by Suggs
Between 1875 and 1914, 61 of these shelters were erected at a cost of about £200 each. As they were all placed on the public highway, the police specified that they should not take up more space than a parked horse and cab, hence their size and shape. The idea was so successful that it was later adopted in cities as far afield as Melbourne in Australia, where they not only copied Armstrong’s idea but even the shed design itself. I’m told they still have one surviving shelter in Melbourne to this day, a tasteful cream rather than the characteristic green of London’s originals. I’d have liked to check out the Melbourne version for myself but sadly I couldn’t afford the fare Peter demanded to drive me there in his cab, so I had to make do with the Warwick Avenue example instead.
As we pulled up outside this beautiful, oblong, green-panelled hut, it felt for a moment as if we’d arrived at a scaled-down cricket pavilion. There are 13 huts like this across the city, all of them Grade II listed, but this is one of the finest. As I approached the door, I dreamt of entering a Tardis-like structure, with corridors leading off into ballrooms and libraries. Actually, it turned out to be exactly the same size on the inside as the outside, but it still crams a lot into a small package. Though there’s no ballroom, there is a compact working kitchen and enough room to accommodate up to 13 cabbies.
There is an air of exclusivity to these places and Peter admitted that he was quite daunted when he stepped inside his first shelter in Clapham in south London. From those first wary steps, he has risen to become the secretary of the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, and an inheritor of the Earl of Shaftesbury’s mantle. Before you all rush to take advantage of these charming sheds, the first rule here is you have to be one of the current 25,000 licensed black cab drivers in London to be able to enter. It’s probably not the most exclusive members’ club in London, but it requires significant dedication to get your foot in the door. I mean, do you know the quickest route between Dalston Lane and Bhowani Junction?
I was lucky enough to have the rules temporarily waived to allow me to sample the atmosphere for a few minutes. Breathing in the enticing aroma of a breakfast being prepared just a few feet away from where we sat, I asked Peter what the draw was. He suggested that one of the great things for cabbies was the opportunity to learn the nuts and bolts of the job from fellow drivers. When to take a cheque. When to ask for the money first. Or, ‘When to go south of the river?’, I asked. But mostly they were there just to gossip. ‘You should have seen who was in the back of my cab last night. And as for what they were doing . . .’ There are some pretty strict rules too: no gambling, drinking or swearing. I imagine that keeps the numbers down, but I guess you have to with a potential 25,000 covers to serve.
As I stepped out of Peter’s peaceful haven and waved him off into the mid-morning traffic, I wondered what his horse-driving predecessors would have made of the motorised frenzy of the modern city. But I was forgetting that there was a time before the combustion engine reigned supreme, when horses and cars shared the streets of London. Just over the road from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children is a little side street called Barbon Close, WC1, where you can still see the painted advertisement for a firm called G. Bailey and Sons, who promoted themselves as both ‘horse and motor contractors’ - many businesses kept a foot in both camps while the battle between the two forms of transport played itself out on the streets of the city. I can picture the scene in their workshop: someone re-shoeing a van in one corner while his colleague changed the oil on a carthorse.
Horses were phased out eventually, of course. The benefits of motorised transport were recognised pretty early on by the bus and tram companies, and the speed with which they switched to motorised vehicles was phenomenal. Horse-drawn buses had pretty much disappeared from London by 1915 - perhaps not surprising when you think about the cost of running that stable out in Fulham which Gordon described. But for general haulage and goods deliveries, the change was much more gradual. In fact, the horse stayed on the road delivering goods well into the 1950s, hence the darkly comic rag-and-bone men of the 1960s classic television series Steptoe and Son, who plied their trade with a cart pulled by a horse called Hercules.
