Bird notes and observations from Sunday

To the Welsh Harp on an overcast and windy Sunday morning in late November, the intention being to do some birdwatching. Officially called the Brent Reservoir, it’s located in the corner to the west of the Edgware Road and to the north of the North Circ and straddles the boundary between the London Boroughs of Barnet and Brent. It’s a protected area (a Site of Special Scientific Interest, one of 37 such places in Greater London, to be precise). I was rather hoping to be able to spot a few ducks, and colder weather can offer the opportunity to spot a few rarer species that have been known to visit inland lakes or reservoirs in winter; Goldeneye or Smew, perhaps? Unlikely, but if you don’t go and look, you’ll never know.

One duck that I wasn’t going to see (although according to my records I’ve seen one there before, four years ago) was a Ruddy Duck. Brightly coloured, with copper wings and blue beaks, Ruddies are native to the Americas, and in Britain they established themselves in the wild after escaping from captivity in the mid-twentieth century. Unfortunately they also spread to Europe, and became a problem in Spain when they inter-bred with the endangered (and closely related) White-headed Duck; this in turn has led to a cull of Ruddies in Britain and Europe which has severely reduced the population (when reporting on this last year, the Telegraph even noted that the Welsh Harp “was a popular ruddy spot but is now, officially, cleansed of them”). This has been supported by the RSPB (to quote its website: “either we act to stop ruddy ducks spreading from the UK, or we stand by and watch as the white-headed duck is pushed ever closer to extinction … failure to tackle the spread of ruddy ducks in Europe could condemn the white-headed duck to extinction”); it’s one of those cases where two options are available, and neither of them are particularly pleasant.

Waterfowl-wise, we quickly spotted the likes of Coot, Mute Swan, geese of the Canada and Egyptian varieties, Tufted Duck, Moorhen and Mallard. Closer inspection with the binoculars soon confirmed that we had Shoveler and Gadwall as well (I have often wondered about Gadwalls, the males of which are not exactly distinctive as far as ducks go and which I don’t recall seeing much when I was younger; had they really been there all along, and I’d mistaken them for particularly grey female Mallards?).

We moved along to a hide (an open-to-the-elements one which, although the metal bench was rather cold, was clean and provided shelter from a small outpouring of rain). From here, we noted Cormorant, Grey Heron and various gulls, and were momentarily baffled by a pair of ducks on the far shoreline which had their heads tucked down, meaning we couldn’t decide whether they were Teal or Wigeon. We waited patiently until one of them decided to go for a swim, following which its red-and-green head left us in no doubt that we were watching a Teal (several more of which were subsequently spotted). Elsewhere, a pair of stationary small-ish brown-coloured ducks turned out, once they moved, to be female Tufted Ducks.

Great Crested Grebes in their winter plumage were noted, although there was one that was a little greyer in the neck and darker in the head that we momentarily thought might be something else (later checks in my copy of the RSPB Complete Birds of Britain and Europe, a volume far too large and heavy for use as a field guide, raised the tantalising possibility that we’d seen a Red-necked Grebe in winter plumage, although a quick peek in the London Bird Report 2013 poured cold water on this, with just two reported sightings having been made in the London area in that year; much though I’d like to have seen a rare water-based bird, I’m not going to kid myself that our sighting was anything other than a Great Crested Grebe). Another, smaller grebe was easily identified as a Little Grebe.

Beyond the water, we took in three kinds of tit, three members of the crow family, some Robins, a Chaffinch and plenty of pigeons. I had wondered if we’d see Bramblings (a winter visiting finch) but that wasn’t to be; some other time, perhaps. Ring-necked Parakeets were heard but not seen. There were as usual several small brown birds that proved to be unidentifiable due to their being too fast for us and/or too well concealed in the reeds. Best of all was a female Kestrel hovering overhead; in all, we notched up 29 confirmed species on a windy but satisfying day watching the birds.

Northern Heights, or why the northern bits of the Northern Line look the way they do

There are a few things that might cause people to wonder about the northern bits of the Northern Line. Why, for example, does East Finchley have two platforms that are never used? 

Are those openings at the end of the platforms at Edgware meant to be tunnels?

What’s with the old station above Highgate?

