Month: October 2021

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31st October 2021 HALLOWEEN

From the Perpetual Almanack of Folklore by Charles Knightly

This blog is to celebrate the Year. I will post, hopefully, once a day so we can follow the seasons, as they happen naturally, and as people in Britain and Ireland have responded to the changes in the year.

I start today because Samhain (pronouced Sow-in) was the beginning of the year for the Gaelic world. It may mean Summer’s End. In Wales it is Calan Gaeaf (first day of winter) and Kala Goafiv (beginning of November in Brittany.

When Venus and Adonis meet the world flourishes and is bright and warm. Adonis is injured hurting a wild boar, against his lover’s advice, and descends to the underworld, and nature withers and dies until he comes back again on May Day. There is a similar story in Babylon of Ishtah and Tammuz.

Julius Caesar says the Gauls venerated the Dis Pater God on this day – the Roman one was an aspect of Pluto the God of the Underworld, ruler of the Dead. There was a Roman Festival on calends of November dedicated to Pomona, the goddess of the fruit of trees. This may influence the use of Apples which are prominent on Halloween festivals.

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ZEPPELIN NIGHTS – VIRTUAL WALKS ON REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

A silhouette of a Zeppelin caught in searchlights over the City of London

ZEPPELIN NIGHTS – VIRTUAL WALK FOR REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
Sunday 14 November 2021 6.30pm

We follow the route of a Zeppelin Raid through London. On the way we discover London in World War 1

On the night of September 8th Kapitanleutnant Henreich Mathy pilotted Zeppelin L 13 across Central London dropping bombs as they went. The trail of destruction lead from University College London, via Russell Sq….. to Gray’s Inn, Farringdon St, Smithfield and out past Liverpool Street to the East End.  The walk follows the route taken by the Zeppelin and looks at Central London during World War 1.

Before World War One London was the centre of the largest Empire the world had ever known. It was the first great era of globalisation; international trade and finance was booming. London was full of the mega-rich but poverty and sub-standard housing was extensive. Inner London was still the home of Industry, and home to large immigrant communities. Political dissent was widespread with the Labour Party beginning to erode the Liberal Party’s power base, and the issue of suffrage was rocking society. Then, catastrophe as ‘the lights went out all over Europe’.

How would the War affect London? How would Londoners cope with this terrifying new form of warfare – death from above?

We begin our virtual tour at Russell Square Tube and follow the path of the bombing raid to Liverpool Street, looking at London, before, during and after World War One.

To Book:

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Geffrye Statue – protests ramp up

My local museum is being boycotted because it failed to pull down the statue of a prominent slavery. They wanted to but the Government put them under undue financial pressure to keep him in his place of glory.

To read more follow this line:

Campaigners ramp up museum boycott with calls for teachers and families to join them until slaver statue is removed
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