TOWER BRIDGE IS OPENED IN LONDON IN JUNE, 30 1894

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Tower Bridge, the bridge in London built between 1886 and 1894, that was opened on a day like today in 1894.

Tower Bridge is a combined bascule and suspension bridge in London built between 1886 and 1894. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and has become an iconic symbol of London, resulting in it sometimes being confused with London Bridge, situated some 0.80 km upstream. 

Tower Bridge is one of five London bridges now owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. It is the only one of the Trust's bridges not to connect the City of London directly to the Southwark bank, as its northern landfall is in Tower Hamlets.

More information: Tower Bridge

The bridge consists of two bridge towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, designed to withstand the horizontal tension forces exerted by the suspended sections of the bridge on the landward sides of the towers. The vertical components of the forces in the suspended sections and the vertical reactions of the two walkways are carried by the two robust towers.

The bridge deck is freely accessible to both vehicles and pedestrians, whereas the bridge's twin towers, high-level walkways and Victorian engine rooms form part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition, for which an admission charge is made. 

The bridge was officially opened on 30 June 1894 by The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, and his wife, The Princess of Wales, Alexandra of Denmark.

The high-level open air walkways between the towers gained an unpleasant reputation as a haunt for prostitutes and pickpockets; as they were only accessible by stairs they were seldom used by regular pedestrians, and were closed in 1910.

The bascule pivots and operating machinery are housed in the base of each tower. Before its restoration in the 2010s, the bridge's colour scheme dated from 1977, when it was painted red, white and blue for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. Its colours were subsequently restored to blue and white.

More information: Daily Mail

 

 

 The lowest and vilest alleys of London 

do not present a more dreadful record of sin 

than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. 

Arthur Conan Doyle

ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, PRIDE OF LONDON SINCE 1697

Today, The Weasleys & The Grandma have visited St Paul's Cathedral, and they have said goodbye to Yamina Newton-Weasley, who has decided to follow her faith and become a new member of the Anglican Church. God guides Yamina! Before this visit, the family has studied Present Simple vs Continuous.

 

 More information: Present Simple vs Present Continuous

 

More information: Password

 

Download Crosswords & Wordsearch

 

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London.

It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London.

The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London. Its dome, framed by the spires of Wren's City churches, has dominated the skyline for over 300 years. At 111 metres high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1967. The dome is among the highest in the world. St Paul's is the second-largest church building in area in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral.

Services held at St Paul's have included the funerals of Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Baroness Thatcher; jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer; the launch of the Festival of Britain; and the thanksgiving services for the Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees and the 80th and 90th birthdays of Queen Elizabeth II. St Paul's Cathedral is the central subject of much promotional material, as well as of images of the dome surrounded by the smoke and fire of the Blitz.

A list of the 16 archbishops of London was recorded by Jocelyn of Furness in the 12th century, claiming London's Christian community was founded in the 2nd century under the legendary King Lucius and his missionary saints Fagan, Deruvian, Elvanus and Medwin. None of that is considered credible by modern historians but, although the surviving text is problematic, either Bishop Restitutus or Adelphius at the 314 Council of Arles seems to have come from Londinium. The location of Londinium's original cathedral is unknown.

More information: St Paul's Cathedral

Bede records that in AD 604 Augustine of Canterbury consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht's uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new bishop. It is assumed, although not proved, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the later medieval and the present cathedrals.

On the death of Sæberht in about 616, his pagan sons expelled Mellitus from London, and the East Saxons reverted to paganism. The fate of the first cathedral building is unknown.

Christianity was restored among the East Saxons in the late 7th century and it is presumed that either the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was restored or a new building erected as the seat of bishops such as Cedd, Wine and Earconwald, the last of whom was buried in the cathedral in 693. 

This building, or a successor, was destroyed by fire in 962, but rebuilt in the same year. King Æthelred the Unready was buried in the cathedral on his death in 1016; his tomb is lost. The cathedral was burnt, with much of the city, in a fire in 1087, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The present structure of St Peter upon Cornhill was designed by Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London in 1666. It stands upon the highest point in the area of old Londinium, and medieval legends tie it to the city's earliest Christian community. 

