A London Christmas

Well, it’s that time of year again, so for our last blog of 2010, we thought we’d take a look at some of the odder facts that surround Christmas in London; so saddle up the sleigh for our whistlestop tour through the weird and wonderful events that have marked many Christmases past.

Writers

Many of our most distinguished writers seemed to have a real affection for Christmas. Possibly the most famous is Charles Dickens, author of festive favourite A Christmas Carol (LTH favours the Muppet’s version!).

Dickens’ may have been inspired by the fact that his Christmases were pretty much always white, since he lived through the end of a mini Ice-age which struck London between 1550-1850. It was also partly responsible for the Frost Fairs of Tudor Times.

Regular readers of this blog will know that some of Dickens’ most memorable passages from A Christmas Carol came from really rather mundane things, like the indescribably ugly door knocker at 8 Craven Street, which came to decorate Scrooge’s front door, and host the ghost of Marley.

Robert Louis Stevenson appeared not to enjoy Christmas so much, or at least a close friend of his didn’t. Her birthday fell on Christmas day, which was fine for a while but did get a bit tiresome. Stevenson, being the kind-hearted soul that he was, legally donated his own birthday, a wintry 13^th November, to his friend.

And finally, Rudyard Kipling, a Christmas baby himself was fond of writing items for public service, including The Cenotaph inscription and the very first Royal Christmas address, given by George V in 1932.

Christmas Food

Turkey is not actually the traditional Christmas lunch. Since days of yore, Londoners have supped on goose and boar’s head. The former is still relatively common today. 

Turkeys only came to London in 1530 and it was a good while before they became the centrepiece of the year’s biggest meal.  When they did, they used to be marched down from Norfolk, wearing tiny turkey boots to protect their feet!

The most famous goose was Leadenhall market’s Old Tom. He followed his lady friend over from Belgium in the eighteenth century, only to find himself at the centre of a slaughter which took over 34,000 goose lives in 2 days. Miraculously Old Tom survived and became a market celebrity, fed and cared for by surrounding innkeepers. When he eventually died (of natural causes) his body lay in state at the market, before being buried there.

And to wash all this sumptuous meat down, how about some Pig and Whistle? One of the UK’s most popular pub names actually comes from piggin and wassail, the piggin was a tankard and wassail a lovely Christmassy drink!

Bah, Humbug!

Christmas hasn’t always been so popular in London. During the Republican period, when Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector, Christmas greatly fell from grace. While rumours that he outright banned Christmas are untrue, he did ban mince pies. Whether he was offended by their royalist history – a giant mince pie was served at the coronation of Henry V – or just didn’t like their distinctive taste is unclear, but nonetheless, they were gone for the duration!

But now that Cromwell’s long gone, London Treasure Hunts is free to say to all our readers and hunters – a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy 2011!

Dan Leno and the birth of the pantomime dame

We’ve briefly mentioned Dan Leno, AKA the King’s Jester on this blog before. He was a Vaudevillian act of immense popularity, famous in the Victorian era for his clog-dancing, singing and his Pantomime Dames.

Music Halls were a unique form of entertainment; they were very quick-change sketch shows consisting of songs, dance and comedy. Performers frequently indulged in cross-dressing and acrobatics were also a popular part of the act.

Leno was born George Galvin into an already theatrical family – his father was a comedian, his mother a vocalist. When his father died young, Galvin’s mother remarried one Will Leno, from whom George was to eventually take his stage name.

With such a pedigree, it’s not surprising that George was performing from a young age, in scenes which sound suspiciously like Don Lockwood’s vaudevillian rise to fame in Singing in the Rain. He quickly rose to the top of the bill and at the height of his popularity in the 1880s he would perform at anything between three and 20 music halls each evening.

Popular performers would be placed at different points of the bill in different music halls, giving them the chance to get between the various locations.

Dan Leno was a World Champion Clog Dancer, a form of dance that combines folk and tap traditions. Even more remarkable, despite his ability to command some of the biggest stages in England, and his larger than life persona, Leno was only 5ft 3”.

Leno was central to the development of Victorian pantomime, from which originated many of the hallmarks of today’s Christmas theatre. He became attached to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1887; and between Christmas and Easter for the next 16 years, he could be seen playing any one of a number of dames, from Mother Goose to Widow Twankey.

Today the Dame is an integral part of pantomime, played by talented comic performers in outrageous costumes. Our interpretation, and expectation, of how a dame should perform is largely dictated by Leno’s work during his time at Drury Lane, when he essentially created the modern pantomime dame. He was the first ever Mother Goose, after the role was written for him, bringing topical humour, and sly innuendo to the role, along with his own brand of wit. 

It’s for this reason we’re featuring Leno on the blog at this time of year, as there’s nothing like a dame!

By the time he was commanded to perform for the King in 1901, Leno was known as The Funniest Man on Earth. Unfortunately there was very little comedy in his death, which was tragically young. Leno suffered a mental breakdown in 1903 and died soon afterwards aged just 43. His death certificate listed insanity, some murmured syphilis; modern medicine thinks he probably suffered from a brain tumour.

His funeral was public and on a scale normally reserved for royalty and military commanders, with crowds flocking to see his funeral procession. He was interred in Lambeth Cemetery and his grave, with the epitaph King of Laughter-Makers, can still be visited today.

We’re not much for advertising on this blog – but if you want a truly remarkable, fictionalised account of Leno’s character and life, wrapped up in one of the most startling murder mysteries ever created, London Hunts can highly recommend Peter Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. Just don’t read it when you’re sleeping alone...

For more hidden London visit London Treasure Hunts.

All the fun of the (Frost) Fair

As the snow hits London, everyone begins to grumble about how cold it is, and how difficult the commute. Still, at least the Thames hasn’t frozen over! Not this year anyway. It used to though – on a pretty regular basis, which was a bit of a pain as most of London’s trade was conducted by water. The Thames was the city’s lifeblood. Still, rather than get upset about it, Londoners made the most of the enforced break from work, creating impromptu ‘Frost Fairs’ on the frozen river.

The medieval London Bridge slowed the water current down to such a speed that in cold weather it was able to freeze over. The first sign that a frost fair was on its way was the gathering of ice around the legs of the old bridge, this further blocked the current and the freeze spread across the river. The process was helped as the world was in a ‘little ice age’ during the period the fairs lasted – roughly the late 16^th to early nineteenth centuries. The last fair was in 1814.

The first Frost Fairs were little more than an excuse for a community game of football on the ice, but as the fairs became an annual occurrence, they also became a fully blown fairground, with refreshments, souvenirs, sideshows and attractions all forming part of London’s favourite winter day out.

The ferrymen, put out of work by the river’s inconvenient freezing, instead made their money by destroying the ice at the water’s edge, except for ‘approved fair entrances’, where they set up toll booths, charging a small fee to let people onto the ice.

Popular attractions would include whole hog or ox roasts, puppet shows, and stalls selling souvenir certificates. Even royalty got involved, Charles II bought a certificate on the ice, Henry VIII used to travel along the river by sleigh from his palace at Hampton Court to participate and Elizabeth I would take to the ice for shooting practice at the fairs.  

The last ice fair, in February 1814, took an exotic twist when an elephant was led across the ice, just below Blackfriars Bridge. After this, changes in the design of London Bridge, and the end of the Little Ice Age meant the Thames no longer froze, although Bankside hosts a land-based equivalent every year in December to commemorate the events.