The Guide Spring 2014

the SPRING 2014

GUIDE A GUIDE TO BRITAIN FROM BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES

THE FORMIDABLE SNOW MAN DAN SNOW, TV PRESENTER AND HISTORIAN

CELEBRATING SHAKESPEARE • EXPERT TOURS OF HADRIAN’S WALL AND EAST LONDON • LEGENDS, LIES AND LORE

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Contents

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NEWS London’s Olympic Park re-opens, electric taxis, a BBC adaptation of Jamaica Inn, Kirkby Lonsdale’s make-over and a rediscovered painting at the National Portrait Gallery

FEATURE

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LEGENDS, LIES AND LORE Fact and fiction from British history

TOUR DE FORCE Two Blue Badge Guides tell us about their tours – from Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland to Jewish East London

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WILL-POWER April marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare.

Marc Zakian charts the writer’s life in Stratford and London

COVER STORY

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INTERVIEW Historian and presenter Dan Snow talks to Sophie Campbell about history, television and his fascination with social media

26 Front cover photo courtesy of the BBC BBC Photographer: Andrew Hayes-Watkins

Blue Badge Guides on views, stately homes, places and more

Email: theguide@blue-badge.org.uk • www.britainsbestguides.org

LONDON

WALES

NORTHERN IRELAND

SCOTLAND

GREEN BADGE

ISSN: 2053-0439

www.britainsbestguides.org

This magazine is produced by the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides – the national association for Blue Badge Guides (the highest guiding qualification in Britain.)

ENGLAND

MY FAVOURITE

Editor: Marc Zakian T: 020 7403 1115 E: marczakian@blueyonder.co.uk Project Manager: Maggie Barnes-Aoussou T: 020 7403 1115 E: marketing@blue-badge.org.uk Publisher: Guild of Registered Tourist Guides ©2014 Design and print: HMCA Services T: 01423 866985 W: hmcaservices.co.uk Display advertising: Andy Bettley T: 07846 979625 E: andy@hmca.co.uk

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NEWS History, Culture PARK LIFE Sue King, Chair to the Guild of Registered Tourist Guides

WELCOME TO ‘THE GUIDE’...

This is the first edition of our magazine in 2014 – a year of anniversaries. It is 100 years since the outbreak of World War One. Spoken of as ‘the war to end all wars’ or the Great War – nobody thought there would ever be another conflict of such magnitude. Sadly they were wrong, and we will also be marking the 60th anniversary of the D Day Landings of 1944 – ‘the beginning of the end’ of the Second World War. In our main feature Telegraph writer and Blue Badge Guide Sophie Campbell interviews ‘conflict historian’ Dan Snow, an expert on war and battles. He reveals intriguing information about the wartime stories of Scarborough, Gretna Green and Donegal. Dan Snow says: ‘It’s a huge story with echoes right across Britain’. Every village, town and city has a memorial to those who sacrificed their lives in these two brutal conflicts.

And with the passing of the generations involved in these conflicts, Blue Badge Guides help keep alive their stories of resistance and heroism.

2014 also marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare. Our editor – the journalist and Blue Badge guide, Marc Zakian – traces the writer’s life from Stratford to London, taking a look at the building of the UK’s only Jacobean theatre and Shakespeare events around the country. The Bard’s rival, Christopher Marlowe was born in the same year as Shakespeare; his story takes us from Canterbury to an unsolved murder in south London.

We hear from Blue Badge Guide Mark King, whose tour of Jewish East London starts where his family history in the UK began: the Kindertransport statue at Liverpool Street Station – dedicated to the thousands of Jewish refugee children who arrived from Nazi Germany in 1938-9.

And what did the Romans do for us? Well, build a monumental 73 mile long wall across the top of England, as Blue Badge Guide Laura Rhodes explains. She also tells us how the legions left behind wooden ‘postcards’, with soldiers complaining about the bad weather they had to put up with and gives us a fascinating insight into Roman toilet habits.

Last year Guild guides worked with over 1.5 million tourists.

This year many guides will be leading tours to celebrate the wartime and literary anniversaries. We hope you enjoy reading about our work, and look forward to seeing you on our tours.

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The 2012 games are acknowledged as one the finest ever held. Two years on from the Olympics, the newly landscaped southern section of the Queen Elizabeth Park opens to the public for the first time since the games.

From March 1 Zaha Hadid’s iconic Aquatics Centre – with two 50m swimming pools, a dive pool and a new gym – is available to the public at £4.50 a session. The Velodrome and cycling park also welcomes its first visitors in March, with opportunities to cycle the track, try BMX, road and mountain biking. The UK’s tallest sculpture, the ArcelorMittal Orbit, receives its first visitors on April 5 (tickets £15/£12/£7) and in May the hockey and tennis centre opens. London Blue Badge Guides devised and ran tours the to the Olympic Park, bringing over 300,000 visitors to the area.

The twice weekly public tours are on Thursdays and Saturdays, more info at www.toursof2012sites.com For a private tour visit: www.britainsbestguides.org

The Olympic Velodrome

WHEEL ALTERNATIVES Britain has its first electric taxi. An all new version of the Metrocab – a taxi design seen on the UK streets from 1987 to 2000 – is currently road-testing. The new cab has silent electric motors and a small range-extending petrol engine.

With six leather passenger seats and a panoramic roof, the vehicle promises a smooth quiet ride. Charging posts will be placed throughout cities so cabbies can top up the electric battery. This is the first step in cleaning up London’s 20,000 licensed taxi fleet, which is responsible for 20% of all road transport pollution in the capital.

and Events from around the UK

Shivani Vahalia-Pareek Blue Badge Guide, Hindi & Gujarati

Cornish Pastiche Cumbria’s Kirkby Lonsdale is a long way from Cornwall. But it is one of the locations for a new TV adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's story of smugglers and ghosts: Jamaica Inn. The market town stands in for Cornwall’s Launceston, which now looks too modern for the filming of a period drama.