And why does the single-track branch to Mill Hill East even exist?

The answer is that they were all part of an ambitious pre-war plan for the Tube that was never fully realised. The New Works Programme, announced in 1935 by the London Passenger Transport Board (the forerunner of TfL), aimed to rebuild several stations across the network, introduce new rolling stock and incorporate some suburban steam train services into the London Underground – all at the same time. The part which related to the northern ends of what was then called the Edgware, Highgate & Morden Line was known as the Northern Heights Plan.

In 1935, what would soon be named the Northern Line ran to Edgware on the north-western branch and a station called Highgate (not the present-day one) on its north-eastern branch. These two termini were (almost) linked by a railway line that connected Edgware with Finsbury Park; this was one of the lines that would become part of the Tube.

Opened in 1867, the Edgware, Highgate & London Railway ran from Edgware to Finsbury Park via Mill Hill, Finchley, Highgate and Crouch End. It was a branch line of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), and it meant that Central London could be accessed by rail from those places which had hitherto been villages. Further branches to High Barnet and Alexandra Palace followed.

The line had problems, mainly the gradient which made it difficult for steam trains (despite various tunnels, cuttings and viaducts), while passenger numbers dropped when trams were introduced in some areas serviced by the line. It also didn’t quite fulfil its potential in terms of the suburban development that was expected to accompany new railways. The late Victorian period did see many new homes built along some parts of the line; for example, the parish of Finchley’s population rose from 4,937 in 1861 to 11,191 in 1881. However, the railway failed to trigger the development that might have been expected at its furthest point. Edgware remained rural, and was arguably changed more by the introduction of a tram service from Cricklewood in 1904.

What really turned Edgware from a small town in rural Middlesex to the North London suburb it is today was the extension of the Tube from Golders Green in the 1920s. A brand-new station opened in 1924, a new parade of shops was built along Church Lane (renamed Station Road) and streets of semi-detached housing quickly sprung up in what had been open fields. Census details reveal that the population of Edgware shot up from 1,516 in 1921 to 5,352 in 1931.

The expanding suburb, though, was built with the future in mind. The GNR’s original plans had allowed for a future extension towards Watford, and the building of the new shops across the road from the station allowed for a tunnel to run underneath them, while the streets beyond were laid out in order to accommodate a yet-to-be-built train line. It would be a decade before this could be put into effect.

Under the Northern Heights Plan, the line from Edgware to Finsbury Park, which after 1923 was run by the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), would become part of the Northern Line. The Tube tunnel from Camden Town out to Highgate – which, in order to avoid confusion, was eventually renamed Archway – would be extended to the Highgate station on the railway line, reaching the surface just before East Finchley. Highgate station itself would be rebuilt as a multi-level station, with the surface-level platforms continuing to serve the line to Finsbury Park while the new underground platforms would link to Central London via Camden Town.

North of Highgate, trains from both the surface and underground platforms would run up to Finchley, from where they could go to either High Barnet or Edgware along the railway tracks which would be electrified so that Tube trains could run on them.

The other part of the Northern Heights Plan was that from Edgware, the line would extend into Hertfordshire to a planned new terminus at Bushey Heath (to be located at the A41/A411 roundabout), with additional stations at Brockley Hill and Elstree South. The intention was that, as had happened with Edgware a decade earlier, new suburbs would be built alongside the new line. The Northern Heights Plan wasn’t just adapting an existing line; it was about building a new one – and continuing London’s urban sprawl – as well.

It also required some stations to be rebuilt. Highgate was to go from a surface station to a multi-level one, and the architect Charles Holden, already noted for his futuristic Piccadilly Line stations, drew up plans which, if realised, would apparently have seen the station topped by a statue of Dick Whittington – a nod to the (probably apocryphal) story about the medieval Lord Mayor of London being summoned back to the City when he heard the church bells as he climbed Highgate Hill.

Holden also planned to incorporate local history further along the line, with statues planned for the stations at East Finchley (an archer, representing the area’s past as a hunting ground) and Elstree South (a Roman centurion, referencing Watling Street). Even the station designs were ambitious!

