A Coddiwomple in the Big Smoke

Gladly Golightly is my Professional Companion who accompanies me on Adventures. To the casual observer he looks like a rather grubby, and sticky, small teddy bear with black, beady eyes and a cheeky grin. He sneaks into my pocket, if there are mint humbugs left over from a moment of indulgence, so he can 'save me from myself'. Likewise, no sandwich, slice of cake or bag of chips can be hidden from Predator Bear. It can make for hungry travelling.

'Where we goin'?' He scooped a blob of peanut butter out of the jar and licked it off his paw with his long and strangely coloured tongue.

'The Big Smoke.' Should I take a brolly? The sky looked like a sheet of lead, ready to clump down on our unprotected heads. I decided on a mac instead, a Bear, a brolly and a bag, with double sandwiches, were enough to deal with on the streets of London. 'I thought we could walk to Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. There's lots of famous people pushing up daisies there.'

'Coo!' Himself loves travelling by train. 'That means Liverpool Street Station.' He grabbed my smartphone and left peanut butter smears on the screen as he accessed the train app. 'There's one an hour.' A few more stabs. 'Didja know that John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and Oliver Cromwell, are all buried there?' I did. That was why we were going. The authors of Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, a poet and artist and the bloke who ruled England as the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth after our Civil War were probably getting ready to have a good roll in their graves. Not to mention the other untold thousands, the area has been a grave site since Saxon times and a proper graveyard since 1665. With an estimated 123,000 internments it closed in 1854. 'And the name Bunhill is derived from Bone Hill.' He warbled a few lines of dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. If they all did the grave roll at the same time, we were going to need ear defenders.

As London railway stations go, Liverpool Street is not spectacular. Not big, not small, busy because it is in the City of London, near the Bank of England, St Paul's Cathedral and sitting on top of two thousand years of history. Our first photo stop was just outside the station, there is a sculpture of a group of forlorn children and their meagre belongings watching people bustle by. It is called 'The Arrival.'

'Where are their mums and dads?' Gladly may look fierce, at times, but he is a bit of a softie. I suppose being stuffed with stuff does that to you.

'They were left behind in Nazi Germany.' The Kindertransport was organised in the months before World War Two, Jewish children were rescued and given homes here. I had to explain to Tearful Bear about the Holocaust, concentration camps and Hitler.

'I don't get it.' He said slowly. He does not understand war. And, to be honest, Gentle Reader, I am with him on that. He ruminated on the follies of hoomuns all the way down Sun Street. Some of the road's name must have rubbed off on him because, by the time we came to City Street, he was his usual cheerfully obnoxious self. 'Take a right.' He commanded. 'It's up there somewhere.' I checked the map. It is not unknown for Navigator Bear to go the pretty way, in defiance of all logic. This time he was right. Phew!

It was still early-ish and the last of the commuters were scurrying to their glass and concrete prisons, leaving us tourists as kings, queens and Bears of the pavements. Before we found the cemetery we came upon an old fortress-like building built of pale stone, with round towers and a huge gate. Just as we drew level with it, the doors swung open and soldiers marched out, dressed in buff jerkins, wide-brimmed plumed hats and with muskets over their shoulders. These were members of the Honourable Artillery Company, marching out briskly. Most of them were slightly portly and greybearded.

'Blimey!' Gladly exclaimed. 'They look like Civil War sodjers.' I write it as he says it. He may not get war, and all that, but he does like a bit of pomp and parade. We watched them left, right, left, to the beat of a drum then the barrack gates closed and they disappeared down City Street. Bunhill Fields cemetery was next door.

The battleship grey sky of earlier had sailed off, leaving behind blue with a few whispy clouds. The sun flickered through them, bouncing off the golds and browns of autumn leaves tessellating the flagstones of the walkways between railed off collections of tombstones. Grey squirrels scampered around, collecting acorns, horse chestnuts and stray bits of sandwich. Overhead, equally grey pigeons flapped quick circles, ready to thieve bread from under the noses of unwary squirrels. Rats of the air, my Cockney friend calls them. Be not fooled, Gentle Reader, pigeons are not loved by Londoners and feeding them for tuppence a bag is a big no-no.

'There's loadsa them Cromwells 'ere.' I ducked as the Grammar Police whirred overhead. A Gladly paw flapped at a marble tomb that looked like a giant shoebox. 'That's where Isaac Watts is. He was the Father of English Hymnody!' I was the recipient of a blank gaze. I had no idea what English Hymnody is either. It was time to wander on. Bunhill Fields is now a nature reserve and a city garden and a lot smaller than I expected it to be.

All too soon we popped out of the other side and found ourselves bimbling along a quiet and deserted back street. That is to say, quiet and deserted except for some raucous twenty-somethings dressed as bees, butterflies, an aviator in gold lamé with a golden flying helmet and goggles alongside his two mates running around in a bright yellow tiger moth plane. Gladly Golightly looked at me with his eyebrows raised. Since he freezes up and falls dumb in unknown company it was up to me to ask.

