After my arrival at Heathrow Airport, I was whisked away in one of London’s famous Black Cabs. I was relaxed and feeling carefree, well aware that a London Black Cab driver knew every part of the city like the back of their hand. Unlike U.S. taxi or Uber drivers where the gig is often a part-time one, being a London Black Cab driver is nothing less than a proud full-time endeavor. Four-years of training and person-to-person non online tests is required to be one. By simply naming an address, establishment or even a landmark you will be transported to your place of interest without any form of hesitation. Many of the drivers have achieved such a level of success that they’ve purchased their own expensive Black Cabs, which featured unique modern amenities that seemed almost futuristic to me. The drivers can be chatty, too; interested in who you are and where you’re from, and most importantly serving as an ambassador of London.

London, England. Sept 2023.

It had been five-long years since my last trip to London, and I was interested in seeing how the city has changed. Disengaging the Black Cab by the West End’s St. Martins in the Field, I could see Trafalgar Square – still the de-facto location for swarming crowds to celebrate national events and ceremonies. In its center remained the towering 18 ft. statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson who had knocked out both the French and Spanish war vessels in the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars. With apologies to Winston Churchill, Nelson remains Great Britain’s national hero with a population still feeding off his glories.

Charles Dickens Museum

It should come to no surprise that Charles Dickens is considered one of the greatest writers in the English language. The London author and social critic was highly regarded as a literary genius during his own lifetime, unlike other artists who had lived in obscurity, only to find an audience long after their passing. Our contemporary vernacular is endowed with words believe to be coined by Dickens, butter-fingers, the creeps, a-buzz, and for many it would not be Christmas without a stage adaptation of his novella, A Christmas Carol.

Dickens’ former three-story Georgian home is where he lived with his wife, Catherine and their eldest three children for two-years. His home is now a museum, which includes bedrooms, study, kitchen dining room, all in period decor. In the two years that Dickens lived in the house, he completed The Pickwick Papers (1836), wrote Oliver Twist  (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39). Though Dickens’ novels are not considered autobiographical, there are many autobiographical elements in them. Mary, his wife’s 17-year-old sister, had also lived with them, and died in his arms after succumbing to an illness. She inspired many characters in his books, and her death is fictionalized in Little Nell (1837). Dickens was also deeply affected by his experiences working as a young man on the banks of the Thames to support his family, who were in debtors’ prison. This led to his goal of helping London’s poor as a true social and economic crusader, which included trying to counter the contaminated air, particularly in the East End where industrial smoke mixed with London’s infamous fog contributed to countless deaths. Sources indicated that the polluted air also stunted the growth of young children in East End, leaving them weak and malnourished.

National Portrait Gallery

At the National Portrait Gallery, you’ll get the best look of many pre-photographic famous people – though, like today’s photo shopping, you will see them looking far more attractive than they probably really were.

William Shakespeare (1563-1616) painted by John Taylor. This painting of the iconic playwright, actor and poet was the first portraiture acquired by the National Portrait Gallery upon its founding in 1856. It is considered the only known portrait of him painted while he was alive. After Shakespeare’s death, his reputation grew, and artists created portraits and narrative paintings of him, generally based on this earlier image or from their own imagination.

Celestine Edwards (about 1857-1894) painted by William Harry Horlington. Edwards was a Methodist preacher, medical student and Britain’s first black newspaper editor. At age 12, he stowed away on a ship departing Dominica, eventually settling in Britain. In the 1890s he founded the Christian newspaper, Lux, and the anti-racist magazine Fraternity, inspiring younger Black Britons with the widespread movement of solidarity among people of African heritage. His campaigns spearheaded civil rights throughout the world.

The Bronte sisters: Anne, Emily and Charlotte (about 1834) painted by their teenage brother, Branwell. The only surviving group portrait of one of Britain’s greatest literary families, discovered in 1914, folded on top of a cupboard in an Irish farmhouse. The Gallery made the decision not to restore it, retaining its paint loss and fold marks due to its remarkable history. The Bronte Sisters’ best-known novels include Anne’s Agnes Grey, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, all published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonyms, ‘Action Bell,’ ‘Ellis Bell’ and ‘Currer Bell.’ In a sense, their works were intended to address their own experiences in Victorian society at a time when it was not easy to be a woman.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) painted by Sir William Orpen. The portrait shows an emotionally wounded Churchill after he had resigned as the First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, due to orchestrating a disastrous naval campaign in the Dardanelles Straits. By linking Turkey to Europe, he created a second front, which resulted in the deaths of 46,000 thousand soldiers, many of whom consisted of the newly formed ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp), who had made suicide charges against battle tested Ottoman Turks in Gallipoli. Orpen described Churchill as ‘a man of misery who had lost pretty well everything,’ while Churchill concluded that it was ‘not a picture of a man, but of a man’s soul.’