The real Jamaica Inn is a former 18th century coaching house on Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor, reputed to the most haunted place in Great Britain.

Du Maurier lived nearby in Fowey (where an annual May festival celebrates

BLUE BADGE TOURIST GUIDES her work). She wrote Jamaica Inn after getting lost in fog while horse riding on the moors – finding refuge in the pub where the local rector is said to have entertained her with ghost stories.

Published in 1936, the story was filmed

by Alfred Hitchcock, and adapted for stage and TV. The new BBC series – starring Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown-Findlay – will be screened in spring.

For a guided visit around Cumbria: www.cumbriatouristguides.org For a guided visit around Cornwall: www.swtourguides.co.uk

Blue Badge Tourist Guides are the official, professional tourist guides of the United Kingdom – recognised by the local tourist bodies and VisitBritain. The Blue Badge is the UK’s highest guiding qualification, awarded only after extensive training and thorough examination.

There are over 1000 Blue Badge Guides in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – each region has its own badge. We guide in all the UK’s major tourist attractions, as well as its cities and countryside.

The Blue Badge is the qualification of excellence in heritage guiding.

The Blue Badge is the UK’s highest guiding qualification The Guild of Registered Tourist Guides is the national association of Britain’s Blue Badge guides. Since its foundation in 1950, the Guild has dedicated itself to raising and maintaining the highest professional standards.

Our guides work in the UK’s museums, galleries, churches and lead walking, cycling and driver-guided tours throughout the country. Our members work in over 30 different languages. If it can be guided, we will guide it.

To find out more or to book: 0207 403 1115 guild@blue-badge.org.uk www.britainsbestguides.org

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News

A

Brush

WITH HISTORY...

WOMAN IN THE FRAME A rediscovered portrait of one of the UK's earliest feminists has gone on show at the National Portrait Gallery. The painting of Lady Anne Clifford by William Larkin dates from 1618. It was thought lost until it turned up eight years ago in a private collection – the gallery purchased the portrait for £275,000.

Lady Anne Clifford was a rare example of woman who took on the male-dominated establishment. She was determined not to be bullied or coaxed into accepting less than her due, and fought her uncle to keep her estates.

After winning her inheritance she became famous for the extensive building and restoration works on her castles and churches in the north of England. Lady Anne commissioned a substantial number of works of family history and kept her own diary – the surviving sections are important records of early 17th century aristocratic life.

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2014 marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. A new exhibition at Lymington’s St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery, Home Lad Home, tells the story of thousands of horses taken from civilian life and prepared for use by the military.

Running from March 1 to 25 April, it showcases paintings by artists who recorded the work of the Remount Service, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Cavalry and Artillery. The exhibition follows horses from domestic occupations to the Western Front, where they served with the cavalry, artillery and transport services.

Well-educated and intelligent, John Donne commented that: ‘she knew well how to discourse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk.’

At her death she was probably the wealthiest woman in England.

For a tour of the portrait gallery go to: www.britainsbestguides.org

For more details visit www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk

WEST END THEATRE NEWS Wicked continues to bewitch London theatre goers, with audience numbers passing 5.5 million since its premiere in September 2006.

This February sees actor Martyn Ellis as 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'. Ellis joins on stage international Wicked star Willemijn Verkaik as Elphaba, Savannah Stevenson as Glinda and Jeremy Taylor as Fiyero. www.wickedthemusical.co.uk Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Miss Saigon, opening at the Prince Edward Theatre on the 3 May 2014, will feature Korean mega-star Kwang-Ho Hong. This solo artist regularly sells out giant arenas in his native Korea, where he is known as one of the top musical theatre performers. The love story of Miss Saigon is the tale of young bar girl Kim, orphaned by war, who falls in love with an American GI called Chris – but their lives are torn apart by the fall of Saigon. www.miss-saigon.com

Actor Alex Jennings will play Willy Wonka in the record-breaking West End production of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Jennings takes over on 19 May 2014.

He is the only performer to have won an Olivier Award in the Drama, Musical and Comedy categories. His screen career includes The Queen, Smiley's People, and Cranford. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has broken records at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where it has been seen by over half a million people since it opened in June 2013. www.charlieandthechocolate factory.com

Provided by MADE

else in history, including the three longest-running of all-time: Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. www.cameronmackintosh.com

Cameron Mackintosh, widely considered to be the most successful theatrical producer of all-time, was the first British producer ever to be inducted into Broadway's prestigious Theatre Hall of Fame in New York on January 27.

In the last 45 years Mackintosh has produced more musicals than anyone

Sir Cameron Mackintosh

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For further information contact us on: email: bookings@dgatours.com Tel: +44 207 993 6901

www.dgatours.com 7

ŠBBC Photographer: Andrew Tait

SNOW BUSINESS

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Interview: Dan Snow

Sophie Campbell meets historian Dan Snow, the youngest member of a dynasty of television presenters ‘Did you know the German navy shelled Scarborough?’ Dan Snow is in full flow about the First World War. ‘It’s something very few people know,’ he continues, ‘Gretna Green had a massive armaments factory for shell production and there were practice trenches in Wales. It’s a huge story with echoes right across Britain and we want to get people involved by joining digs or listing war memorials or helping identify and protect First War sites in their local communities.’

Last October, Dan became the president of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) and has been deeply involved ever since. ‘I’m not an archaeologist, obviously’ he says, hastily, ‘but I’ve filmed more than my fair share of digs; everything from Shakespeare’s house in Stratford upon Avon to Second World War Spitfires.