'It's the Lord Mayor's Show today.' The lad who answered my query plainly thought I was a country bumpkin come to oogle at the Big City and be overawed by the percipacity of young, rich and ambitious bees, butterflies, aeroplanes and pilots in gold lamé bodysuits. Riiighhht.

'It was all King John's fault.' History Bear piped up. 'He must have been distracted by Robin Hood 'coz he let the City of London appoint its own Mayor.' He rolled his beady eyes. 'Mind you, he did insist that each newly elected Mayor traipse over to Westminster and swear loyalty to the Crown. Naturally, people joined in the trip and over the 800 years since then it's grown into a whacking great parade as wot became The Lord Mayor's Show.' We certainty had picked a good day to come up to town.

Meanwhile, the nether regions were making rumbling noises and Himself was making whining noises like a rusty wheel. He poked the picnic bag meaningfully and tried his piteous stare. I thought he rather resembled a gargoyle. I decided to ignore him. It did not work but a humbug applied to the mouth stopped his nonsense for a while. The plan was to go down Bunhill Row, keep on, along Moor Lane and, eventually find London Wall. We got there in the end, mainly by missing out the 'pretty sites' and 'interesting alleys'.

London Wall is one of the arterial roads through this part of the city. As the name suggests, it follows the line of the old city wall and, if you have the energy, you can walk along it and see sections of the wall still standing. But not today. The blood sugar was dropping and the plan was to picnic in Finsbury Circus, one of the many London Gardens. Incidentally, Gentle Reader, didja(!) know that London is, officially, a City Forest? It is the world's biggest urban forest. So, there you go. After munchies, eaten on a damp bench under a massive plane tree with leaves the size of saucers, one of which covered a Grumpy Bear in a wet embrace, we set off on a coddiwomple.*

Ask not our route, but look at a map if you must. This is the City of London, the oldest part, a mere square mile, with roads with names like Throgmorton Street, Threadneedle Street, (Home of the Royal Exchange.), Cornhill and Gracechurch Street. It is all mainly heavyweight office blocks dating from way back, some still pock-marked from Blitz shrapnel. The Blitz was when, night after night, Hitler's bombers tried to destroy London. Some buildings, like St Paul's Cathedral miraculously survived, many others were burned to the ground. So, amongst the neo-classic and Victorian edifices are modern glass skyscrapers. A right hotch-potch that makes the best city in the world.

'Whazzat?' A Gladly paw pointed at a tall, white column, topped by gilded ball of flame. The Monument. It marks the place where the Great Fire of 1666 started. Pudding Lane. It is still there but the buildings are stone and not roofed with thatch. That was banned after the city was cinderised. 'Are we going up it?' I thought of the 311 steps up a spiral staircase and shook my head. A marvellous view, when you finally sweat your way to the top. I distracted him with a sit-down in a cafe and a cuppa.

'If we make our way to St Paul's, we might be able to see the last part of the Lord Mayor's Parade.' That took his eyes off the Monument. 'I reckon it's not far to London Bridge, then we can take the Thames Path to the Millennium Footbridge. You can see the cathedral from there.'

'Do you think we'll see the bridge open?' He snuck half my muffin and crammed it in his chops before I could say, 'Xertzing Bear!'*

'I hope not.' That earned The Look. 'It's Tower Bridge that opens.' I think he said that he knew that but it was disguised by a shower of crumbs.

What can I say about Old Father Thames? The tide was out, revealing a narrow strip of gravel and mud on each side of a broad, whirling waterway. River craft whizzed along, big water taxis, a string of barges being tugged to the estuary, an orange lifeboat out on a shout. When I was a kid, if you fell in the river, they took you straight to hospital, pumped out your stomach and pumped in antibiotics. Nowadays they tell you off for getting wet. There was even a stray white whale swimming around there a few years ago. No Pequod or Captain Ahab, though. We brisked our way along, it was a bit of a weave through ambling tourists, but made it to Godliman Street in time to see the tail end of the Parade passing by.

'Look! Look! Look!' Excited Bear wriggled so much that he nearly tumbled to the ground. 'It's them wot we saw earlier! They don't look so spry now, do they?' It was the contingent of Honourable Artillery that had been stepping out so jauntily this morning. They still marched on, now with grim determination, perspiration dripping down their brows, their heavy muskets denting their shoulders and limping on blistered feet. But their heads were high. They were soldiers of the Queen. On parade.

Mind you. I think they might have envied myself and the Bear catching a big red London bus back to our start point.

*Coddiwomple: to travel purposefully with no particular destination in mind.
*xertz: To gulp down quickly and greedily

1966 words