The redevelopment of Highgate as a multi-level station meant that the next station on the line, East Finchley, also had to be rebuilt to allow for trains to run south on two different lines. Holden therefore planned it as a four-platform station, with the two outer platforms serving the tunnel route to Highgate and the inner platforms the surface route. He went for an Art Deco design, while the sculptor Eric Aumonier was commissioned to construct the archer statue. Unveiled in July 1940, the Archer is almost twice natural size and has become synonymous with East Finchley.

As the date of the statue’s unveiling implies, work on the Northern Heights Plan had not (immediately) been curtailed by the Second World War, although blackout regulations did restrict work at night. Electrification of the High Barnet branch continued, and it reopened as a London Underground service in April 1940. The underground platforms at Highgate opened in January 1941 (they were immediately put to use as air-raid shelters), and for many years the newly-elongated tunnel was (via the Bank branch) the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The line between Finchley and Edgware, which had closed to LNER passenger trains in 1939 as a precursor to electrification, was only electrified part-way and that was just on a single line. The reason for this was that Mill Hill East station was needed to allow easy access to the nearby Army barracks which was the depot of the Middlesex Regiment, and as such a required destination for new recruits.

The work on building the extension north of Edgware had been a lower priority than electrifying the LNER lines that already existed, but some work had begun prior to the outbreak of war. The carriage depot at Aldenham had already been built, as had the arches that would support the viaduct at Brockley Hill station, and the tunnel at Elstree South had been dug. There had also been some work done at Edgware, such as the entrances to what would have been the tunnels under Station Road. That, alas, was as far as it got.

After the electrification of the line to Mill Hill East, work halted for the duration of the war. When it ended, the Northern Heights Plan had to be reviewed because new legislation needed to be taken into account. Specifically, the imposition of the Green Belt around London prevented further suburban development, which in turn destroyed the main reason for the extension out to Bushey Heath. It was abandoned, although it was depicted as ‘under construction’ on some 1940s Tube maps and not formally cancelled until 1950. Those parts of Edgware that were spared housing in the 1920s because they’d been ear-marked for a future Tube line have since been built over.

Electrifying the stretch between Mill Hill East and Edgware was still viable. However, the funding was not available as the extension of the Central Line (another component of the New Works Programme) and reconstruction of war damage were both much higher priorities. Somewhat controversially, Edgware and Mill Hill were deemed by the powers-that-be to have ample access to Central London already, and the direct link between the two branches of the Northern Line was scrapped; in its place, residents got a bus route between Edgware and Mill Hill East. The line continued to be used for freight until 1964, following which the tracks were removed. Part of it was subsequently buried under a new road called the M1, although other bits – namely the Copthall Railway Walk and the Mill Hill Old Railway – are now nature reserves.

The surface part of Holden’s Highgate rebuild was never realised. The old surface station continued to be used for passenger services run by the newly-nationalised British Railways between Alexandra Palace and Finsbury Park, although this was affected by coal shortages and passenger numbers declined. The service ceased in 1954, although the tracks weren’t removed until after freight services stopped in 1970. Today, the surface platform and some of the old buildings remain in place above the Tube station at Highgate, visible through the trees. The station building at Ally Pally is now a community centre. Further down the line, the platforms of Crouch End station, lost to the Tube, are still in place. The line now forms the Parkland Walk nature reserve.

With no surface-level passenger traffic heading south, East Finchley’s inner platforms were and still are only used for trains running between there and High Barnet, or for trains going to the Highgate depot. Services to Mill Hill East continue to run on the single line, albeit just as a shuttle service from Finchley Central outside peak times.

The entrances to the Elstree South tunnels were filled in (there is no evidence of these on the surface today), while the Aldenham depot became an aircraft factory during the war and a bus garage after it; it was demolished in the 1990s. The viaduct arches at Brockley Hill survived into the 1960s although only the bases remain today, visible from the A41 at the point where the (sub)urban sprawl of Greater London peters out into open countryside.

The Northern Heights Plan was definitely ambitious, and the part of it that did become reality – the High Barnet branch – remains a part of the Tube network today. The 1930s were a time when the people running the Tube were thinking big, and it took a world war to stop expansion in its tracks. With hindsight some of the post-war cancellations were arguably short-sighted, and as a result the small details that remain and occasionally intrigue – East Finchley’s extra platforms, the Mill Hill East spur, the Edgware tunnel entrances, the station above Highgate, what’s left of the arches at Brockley Hill and the nature reserves – all stand in their own way as monuments to what might have been. At least as far as the latter are concerned, the commuter’s loss really is nature’s gain.

