Wetherspoons Pub, Heath Robinson and the story of Isabella Beeton

Wetherspoons pubs are known for showing local history.

The Moon & Sixpence pub in Hatch End has pictures and stories about two famous characters who were in print.

Mrs Beeton

Mrs Isabella Beeton was married to a publisher who encouraged her to write and she produced her famous book of household management which is still in print today.

A heritage plaque to her is further along the Broadway.

Her books confirmed the system of writing recipes with the ingredients listed first, then the method of preparation and cooking.

She died young, but her influence and fame lived on.

Heath Robinson

Another popular character was Heath Robinson. A museum all about him is down the road in Pinner. But you can enjoy some of his cartoons and life story here in the Moon & Sixpence.

 

 

 Useful Websites - on Wetherspoons

on Isabella Beeton

on Heath Robinson

Statues of Mrs Beeton, Heath Robinson and others wanted in Harrow

Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square is one of London's well known landmarks.Oscar Wilde reclines nearby. Freud's bust is in Swiss Cottage. Mandela is in Westminster. Florence Nightingale stands holding her lamp outside a London hospital on Waterloo Place. Handel had a statue erected in Vauxhall Gardens, central London during his lifetime. A statue of singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse is in Stables Market, Camden Town. What have we got in Harrow? Yesterday I discovered to my delight that a page on Harrow had been set up on Facebook. I posted on it that I wanted statues placed around Harrow:

1 Mrs Beeton, cookery and recipe pioneer, should stand in Hatch End, where she lived and died. A plaque to her is on the wall where her house was in The Broadway, still a broad or wide street.

2 Heath Robinson, the cartoonist, should have a statue in the Pinner Park or better still in the High Street, to draw attention to the museum devoted to him which has opened in Pinner this year.

3 W S Gilbert, who wrote the words, "I've got a little list ..." in his operetta, Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, was also a magistrate. His house where he lived in Victorian times is now a hotel but he should have a statue, somewhere prominent and central, perhaps Harrow.

4 Roger Bannister who won the race and established the record for the four minute mile, has a playing field named after him. He is still alive, in his eighties. If a statue of him takes as long as the Heath Robinson Museum to be established (twenty years of campaigning), he would be well over a hundred if he were still alive by the time his statue is up. It should show him running, Many pictures of him running must exist.

5 Crosse and Blackwell
They are both buried in All Saints church, Harrow Weald, with big mausoleums in the grounds near the entrance to the church. Blackwell's house has been demolished but his front garden is now a park on the Uxbridge Road (see one of my previous posts for pictures) and he gave land for St Anselm's church in Hatch End.

6 Screaming Lord Sutch
Great character. Has to have a statue in central Harrow.

7 Leefe Robinson
WWI hero. Buried in All Saint's church cemetery extension, across the Uxbridge Road opposite the church. The pub next door to the church was named Leefe Robinson and locals campaigned for new pub owners to preserve the name (and press cuttings about him inside the building, left of the doorway).

8 Winston Churchill
Writer of so many famous speeches. He inspired everybody to fight on in WWII. "Never, ever, ever give up." His statue is already outside Parliament in central London. Let's have another in Harrow.


In London in addition to our classic busts of people such as Kennedy, and a statue of Charlie Chaplin standing, we have modern statues such as:
a) The Australian mapmaker, Captain Matthew, and his cat on Euston station.
b) Artist Coneo who painted trains and stations with his palette on Waterloo station.
c) Sherlock Holmes standing wearing his distinctive deerstalker outside Baker Street.
d) Brunel in his high hat, his top hat, on Paddington station.

I would like to see statues all along St Anne's, or St George's shopping areas in Harrow, like they are all along Pietrowsky Street in Lodz, where you see a statue of Arthur Rubinstein, pianist, who was born in Lodz.