From the sublime to the more ridiculous, in what I imagine to be the suburbs of London, Benny Hill’s Ernie drove a horse-drawn milk cart, while his rival Two-Ton Ted from Teddington drove the baker’s van, in a song which is a reminder that the world of the milkman and his horse-drawn milk cart was still recognisable to Benny Hill’s audience in the 70s. Clearly our sympathies were meant to be with Ernie and his horse Trigger and not the van driver, or maybe I’ve got that wrong and there is some other deeper message about the moral superiority of dairy produce over baked goods.
These days, people stop and stare at the sight of a horse walking down the road, and when you see one it’s usually mounted by a policeman doing a spot of crowd control. But, strangely enough, the horse-drawn funeral - which is, I am sure, how Ernie would have preferred to make his last journey, the hearse pulled by Trigger, of course - is one Victorian tradition which has survived into the twenty-first century.
Horse-drawn funerals were once the only way to go, although these days they’re much rarer, and sometimes have more sinister connotations. When Reggie Kray - the last of the infamous gangster brothers - died in 2000 his funeral included a hearse drawn by six black horses. Not surprisingly Bethnal Green Road in the East End came to a standstill for more than an hour as the procession passed by. Wouldn’t you stop and stare at the sight of six horses in full funeral regalia drawing a coffin through one of London’s inner-city suburbs? Nowadays you’d be forgiven for thinking that such funerals are just the preserve of old-school gangsters. But you’d be wrong, as I recently witnessed in Soho. One family firm in the East End is still harnessing its horses and offering ordinary Londoners of all colours and creeds (no criminal records required) the chance of a more traditional farewell. I thought that the Kray funeral represented a theatrical one-off until I came across T. Cribb & Sons of Beckton.
This firm was established by Thomas Cribb in the 1880s. An advert featuring its founder conveys the kind of in-your-face Ronseal message that today’s undertakers might blush at. I particularly like the reassuring statement: ‘Always in readiness for the removal of bodies from hospitals and asylums on the shortest notice.’ I don’t think you’d see that advertising strapline in the Yellow Pages these days. Today it’s run by Thomas Cribb’s great-grandson, John Harris. In my quest to find out a bit more about how and why this firm of undertakers still preserves the horse-drawn tradition, I went to see John and some of his horses dressed in their funereal finery. John told me that these black horses come from the northern part of Holland but were known in the trade as ‘Belgian blacks’ because they used to be transported overland to Antwerp before coming across in barges to London. These horses would then be taken to the Elephant and Castle, just south of the river in Lambeth, where there was a big horse depository. I could say many unkind things about the Elephant and Castle as it stands now - time has not been kind - but the word ‘depository’ and the image of a pile of steaming horse dung is lodged uncomfortably in my mind’s eye when I conjure it up now, so I’ll leave it at that.
John told me that once a month his grandfather would go to the Elephant and Castle to buy and sell horses. That trade lasted until the Second World War, and never picked up again. The car had taken over. Cribb gave up the old ways and converted to four wheels for almost three decades until an old lady gave firm instructions before she departed: ‘When I go I want a horse and cart.’ In order to oblige, the company hunted around for a pair of horses and got the carriage from a prop supplier to the Hammer Horror film studio. John now admits that this was not a particularly authentic solution, but it gave the old girl the send-off she had desired.
Funnily enough, our friend Mr Shillibeer, who brought London the horse-drawn omnibus, couldn’t make a go of his business, so he turned to a more reliable trade where the business is steady. He designed a for
m of horse-drawn hearse that became the thing to die for. The Hammer Horror carriage was probably a rip-off of one of his designs.
The firm thought the request was a one-off, but demand just grew and, as John said, ‘Very quickly we thought, well, we’ve got to get this sorted out properly.’ They tracked down an original hearse carriage and restored it. So having disappeared for a while, horse-drawn funerals were rediscovered and are now, to coin a phrase, back from the dead.
It is slightly odd that of all the journeys made by Londoners 120 years ago - by tram, omnibus or simple horse and cart - it’s only the journey to the grave which can still be made much as it once was. The tradition of the funeral procession is to travel slowly and with formality, and perhaps these requirements - satisfied by the sedate pace of the horse - explain why this tradition has survived. And not only survived but, as I discovered, reinvented itself too.