Sources

T.F.T. Baker, J.S. Cockburn & R.B. Pugh (eds.), A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4 (Victoria County History, 1971)

Tony Beard, By Tube Beyond Edgware (Capital Transport, 2002)

David Bownes, Oliver Green & Sam Mullins, Underground: How the Tube Shaped London (Allen Lane, 2012)

John Glover, London’s Underground (Ian Allan, 2003)

Charles E. Lee, Sixty Years of the Northern (London Transport, 1967)

Colin & David McCarthy, Railways of Britain: London North of the Thames (Ian Allen, 2009)

G.F.A. Wilmot, The Railway in Finchley: A Study in Suburban Development (Finchley Public Libraries Committee, 1962)

The 'Flask to Flask' walk across Hampstead Heath

Fancy a walk this weekend? Hampstead Heath is one of North London’s finest open spaces and a delightful walking venue at any time of the year. Throw in a couple of really good pubs as well and it gets even better!

This is the main premise of what I call the ‘Flask to Flask’ walk from the Flask pub in Highgate to the Flask pub in Hampstead, which also takes in the eighteenth-century stately home of Kenwood House. The write-up can be found on Londonist:

http://londonist.com/2015/09/weekend-walks-flask-to-flask-in-hampstead

Happy walking!

Shadow of the sword

I somehow got to hear of Tom Holland by reputation a while ago, and started following him on Twitter and reading some articles online. I liked what I read (he produced a really good piece on why we shouldn’t deny that ISIS has religious roots for the New Statesman back in March), so it was with interest that I picked up a copy of his book, In the Shadow of the Sword, without having read any of his previous books which include studies on Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic.

In this book, Holland takes the reader to the Middle East of what historians call ‘late antiquity’ – a time when the Roman Empire continued to exist, albeit centred around Constantinople (Rome itself having fallen to the barbarians); its struggle with the Persians is superseded by the rise of the Arabs and, with them, a new religion. The main focus of this book is the origins of Islam, and it has as a result attracted some controversy by way of pointing out (for example) that no biography of the prophet Mohammed existed until a couple of centuries after his death. 

This book is well-written, well-researched and (I’d say) needs to be read given what is currently happening in the areas described therein; for a look at where Islam – and indeed, where Christianity – comes from (and there is quite a bit about the origins of these faiths that’s open to debate), this is an excellent guide; while much attention was drawn on the book’s publication to the way Holland questions the traditional accounts of Islam’s origins, it’s worth pointing out that he takes the same approach with Christianity and indeed Judaism. This is a forensic and fearless examination of the evidence available from the time – or, of course, the lack thereof. I will definitely be looking to read more books by this author.

Help for returning veterans

The parades, poppies and silences of Remembrance Sunday are a sombre means of reflecting upon the sacrifice of those who died in war, but what of those who survived and came home? “Remember the dead, but don’t forget the living” is a familiar refrain. Returning veterans have historically encountered problems adjusting to civilian life even if they have not been physically scarred by their experiences. Recent wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq have created a new generation of veterans trying to cope, and as a consequence new ways of trying to help them have been and are being developed.

There are a variety of schemes and projects that have been established to help these brave men and women, and a particularly innovative example of such a project originated on the west coast of Canada. Last Friday I went to see an art installation at Canada House which is the work of the Man/Art/Action Project which is linked to the Veterans Transition Network (VTN). This has helped veterans to recover from what are referred to as the ‘invisible wounds’ of war (such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and survivor guilt) by having them work on art projects with artists, actors, counsellors – such as Dr Marv Westwood, Professor in Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia, who has been internationally recognised for his work with VTN – and even Native wood-carvers. The installation is in fact in three parts – two works of art and a theatre piece.