I’m fascinated by anything involving interrogation of the past and how it affects our life today.’

He is sometimes described as ‘conflict historian,’ specialising in war and battles, and enjoys a busy television career that almost ended before it had even begun.

Thirteen years ago someone at the BBC floated the idea of making a history programme using Peter Snow, the veteran journalist and broadcaster, and his son, then a history graduate from Balliol College, Oxford with barely any experience of television. The idea was kyboshed, not by the senior management but by the senior Snow.

‘Dad didn’t like the idea, he thought it might be awful,’ says Dan, who was mulling over the possibility of doing a PhD in Anglo-Russian history at the time, ‘but six months later the idea came up again. It was the 60th anniversary of El Alamein, something we’re both interested in, so in the end we said yes and did our first programme together in 2002.’

They followed it up with a BBC2 series called ‘Battlefield Britain’ and since then

there has been a blizzard of Snows. Peter is famed for his election night broadcasts, makes history programmes and has just written a book on the destruction of the White House by the British. Cousin Jon is news anchor for Channel 4 and also an author. And Dan in his turn has ranged far and wide across our television screens for most of the past decade.

His recent Discovery Channel series and accompanying book, ‘Battle Castle’, examined the architecture of six famous fortifications and their function in war.

Series for BBC2 include histories of the Railways, the Royal Navy, Congo and Syria. He’s done D-Day for BBC1 and ‘Norman Walks’ for Channel 4 and is the History Hunter for ‘The One Show’.

One of the great privileges of his job, he feels, is the chance to meet people who are extraordinarily specialised His current series involves rowing down the Grand Canyon on the mighty Colorado River – he rowed for Oxford in the Boat Race three times – and on his sensational Instagram feed, all foaming white rapids and soaring orange cliffs, an envious fan has written: ‘Dude, I want your job!’

The fact he has an Instagram feed – and a Facebook page and 62,000 followers on Twitter, where his tag is @thehistoryguy – is probably part of his appeal to the CBA. The Council has watched in dismay as cuts in funding have caused the numbers of working archaeologists to drop dramatically. It is acutely aware of the importance of inspiring the next generation and of sustaining the undoubted enthusiasm of the public.

‘A while ago I filmed a dig in Donegal, just over the border in the Republic of Ireland.’ says Dan, ‘It was a Spitfire that

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Interview: Dan Snow

A reconstruction of Vindolanda Fort

was completely buried, but had its guns intact. We cleaned them off, loaded them and, unbelievably, managed to fire them. One million people watched the footage of that dig in one day, which just shows you how much interest there is in archaeology – and in history – there’s a huge appetite for it.’

There is a natural symbiosis between the two subjects, between the material evidence of the past and its wider interpretation, which appeals to him. ‘Archaeology works hand in hand with history, of course it does. When you look at the written records – I’ve done this with stuff on the Roman Empire, on the Roman frontier in Dacia (now Romania), say – you get fascinating results. Then you meet the archaeologists on the ground and it opens up whole new possibilities.’ He also acknowledges the influence of hugely popular programmes such as ‘Time Team’.

Somehow, between travelling, writing and bringing up a young daughter with Edwina, his wife of four years, he has a new enthusiasm: apps. ‘I’m doing a lot of work on them at the moment, with my company Ballista.’ he explains. ‘We’ve only done one for iPhones so far, ‘Battle Castle’, but we’ve done quite a few for the iPad – have a look at ‘Timeline World War II’, that’s had good reviews. I’m

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I’m obsessed with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on pushing forward with more of those.

Social media is one of the things I’m excited about bringing to the job at the CBA: it’s very much my thing, I’m obsessed with it, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on.’

One of the great privileges of his

job, he feels, is the chance to meet people who are extraordinarily specialised. ‘For someone like me, who is a generalist, that’s an incredible thing,’ he says, ‘I’ve been lucky enough to work with Roman specialists and Norman specialists… perhaps the most amazing has been a brilliant American woman called Sarah Parcak, who is a space archaeologist.’ The discipline is fairly new, apparently, and among other things she has found the Portus lighthouse, off Rome, using US government satellites to detect temperature differences in materials, so the great limestone foundation was visible under the sand.

On earth, recent digs that he’s been on (‘as an unskilled muppet’) and been blown away by include the Roman cemetery in York, the legionary fortress at Caerleon in Snowdonia and the ongoing dig at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall. He points out that Vindolanda is just one of several Wall forts: they haven’t even started on the others, so there is more to come.

Factfile He’s also a big fan of the Museum of London – ‘partly because it is all about London. I know that sounds crazy, but people often go the British Museum and say it doesn’t have a lot of Britain in it’ – and, as we know, is deeply involved in the commemoration of the First World War this year. He’s particularly intrigued by what he calls ‘the Forgotten Blitz’; the aerial bombardments often eclipsed by those of the Second World War, but deadly for counties such as Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire,

Essex and Kent, bombed as planes flew back from London to the North Sea. ‘I hope to be able to straddle both specialities,’ he says, ‘I’m going to try and bring attention to what the CBA is doing in this country and to show what light it is shining on the history of humanity. Then there is the education side, introducing kids to archaeology, getting the next generation of archaeologists involved and enthused.’

Somehow, I doubt that’ll be a problem.

Dan Snow appears regularly on the BBC’s One Show.

The CBA’s First World War Centenary Community Project, funded by English Heritage, will involve volunteers mapping war sites.