John Harris’s family business now represents the archetypal London mix of old traditions adapting to change. Cribb’s now caters for Hindi and Sikh funerals and has a Buddhist prayer room as well as a chapel of rest. Sometimes the firm uses white horses and white hearses because not all cultural traditions they serve in London have black as the colour of mourning. So for that last journey to the cemetery horses still have a place in modern multicultural London, even though they’ll never reclaim the streets they once ruled like kings.
We have new kings of the road now and unfortunately, even with my tin lid on and my throttle pulled right back, it isn’t me and my scooter. Even with your motor running for a spot of cruising down the highway, the lyrics don’t really fit London’s windy streets, do they? No. Despite the resurgence of the bicycle and Chris Hoy and his endless thighs, the king of the road is still the car, though its oomph remains measured in horse power.
Back in the very early days of cars on the streets of London some people thought motorists were nothing short of barbarians. Decent people with manners had horses. At least, that is, if you can call the Marquess of Queensberry a decent man. I am not talking about the bloke who invented the rules of boxing or persecuted Oscar Wilde (obviously everyone knows that was the ninth Marquess), no I’m on about number ten, the one who found time to wage a bitter campaign against the motorists of London, following a close encounter in 1905 with a motor car on Hammersmith Road in west London, in which he suffered a graze to his arm. According to the London Chronicle’s report of the case, the offending vehicle was ‘going at a rate of 25 miles an hour’. I don’t think I’ve ever gone down Hammersmith Road so quickly. Queensberry, wanting to clarify the pedestrian’s rights in the brave new world of the motor car, asked the local magistrate to confirm if ‘I am at liberty to carry a rifle or revolver to protect myself and my family against sudden death on the road?’ Could he not, he asked, have permission to shoot at any motorist, or ‘motor fiend’, who endangered him in future? I have some sympathy with him on this point, while not, of course, advocating the use of firearms. However, the magistrate did not give him the assurance that he sought and the motorists of London slept a little easier in their beds.
At first the private car was not thought to be a serious mode of transport, and the attitude of the Marquess reflected that of many other Londoners, although perhaps there were few who were prepared to pursue their vendetta quite so ruthlessly as he did. The car was considered a menace and a nuisance and the expense of the vehicle itself made it prohibitive for anyone other than the super rich or early petrol-heads. But within 30 years of the Marquess’s complaint, motorised vehicles were becoming more of a feature. In 1900 there were only 8,000 cars in Britain. In 1927 Ford opened its car plant at Dagenham in Essex to provide cars for the London market and London’s streets began to empty of horses. By 1930 over a quarter of a million cars were registered to homes in London alone.
By my calculations, I reckon the best time to drive around central London would have been the 1930s, by which time the Marquess and his gun were safely out of the way but the streets were still pretty clear and open. Sadly this means I’ve missed the golden age of motoring by a full 80 years.
If I had been motoring back then, I might have refuelled at the Village Garage in Bloomsbury - a legacy from the halcyon days of motoring in London, which only recently pumped its last gallon of petrol. Tucked away off Tottenham Court Road, this beautiful art deco garage was built to supply petrol for vehicles run by the Bloomsbury Estate, the property wing of the Duke of Bedford’s family, which over the previous 300 years had acquired and developed most of the property in this part of London. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own garage?
Fortunately, I dropped in on the garage a few months before it finally called time, and was shown round by the proprietor, Tim Curtis. Unlike the petrol stations of today, there was no corporate branding and the garage buildings were painted a beautiful white with pale-blue trim - the sort of scheme you’d expect to find on the bridge of an old liner in an Agatha Christie novel. But there was no mystery about what made this place popular with the locals. If filling up with fuel could ever be an aesthetic experience, this was the place where it might happen. An attendant, often Tim himself, would come to your car and fill up for you, leaving you free to enjoy the scenery. When I arrived, he was attending to a sleek black Bentley, but all Tim’s clients, from Bentley to Beetle drivers, were able, just for a minute or two, to experience the same attention and luxury.