Lest We Forget Canada is a mural that was created to raise awareness of the impact that Canadian involvement in Afghanistan had on the 40,000 soldiers who served there and their families. It consists of 162 panels, each of which commemorates one of the Canadian soldiers who died there. Made from the pages of old military training pamphlets, it’s the brainchild of the Vancouver-based multimedia artist Foster Eastman and it was made by veterans. The idea for this came from the notion that men have a tendency to share more information when working with their hands, and many veterans involved found the project therapeutic as they began to talk about their experiences – with counsellors as well as with each other – while taking part. For many, talking about their experiences can be an important first step.

The mural has toured Canada and the backs of each panel have been signed by the people who made it and the families of the soldiers commemorated on it. The idea of families signing it was not an intention until the mural was shown to (then) Prime Minister Harper and a group of bereaved families, and some of the children found the panels with their fathers’ names on them and went round the back to write messages. When HRH Prince Harry – himself an Afghanistan veteran who has done much work with veterans of recent wars through events such as the Invictus Games – went to see the mural at Canada House, he made a point of finding the eight panels bearing the names of Canadian soldiers who had died while serving with his regiment and signing them as ‘Harry, Capt. Wales’.

Alongside the mural is the Veterans Tribute Pole which was Fraser’s next project. It is made of two coffins, symbolising “the men who came home in a box, literally and mentally”, Fraser explained when I went to visit. Like the mural, it was made by veterans but with this they went through the traditional Native process of carving totem poles, beginning with a healing song. The varnish was stripped from the coffins, which were covered with satellite images of Kandahar and Kabul along with the names of Canadian Army ranks which were carved into the wood. It too has toured Canada.

The third part of the exhibit was Contact! Unloaded, a theatre piece performed by four veterans alongside two actors. It was a moving and at times emotionally-charged piece in which the veterans spoke of and acted out their experiences around an attempt to recite the St Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V – proud rhetoric of honour and brotherhood interspersed with first-hand accounts of the grim realities of modern war. For those involved, the project has – like the mural and the pole – proved therapeutic, especially when performed in front of their families. In the question-and-answer session that followed, it was noted that veterans who have seen the piece have often come forward afterwards and asked how they can become involved with VTN. Fraser commented that he has even been approached by veterans of the Second World War; “they told us we were sixty years too late,” he explained.

What people like Fraser and Marv are doing is truly impressive, and I was glad that I had the chance to go and see it. Friday, alas, marked the final performance of Contact! Unload at Canada House, although both the Lest We Forget Canada mural and the Veterans Tribute Pole will be on display at Canada House until 25^th November (all visitors are required to register in advance).

Paris: A personal reaction

Cities across the world held impromptu vigils to show solidarity with Paris last night, and London was no exception. While landmarks such as Tower Bridge and the Eye were being lit up in the red, white and blue of the French tricolour, thousands of people descended on Trafalgar Square to light candles at makeshift shrines, wave home-made banners (“nous sommes Paris”, “London stands with Paris”) and break out into a chorus of ‘La Marseillaise’ every five minutes or so.

It struck me, briefly, that the notion of singing the French national anthem in a public place named after a British victory over France might be a bit surreal. But that thought was brief, for there were much bigger forces at work, big enough to make quibbling over a name seem a little silly, if not downright petty. There are times when national differences fall aside before common values, and in the twenty-first century the wake of a terrorist attack – or rather, series of attacks – is such a time. Liberté and egalité are not so much French values these days as fairly universal values in the Western world, and the worldwide vigils were a chance for people everywhere to show a sense of fraternité with the people of Paris. Fittingly, the National Gallery and the fountains were lit up in the French colours too, and I even spotted a couple of bottles of vin rouge being passed around; very French.

I have a habit of following rolling news and social media somewhat obsessively when major events unfold, and that’s what I’ve been mainly doing since Friday night. Usually it’s with a sense of mild fascination or curiosity, wondering what’s going to happen next, but on Friday night it was with a mounting sense of horror as the news of multiple attacks filtered through and the number of dead rose into three figures. It’s quite possible that a contributing factor here was that Paris is a city that Allison and I love to visit – we were last there in June. We walk a lot when we go to Paris – it feels a lot more compact than London – and to judge by the map we’ve been within a couple of blocks of some of the places where the attacks took place; we like to stay in the 11^th and have been to a few of the cafés and bars in the Canal Saint Martin area. This felt a little too close to home for comfort. Going along to a vigil in Trafalgar Square may seem like a small gesture but it felt like the right thing to do.