For information go to www.archaeologyUK.org /First-World-War The annual Festival of Archaeology takes place from July 12 to 27 with over a thousand events across the UK www.archaeologyfestival. org.uk

Dover Castle featured in Dan Snow’s TV series ‘Battle Castle’

For information on either of these, or to join the CBA, visit www.archaeologyuk.org

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A WORD TO THE WISE Acronyms are a 20th century phenomenon – there are no examples prior to the 1920s. Backronyms are another modern invention: acronyms invented to fit an existing word. They sound credible, but don’t let anyone convince you of the following: Wharf ~ Warehouse At River Front.

Wharf came into English over 600 years ago.

Posh ~ Port Out, Starboard Home.

Posh was used from the 1890s to mean a dandy.

Cop ~ Constable On Patrol.

In the 1840s cop meant to arrest.

It evolved to become the person doing the arresting.

So police are coppers.

SOS ~ Save Our Souls.

It derives from an easy and simple morse code signal: three dots, dashes and dots.

Golf ~ Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.

The first written record of golf was in 1457, when the Scottish king banned ‘ye golf’ because archery practice was being neglected.

Britain’s ‘first’ Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman – elected in 1905.

Prior to this the official title of the head of government was The First Lord of the Treasury. The term Prime Minister originated as an insult, aimed at the man commonly referred to as the UK’s first PM: Robert Walpole. Taking office in 1721, he became so powerful that MPs resentfully referred to him as the “Prime” minister.

Walpole was the first leader to live at Downing Street, replacing the last private resident, a Mr Chicken.

LEGE

LIE

“YE GOLF”

HOME IS WHERE THE heart IS Henry I was buried in Reading Abbey, but his heart, bowels, brains, eyes and tongue were interred in Rouen Cathedral, Normandy.

Thomas Hardy’s ashes are in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, while his heart was buried in his beloved Wessex. According to a long-standing rumour, the organ was stolen by his pet cat and a pig's heart had to be used as a replacement.

Mary Shelley kept the remains of her dead poet husband’s heart in a silk parcel.

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NO PRIME MINSTER

FACTS AND

THE END OF THE LINE The first person killed in a railway crash was William Huskisson MP, who walked across the track in front of Stephenson's Rocket in 1830. He had previously avoided death when a horse landed on his head during his honeymoon.

THE LIFE

OF PEE

~ Urine is one of nature’s chemicals.

In Roman times people would relieve themselves in public pots – the content was used to clean clothes and whiten teeth. Medieval gunpowder was manufactured using pee. Tanners soaked animal skins in urine to remove hair, and on the Isle of Harris tweed makers kept vats of urine outside their cottages to soften the wool. Leading to the story that the House of Lords smells faintly of pee because of the amount of tweed worn on the benches.

NDS

ES, AND

EEING RED S

Y R O T IS H H IS IT R B M O FR N IO T IC F

There was no word for the colour orange before the 16th century. The name for the fruit derives from the Arabic naranj and arrived in English in the 14th century.

Orange was first used to define a colour in 1542. So in medieval times things which to us appear orange were described as red: the red kite, robin red-breast, red squirrel, red-headed people and red deer.

Bride-Ale Many cities have a church dedicated to the 6th century Irish Saint Bride.

Her miracles often relate to food and drink, including one story of her coming to the aid of a thirsty priest by turning her bath water into beer.

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Cobbe Portrait of William Shakespeare, unknown artist, 1610, Cobbe Collection, courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Feature

April marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare.

Marc Zakian charts the writer’s life in Stratford and London

WILL-PO 14

Anne Hathaway’s cottage

‘‘Put money in thy purse

candles for light and fuel to keep warm. At 9am they ate a breakfast of bread and ale, the lessons continued until 11am. William walked home to dinner – about 5 minutes – then back to school at the 1pm bell for afternoon studies until 5pm. Six days a week.

a good ‘‘Many hanging prevents

Shottery is a mile outside Stratford.

Shakespeare walked through fields and farms to visit a farmhouse in this hamlet – the family home of his future wife, Anne Hathaway.

Anne was the eldest daughter of the house. As such, she would have learned how to bake, brew, prepare meat and tend the farm animals. We know nothing of Anne’s character and there are no portraits of her. It’s unlikely she could read or write, as 90% of females were illiterate. So the greatest dramatist in the world was married a woman who couldn’t read his life’s work.

Anne was eight years older than William and three months pregnant by the time of the wedding. There is speculation that this was a forced marriage, but it was common for couples to have a handfasting ceremony – an official betrothal – prior to church service.

William and Anne were married in 1582. The Shakespeares' first child Susanna was christened in May 1583, and twins arrived in January, 1585. But Will’s thoughts had turned to London, and the new playhouses that were thrilling the metropolis.

In 1596 Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms – he was now a gentleman. William was one of very few Tudor writers who moved up the social classes.

In 1597 he paid £60 for one of the finest houses in Stratford, New Place.

In Elizabethan England a servant earned £2 a year and a schoolmaster £20, but William’s income as coowner of The Globe theatre had made him wealthy.

Shakespeare’s birthplace which has been welcoming visitors since 1847.

scene of all, ‘‘Last that ends this strange

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WER dried in the backyard, with the finished gloves, purses and bags sold from the front of the house.

Age seven William would have been a pupil at the King’s New School. The building – still a school today – features a long, narrow hall with an oak ceiling. Tudor studies started at 6am. The boys brought

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a bad marriage

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On April 26th 1564 there was a christening in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. The parish register records the baptism of Gulielmus Filius Johannes Shakespeare – William the son of John, a flourishing merchant soon to be the bailiff (or mayor) of Stratford.

According to local tradition, baby William would have been carried into the church by John, accompanied by the godsips (chatty female godparents, the origin of the word gossip, first seen in Shakespeare). A chrism-cloth of white linen was placed on the child’s head. If the infant died this became his shroud.

