[54]Looking back over the years, I recall one or two pleasurable times. When I was 4 years old my father took me on one of his annual holidays, first to Ealing where his old friend Grace of East Street Walworth Sunday School days had gone into the grocery business and was doing well; we stayed a day or two. Then Mr Grace drove us in his light-spring cart to Ruislip to Uncle Joseph’s, who had a farm there[1], just a few miles from Ealing, staying a day or two there; and on to Camberwell, where my father left me, and I had a month with my grandparents and their daughter, my aunt Mary Ann, which aunt took me for my first ride on London’s first underground railway, from Moorgate Street Station, the then terminus, to South Kensington; and there visited one of the museums – in fact, I think the only one at the time, as it was called the South Kensington museum; others were established later.
[55] On another occasion we went
to the polytechnic in Baker Street, and saw the diving bell (footnote 1) go down with people in, and much other
entertainment; Madame Tussauds waxworks also in Baker
Street, where one saw in wax most of the noted people of the day, also
many kings and queens, princes and princesses, also noted criminals and
murderers, ‘specially in the Chamber of Horrors, some very gruesome and ghastly
scenes and people. Also the Zoological Gardens, Regents Park, was a place of wonders, where also I went and took my own
children in after years. Then the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, a building of
glass and iron, and such a diversity of good entertainments, one had to go
again and again; the grounds also were extensive and pleasantly planted and set
out, and had swings and roundabouts, and boats on the lake, also huge animals
in stone or [56] plaster of antediluvian or prehistoric animals, which at that
time of my life I regarded as fictitious.
One other time I visited the
Palace (footnote 2) with my grandparents, when they lived
at Gipsy Hill near to Sydenham, and as there were tables and chairs provided,
people took their lunch or dinner and bought their beer at the bar. My grandpa
bought a pot of Barclay Perkins stout, that is a quart for 3 of us; I daresay
he never drank too much, but he was no teetotaller, as he bought the leasehold
of a brewery, beside which was a bakery and a butchers shop and a drapers at
the corner, run by my grandma, and at the
back and over which they lived. The sitting room was upstairs, and I used to
watch the velocipedes on Sunday afternoon; these were 4-wheeled vehicles which
seated one person, and he sat and pedalled it along - these were the
predecessors of the tricycle and the bicycle (footnote 3).
[57] I once, when quite a little
chap, strayed away, and was found by a butcher down by the Surrey canal, and he picked me up and took
me back to my Grandma in his basket on horseback, but for which I might have
been drowned or kidnapped. In Albany Road
too my sister Maria went to school, and I went with her one afternoon. Also
Albany Chapel was on this road, where
my mother as a young woman attended a bible class conducted by Rev George Rogers, a Congregational minister who also was one of the first tutors
at Spurgeon's College. Also my Uncle
Sam's home was near, and he used to have 2 or 3 musical boxes; these were boxes
containing a cylinder with prickles on, which struck a steel comb, which sent
forth bell-like music; you had to wind up the spring to set it going, and was
of great interest and gratification to me. There was also a mulberry [58] tree
in the next-door garden, the only one I ever remember seeing. The first Thames tunnel I visited at this time; it went from
Wapping to Rotherhythe if I remember rightly, and was
only for foot passengers, and on one occasion I heard the water gurgling
overhead.
I must not forget a visit I paid
to my Uncle John (footnote 4) and his wife at Brixton one
day; they took me on a steamer down the Thames to Woolwich, and I can recall the surge
of the tide as it washed the pebbles up and down the banks,
it rang in my ears for hours after. We visited the gardens (public) where there was a lake, and on the opposite side a huge canvas painted
with a mountainous scenery, and when lit up at night
looked like the real thing. After which we went to a bar for some refreshment,
and there we heard musical glasses, beautiful and clear; [59] drinking glasses
were arranged with water in, and the operator just wetted his fingers and drew
them round the rims of the glasses, and produced bell-like tones.
To return to
Woking experiences. I there learned to eat
oatmeal porrige and take snuff; we used to have bread
and milk for breakfast at home, and oatmeal was a new thing, but I liked it and
introduced it at home. I also used to raise seedling geraniums and take some
home. I used to go to Elections at Guildford, and that was my introduction
to politics.
Transcriber’s footnotes:
1. No details of this, but Madame Tussauds (opened 1837) and the Zoo are still in the same locations.
2. From the context, this was Crystal Palace, a major exhibition centre of the time.
3. A velocipede was a common ‘slang’ name for a bike when I was growing up in the 1950's - Ed
4. There were two Uncle John’s, maternal and paternal – cannot tell which.
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