I’ve done plenty of reading up as well as watching the news, and here are the best pieces that I have found (with hyperlinks). The sense of immediacy and perspective on show here are much better than anything I could come up with.

In Paris, a Night Disrupted by Terror (Pamela Druckerman, New York Times) Personal account of the night by an American journalist who lives and works in Paris – a “perfectly normal dinner party” is interrupted by news of the attacks. Guests get text-messages asking if they’re OK. The writer’s husband is actually at the Stade de France (he ended up getting interviewed on Dutch radio) while another couple try to contact their teenage children. Things really hit home when she sees a map of Paris on TV showing where the attacks happened – “My home is on the other side of those two sites … it’s not just Paris that’s in the news – it’s my Paris”.

Murdered for Being Parisian (Judah Grunstein, The Atlantic) Highly erudite account from a Parisian – I had to look up what ‘desuetude’ means – which quickly focusses on the “democratization of the carnage”. “Last time,” the writer says (referring to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January), “the victims were targeted for who they were or what they’d done. This time the bullets were not aimed, but fired at random … This time it is the nation and its people themselves in the crosshairs”. These are times, he notes, when even going out onto the streets buy a cake becomes in its own way an act of defiance. The writer goes on to consider the question of ‘self’ and ‘other’ which ties in the recent refugee crisis by referencing Parisians opening their doors to help those unable to get home (the #portsouvertes phenomenon that for a few hours gripped Twitter) – “When thousands of Parisians become refugees in Paris … there’s no longer really a “here” or a “there”, no longer a host and a refugee”.

‘Crimes’ Jihadists Will Sentence You To Death For (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic) Ties in the Paris attacks with the bombing of the Russian plane in Egypt two weeks ago, and other Islamist attacks over the years, by giving a “partial, and only partial” list of aspects of modern life that Islamist militants find intolerable to the point of killing people for partaking in them. My one quibble is the writer’s use of the term “medieval values” when talking of the extremists; sadly, religious extremism is in its own way a very modern phenomenon (for more on this, try to get hold of a copy of John Gray’s Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern – a short but nevertheless excellent and thought-provoking read).

After Paris, Europe may never feel as free again (Nick Cohen, Observer) Nick Cohen is a writer who I find always has something useful to say, and who usually seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else (for example, people have only recently started to notice his excellent book What’s Left?, which was published eight years ago). He argues that, thus far, the threat posed by Islamism hasn’t really changed Europe. “From Nigeria to Afghanistan, a clerical fascist doctrine that mandates mass murder and self-murder has pushed whole regions into civil war. Yet divinely sanctioned violence has failed to engulf our continent … In spite of all provocations, we are what we once were”. Cohen, though, feels that the Paris attacks will change this; he cites the closing of international borders, which had already started in some parts of Europe as a consequence of the refugee crisis, as evidence of this.

France will not let these horrific attacks break the Parisian spirit (Mathieu Vaillancourt, Independent) As with the Grunstein article above, this one looks at how ordinary people became the targets although the focus here is on hope that Parisian life will continue unbowed. “Like Londoners or New Yorkers, Parisians are strong and stubborn people. They will proudly continue their daily lives … This is how terrorism and fanaticism will lose the propaganda battle that is being waged by extremists.” Paris, of course, has a long history of violent upheaval and there are monuments to aspects of this all over the city; in a sense this is another bloody chapter in its notably bloody history. I was especially taken by the last paragraph with its call for people to continue to visit Paris. I’ve read similar articles recently in the wake of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing and the same thing was said after the massacre in Tunisia in June. Mass travel abroad is a relatively recent phenomenon in the wider history of mankind and it is in its own way a major means of reducing barriers (and increasing understanding) between different peoples and cultures – which is probably why the Islamist militants hate it.

