Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner

Michelle Cottam

Description

Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner explores the history of the City of London through the eyes of a tourist guide. The author will take you on a journey through history from an entertaining and heartfelt point of view. From the Roman settlement of Londinium, through the medieval livery companies and significant historical events such as the Great Plague, 1665 and the Great Fire, 1666. The author questions historical facts and people's motives and how our opinions are determined by our modern-day values. Enjoy a variety of interesting facts and stories from the London tornado in 1091 in Cheapside to London's iconic pigeons. In the film Mary Poppins, the pigeons are shown being fed on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral because they are closely identified as being a part of London. Samuel Pepys was very fond of the pigeons and he and his wife would breed them. He shows his affection and pity for them in his diary entry dated Sunday 2nd of September 1666, "...the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell down."

Sujets

• Gran Londres
• Travel writing
• Museum
• Greater London
• Grand Londres
• London

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528966894
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner
Michelle Cottam
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-02-28
Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement The City of London Information Centre St Paul’s Cathedral St Augustine with St Faith Watling Street Excavations Pudding Lane Smithfield EC1 St Bartholomew’s Church Great Plague of London 1665 St Mary Woolnoth Church St Vedast-Alias-Foster St Mary Aldermanbury/Garden College Hill EC4 St Michael Paternoster Royal St Margaret Lothbury St Olave Old Jewry Christ Church /Greyfriars: Newgate The Viaduct Tavern St Sepulchre Without Newgate All Hallows Barking by the Tower City Livery Companies Dowgate Hill EC4 The Cutlers Livery Company Hall The Goldsmiths Hall – Foster Lane EC2 The Innholders Company/Hall – Dowgate Hill EC4 The National Fire Fighters Memorial – The Blitz by John W. Mills 1990 The Monument – Monument Street and FishStreet Hill EC2 1 Poultry – EC2 Temple of Mithras – Queen Victoria StreetEC4 Noble Street London EC2 London International Financial Futures Exchange, (Liffe Trader) Sculpture by Steven Melton Wood Street EC2 London Mansion House Bank EC2 History of the Stocks Market Huggin Hill – Cleary Gardens EC4 St Mary-Le-Bow Church College of Arms – Queen Victoria Street EC4 Royal Exchange – Threadneedle Street and Cornhill EC3 Bank of England Threadneedle Street EC2 Jamaica Coffee House / Wine House St Michael’s Alley Castle Court EC2 Lombard Street EC1 Millennium Bridge – River Thames Salvation Army International headquarters – Queen Victoria Street EC4 Guildhall London EC2 The Giants in Guildhall Guildhall Art Gallery St Lawrence Jewry Church Guildhall: Amen Court London EC4 Cutlers Hall London EC4 Postman’s Park EC1 Little Britain EC1 Cloth Fair EC1 No. 43 Cloth Fair Stationers Livery Hall EC4 Ghost Stories Historic Women of the City of London Agatha Christie ­– 1920 Elizabeth Fry – 1813 Emmeline Pankhurst – 1903 The Old Bailey Newgate Goal Fredericks Place EC2
About the Author
Michelle Cottam is a Londoner, historian and a tourist guide. She has had a keen interest in history for as long as she can remember. It was her visit to the Tower of London at a young age that was the beginning of her love for history. Her journey of writing this book happened by chance. It all began when she was organising the scripts of her bespoke guided walks. As the months passed, she realised that she was fulfilling her lifetime ambition of writing a book.
Dedication
For Bea and Alex, this book was inspired by you…
Copyright Information ©
Michelle Cottam (2020)
The right of Michelle Cottam to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528932028 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528932035 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528966894 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
David, thanks for your support and advice with all the important stuff.
Thanks to everyone who joined me on my guided walks. I learnt so much from you by listening to your stories. Thanks to my tutors on the City of London guiding course. Your dedicated teaching will always be appreciated.
‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, that I love London Town…’ the song goes. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I feel so passionate about London, maybe London is in my blood as it certainly gets under my skin!