Many other famous people have lived or worked in Harrow.
Winston Churchill went to school in Harrow. A picture of him is on the Whitefriars glass in the Harrow Civic Centre, which is going to be demolished. I hope they preserve the glass, as well as the wall of tiles commemorating famous people and events, and the parlour's cabinet of gifts from various groups, from or to former mayors, and the marquetry on the wall in the parlour showing famous people of Harrow.

9Byron
He wrote and went to school at Harrow on the Hill. His young daughter was buried in the church grounds, almost inside the church door.

10 Claire Rayner wrote in Harrow, a formidable woman and campaigner on health issues.

Central London has many more: Dick Whittington and his cat. Harrow is not short of famous people. We need statues of our heroes and heroines to inspire students and install pride and ambition in our residents and workers and visitors.

I want to keep this list in one place so I shall probably come back and update rather than starting another post on the same subject. Georgia Weston, Sue and others have commented on the Facebook page on Harrow.

Photo of sculpture of Arthur Rubinstein seated at the piano in Lodz, Poland, from Wikipedia.
Other photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author and photographer.

Mrs Beeton plaque and statue

Photo of Mrs Beeton plaque by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2016.

We need a statue to Mrs Beeton. Why? I'll tell you.

I am pleased to see that the plaque to Mrs Beeton is still on the outside of a new restaurant in Hatch End, a Lebanese restaurant, which has taken over from Serrata. That plaque, on one of Hatch End's many restaurants, recalls Mrs Beeton who is Hatch End's link with keen cooks of the past.

Mrs Beeton lived in Hatch End with her husband, the publisher who inspired her to write the book of household management. How did she find a publisher for her book? She didn't. Her publisher husband inspired her.

I suppose the moral is that I should first marry a publisher. So here's my quotation for the day, 'Authors, to succeed, first marry a publisher."

As a child, I thought Mrs Beeton was merely a pioneer cookery writer, merely an anachronism. My mother used to quote, 'Take a dozen eggs,' which seemed absurdly extravagant, in post war Britain. Another line which seemed funny to both mother and me when I was a child, because nobody had chickens in post-war Britain, 'First kill your chicken.' (In those days, mother read the recipe, then phoned the grocery shop to deliver our groceries.)

Much later in life when I was an adult, I discovered that Mrs Beeton had copied the system of writing recipes in a standard format. She started with the list of ingredients for you to shop or gather in the kitchen. Now it seems the obvious and natural way to start because that is how it is always done. Apparently somebody else had done it previously, one of many writers who all had different systems. Mrs Beeton chose and made popular the system every recipe writer and reader uses today.

Since Mrs Beeton, many others have written cookery books. Cookery books are still best sellers.

My friend Ruth, who used to run a tea-shop in Pinner, and now gives cookery classes to U3A and others, says she uses Mrs Beeton's cookbook regularly.

Another mystery about Mrs Beeton solved, why did she die so long. I don't like to be the bearer of bad news. But my book group read her biography and modern writers reveal that Mrs Beeton probably caught what I shall politely describe as an infection from her husband. He had visited a prostitute either while she was pregnant or earlier, before marrying her, or both. Such was life, in her day and modern times, that when men cannot get sex at home they sometimes look elsewhere and fall sick. How lucky we are that women have better medical care and nowadays most survive childbirth.

I was reading about a campaign to add to the number of statues of women in London and Britain. Apart from Queen Victoria, we have few statues of women. Most worldwide are royals, Goddesses or mythical characters.

Mrs Beeton is a great character for a statue. Where should we put it? Hatch End has no statues. A good location where more can see it would be Pinner Park, near the Heath Robinson museum. But a better statue there would be Heath Robinson, shown sitting drawing. In Hatch End we should have a statue of Mrs Beeton, either writing her book, or cooking, or sitting in a kitchen of the day, or perhaps with eggs and a chicken. Not a dead chicken. Not a horizontal chicken. A live chicken, sitting on eggs. Does a chicken have more than one egg at a time? How little I know about eggs. Yes, we need a statue of Mrs Beeton, a cookery book, a chicken and an egg.

Where should the statue go? On the same side of the road as where her house was standing.