In 1995, however, a large and ornate 5th-century building on Tower Hill was excavated, which might have been the city's cathedral.

On 2 December 1697, 31 years and 3 months after the Great Fire destroyed Old St Paul's, the new cathedral was consecrated for use. The Right Reverend Henry Compton, Bishop of London, preached the sermon. It was based on the text of Psalm 122, I was glad when they said unto me: Let us go into the house of the Lord. The first regular service was held on the following Sunday.

More information: Standard

I wonder, by my troth, 

what thou and I did till we loved?

John Donne

TRAFALGAR SQUARE, PAST HISTORY IN CHARING CROSS

Today, The Weasleys & The Grandma have visited Trafalgar Square, the public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, that was established in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. Before this visit, the family has studied Present Continuous.

 

More info: Present Continuous

The Square's name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar. The site around Trafalgar Square had been a significant landmark since the 1200s. For centuries, distances measured from Charing Cross have served as location markers. The site of the present square formerly contained the elaborately designed, enclosed courtyard, King's Mews. After George IV moved the mews to Buckingham Palace, the area was redeveloped by John Nash, but progress was slow after his death, and the square did not open until 1844.

The 52 m Nelson's Column at its centre is guarded by four lion statues. A number of commemorative statues and sculptures occupy the square, but the Fourth Plinth, left empty since 1840, has been host to contemporary art since 1999. Prominent buildings facing the square include the National Gallery, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Canada House, and South Africa House.

The square has been used for community gatherings and political demonstrations, including Bloody Sunday in 1887, the culmination of the first Aldermaston March, anti-war protests, and campaigns against climate change. 

A Christmas tree has been donated to the square by Norway since 1947 and is erected for twelve days before and after Christmas Day. The square is a centre of annual celebrations on New Year's Eve. It was well known for its feral pigeons until their removal in the early 21st century.

The square is named after the Battle of Trafalgar, a British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars with France and Spain that took place on 21 October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar, southwest Spain, although it was not named as such until 1835.

The name Trafalgar is a Spanish word of Arabic origin, derived from either Taraf al-Ghar (طرف الغار cape of the cave/laurel) or Taraf al-Gharb (طرف الغرب extremity of the west).

Trafalgar Square is owned by the King in Right of the Crown and managed by the Greater London Authority, while Westminster City Council owns the roads around the square, including the pedestrianised area of the North Terrace.

The square contains a large central area with roadways on three sides and a terrace to the north, in front of the National Gallery. The roads around the square form part of the A4, a major road running west of the City of London. Originally having roadways on all four sides, traffic travelled in both directions around the square until a one-way clockwise gyratory system was introduced on 26 April 1926. Works completed in 2003 reduced the width of the roads and closed the northern side to traffic.

Nelson's Column is in the centre of the square, flanked by fountains designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens between 1937 and 1939 (replacements for two of Peterhead granite, now in Canada) and guarded by four monumental bronze lions sculpted by Sir Edwin Landseer. At the top of the column is a statue of Horatio Nelson, who commanded the British Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Surrounding the square are the National Gallery on the north side and St Martin-in-the-Fields Church to the east. Also on the east is South Africa House, and facing it across the square is Canada House. To the south west is The Mall, which leads towards Buckingham Palace via Admiralty Arch, while Whitehall is to the south and the Strand to the east. Charing Cross Road passes between the National Gallery and the church.

Building work on the south side of the square in the late 1950s revealed deposits from the last interglacial period. Among the findings were the remains of cave lions, rhinoceroses, straight-tusked elephants and hippopotami.

The site has been significant since the 13th century. During Edward I's reign it hosted the King's Mews, running north from the T-junction in the south, Charing Cross, where the Strand from the City meets Whitehall coming north from Westminster. From the reign of Richard II to that of Henry VII, the mews was at the western end of the Strand. The name Royal Mews comes from the practice of keeping hawks here for moulting; mew is an old word for this. After a fire in 1534, the mews were rebuilt as stables, and remained here until George IV moved them to Buckingham Palace.

