Category: History

Chelsea Morning

Have you noticed this structure just off the King’s Road at the end of Dovehouse Street? It is a flight of stairs leading nowhere used to train firemen to deal with fires in blocks of flats. There are more beautiful buildings in Chelsea, two of which have a military heritage.

Princess Margaret

I am sure I am not alone in deploring Craig Brown’s vulgar “biography” of Princess Margaret. It is a scurrilous hotch-potch of unreliable, disloyal and deeply offensive gossip garnered from a muck heap of diaries and newspaper articles.

Double Chapel

For lunch I had Fränkischer Pfefferschinken & Frankenthaler Käse and Apfelstrudel. Nuremberg Castle was built in the 11th century and played a central role in the history of Bavaria and Germany for almost 1,000 years, that is until 1945.

Rallies

I had six Nuremberg Rostbratwurst with coleslaw, mustard and horseradish for lunch. Biographies usually end with a whimper. Hilary Spurling deserves credit for giving Anthony Powell dignity in his old age. I cannot read a biography backwards but I can see Nuremberg backwards.

Nuremberg

I had gulaschsuppe for lunch in Munich and am on an ICE train to Nuremberg.

Lock and Pots

In weather reminiscent of the opening passage of Dance I walked upstream to Richmond on Monday morning. The white notices on these trees are Preservation Orders dated last month. Does this mean every tree will have to sport a white badge if it’s not to be chopped down?

Crossing the Line

Reggie was good company yesterday morning. We walked from his home in Parsons Green across Putney Bridge and then up the river to Richmond. Except for a short stretch at Barnes he was off the lead until we got to Richmond.

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Categorised as History

Holland Park

Lord Holland joins us today because of my invitation to lunch on Tuesday. Don’t be silly, he din’t ask me, he died in 1840. But here’s a clue; before lunch we walked around Holland Park.

River Ramble

This week I filled a lacuna in my tramps along the Thames. Hitherto I’d never walked between Hammersmith Bridge and Putney Bridge on the South bank.