On Tuesday 18th I enjoyed a day in London. First to Ilford to the bank, then the 123 to Tottenham Hale and the 76 to Waterloo - watching the world go by is fascinating from a London bus especially if you are in the front seat upstairs. A wander round the South Bank and a sandwich, over the Thames footbridge to the Embankment and the 76 to St. Paul's for Sung Evensong with the choir back from holiday and a seat in the choir stalls, then home on the 26, TfL to Ilford and Radio Cars mini-cab - for my legs were just about to give up!
It was a nostalgic day as these photographs show. First, Sweetings in the City is still there! I was taken there for lunch by a broker from Willis Faber and Dumas in the 1950s. It is a fish restaurant and here for the very first time I tasted Chablis.
When I left home I had shaved, selected a blue check shirt with yellow stripes, a plain yellow tie and fawn trousers. (A security guard at St. Paul's remarked that I looked very smart.) From the top of a bus I observed city gents at lunchtime. If I said that one in twenty were wearing a tie that would be too kind. No wonder Tie Rack closed down. It was not like that in my day in the 50s and 60s when I wore a stiff white collar and tie every day!
On the South Bank I was pleased to see that the skate park remains. There were plans to close it down and kick the youngsters out with their skateboards when Yvonne, Marlon and I are there some 10 years ago - we all signed the petition and followed the story online - till the skaters won the day! And here they were - the only reasonable photograph taken shows a lad having fallen off his board!
It was here on the South Bank when Yvonne signed up to sponsor a child in South America with World Vision. I have taken over the sponsorship. This week I received a photograph and message from the current boy - we have had two earlier children who have now left school. I send photographs of Aldborough Hatch and write messages a few times each year. And it all began on the South Bank.
And so to St. Paul's . . .