More information: London x London

I've often thought a blind man could find his way
through London simply by gauging
the changes in innuendo:
mild through Trafalgar Square,
less veiled towards the river.

Louis Bayard

URBAN NOISE & HEARING LOSS, LABOUR RISKS IN LDN

Today, The Grandma has been reading about noise and hearing loss, two of the big problems four our health in big cities.

Loud noise at work can damage workers hearing. This usually happens gradually and it may only be when the damage caused by noise combines with hearing loss due to ageing that people realize how impaired their hearing has become.

Why is dealing with noise important?

Noise at work can cause hearing damage that is permanent and disabling. This can be gradual, from exposure to noise over time, but damage can also be caused by sudden, extremely loud, noises. The damage is disabling in that it can stop people being able to understand speech, keep up with conversations or use the telephone.

Hearing loss is not the only problem. People may develop tinnitus (ringing, whistling, buzzing or humming in the ears), a distressing condition which can lead to disturbed sleep.

Noise at work can interfere with communications and make warnings harder to hear. It can also reduce a person’s awareness of his or her surroundings. These factors can lead to safety risks – putting people at risk of injury or death.

How can employers assess if they have a noise problem?

Employers will probably need to do something about the noise if any of the following apply:

-the noise is intrusive – like a busy street, a vacuum cleaner or a crowded restaurant, or worse than intrusive, for most of the working day;

-their workers have to raise their voices to have a normal conversation when about 2 metres apart for at least part of the day;

-their workers use noisy powered tools or machinery for more than half an hour a day;

-their sector is one known to have noisy tasks, e.g. construction, demolition or road repair, woodworking, plastics processing, engineering, textile manufacture, general fabrication, forging or stamping, paper or board making, canning or bottling, foundries, waste and recycling;

-there are noises due to impacts (such as hammering, drop forging, pneumatic impact tools etc.), explosive sources such as cartridge-operated tools or detonators, or guns.

Situations where employers will need to consider safety issues in relation to noise include where:

-they use warning sounds to avoid or alert to dangerous situations;

-working practices rely on verbal communications;

-there is work around mobile machinery or traffic.

How can employers control noise?

There are many ways of reducing noise and noise exposure. Nearly all businesses can decide on practical, cost-effective actions to control noise risks.

First, employers can think about how to remove the source of noise altogether, for example housing a noisy machine where it cannot be heard by workers. If that is not possible, they can investigate:

-using quieter equipment or a different, quieter process;

-engineering/technical controls to reduce at source the noise produced by a machine or process;

-using screens, barriers, enclosures and absorbent materials to reduce the noise on its path to the people exposed;

-designing and laying out the workplace to create quiet workstations;

-limiting the time people spend in noisy areas.

Choosing quieter equipment and machinery

Employers should consider noise alongside other factors (e.g. general suitability, efficiency) when hiring or buying equipment. They should compare the noise data from different machines, as this will help them to buy from among the quieter ones.

When should personal hearing protection be used?

Hearing protection should be issued to workers:

-where extra protection is needed above what has been achieved using noise control;

-for short-term protection, while other methods of controlling noise are being developed.

Employers should not use hearing protection as an alternative to controlling noise by technical and organizational means.

Workers to whom you provide hearing protection should receive training in how to use it.

Detecting damage to hearing

If the risk assessment indicates that there is a risk to health for workers exposed to noise, they should be placed under suitable health surveillance (regular hearing checks).

More information: Napo Film

 The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.

Benjamin Franklin

BOROUGH MARKET, SELLING FOOD SINCE THE 12 CENTURY

Today, The Weasleys & The Grandma have visited Borough Market, one of the largest and oldest food markets in London located in Southwark.

Before, the family has been studying Countable & Uncountable nouns and Imperative, and they have written some recipes.

More information: Imperative

More information: Some/Any - Much/Many / A Lot Of

More information: Countable & Uncountable

Borough Market is a wholesale and retail market hall in Southwark, London, England. 