The Garden Museum

I was surprised to find a such a thing as a museum devoted to gardening. But, after all, this is London; one of the museum capitals of the world, with special thanks, of course, to Greece and Egypt. Nestled on the grounds of the deconsecrated church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, I could see picture-perfect views from its gardens of the British Parliament and Big Ben on the opposite banks of the Thames. My time inside was rewarding, where the museum offered easy access to the working records of leading British garden designers of the 20th and 21st century. I also discovered the narratives of great gardeners through a collection of artifacts and tools from gardening throughout history. In addition, my tour included botanical art, photography, and paintings exploring how and why we garden.

The East End

The East End lies east of the Roman and medieval walls of the Old City of London, north of the River Thames. When U.S. writer Jack London ordered a taxi in 1902 to the deprived Whitechapel district in the East End, the area was so obscure for London’s main populace that he was forced to give the driver instructions on how to find it. In his book, The People of the Abyss, he went undercover, purchasing ragged clothing to wear so that he could live among the destitute in an attempt to understand their daily routine of starvation, homelessness, disease, theft, prostitution and discrimination with no hope for a better tomorrow. The lines of people at charitable foundations were so long and time consuming that many of the weak would fall asleep while standing. Some never made it inside. It was not unusual for a single person to share a cramped one-room apartment with 18 others, making sleeping while standing a requirement. The dire conditions which Jack London experienced were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor. In 1902, the life expectancy in the East End was 35-years-old; in London proper, 60-years-of-age.

I was a bit cloudy about the East End, thinking this was simply an area where the Cockneys of London lived. But what does ‘Cockney’ really mean? Research told me that Cockney is an English dialect that has a unique pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and slang. By 1600, the definition of Cockney meant anyone who could hear the Bow Bells at St. Mary-le-Bow, which are now drowned out by modern city noise. The accent is said to be a remnant of early English London speech, influenced by the traditional Essex dialect. But it also had much to do with the area attracting the rural poor, who had their own unique dialects from other parts of England, which spread whiile working in various trades such as weaving, fishing, shipbuilding, and dock work. Even today, England remains a class-conscious nation, where hearing the dialect of a stranger can tell you all you needed to know about them. With waves upon waves of migrants pouring into the East End from outlying areas, the local citizens found themselves competing for a few casual day labor jobs among numbers that reached the hundreds. This was good for the owners, where competition allowed them to dramatically cut daily wages to obscene lows, making the pennies-for-dollars part-time-jobs hardly worth the effort. Upon exploring the East End’s dark cobblestone streets in the mid 19th century, Karl Marx spoke of knifings, bodies in rags and nine-year-old prostitutes pulling him into doorways as nightly rituals, which confirmed his own idealized economic philosophy.

The East End continued to transition with a new breed of migrants: silk weaving French Huguenot refugees, followed by the Irish of the same mode, which led to fierce competition between the two, cumulating with Spitalfield riots of 1765 and 1769. And then, between 1880 and 1914, the East End’s small Jewish community was transformed by the arrival of 150,000 East European and Russian Jewish refugees, who had faced persecution their entire lives. Together, they all helped to create new jobs and workforce. But, the later closure of docks, cutbacks in railways and loss of industry contributed to a long-term decline, removing many of the traditional sources of semi-skilled jobs, which continued during the Second World War’s Nazi Blitz, which had devastated much of the East End, when bombed for 58 consecutive nights.

Bengalis constituted the final mass migration in the 20th century, where they poured into the district to escape the unimaginable brutality, rape and genocide inflicted on them by Pakistani military in their quest for independence in the East End. The East End of Pakistan, that is. The nine-month-long war finally ended in 1971, and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was officially finally born, but at the staggering cost of an estimated 3,000,000 civilian deaths.

Bengali musician, Ravi Shankar, and former Beatle George Harrison, whom Shankar had earlier taught to play the sitar, orchestrated two benefit concerts in 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with the intention to fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan. It soon grew to become an all-star musical event, becoming the first-ever massive benefit of its kind. Perhaps Shankar said it best: In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh.

As I stood by Algate Pump, considered the entrance to Whitechapel, I saw tenement homes mixed with modern buildings, due to fires, bombings and slum clearances. Before me was the Anglican Spitalfields Christ Church, built between 1714 and 1729, courtesy of Queen Elizabeth I, To bring God to the Godless. Steps away was the old and new of historic Spitalfields Market, where huge crowds still browse the different stalls for clothes, food and antiques; the same with Petticoat Lane’s silk weaving markets. Photographer Deb Roskamp and I walked along with life-long London friend, Trish, who added her own personal narrative, explaining that she had once purchased garments at Petticoat Lane Market. The following week we would explore Hadrian’s Wall and the Lake District in England’s North together.