One in ten Tudor babies perished in the first week, but Will was a vigorous child – at three months he survived the plague which killed several of the Shakespeares’ neighbours.

The family lived in one of Stratford’s ‘goodly’ houses; an oak framed building, home to John’s glove making business. William grew up alongside the bloody sights and foul smells of leather working; calf, sheep and kid skins were cleaned and

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first, the infant, mewling ‘‘andAtpuking in the nurse's arms

©VisitEngland jameskerr.co.uk

STRATFORD: HATCHED, MATCHED AND DISPATCHED

eventful history

By 1613 Shakespeare had written his last play. Retired from the theatre, he returned to his native Stratford. As a man of property and title who had performed for the royal court – everyone in town would have known William Shakespeare.

In January 1616 Will wrote his will.

In April, legend has it, he enjoyed a ‘merrie meeting’ with his fellow writer Ben Johnson where he drank too much wine and ate too many pickled herrings. He sweated, caught a cold, and died – probably on the 23rd April, his 52nd birthday.

The parish record tells us that on the 25th of April he was buried in the church where he was baptised.

On his gravestone an anonymous rhyme curses anyone who would move his bones.

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Elizabethan London was a potent, prosperous and perilous metropolis.

Newcomers flooded into a city which grew from 70,000 to 200,000 inhabitants during the Queen’s 45 year reign.

Londoners loved spectacles: from the public hangings and beheadings, the fairs and processions, to the bear, bull and cock fights – chilling and thrilling distractions from their hard, short lives.

In the 1570s there was a new entertainment in town: the playhouse.

The queen had granted permission for the first public theatres – previously the actors worked the inns and halls.

The first was The Theatre, erected in 1576 in Shoreditch, just outside the city walls (plays were prohibited in the City). Within a year it was joined by the neighbouring Curtain Theatre.

Young William Shakespeare arrived in Shoreditch in the 1580s. The first record of his life in London came in 1592, when a jealous rival playwright denounced him as an ‘an upstart crow’.

The upstart crow was flying high. By late 1594, he was part-owner of a theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Working at The Theatre and The Curtain, they gave the first performances of Romeo and Juliet and Henry V.

haikovsky Pianist Andre Tc t his skull lef died in 1982. He in e us to the RSC for amlet. productions of H s skull finally y’ sk ov Tchaik k in appeared as Yoric t’s David Tennan Stratford performance of Hamlet in 2008.

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Tudor Coins for entry to the ted in a lec playhouses were col e boxes Th x’. ceramic pot or ‘bo in the ’ fice ‘of an were taken to the and up ken theatre, bro ay you takings counted. So tod at the get your theatre ticket box-office.

The planned development for The Curtain theatre

Shakespeare, Marlowe and Galileo Galilei were all born in 1564. The year that Michelangelo died.

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‘‘

‘‘The play’s the thing

‘‘

Feature

SHAKESPEARE IN SHOREDITCH

A curtain before ‘em

In 2008 archeologists from the Museum of London discovered the remains of The Theatre, just off Curtain Road in Shorditch. Four years later, in 2012, the museum uncovered the remains of The Curtain. There are plans to create public access to both of these discoveries; this year work starts on a public square, park, museum and exhibition on the Curtain site and a project is in place for a new playhouse and exhibition over The Theatre. A few hundred yards away is another tantalising Shakespeare site: St Leonard’s Church. Beneath the current 1740s building are the remains of a medieval church that served the local theatres. Burials include Henry VIII’s fool Will Somers, James Burbage – the founder of The Theatre – and his son Richard, a leading actor and the first man to play Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and King Lear and actor Gabriel Spenser, who was killed by Ben Jonson in a duel in Hoxton. Further archaeology and investment is needed to conserve this monument to the birth of English entertainment.

The reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

THE GLOBE In 1599 the lease on The Theatre ran out. The round wooden playhouse was plucked apart and rebuilt on the south bank of the river Thames. This new theatre, called The Globe, was managed by its actor-shareholders, including Shakespeare.

Bankside was where Londoners went to lose themselves in the brothels, taverns and theatres. It was home to several playhouses including the Globe’s fierce local rival, The Rose – where many of Christopher Marlowe’s plays were first performed.

Every day, thousands of Londoners crossed the river to see the plays.

Some 2000 packed into The Globe,

Will Kemp was Shakespeare’s company’s main comic actor.

Playing parts such as Dogberry and Bottom. But Kemp left the company after a disagreement, and in 1600, he morris danced over a hundred miles from London to Norwich. The journey took him nine days – giving rise to the phrase ‘a nine day wonder’.

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where Hamlet, King Lear and the Tempest were first performed. The working people paid one penny to stand in the yard – they rarely bathed and usually only owned one set of clothes, they were known as the penny stinkers. For two pence a gentleman had a seat in the gallery, and another penny bought him a cushion to sit on.

In 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII a sound-effect cannon misfired, igniting the thatched roof.

The theatre burned to the ground, but no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. The theatre was rebuilt the following year.

this wooden O

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Feature The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

GLOBAL AMBITION In 1997 The Globe raised its flag once again. This was the vision of Sam Wanamaker, an American director and actor who came to London in the 50s and was shocked to discover that Shakespeare’s theatre had no significant memorial. It took over 20 years of fundraising before the third Globe, a working reconstruction of an Elizabethan playhouse, opened its doors on Bankside, 50 metres from the site of the original theatre.

Wanamaker’s legacy is celebrated in the latest project at The Globe: a newly built Jacobian theatre. In 1608 Shakespeare’s company moved into the City, performing at Blackfriars in an indoor theatre (The Curtain, Globe and Rose were all open air).

