4) How much money does William have when he is in the alehouse with Mr Seed during the fog?
5) Why is Mr Seed’s first name Hampstead?
6) What does ‘snick-an-lurk’ mean?
7) How many miles down from Whitefriars Stairs is Club Cottage?
8) What colour is Shot-in-the-Head’s hair?
What do we know about Leon Garfield?
Leon Garfield was born in England in 1921. He went to art college after leaving school but when World War Two began he joined the British Army Medical Corps. While working for the War Crimes Commission in Belgium, he fell in love with an ambulance driver called Vivien Alcock, who also wrote books for children. When the war was over, he married Vivien and became a laboratory technician in a hospital in London.
His first book, Jack Holborn, was published in 1964. It is the story of a shipwreck, a murder and plenty of treachery. He wrote it for grown-ups, but children who read it liked it so much that he began to write just for children from then on.
His next few books, including John Diamond, were all set in Victorian London and feature snick-an-lurking a-plenty. He also wrote about Greek myths and Shakespeare plays.
He loved big cuddly dogs, bow ties and velvet jackets. Leon Garfield died in 1996.
Leon Garfield and Charles Dickens’s London
Leon Garfield based the London he writes about in John Diamond on the stories of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens is one of the most famous Victorian writers, and, like Garfield, wrote many tales of street urchins, lawyers and pickpockets running through winding London streets. Here is a list of the most famous things about Victorian London, which feature in both John Diamond and many of Charles Dickens’s books.
The fog: yellow, smelly, thick… When William leaves Foxes Court he needs Mr Seed to show him the way through the London fog. If it was very thick, it was called a ‘Pea-Souper’ because it was as thick as pea soup. The fog was caused by thick sooty smoke coming from all the many chimneys and mixing with fine water droplets in the atmosphere. Sometimes it would stay put for a week.
The winding streets: streets like Hanging Sword Alley, where Mr Seed lives, were crowded with many people who had come to London hoping to find work. Frequently, they had people living on the roofs, too, just like Shot-in-the-Head.
Strangely named pubs: The Horse Boy, The Sun in Splendour, The Cock and Fountain, The Magpie and Stump, The Eagle and Child… On their search for John Diamond, William, Mr Jenkins and Mr Robinson race through some pubs with very funny names. Many people in Victorian London could not read (like Shot-in-the-Head, for example), and would recognise pubs by the pictures on their signs. Owners would try to make their sign brightly coloured and eye-catching, through strange combinations of creatures. This is probably why the sign of the Eagle and Child scares William so much.
The street urchins: parentless children would roam the streets in gangs, as Liverguts and Shot-in-the-Head do. Charles Dickens made the street urchin famous with his book Oliver Twist, where Oliver, an orphan, meets a gang of pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger.
There was no electricity in Victorian London, so the streets would have been very dark at night because there would have been no street lights. There were no cars, either, so people walked or took a horse and carriage.
Cockney Rhyming Slang!
Shot-in-the-Head lives in Whitefriars, which is in the East End of London. His accent is a Cockney one. Cockneys are born within the sound of the Bow church bells, and have their own private language, called Cockney rhyming slang, which is famous all over the world. Cockney rhyming slang takes a word and switches it with another that rhymes. So, ‘stairs’ in Cockney rhyming slang is ‘Apples and Pears’.
Can you work out what the following Cockney rhyming slang words mean? Turn the next page upside-down for the answers. If you are stuck, use the handy hints.
1) Plates of Meat (William’s would be aching after running down London streets from the urchins)
2) Boat Race (Shot-in-the-Head’s is always dirty)
3) Rabbit and Pork (all William wants to do with John Diamond)
4) Bread and Honey (John Diamond believes that David Jones stole a lot of this from his father)
5) Weasel and Stoat (Mr Robinson is wearing a blue one when he first meets William)
6) Rat and Mouse (William’s in Hertford)
Answers:
1) Feet
2) Face
3) Talk
4) Money
5) Coat
6) House
Answers to the John Diamond quiz – how did you do?
1) Six times
2) Foxes Court
3) The Ace of Trumps
4) Six pounds twelve shillings
5) He was born in Hampstead
6) To go pickpocketing
7) Four miles down
8) Red
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Published by Vintage 2014
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Copyright © The Estate of Leon Garfield 1980
Illustrations copyright © Isobel Lundie 2014
Leon Garfield has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
John Diamond was first published in Great Britain by Kestrel Books in 1980
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ISBN 9780099583271
John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics) Page 16