It is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London, with a market on the site dating back to at least the 12th century. The present buildings were built in the 1850s, and today the market mainly sells specialty foods to the general public.

The market itself claims to have existed since 1014 and probably much earlier as Snorri Sturluson describes Southwark as a great market town when describing an incident in Heimskringla dated to 1014. A market that originally adjoined the end of London Bridge was first mentioned in 1276 and was subsequently moved south of St Margaret's church on the High Street.

The City of London received a royal charter from Edward VI in 1550 to control all markets in Southwark, which was confirmed by Charles II in 1671. However, the market caused such traffic congestion that, in 1754, it was abolished by an Act of Parliament.

The Act allowed for the local parishioners to set up another market on a new site, and in 1756, it began again on a 18,000 m2 site in Rochester Yard. During the 19th century, it became one of London's most important food markets due to its strategic position near the riverside wharves of the Pool of London.

By the mid 1990s the market had declined and trustees decided to revive it as a retail rather than a wholesale market.

In 1998, they invited Henrietta Green to hold a Food Lovers' Fair, which recruited several long-term traders for the market. 

From 1996, they let unused space to wholesale businesses such as Neal's Yard Dairy, Brindisa and Monmouth Coffee Company. The new tenants were encouraged to open their premises to retail customers.

In 2011, seven traders were expelled from the market for trading from their storage units at Maltby Street Market a mile away. In turn the traders criticised poor facilities at the market and a move to selling takeaway food.

More information: Borough Market

Borough Market is located on Southwark Street and Borough High Street just south of Southwark Cathedral on the southern end of London Bridge.

The retail market operates six days per week; it is closed on Mondays.

The present buildings were designed in 1851 by Henry Rose, with additions in the 1860s and an entrance designed in the Art Deco style added on Southwark Street in 1932. Significant changes to the buildings have been made over the years as a result of successive expansions to the nearby railway infrastructure; see Railway viaducts and the Thameslink Programme.

A refurbishment began in 2001. The Work includes the re-erection in 2004 of the South Portico from the Floral Hall, previously at Covent Garden, which was dismantled when the Royal Opera House was reconstructed in the 1990s. The original Convent Garden building was listed and the resited portico was Grade II listed in 2008.

The present-day market mainly sells speciality foods to the general public. However, in the 20th century, it was essentially a wholesale market, selling produce in quantity to greengrocers. It was the main supplier, along with Covent Garden, of fruits and vegetables to retail greengrocers' shops. Amongst the notable businesses trading in the market were Vitacress, Lee Brothers (potato merchants whose signage can still be seen in the market), Manny Sugarman, AW Bourne and Eddy Robbins. JO Sims, the main importer for South African citrus fruit (Outspan), were also located in the market.

Stallholders come to trade at the market from different parts of the UK, and traditional European products are also imported and sold. Amongst the produce on sale are fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, meat, game, baked bread and pastries.

The market is a charitable trust administered by a board of volunteer trustees, who have to live in the area.

From 1860, the railway operating companies desired to extend services from London Bridge station into new stations at Cannon Street and Blackfriars in the City and link to the West End at Charing Cross Station. This required a viaduct, but legally, it was impossible by the 1756 Borough Market Act for the Trustees to alienate their property. The compromise was that only a flying leasehold was given to the railway company for the permanent way, but only for as long as a railway operates on it. The Market continues to trade underneath the arches of the viaduct. Each time there is a railway expansion requiring widening of the viaduct, the Trustees receive a full compensation payment.

Most recently, as part of the Thameslink Programme, a large number of listed buildings in the Borough Market area have been altered or demolished. The market building on Bedale Street south-side has had its upper floors removed, as has the Wheatsheaf public house on Stoney Street, for the new railway bridge to cross over them. The remaining floors have been re-occupied.

The old Market glazed roof on Stoney Street has been re-instated and cleaned. A significant loss was the Smirke Terrace, Nos 16–26 Borough High Street, demolished in 2010.

More information: Walks

Agriculture is not crop production as popular belief holds

-it's the production of food and fiber

from the world's land and waters.