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is based on original designs for a theatre from 1616. Crafted in oak and decorated with murals and golden stars, this 340 seat Jacobean jewel box is lit by candles. All signs of modernity evaporate inside this theatrical time machine; now Shakespeare’s later plays – The Tempest and the Winter’s Tale – will be staged in the only Jacobean theatre in the Britain.

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“Words, words, words”

e. were shaping the English languag William and his fellow playwrights his 37 plays, 154 sonnets and Shakespeare used 28,829 words in several poems. ry is around 5,000 words, 1,500 of Today a typical person’s vocabula probably invented – by Shakespeare. which were first written down – and , critic, dawn, elbow, film, gossip, hush Here’s an A-Z: advertising, bandit, e, puk ene, obsc , tiate nego manager, investment, jaded, kissing, luggage, ress, varied, worthless, xantippe und re, tortu re, secu , rant , quarrelsome ns a nagging, peevish, or an irritable (OK, not an everyday word. It mea woman) yelping, any. on, today nobody says: Not all of the Bard’s words caught

~ kickie-wickie term for wife te a an affection y quatch ~ podg s ne who hesitate eo m so ~ r le g bog corrupt wappened ~ dejected chop-fallen ~ geck ~ a fool y welkin ~ the sk

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

SHAKESPEARE stabbed to death in Deptford. The apparent reason, an argument over ‘the reckoning’ – a bill in a boarding house or brothel. His murder has spawned many theories and conspiracies: some say his death was staged, and Marlowe escaped the country to live abroad. There are even far fetched claims that he wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and (possibly) spy, who was baptised two months before Shakespeare, on the 26 February 1564.

By his early 20s he was Tudor theatre’s star writer – with plays such as Tamburlaine the Great and Dr Faustus.

But Marlowe’s life is shrouded in mystery; with high level connections to ministers in Queen Elizabeth’s court, an arrest on allegations of blasphemy and a planned interrogation by the Privy Council which seemingly never happened. On the 30 May 1593 he was

Macbeth is supposed to be cursed and actors avoid pronouncing its name – usin g the euphemism ‘The Scottish Play’. If an actor says "Macbeth" in a theatre prior to a perf ormance, they must leave the building, spin around three times, spit, curse, and then knock to be allowed back in. There are several theories about this superstition: one is that play’s witc hes cast a real spell that will bring evil; another is that due to the play’s sword fights actors can easily be injured; or it may be that due to the play’s popularity, it was always perform ed when a theatre fell on hard times; or it coul d be the story that the first actor to play Mac beth died shortly after the production.

For information on visits to Shakespeare’s Birthplace and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage go to www.shakespeare.org.uk To celebrate the anniversary, Shakespeare’s Birthplace is presenting ‘Famous Beyond Words – Shakespeare all around us’ a new exhibition opening in March.

Cambridge Blue Badge led tours visit Corpus Christi every Thursday at 14.00.

Tours include the Parker Library, the College's Old Court (built in 1352, the oldest surviving Oxbridge College) a commemoration of Marlowe and the College Chapel. Tickets £9.00 per person. Go to www.visitcambridge.org For a Shakespeare tour visit: www.britainsbestguides.org

0844 826 4242 | openairtheatre.com

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Photo: Pride and Prejudice 2013 David Jensen

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Tour de force

From the magnificent Hadrian’s Wall to Jewish East End London, two Blue Badge Guides tell us about their tours

TOUR DE Words: Marc Zakian

North East guide Laura Rhodes tells us about her fascination with Hadrian’s Wall

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AWAY THE ROMANS

Vindolanda museum’s footwear display

tablet in 1973. His son, Andrew, is now chief archaeologist. Vindolanda has an easygoing, friendly family atmosphere and Andrew sometimes comes and

FORCE birch, elder and oak are the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. Over 750 of them have been translated, forming a unique record of daily life.

“My favourite is a letter about socks and underpants sent to a Mediterranean legionary posted to windswept northern England. With only army-issue sandals and a woollen cloak, he was desperate for something to keep him warm in the Northumbrian winter.

“Dr Robin Birley found the first

chats to my groups about the latest discoveries.

“Since 2011, after many years of campaigning, some of the tablets – which are held at the British Museum in London – have come back home and are on display the fort’s renovated museum.

“From April to September volunteers come from all over the world to take part in Vindolanda’s annual archaeological dig. They are hoping to uncover unique objects – but every artefact has to be recorded and

conserved, so you sometimes hear the cry ‘not another bloody shoe’.

“But I am a fan of the museum’s footwear display – the exhibition of sandals, hobnail boots and toddler shoes evokes the lives of people who wore them. The women and baby shoes are from the vicus, a civilian settlement that grew up next to the fort – where the soldiers’ girlfriends, wives and children lived.

“Housesteads sits on top of a high rock ridge where soldiers once kept watch for invaders from the north.

Archaeologists have discovered a military treatment centre here, with small metal implement used for eye operations. With no anaesthetic, patients would probably have been restrained and dosed with alcohol to

© Northern Horizons

“The most popular postcard at Housesteads Fort features six centurions on the toilet,” says Laura Rhodes. “There they are, the mighty Roman army, builders and guardians of Hadrian’s Wall – one of the greatest engineering projects of antiquity – sitting on their selfflushing communal loo having a chat. It’s this social history, and the wall’s beautifully wild location, that fascinate me”.

Hadrian’s Wall takes its name from the Emperor who ordered its construction in 122 AD.“It runs coast to coast, from Newcastle to Cumbria,” Laura explains,“a 73 mile military border that marked the northern edge of the Roman Empire. It sent out a message: beyond here are uncivilised barbarians, and they shall not pass.