I used to wonder who had knocked down her house and why. I assumed that it was destroyed to make way for the row of shops. But a book in the new Heath Robinson museum shows Hatch End and Pinner and Ruislip and other areas of North West London destroyed by bombs in World War II. One tends to think of the East End of London being bombed, near the docks, and Coventry. But even the little suburban houses were destroyed. So sad.

The bright note is that now no trace of that remains, except the war memorials. Hatch End has bustling restaurants, employing people from around the world, who have chosen to come to England, not just the city centre but the suburbs, serving a range of cookery styles.

The restaurants have started to put chairs and tables in the open air on pavements. This began when smoking was banned indoors. On the Mrs Beeton side of the road is the slip road for parking.

On the other side of the road you have more space for a cordoned off area. Sea Pebbles fish restaurant, Fellini restaurant and Italian caffe on the corner. As we drove through Hatch End I remarked that it was a street wide enough for all the pavement seating. 'Yes,' said a member of my family, 'That's why it's called The Broadway.'

The Broadway must have room for a statue. Hatch End makes room for a giant Christmas tree at Christmas time. We could have an area of seating around the statue of Mrs Beeton.

I think a statue should perform two functions. Remind us of a person who inspires us. Show them in action to remind us to copy that action. So Mrs Beeton should be shown either cooking or writing a book. Hatch End is in the London Borough of Harrow, and Hatch End and Harrow are known for good writers and good restaurants.

I must write to a newspaper, or two, or three, and propose a statue to the wonderful Mrs Beeton. Will you help me?
Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson; 14 March 1836 – 6 February 1865).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Beeton
This should be the first step towards a museum, or a room in the heath Robinson Museum, about famous writers and personalities of Pinner and Harrow.

WHAT TO SEE
* Plaque to Mrs Beeton on wall outside restaurant on Hatch End Broadway
* Gravestone of Mrs Beeton and her husband in Norwood cemetery, south of the Thames river, in historic Norwood cemetery, one of London's magnificent seven cemeteries.

Angela

Sherlock Holmes' Statue to Historic Harrow and Pretty Pinner

Along the Metropolitan line are three places of interest. Let's start in the centre of London at Baker Street station. Outside, the station, facing the exit on the way to Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium on the next corner is the statue of Sherlock Holmes. You could continue to Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium, or go back to the other exit of the station within sight of the Sherlock Holmes Museum and shop.

Take the train to Harrow. Walk up the hill to Harrow on the Hill, narrow streets, old pubs such as The Castle. At the top is the famous Harrow School. Byron sat writing poetry near the church where his daughter was buried.

In summer you might see the boys in their boaters (straw hats). At the top of the Hill is the school where you can take a tour (must book), or visit one of the upmarket restaurants such as Incanto.

Down at the bottom of the hill near the station are two shopping malls, St George's and St Ann's and the usual range of pubs and coffee shops and eating at all prices.

Pinner
Continue along the train line to Pinner.  The Old Victory pub named after Nelson's victory is an ancient building now a restaurant. Another pub is still a pub. At the bottom of the sloping High Street near the station exit is Pinner Park housing the Heath Robinson museums where you can see cartoons. For free amusement walk around the park.

Also walk uphill to the church of St John's and stare in wonder at the coffin in the sky. The story goes that a man wanting to cut relatives out of his will said that they should not inherit whilst he was in the ground. So the buried him in a coffin in midair. Walk all the way round. A plaque explaining the story is on the side.

The above ground coffin projecting, in front of St John's church, Pinner.

Photos copyright Angela Lansbury.

If you are travelling by car and pass through Hatch End, look for the plaque to Mrs Beeton, famed cookery writer.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Looking For Something New? A Laugh? Cartoon Museum in London, England and Ohio, USA

Are you looking for a laugh? Looking for something new to do in London? I was looking for something new to do in London, en route to the chocolate shops and events for this week's Chocolate Week in London. I remembered the Cartoon Museum.