Without agriculture it is not possible to have a city,

stock market, banks, university, church or army.

Agriculture is the foundation of civilization

and any stable economy.

Allan Savory

ALFRED JOSEPH HITCHCOCK, THE MASTER OF SUSPENSE

Today, The Grandma has been relaxing and watching some films directed by Alfred Hitchcock one of the greatest directors of the last century known as the Master of Suspense.

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899-29 April 1980) was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.

Known as the Master of Suspense, he directed over 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing of the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1965). His films garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

Born in Leytonstone, London, Hitchcock entered the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer after training as a technical clerk and copy writer for a telegraph-cable company. He made his directorial debut with the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden (1925).

More information: Mental Floss

His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), helped to shape the thriller genre, while his 1929 film, Blackmail, was the first British talkie. Two of his 1930s thrillers, The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century.

By 1939, Hitchcock was a filmmaker of international importance, and film producer David O. Selznick persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946). 

Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director; he was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), although he never won the Best Director Academy Award.

The Hitchcockian style includes the use of camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into voyeurs, and framing shots to maximise anxiety and fear.

The film critic Robin Wood wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M For Murder (1954).

By 1960 Hitchcock had directed four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations.

In 2012, Vertigo replaced Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) as the British Film Institute's greatest film ever made based on its world-wide poll of hundreds of film critics.

By 2018 eight of his films had been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, including his personal favourite, Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 1971, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979 and was knighted in December that year, four months before he died.

More information: The Hitchcock Zone

Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in the flat above his parents' leased grocer's shop at 517 High Road, Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, then part of Essex, the youngest of three children.

When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures.

Hitchcock worked on Woman to Woman (1923) with the director Graham Cutts, designing the set, writing the script and producing. He said: It was the first film that I had really got my hands onto.

The editor and script girl on Woman to Woman was Alma Reville, his future wife. He also worked as an assistant to Cutts on The White Shadow (1924), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard (1925), and The Prude's Fall (1925). The Blackguard was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, where Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions.

Hitchcock began work on his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), when its production company, British International Pictures (BIP), converted its Elstree studios to sound.

The film was the first British talkie; this followed the rapid development of sound films in the United States, from the use of brief sound segments in The Jazz Singer autumn of 1927 to the first full sound feature The Lights of New York (1928).

Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word knife in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder.

During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP revue, Elstree Calling (1930), and directed a short film, An Elastic Affair (1930), featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners. An Elastic Affair is one of the lost films.

The Selznick picture Rebecca (1940) was Hitchcock's first American film, set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier. The film won Best Picture at the 13th Academy Awards; the statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer. Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director, his first of five such nominations.

More information: Thought

Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer and director. It is set in England; Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz for the English coastline sequence. The film is the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role.

Hitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film.

I Confess was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955)

Hitchcock moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr.

From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In 1955 Hitchcock became a United States citizen. The same year, his third Grace Kelly film, To Catch a Thief, was released; it is set in the French Riviera, and pairs Kelly with Cary Grant. Grant plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera.

A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him.  
Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success. It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and ended her film career.

Hitchcock then remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. This time, the film starred James Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song Que Sera, Sera, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a big hit for her. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Psycho (1960) is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film. Based on Robert Bloch's novel Psycho (1959), which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein.

The film scholar Peter William Evans writes that The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964) are regarded as undisputed masterpieces. Hitchcock had intended to film Marnie first, and in March 1962 it was announced that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco since 1956, would come out of retirement to star in it.

More information: News1

Failing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal forced two movies on him, Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969). Both were spy thrillers with Cold War-related themes.

Torn Curtain, with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the 12-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock was unhappy with Herrmann's score and replaced him with John Addison, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Topaz (1967), based on a Leon Uris novel, is partly set in Cuba. Both films received mixed reviews.

Hitchcock returned to Britain to make his penultimate film, Frenzy (1972), based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (1966). After two espionage films, the plot marked a return to the murder-thriller genre. 

Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect in the investigation into the Necktie Murders, which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites as in Strangers on a Train.