Maybe it’s because, ‘I am a Londoner’ is a familiar song which I sang in primary school and I’m sure it had an impact on me as I still remember my school trips to historic places in London and I still sing the song today as it brings back fond memories of those days. I was born in London and have seen quite a few changes in London since I was a child, I’m sounding old fashioned now! I can hear the voice in my head saying with gratitude, oh, the good old days, just like my parents would have said when they were my age. Money seemed to go further in those days and you could buy plenty of treats in the sweet shop with just a penny where you could choose your favourite assortment of sweets which would be handed over to you in a crisp white paper bag. I don’t think there were many skyscrapers in the sky, like you see today, but there have always been very high-rise flats in tower blocks. I remember seeing many as I used to walk down Camden Town High Street in the 1970s. I remember once when I was in my teens and went to visit my friend in Swiss Cottage, her flats were higher than our Victorian house! I remember thinking, ‘WOW!’ The first time I went to visit her as it was so exciting. As I peered out of her bedroom window and looked down, everything looked so tiny and then, when I looked up into the sky, I thought that it was amazing that you could live so high off the ground and look straight up into the clouds. Going up to her flat in a lift and pressing a button that took me straight up to the floor she lived on was a new and exciting experience as I’d only ever climbed flights of stairs in my house. I do love modern technology and it can make life much more convenient, but I’m glad that modern technology hasn’t completely taken over manual jobs. It’s nice that an old business like the milkman is still around. When I saw a milkman the other day, delivering milk with his milk float, I was astonished as you rarely see them these days, they used to deliver milk to our house every morning when I was a child. As I said, “good morning” to him and he said, “good morning” back with a familiar smile, it brought back fond memories of when I was a child when people had time to speak to each other. My mum used to clean the empty glass bottles before returning them back to the milkman until they were so shiny that you could see your reflection in them! She’d sometimes leave notes in the empty bottles to the milkman to let him know if she needed an extra pint. At Christmas she would leave a Christmas tip in the empty milk bottle to say ‘thank you’ for the good reliable service he provided to us all year round. No matter what the weather was, good or bad, he’d turn up every morning on time. In those days you would know everyone, like the milkman and the dustbin men, as they would have the same job for at least 30 years until they retired. The dustbin men in those days had to carry the big, heavy iron bins and empty them into the refuse truck as there wasn’t any modern equipment like there are today which did most of the heavy work for you. Most empty spaces on the streets of London in those days are now filled with even more flats, offices and houses. Thank goodness there are so many parks in London where we can relax in green scenery and get away from the noise and traffic, without them we would be completely claustrophobic. In the 1970s the GPO tower was the tallest building that I could see from my bedroom window. I remember looking at the top of the tower at night in the distance with its flashing red lights up in the sky. I was so excited that I could see what I believed was the tallest building in London! I have many fond memories of London which is a passion that has continued all my life and I want to share that passion with other people. As the song goes, ‘I get a funny feeling inside me just walking up and down’, even today when I walk up and down the streets of London, I still get that funny feeling of enthusiasm and curiosity. It’s been an experience, as I have written this book, escaping from my present time in the 21 st century to earlier times in London’s history. London has had its share of disastrous yet wonderful historical events throughout the centuries so, as I’ve been writing, I’ve encountered feelings of mixed emotions of sorrow, sympathy and gratitude for those people who helped build London into the great city that it is today. I’ve read many history books to try and help me understand the whole picture of what I’m writing about as there are many different views and opinions from historians. The facts often seem obvious when we have historical records and diaries as proof, but at the end of the day we all have our own opinions and can draw our own conclusions about historical events. We often read things and portray people in a way that are determined by our own modern-day values.
The name ‘London’ originates from the Romans, who named it Londinium when they invaded England and finally settled in the area where the City of London is today. In the year 43 A.D., following an invasion by the roman Emperor Claudius, the romans founded the town of Londinium (the Roman name for London). Cornhill was the highest hill in London, where the Romans built their Basilica. The name Cornhill derives from the medieval times as it was in Cornhill that a medieval grain market once stood. London has been written about for centuries in all types of books, and by all types of authors, some are well known, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, but the streets of London were always a place where dramatic events took place. London has even been portrayed with its streets being paved with gold! Paintings by William Hogarth and scripts from William Shakespeare’s plays often depict real scenes of Tudor London. Historic plays give us a good idea of the social lives and events of people. What fascinates me is that the history of London is still present, buried underneath us, as we continue to