“Vindolanda is the most famous of the wall’s 17 forts. A cache of wooden tablets was discovered here in 1973.

These flimsy post-card size slivers of

Housesteads Crags, Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland

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Tour de force numb the pain. Ancient terraces near the wall suggest that the Romans might have planted vineyards here.

“But it’s the military toilets that visitors find most fascinating. Romans didn’t go the loo in private, they visited a communal latrine. There was no toilet paper, they used a sponge on a stick – it’s not known if you had your own or if it was shared. Water was piped down from the top of the fort to flush the sewage away.

Laura walked the length of Hadrian’s Wall in 2007.“I trekked the 95 mile path. It took me a week travelling from west to east – I prefer that direction as you have the prevailing winds behind you. Some parts of the wall rise up 10ft – standing imperiously amidst the remote landscape of fields, farms and sheep.

“The first person to hike the length of wall in modern times was William Hutton. In 1801 he walked from Birmingham to Carlisle, across to Wallsend and back again – over 600 miles. He was 78 and his daughter followed him on horseback to make sure he was ok. In Hutton’s book about the journey he said: ‘I am the first man that ever travelled the whole length of this Wall, and probably the last that will ever attempt it’. Today the wall attracts thousands of visitors – it’s

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Communal latrine in use!

the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England.

Laura lives in Newcastle, in Hadrian’s time Pons Aelius, a bridging point across the river Tyne. The ancient city has disappeared under the modern one, but there is a plan to locate the site of the Roman bridge. It’s part of Project Wallquest, a scheme which involves local people in hands-on archaeology.

“I know how rewarding that can be,” says Laura.“In 2009 I helped on an archaeological dig at Arbeia, a Roman supply fort south of the Tyne. I was assigned one square foot of soil, and told to gently remove 2mm layers. It was slow and laborious, but I uncovered a piece of roof tile – the first of its type to be found there. The chief archaeologist was very excited, and so was I.”

It’s the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England “Arbeia means ‘fort of the Arabs’.

I often think about the soldiers who were sent here from Syria, Palestine, Arabia and beyond. After 25 years they were pensioned off and given a piece of land, and many had taken local wives. So Northumbrians are the ancestors of these legionaries, and the wall is a monument to this ancient international heritage.”

To visit the wall with Laura Rhodes contact her at: info@laurarhodes.co.uk

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Tour de force

MARK KING Blue Badge Guide Mark King reveals the stories behind Jewish East London

Photos: Marc Zakian

Mark King’s tour of East End London begins with a very personal story.

In 1938 and 1939 ten thousand Jewish children were evacuated to the UK from Nazi occupied Europe.

Travelling by train and ferry, their long journey to safety ended at Liverpool Street Station. Among their number were two 16 year olds: Werner from Berlin and Diana from Vienna.

“They were my father and mother,” says Mark. “My dad was taken in at a boarding school in Dorset run by his sponsor Evelyn King. During the war it wasn’t a good idea to have a German name, so he adopted his headmaster’s surname. My mother lived with a family in West Norwood. Neither of them ever saw their parents again.”

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Mark King

by Kindertransport statue, Liverpool Street

Kindertransport immigration document

The children’s evacuation became known as the Kindertransport. Commemorated by a statue at Liverpool Street Station, the monument tells a familiar story of upheaval for London’s Jewish community. Constrained in medieval England and expelled by Edward I in 1290, they were officially exiled until the 1650s. During the 1700s a new community settled on the eastern edge of the City. Then during pogroms in Eastern Europe in the 1880s large numbers fled to London.

“In three decades some 125,000 Jews crammed into the Whitechapel area,” Mark explains.“By 1900 there were more than 100 synagogues in just two square miles of the East End. This sudden influx aroused anxiety and even hostility.

Outside Spitalfields Market today there is a sculpture of a goat standing on shipping crates. This evokes the area’s heritage of trade and mobility, as well as the concept of the immigrant as a ‘scapegoat’.

“The entrance to 18th century Christchurch Spitalfields houses a series of plaques with Hebrew inscriptions dedicated to the proselytizing Christians who financed missions to try to convert the Jews. Certain Anglicans believed the newcomers needed missionary help. Some donated blankets and food; others required Jewish children to sit through Christian lectures before they were fed. So canny parents sent their offspring along with cotton wool in their ears and instructions to ignore the sermon, but get their dinner.

“London’s resident Jewish community – concerned that large numbers of ’aliens’ could provoke anti-Semitism – did what they could to feed and educate the newcomers. The Brune Street kitchen still stands – decorated with a fabulous tureen symbolizing the thousands of bowls of (probably chicken) soup that sustained the needy.

“Bell Lane was home to the Jews’ Free School. By the early 1900s it was reputed to be the largest school in Europe, providing education, clothing, food and healthcare for 4,000 East End kids who were taught how to be proper little Englishmen and women. Its alumni include Barney Barnato, a prizefighter and music hall turn who started a South African diamond company which eventually evolved into De Beers.

“The immigrants brought Yiddish entertainment to East London. A pavement plaque on Princelet Street marks the site of one of four Jewish theatres. Set up by Jacob Adler, he boasted that ‘London was the school of Yiddish theatre’. The playhouse entertained the community with popular melodramatic shows until a stampede provoked by a stage effect killed 17 people and the venue was closed. Adler moved his acting family to New York, where his daughter Stella became a legendary teacher – her students included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

“The area’s most famous showbiz son has to be Lionel Bart, who grew up just off Brick Lane. Born Lionel Begleiter in 1930, the youngest of seven children, Bart wrote Living Doll for pop star Cliff Richard, before finding international fame with a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. By elegant coincidence, Dickens based the book’s character Fagin on an infamous Jewish dealer of stolen

Garment district, Spitalfields

goods, Ikey Solomon, whose ‘shop’ was in Spitalfields’ Bell Lane.