Trish pointed out Toynbee Hall, the birthplace of the international settlement movement, which attracted progressive-minded young men and women to settle among the underprivileged and join programs which would help their lives. And, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, founded in 1901, showcased an array of different art for the people of the East End, with the intention of nourishing their souls.

Later, my own stomach would be nourished at Spitalfields Market, but for now I was happy to enjoy the colorful street art and murals. I noticed one of iconic Argentine futballer, Diego Maradona – the man with The hand of God. The comment stems from Maradona’s response after his controversial ‘handling’ of a goal during the Argentina v England quarter finals match of the 1986 FIFA World Cup, which Argentina went on to win. Later, he said scoring the goal was a symbolic revenge for the United Kingdom’s victory over Argentina in the Falkland’s War four years earlier. What was controversial for me was why is there a mural of him in England, the home of the English team he helped to beat. Was there still a deep seated resentiment of the London populace who had once turned their backs on the people of the East End.

On the far end of district rests the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre, which offer traditional Sunni Islamic Calls to Prayer, as well as important things to know when arriving from a new or Muslim culture, i.e., educational courses, counseling,  advice services for birth, marriage and death. Just around the corner is Brick Lane, known as London’s curry mile, thanks to the numerous Indian, Pakastani and Bengalis restaurants that line the street.

The air was fresh and clean, no longer polluted by life altering toxic waste and chemicals. Overcrowding is also no longer a widespread problem and tourism is an important component of its infrastructure; in particular with many tours devoted to the 1888 Whitechapel Murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. The East End continues to change to the positive, a positive which helps redefine what was once considered one the most heartless places of destitution in the world.

Special thanks to Londoner and life-long friend, Trish Raffeto, who held our hands and pointed out the significance of special sites that my photographer, Deb Roskamp and I might not have even noticed as we explored the London of today with a glimpse at its past.

Further reading:

• Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) by Friedrich Engels.
• Liza of Lambeth (1897) by W. Somerset Maugham.
• The People of the Abyss (1903) by Jack London.

Stay tuned for Part II, which will include The Globe Theatre, West End plays, Churchill War Rooms, Temple London, Somerset House, London Pub Grub and Tea.

The post What’s New and Old in London, Part I appeared first on Traveling Archive.

The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many people rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight. In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia — a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture — was celebrated.

What Is Saturnalia?

Saturnalia, the most popular holiday on the ancient Roman calendar, derived from older farming-related rituals of midwinter and the winter solstice, especially the practice of offering gifts or sacrifices to the gods during the winter sowing season.

The pagan celebration of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and time, began as a single day, but by the late Republic (133-31 B.C.) it had expanded to a weeklong festival beginning December 17. (On the Julian calendar, which the Romans used at the time, the winter solstice fell on December 25.)

During Saturnalia, work and business came to a halt. Schools and courts of law closed, and the normal social patterns were suspended. People decorated their homes with wreaths and other greenery, and shed their traditional togas in favor of colorful clothes known as synthesis. Gifts were exchanged. Even slaves did not have to work during Saturnalia, but were allowed to participate in the festivities; in some cases, they sat at the head of the table while their masters served them.

Instead of working, Romans spent Saturnalia gambling, singing, playing music, feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts. Wax taper candles called cerei were common gifts during Saturnalia, to signify light returning after the solstice.

On the last day of Saturnalia celebrations, known as the Sigillaria, many Romans gave their friends and loved ones small terracotta figurines known as signillaria, which may have referred back to older celebrations involving human sacrifice.

Would Christianity Have Spread Without the Romans?

With Christians hiding in catacombs and the Apostle Paul (Saul) quietly spreading the word of Christ in homes and secret locations, Roman emperors Constantine I and Licinius in February 313 A.D. issued the Edict of Milan, a proclamation that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the Roman Empire. Curiously, Constantine I died in 337, and apparently converted to Christianity on his deathbed without completely understanding the meaning of this new religion. It was his mother who introduced him to her ‘understanding’ of Christianity, and changed the day of worship to Sunday.

How Saturnalia Led to Christmas

The Christian holiday of Christmas, especially, owes many of its traditions to the ancient Roman festival, including the time of year Christmas is celebrated. The Bible does not give a date for Jesus’ birth; in fact, some theologians have concluded he was probably born in spring, as suggested by references to shepherds and sheep in the Nativity Story.

By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, Roman Catholic church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated. In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, the Roman Catholic Church decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention a date for his birth, a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration. Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring, why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter? Pope Julius I chose December 25, 336 AD as the date when Christmas was first celebrated in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had traveled all the way to Scandinavia.

On Christmas, most believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.

