My London Walk to view some of the Livery Companies in the City of London was immensely satisfying, and very enjoyable. An English Heritage Members Only event and hosted by a most affable and knowledgeable chap, we walked our way from St. Paul's Cathedral, to Cheapside, on to Gresham Street and then to Basinghall Street, finishing back again on Cheapside. We viewed some ten or so Livery Companies and our guide provided a short potted history on each one, as we marvelled at the buildings' decorative features and questioned our leader on particularly interesting thoughts and ideas.
We had the most glorious late autumn weather, warm, bright and sunny, and the City was buzzing with life, with polished chauffeured cars patiently waiting for their suited and booted occupants from business meetings and gatherings.
And I found Bow Lane off Cheapside, from where my maternal grandfather sold boots and shoes. I've not been able to ascertain whether it was his own shop, or just a rented property, but I shall be following up on his history again fairly soon now, and hoping to discover more of his life story.
However, I also follow the events of my own generation and our children, for it's good to look forward as well as backward onto the lives of previous generations, and I must say it all keeps me pretty busy.
I'm also very fortunate in that I have three sets of grandparents, two maternal and one paternal set, for my birth mother died when I was just five year's of age, and when my father re-married, I acquired a stepmother. My goodness, family connections can become very complex, don't you think?
And here's a thing which is becoming annoying, rather than complex, and that is the inability to remember or recall, the name of something you've known all your life. This happened just recently and when after much thought and research I still couldn't come up with a name, I asked my sister, who luckily did know. The things name I couldn't think of was the well-known plant Montbretia, and also called Crocosmia, which my sister thought was a new name but that isn't so, as I've since discovered. Like every other plant, it has a variety of names, depending on local and worldwide custom. I've now discovered that it's called Coppertips or Falling Stars in the United States. I'm not too sure about my ability to keep two names in my head, let alone four, so to help me remember, I've decided to institute an on-going list on my kitchen blackboard, just to keep the information readily to hand.
And my second list addition is the term Mass Observation, which was the phrase coined for the national record keeping of people's daily lives during and after WW2, when our Government needed to know how citizens reacted to events of that time. Now we are both very interested in that period of our history and have many books about WW2, so the phrase is well known to us; until we forget it, of course!!
No, no, we're not losing our marbles...just rather too busy with our renovations and decorating and removals which, my goodness are keeping us very occupied just now; and our heads are full to over-flowing with ideas buzzing about, rather like bees around a beehive homing in with their catch of nectar.
Cheerio....Daisy
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