The strange relationship between Islam, violence and French football (Freddy Gray, The Spectator) It somehow seems odd bringing football into this, but then one of the venues attacked was the Stade de France during an international football match. As such, it’s worth noting that football is – or at least was once considered to be – one of few areas where Muslims could be seen as successfully integrating into French culture, which might explain why Islamist extremists would choose to attack it (and it could have been a lot worse, for according to some reports one of the bombers had a ticket but had been turned away; worth bearing in mind that President Hollande was at the game). Sticking with the Stade de France for a minute, I found one of the most moving scenes on Friday night was the footage of fans singing ‘La Marseillaise’ as the (eventually) left the stadium – maybe it’s because I associate the song with that scene in Casablanca, but it’s always struck me as a particularly stirring song of defiance in the face of adversity. It later transpired that one of the French players lost a cousin in one of the other attacks, and when the German team were told that they couldn’t leave the stadium due to safety concerns the French team insisted on staying with them; as was the case with the Parisians who opened their doors to strangers, a crisis can bring out the best in people. Incidentally, the friendly between England and France on Tuesday is going to go ahead despite obvious security concerns; life, as has been mentioned above, must go on. There have already been calls for the English fans in attendance to show some fraternité and sing along to ‘La Marseillaise’ before the kick-off. I hope they do – it’s already been sung by thousands under Nelson’s Column, so why not at Wembley? These are, after all, times when national differences fall aside before common values.

The Lord Mayor's Show, and one of the most controversial Lord Mayors

Tomorrow is the Lord Mayor’s Show – and 2015 marks the 800^th anniversary of this annual London pageant (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the Mayor of London – that’s only been a thing since 2000; this is to do with the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office which dates back to the twelfth century). I’ve been delving into the history of this – it includes disputes between Livery Companies, broken legs, plague outbreaks and James Bond – and the resulting article can be seen on Londonist:

http://londonist.com/2015/11/deaths-hate-and-cancellations-800-years-of-the-lord-mayor-s-show?ref=related_links

One thing that I didn’t have space for was the tale of one of London’s most controversial Lord Mayors. John Wilkes (1727-97) was an eighteenth century radical politician who makes today’s lot seem rather tame – for a start, he was a member of the notorious Hell Fire Club. As well as being an MP, he published a weekly anti-government newsletter which was closed down for libel after insulting George III. This episode saw Wilkes expelled from Parliament but he became a popular hero after the actions taken by the government in arresting people involved in publishing the paper were judged to be unconstitutional (popular in England at any rate; Wilkes was loathed north of the border on account of his violently anti-Scottish rhetoric). After fleeing the country, he was (in his absence) found guilty of obscenity after publishing a pornographic poem. When he returned, he was locked up for two years and then tried to get re-elected to Parliament; despite getting voted in three times they refused to allow him to take his seat.

He subsequently became a City alderman and was elected Lord Mayor in 1774; the Lord Mayor’s Show of that year was accompanied by riots and there were apparently many empty seats at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet because lots of respectable politicians and noblemen who didn’t want to be associated with him boycotted the event. He’s also credited with one of the finest political put-downs – when Lord Sandwich, an opponent, said to him that he would most likely die either on the gallows or from a sexually-transmitted disease, he replied: “That depends, my lord, on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress”. Coming in a close second is his response to a constituent who said that he would rather vote for the devil, to which Wilkes replied: “Naturally. And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?”

There’s a statue of him on Fetter Lane in the City. It is said to be the only cross-eyed statue in London – an accurate depiction if the contemporary prints of Wilkes are anything to go by.

The Fifteen

As well as the bicentenary of Waterloo and the sexcentenary of Agincourt, 2015 also marks the tricentenary of the Jacobite Uprising – not the famous 1745 one, but the 1715 one. It’s not hard to see why the ‘Fifteen’ (as it is sometimes referred to, with the other one known as the ‘Forty-Five’) is rather low down on the list of military things to be commemorated this year; victories overseas tend to get better coverage in the history books than failed rebellions at home.

There has, though, been a two-part documentary on BBC4 called The Stuarts in Exile, presented by an historian called Clare Jackson, which I watched with interest; this is partly because I like historical documentaries but also because I happen to think that James Edward Stuart (1688-1766), alias the Old Pretender, is one of those curiously fascinating people who history has largely overlooked. He was the son of James II by that King’s second wife, and the circumstances surrounding his birth (he was the ‘bedpan’ baby) helped spark the Glorious Revolution. As a result, he grew up in exile, and after James II’s death in 1701 he was acknowledged as King (James III & VII, no less, for like his father he had a different number in Scotland) by Louis XIV of France even though his Catholicism meant he was barred under the terms of the Act of Settlement. He made several attempts to regain the kingdoms which he and his supporters said were his by right, and eventually became the longest-serving pretender to the British throne – his 65-year ‘reign’ has not (yet) been surpassed by any actual British monarch.

