
Back in my days at Manchester University at the end of the 1960s – long before mobile phones or instant messaging apps were available – you could ask at the… Read more »
Category: London
Life in the Lockdown
Note: Because of reasons of space the editor of the Battersea Society’s quarterly magazine Battersea Matters and myself agreed that my usual page 2 contribution should this time appear here… Read more »
Eyeballs in the sky
My mum and dad didn’t talk about politics much – I was introduced to socialism by my maternal grandad – a retired railwayman, and a socialist to his fingertips. He… Read more »
Ballad of Bethnal Green
‘Extraordinary how potent cheap music is’ observed Amanda, a character in Noel Coward’s Private Lives. It’s also extraordinary how a piece of music you haven’t thought about for decades suddenly chirrups back into… Read more »
A Taste of India – possibly
When the first dedicated Indian restaurant – the Hindoostanee – was opened in London in 1809 by an enterprising immigrant called Dean Mahomed, it boasted of “Indian dishes, in the highest… Read more »
Battersea’s Patron Saint?
So far the only saint with any Battersea connections seems to be Saint Ethelburga, who was probably just visiting her brother Saint Erkenwald, Bishop of London who may have… Read more »
A tale of many sandwiches
The other day we found a traditional sandwich in a London pub. Not in some far corner of the east end but at a pub in Mayfair. There it was… Read more »
Please hold on – the bus is about to irritate you
There’s a very old joke about a Liverpool bus passenger asking the conductor (remember them) “Is this bus going to Speke?” “I’ve been on it all day,” says the conductor… Read more »