Goodness, what a lot to see and do. The website has links to past and future exhibitions children's activities, films of clay models, animated Japanese manga and other animated short films created by children. Alice in Wonderland and information about illustrator T e n n i e l who was a well-known personality of his day and illustrated Punch magazine.

Finally a link to a website about the Ohio university collection and cartoons in America about WWI, then known as the Great War because they had not yet had WWII.

CARTOON MUSEUM, LONDON, UK
http://cartoonmuseum.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/alice-in-cartoonland

CARTOON MUSEUM, OHIO, USA
http://cartoons.osu.edu/exhibits/

PINNER, HEATH ROBINSON (in a building in the park)
http://westhousepinner.com/heath-robinson-2/

Here is my self-portrait which is true to life with the blonde hair, blue eyes, red lipstick, red lipstick on my cheeks, and the black hat forming a halo. Note the cartoon signature. The dots in the letters a at the start and end of my name have made the eyes. Curves above each a represent eyebrows. The g in the middle descends into my nose.

Below is a sketch I did. I turned a treble clef into a violinist. The musician is self-absorbed, involved in playing the music, not looking at the audience, like so many musicians. I learned to make my signature into a picture from a fellow artist I met at a Toastmasters International club meeting in Singapore at the YMCA.

Your screen might not show it, but in the drawing I have edged my blonde hair with gold. This drawing does not flatter me. I do not do flattery in illustrations. I have not yet learned how. I do character.

The Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London WCIA 2HH

tel:020 7580 8155

www.cartoonmuseum.org

Entry £7 (Concessions: £5 Student; £3 under 18)

Monday to Saturday 10.30-17.30. Sunday 12 noon to 17.30.

I wrote this from their website before visiting and added my photo of the outside later. For more details on my visit to the Cartoon Museum see my later post. Follow me on blogger.com and/or Facebook for updates on events at the Cartoon Museum and other places in London and around the world.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker, author, illustrator.

See Suburban Trees In London

   Spring is the season for strolling the city, London, Washington DC, and all over England and the USA. Start, in the south, as the warm weather creeps north through the spring season. Check the weather, often on the back page of your national newspaper.
   You can walk along Hadrian's Wall which was built by the Romans to keep England and Scotland separate and prevent raids. From Easter time many Roman museums will be open.
    National Trust properties will be open to the public and you can choose a walk around the park of a stately home, starting and ending at the gift shop and tea room. Or choose an RSPB site and do some bird-watching.
   Pick a railway station in  a shopping centre and look for a walk from the station to another station or in a loop and back. London libraries have leaflets on local walks. Many walks are signposted.
   You can walk along the Thames river. Pick landmarks, statues to see and photograph, bridges to cross. A place such as a pub or tea room where you can end up for tea. For example, the Tate Gallery and the bouncing bridge.
   Take London's underground railway out to the suburbs. Go South to Kew Gardens (entry charge).

    London is surrounded by the 'Green Belt'. For example, going north, Pinner has a historic high street with the Victory pub turned into a restaurant. The Park has a pond and the Heath Robinson Museum where you can see the cartoonists drawings. Walk uphill from Harrow-on-the-hill on the Metropolitan Line to see the famous school.
   Over in Ruislip there's Ruislip lido. Walk around the Lido admiring the swans. Finish with a reasonably priced lunch or dinner in the Water's Edge carvery.
   Take the Euston line North towards Watford and get off at Hatch End station. A map on the station wall shows how you can walk along pre-historic Grim's Dyke via Grimsdyke Hotel, home of Gilbert who wrote the words for Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. In just one street, in Hatch End, I took these photos of trees in the gardens and along the verges.

Magnificent magnolia trees in bloom in white or the prized pink.

Beautiful pink magnolia blossom against a blue sky.

Looking up, even the white clouds and telephone polls and rooftops cannot spoil the view of the wonderful pink petals.

Delicate pink blossoms on prunus (cherry tree family).

Grey clouds warn of rain.

But trees like rain.

Silver birch with its elegant slim silver-white trunk and delicate branches.

-ends-

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