His supporters were known as Jacobites (this derives from Jacobus, the Latin for James), and support for the exiled dynasty could be expressed in covert ways such as doing the Loyal Toast while holding one’s drink over a bowl of water (to symbolise the King over the water) and the wearing of a symbol – the white rose. That last bit is why SNP MPs like to wear white roses on their lapels – while the Jacobites weren’t fighting for an independent Scotland (they wanted to rule England and Ireland as well as Scotland), the gesture is at least suitably subversive for a party that wants to break up the British state.

Of all the Jacobite attempts to regain the throne, the Fifteen was probably the closest they got. The Forty-Five is better remembered, probably due to the romantic appeal of James’s son Bonnie Prince Charlie, but by 1745 the Hannoverian dynasty and the resulting Whig ascendancy were secure and the country was doing well (England and Lowland Scotland were, at any rate). In 1715, however, the Hannoverians had only just come to the throne and the political system was in turmoil, with the Tories – the faction which back in the day had supported James II – having been unceremoniously removed from office and therefore looking to the exiled Stuarts as a means of returning to power.

However, James had over-estimated his support and the whole thing went off half-cocked when the Earl of Mar raised James’s standard and started to assemble a rebel army in Scotland before being instructed to do so. Things initially went well in Scotland – less so in England where it was easier for the government to have suspected Jacobites arrested – but in November government forces inflicted key defeats on the rebels in the more-or-less simultaneous battles of Sheriffmuir and Preston, and this was before James actually landed in Scotland. International circumstances didn’t help either. James had been expelled from France the previous year under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, and combined with the death of Louis XIV this meant that French support was not forthcoming.

(James made two other attempts, in 1708 and 1719, but on neither occasion did he actually manage to set foot in any of his father’s former kingdoms.)

During the first episode of The Stuarts in Exile, I found the continued emphasis on the Duke of Marlborough surprising – yes, he does pop up at various points in the story and his defection from James II to William of Orange was a turning-point of the Glorious Revolution (which resulted in the Old Pretender growing up in exile), but he was not alone in switching sides. Stranger still, given this emphasis, was what was left out in terms of the connections between him and the various members of the Stuart dynasty. What of his wife’s close friendship with Queen Anne? His sister was the mother of James II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Berwick – who became a successful military commander under Louis XIV and who later fell out with his half-brother after declining to get involved in the Fifteen. Wasn’t that worth mentioning? While we’re on the subject of family connections, why was there no mention of the fact that William of Orange was James II’s nephew as well as his son-in-law? Or that James II and Louis XIV were cousins? Back then, these connections mattered.

There was also surprisingly little about James’s attitude towards Protestantism. Jacobitism was by no means limited to Catholics, and while in exile in Rome James had special permission to hold Protestant services at his court – which was popular with British visitors to Rome regardless of their religious or political affiliation. James must have been aware that had he renounced Catholicism in favour of the C of E his chances of regaining the throne would have increased immeasurably; he was told as much more than once and there was definitely a family history of converting to suit circumstances, but he chose not to. I’d’ve liked to have heard a bit more about this. In the second episode we got a reference to James stating that he would be tolerant towards Protestants in the event of his coming to the throne, but that was it.

For much of the second episode, James’s son Charles – Bonnie Prince Charlie – took centre-stage as Dr Jackson took us through the little-known stories of English Jacobitism and Scottish support for the Hannoverian government before a somewhat brief look at the Forty-Five and an account of Charles’s later years which brought up the interesting story of his secret visit to London in 1750 and his apparent conversion to Protestantism.

Despite what I’ve said, I enjoyed watching this documentary and I did like Dr Jackson’s style (although in terms of TV historians she’s not quite on a par with the likes of Mary Beard and Lucy Worsley). Funny, though, that a study of a somewhat marginalised branch of British royalty that tends to get dismissed from the main story managed to miss some important parts from its narrative.