“Many Jewish immigrants worked in ‘schmutter’. In the early 1900s Brick Lane thronged with manufacturers and merchants selling all kinds of garments, fabrics, silks, furs, leathers and cottons. As they grew more prosperous they moved away to the airy suburbs of Golders Green and beyond.”

The Lane’s last Jewish shopkeeper is Leo Epstein. This sociable septuagenarian opened Epra Fabrics 1956. He can still be found among the thousands of colourful rolls of material, scissors and measuring tape in hand.

Leo Epstein

Epstein works happily alongside the newer Bengali immigrants. His motto is: ‘on Brick Lane we do business, not politics’. Epstein’s son has joined the business, but Leo is worried that the latest generation will lose the tradition: “In my day professions like law and medicine were out of reach for Jews. But not for my grandchildren, that is what they are doing”.

“Epra Fabrics is one of the last vibrant links to the Jewish East End tradition,” Mark explains.“But if Jews are no longer here in person, their legacy is both indelible and edible – from the Brick Lane bagel shops to fish and chips. Sephardic immigrants from Portugal and Spain brought battered fish to London. Then in the 1860s a young Jewish lad, Joseph Malin, combined it with potatoes and opened the country’s first fish-and-chip shop.”

And for a reminder of how immigrants quickly become part of London’s rich culture, just visit the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. The first building here was a Huguenot Protestant chapel, built in 1743 for French refugees. In 1809 it was bought by the ‘London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews’. In the late 19th century, the building became Spitalfields Great Synagogue.

In 1976, it reopened as a mosque for today’s Muslim community.

It is the only structure outside Jerusalem to have served all three faiths. On the side of the building a Latin motto reads: ‘We are all Shadows’. In London’s East End the shadows cast by its Jewish community are still very visible.

For a Jewish or other London tour with Mark King contact him at: mark.king@kings5.demon.co.uk

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MY FAVOURITE Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK

...VIEW

…Ruskin's View overlooks the silvery River Lune as it meanders its way through the tranquil valley below the picturesque market town of Kirkby Lonsdale. It was the subject of a watercolour by JMW Turner painted from a sketch he made during a journey on horseback through the north of England. It is the beauty and timelessness of the scene that draw me to this spot whenever I seek peace and space to reflect.

Tess Pike, Blue Badge Guide Cumbria and the Liverpool City Region, Tess.Pike@btinternet.com

...STATELY HOME

I hold my breath in anticipation as I drive through the many acres of parkland towards Chatsworth. And then suddenly it appears, a magnificent house set so perfectly in its gardens and landscape, framed by river and bridge, fountains and cascades. For me this is the finest example of an English stately home, telling the story of the family who have lived here since their ancestor, the indomitable Bess of Hardwick, first built the house in the 16th century – and of every other Earl, Duke and Duchess of Devonshire who have made this the great and beautiful treasure house that it is today.

Angela Akehurst, Blue Badge Driver Guide, angela@angelaakehurst.co.uk

©VisitEngland Chatsworth House Trust

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...is Coventry’s medieval St Mary's Guildhall. Dating from 1342, it is still used for its original purpose. Since first visiting over 40 years ago, I have always found it such a magical place – an extraordinary survivor of the WW2 bombings. The hall has welcomed famous visitors over the centuries, including Mary Queen of Scots, Kings Henry VI and Richard III. William Shakespeare acted here, and was supposedly inspired by the War of the Roses tapestry on the main wall. It was also the setting for the trial scene of George Eliot’s Adam Bede. It’s even possible Jane Austen once paid a visit while staying locally. It never fails to impress me.

...BUILDING

Roger Bailey, Heart of England Blue Badge Guide Bluebadgecov@aol.com

...LIBRARY

The Portico Library, Manchester, is a magical place: a sumptuous Georgian-built haven of ancient writing and aesthetics; a repository of all that is creative and cultural in this most commercial and industrial of cities. Built in 1806 for the gentlemanly class, it has entertained Dickens, Robert Peel and Elizabeth Gaskell, but not L. S. Lowry who didn’t like ascending the stairs and once Eric Cantona; he couldn’t work out the buzzer the second time and never returned. Modern-day users include DJ Stuart Maconie and award-winning thriller writer Val McDermid. Unlike the similar London Library (okay, the latter is a million times bigger), you can not only read great works of literature away from students with headphones and water bottles, but have your lunch as well, often at the same time.

Ed Glinert, Manchester Green Badge Guide edglinert@yahoo.co.uk

...POST BOX

...PLACE ...on my driver-guided tours of London I am always reminded of the city’s international and evolving nature when passing the current star of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. This intense ultramarine sculpture of a blue cockerel, titled Hahn/Cock, was unveiled last July – designed by the German

artist Katharina Fritsch. The cock is commonly seen as an emblem of France, and the statue provocatively faces the 19th century monument in honour of the most illustrious of British heroes, the destroyer of the French navy: Admiral Horatio Nelson.

…is from the early 1900s, during the reign of Edward VII, located in a pillar outside a house in a small village in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

I love the magnificent flourish of the letters ER (for Edward Rex) on the front, and the instruction ‘Letters Only’ above the slot.

It seems somehow quintessentially British to find this post box still in use, with the collection times shown, in this tiny village, continuing the traditions of a universal postal system that we invented over 150 years ago.

Felicity Whittle London Blue Badge felicitywhittle@f2s.com

Mitchell Cregor, Driver Guide and London Blue Badge, m.cregor@btinternet.com

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