Saint Francis of Assisi & the Nativity Scene

Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first live Nativity Scene in 1223 in order to cultivate the worship of Christ. He himself had recently been inspired by his visit to the Holy Land, where he’d been shown Jesus’s traditional birthplace. The scene’s popularity inspired countries to stage similar pantomimes.

In the Christian tradition, a Nativity Scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche or in Italian presepio or presepe) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects representing the birth of Jesus.  While the term Nativity Scene may be used of any representation of the very common subject of the Nativity of Jesus in art, it has a more specialized sense referring to seasonal displays, either using model figures in a setting or reenactments called “living Nativity Scenes” (tableau vivant) in which real humans and animals participate. Nativity Scenes exhibit figures representing the infant Jesus, his mother, Mary, and her husband, Joseph.

Other characters from the Nativity Story, such as shepherds, sheep, and angels may be displayed near the manger in a barn (or cave) intended to accommodate farm animals, as described in the Gospel of Luke. A donkey and an ox are typically depicted in the scene, and the Magi and their camels, described in the Gospel of Matthew, are also included. Several cultures add other characters and objects that may or may not be Biblical.

Oliver Cromwell & the Outlaw Christmas Movement

In the early 17th century, a wave of religious reform changed the way the Roman Catholic Mass of Christ was celebrated in Protestant Reformation Europe. When tyrant Oliver Cromwell, an English soldier and statesman, who led parliamentary forces in the English Civil Wars, became lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1653–58), he vowed to rid the commonwealth of all decadence and banned Christmas. And, of course, it was a Roman Catholic holiday, too. Cromwell’s Puritan soldiers were sent among the streets to remove food cooking for Christmas dinners and all decorations. In Catholic Ireland it was much worse, primarily because of his brutal ethnic cleansing, euphemistically called Cromwellian Genocide.

Upon Cromwell’s death, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of the popular holiday.

The Pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Christmas wasn’t declared a U.S. federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

A Christmas Carol

Also around this time, English author Charles Dickens created the classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. The story’s message – the importance of charity and good will towards all humankind – struck a powerful chord in the United States and England and showed members of Victorian society the benefits of celebrating the holiday.

The family was also becoming less disciplined and more sensitive to the emotional needs of children during the early 1800s. Christmas provided families with a day when they could lavish attention and gifts on their children without appearing to “spoil” them.

As some Americans began to embrace Christmas as a perfect family holiday, old customs were unearthed. People looked toward recent immigrants and Catholic and Episcopalian churches to see how the day should be celebrated. In the next 100 years, Americans built a Christmas tradition all their own that included pieces of many other customs, including decorating trees, sending holiday cards, and gift-giving.

Irving Reinvents Christmas

It wasn’t until the 19th century that Americans began to completely realize Christmas, where they re-invented the celebration, and changed it from a raucous carnival holiday into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia. But why did the 1800s peak American interest in the holiday?

Well, it was a period of class conflict and turmoil in the U.S. Unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season. In 1828, the New York City council instituted the city’s first police force in response to a Christmas riot. This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.

In 1819, American author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving’s mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status. Irving’s fictitious celebrants enjoyed “ancient customs,” including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving’s book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended – in fact, many historians say that Irving’s account actually “invented” tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.

Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings – Another Kind of War on Christmas?

“Season’s greetings” is a greeting more commonly used as a motto on winter season greeting cards, and in commercial advertisements, than as a spoken phrase. In addition to “Merry Christmas,” Victorian Christmas cards bore a variety of salutations, including “compliments of the season” and “Christmas greetings.” In the late 19th century, “with the season’s greetings” or simply “the season’s greetings,” began appearing on cards. By the 1920s it had been shortened to “season’s greetings,” and has been a greeting card fixture ever since. Several White House Christmas cards, including U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s 1955 card, have featured the phrase.

Facing a confrontation for the good natured greeting to a stranger of “Happy Holidays,” is the antithesis  of the Christmas spirit. As one victim pointed out, it’s closer to Ebenezer Scrooge’s “Bah, Humbug” than a defense of the phrase “Merry Christmas.” In the past several years, there has been an open movement against the presumed secular phrase of “Happy Holidays.”

Perhaps, we have forgotten that “Happy Holidays” is a deviation of the Roman Catholic greeting of  “Happy Holy Days.” So what’s so unholy about that? “Merry Christmas also stems from the Roman Catholic “Mass of Christ.”

Saying “Happy Holidays” can also be used as a term of respect when one doesn’t know the religious convictions of a a stranger. We want the season to be all-inclusive period where everyone has fun.

Although many U.S. contemporary families falsely believe they are celebrating Christmas as how it had been done for centuries, Americans had actually re-invented a holiday to fill the cultural needs of a growing nation.

And, with that said: Happy Holidays to all!

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