Though Tim was diversifying by offering a valet parking service right in the heart of London, there was one factor, which he could do nothing to change, that limited his operation. The garage was on such a small parcel of land, hemmed in by roads and buildings on and around Store Street, that there was no room for expansion. Even though some of the railings had been removed to widen access, I saw Tim’s problem with my own eyes when a petrol tanker arrived to make its delivery. The tanker was just too big to get on to the forecourt. Half of it managed to squeeze on and discharge its load of fuel, while the rear end stuck out into the road.
I was glad that no one tossed me the keys and asked me to reverse it. For a brief moment I had visions of parallel parking the thing on Russell Square - another Karmann Ghia moment. It was a graphic reminder that central London’s streets were built for traffic of a quite different scale. Forget the talk of Mayor Johnson potentially reintroducing the Routemaster, perhaps I should start a campaign with Boris to bring back the horse.
CHAPTER SIX
Street of Song
I’m off at a canter into the heart of central London, specifically to Denmark Street. It’s an unassuming thoroughfare located off Charing Cross Road which many a songwriter, me included, consider to be the spiritual home of British popular music. The street’s musical heritage dates from the golden age of music hall back in the mid-1800s and continues right on through to rock’n’roll and honest-to-goodness pop. What it doesn’t host is a roots folk club, or the earliest recorded set of Morrismen bells. No, I’m talking here about can’t-get-you-out-of-my-head popular music, thanks in no small part to the pioneering independent studios that sprang up along this stretch in the 1960s. The list of stars who’ve beaten a path to this small yet perfectly formed ‘street of song’ is longer than a prog rock guitar solo.
Walking along Denmark Street today, I wonder whether the street can sustain its association with music up to and beyond the twelfth of never or whether it will soon be a case of ‘thanks for the memories’. West End rents have gone up the ladder to the roof in recent times and multiple chains would doubtless love to stake a claim on this prime patch of real estate. Also, the development and cheapness of a home-recording set-up has led to the demise of all bar one of the street’s studios. Today, Denmark Street just about retains its musical cred because of the specialist musical instrument shops it hosts, which draw a huge variety of customers from all over the world, from absolute beginners to veritable virtuosos. It would be a big loss to London if the street’s association with the sound of music was lost forever, and it only takes a quick trawl th
rough the tracks of its years to discover why. Okay, don’t worry, that’s enough musical puns for a while.
Music hall and, later on, variety were all the rage between 1850 and 1930. This is the era when popular music started to become divorced from its folk roots, a welcome by-product of the industrial revolution. Forget the Spinning Jenny, Stephenson’s Rocket and the Manchester mills, the real legacy of the industrial revolution was that as a result of the rural population moving to live and work in towns, working people had different life experiences and different things to sing about. After a hard day’s slog, those with a few pennies in their pockets needed a bit of light relief. Catchy, humorous new songs about the here and now became all the rage in the halls.
Professional songwriters were eventually engaged to pen hits for particular singers who needed material, the most popular of which became pub songs associated with the typical, and much derided, good old Cockney knees-up. And Denmark Street, right in the middle of theatre land, is where many of those stars’ songs were born - by which I mean, written.
Denmark Street’s musical origins were forged when music publishers began setting up shop on the street in the late nineteenth century. The publishers sold sheet music to musicians who played in the orchestras of the many theatres and music halls nearby. It became a magnet for tunesmiths with an original song in their heads and a hole in their pockets. They made a beeline for Denmark Street in the hope of flogging their songs to music publishers, who competed for the best songs to offer to music-hall performers, all of whom were constantly on the lookout for a good tune. The acts popularised the songs and the more popular the song, the more money the publishers would make.
