please empty your brain below
I think the 1950's and 1960's were probably the best time to be a kid in London. And I think for people of a certain age the illustrations of Ladybird books of the era have a magical ability to recapture childhood moments.
Although one of the most surreal madeline moments for me was watching one of the old Rank Look At Life colour newsreels shot in the 1960's, the one about London street-markets, and seeing a shot of a street trader who sold parrots, the exact same birds which really scared me as a four years.
That rather nervous looking kid on the left at the 3min 27sec point could have been me. But is n't in this particular case.
It was not just seeing something I had not thought about in fifty odd years that made the situation so surreal. It was seeing it on a sparking sunny day in California, in a room overlooking the Pacific Ocean, so many thousands of miles from home. And after what seemed like an almost infinite span of years since that rather grey day one Sunday in Petticoat Lane sometime in the 1960's when I was first spooked by those very same parrots.
Childhood memories, especially those that are more in the nature of an ambush, are a very strange beast.
I am not sure but I think Changing of the Guard is still daily in summer. I know there was talk of reducing it to the winter frequency simply because of the need to keep the ceremony reasonable secure and the staffing level that entails which is a drain on both the army and the Metropolitan Police.
OK, I'll play the nerd.
In 1961, trolleybuses were still in operation in London and all types had larger capacity than a RTW and some, the Q type were just as wide. RMs, also larger, had been in service since 1959 and in fact, at the end of 1961, the first RMLs entered service on route 104.
I think I'd much rather see the intricate models of ships than the stuff that's in the NMM. The "Sea Things" exhibit only has a handful. The Science Museum probably has more of them, and the IWM has a nice mode of Dreadnought or Bellerophon or one of those early dreadnoughts. Can't remember which one.
In 1961 the latest Routemaster buses were about 9m long, about one third the length of "Dippy the Diplodocus" in the NatHistMus (26m).
The longest buses ever to operate in London were 18m long. But since 1961 much bigger dinosaurs have been discovered.
Some, children, are electric like really big milk floats for people, and a few on one route are weird. They are big hydrogen balloons, but do not float up in the air.
dg writes: That's not the official changing of the guards website.
There's a gallery devoted to the books at the MERL (Museum of English Rural Life) in Reading.
I thought I had the original too, but upon digging it out to follow along with this post, I see it is actually a special 50th anniversary edition with a paper dust cover of the original.
I do still have the 30p Ladybird book of Trees and of Garden Birds - which sparked a life-long interest in observing nature.
I also remember sneakily buying The Body Ladybird book as a curious 9-10 year old - purely because it had drawings of a naked family in the back! Much giggling as it was passed around among my friends ensued and having to keep it hidden in a bottom drawer as it felt like owning porn at the time!
Absolutely super series of books!
I didn't realise the Planetarium had closed and become a show-biz type feature. What a shame.
It was the dramatic changes to the skyline that most struck me.
I was most disappointed to find that you couldn't actually walk across the top level of Tower Bridge when I eventually made my first visit as a teenager.
I was again disappointed when they opened it up again and found you couldn't look over the edge.
Agreed. I had the Henry V book and I can still recall the thrilling picture of Agincourt: arrows flying and some hitting, swords raised, horses and people falling - but absolutely no blood. I didn't realise it as a child, only when I found the book again years later.
Ah, the reading room which has since been gloriously opened up then shamefully hidden. I remember when this jewel in the crown of the British Museum was re-clad and re-opened at great expense in 2000 – after the British Library itself had decamped – and the round reading room became a focal point, a pantheon of books in the Great Court. But then the ornate room was reduced to a mere exhibition space in 2007 and closed to the public in 2013, access now barred by a faceless hoarding in the Great Court, a void in the heart of the museum, apparently unused and unloved.
The museum trustees claim to have been “consulting widely about the future use of the Reading Room” since 2015, but their 27-page preliminary report refers to the the reading room’s fate in a single vague paragraph: “its future is being very carefully considered. … As the Motf [Museum of the future] programme continues…so a future for the old Reading Room will be woven into that thinking…” (para 4.6.5).
What will it take to reopen this beautiful space?
Mum would take me and my Brother into Central London in the Summer holidays using Red Rover / Bus-About tickets, to ride around on routes like the 15 (East Ham White Horse to Ladbroke Grove in those days) or the 25 (Ilford or possibly Becontree Heath to Victoria).
We'd go in search of I-Spy items such as the Standards of Length and One-Man Police station in Trafalgar Square, the Porters Rest in Piccadilly, the World Time display in Piccadilly Circus station (I think) and the Train Counter at St James's Park.
A wonderful way to see and learn about London and the amazing things to be found there.
Thanks for a fascinating post DG, that brought back many great memories.
Westminster: 11
Tower Hamlets: 2
City: 3
Westminster/City: 1
Greenwich: 1
Camden: 1
Kensington and Chelsea: 1
Richmond: 2
Hillingdon: 1.
(Trip on the Thames not assigned. The Zoo and Madam Tussaud's would not have been in Westminster at the time of publication, but are now.)
If in the area, I would often cut from Whitehall to Horseguards by going through Downing Street, but never caught sight of any interesting comings and goings.
The editions on the Weather (also 1962) and Maps (1967, but still the same price at 2/6) are just as relevant today. The prose and illustrations are great examples of clarity, and could well be behind my method of navigation by landmarks, and angst about the degree to which visual information and wider context in satnavs is stripped down.
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