His last public appearance was on 16 March 1980, when he introduced the next year's winner of the American Film Institute award. He died of kidney failure the following month, on 29 April, in his Bel Air home.

More information: One News Box

Always make the audience suffer 

as much as possible.

Alfred Hitchcock

GUY FAWKES & THE FAILED GUNPOWDER PLOT OF 1605

Today, The Grandma -who is Andorran- celebrates Saint John (Sant Joan), the patron of the Catalan lands. It is a very beautiful night were people stay together celebrating the summer solstice eating coques, drinking cava and enjoying fires and fireworks.

The Grandma has remembered another historical event that had a relation with fire, the Gunpowder Plot in 1606, a failed assassination attempt against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes. They were prisioned, sentenced to death and executed on a day like today in 1606.

More information: BBC

Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated in York.

Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for mainland Europe, where he fought for Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years' War against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England. Wintour introduced him to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.

The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords; Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder which they stockpiled there. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He was questioned and tortured over the next few days and confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords.

 

Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of being hanged, drawn and quartered. He became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in the UK as Guy Fawkes Night since 5 November 1605, when his effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by fireworks.

Since the release of the 2006 film V for Vendetta, set in a dystopian United Kingdom, the use of the Guy Fawkes mask that appears in the film has become widespread internationally among anti-establishment protest groups, a kind of groups that fight for a better world where the 1% has not got more than the 99%.

The Gunpowder Plot was a failed assassination attempt against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.

The conspirators' aim was to blow up the House of Lords at the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, while the king and many other important members of the aristocracy and nobility were inside. The conspirator who became most closely associated with the plot in the popular imagination was Guy Fawkes, who had been assigned the task of lighting the fuse to the explosives.

More information: History

The young John Milton, in 1626 at the age of 17, wrote what one commentator has called a critically vexing poem, In Quintum Novembris. The work reflects partisan public sentiment on an English-Protestant national holiday, 5 November. In the published editions of 1645 and 1673, the poem is preceded by five epigrams on the subject of the Gunpowder Plot, apparently written by Milton in preparation for the larger work. Milton's imagination continued to be haunted by the Gunpowder Plot throughout his life, and critics have argued that it strongly influenced his later and more well-known poem, Paradise Lost.

William Harrison Ainsworth's 1841 historical romance Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder Treason, portrays Fawkes in a generally sympathetic light, although it also embellishes the known facts for dramatic effect. Ainsworth's novel transformed Fawkes into an acceptable fictional character, and Fawkes subsequently appeared in children's books and penny dreadfuls. One example of the latter is The Boyhood Days of Guy Fawkes, published in about 1905, which portrayed Fawkes as essentially an action hero.

With the phrase A penny for the Old Guy, Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot acknowledges Fawkes and the straw-man effigy burned every year on 5 November in an epigraph to his 1925 poem The Hollow Men.

The main character in the comic book series V for Vendetta, which started in 1982, and its 2006 film adaptation, wore a Guy Fawkes mask. In the comic and in the film, V succeeds in blowing up the Houses of Parliament on 5 November (1997 in the comic, 2021 in the film). 

Its film adaptation opening shows a dramatised depiction of Fawkes's arrest and execution, with Evey narrating the first lines of the poem of Guy Fawkes Night.

In the Doctor Who Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Plotters, the First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki become involved with the Gunpowder Plot when the Doctor visits to investigate, learning that the plot was aided by a member of the king's court -who intended to expose the plot and thus impose more stringent anti-Catholic measures- and a brotherhood of self-styled warlocks who hoped that they would gain power in the ensuing chaos if the plot succeeded.

In the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore, the school's headmaster, has a phoenix called Fawkes, named after Guy Fawkes. According to tradition, a phoenix burns when it reaches the end of its life.

In the novel Martin Chuzzlewit it is said that a member of the Chuzzlewit family was unquestionably involved in the Gunpowder Plot, and that Fawkes himself may indeed have been a scion of the family's remarkable stock.

More information: Historic UK

By the 19th century, Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot had begun to be used as the basis for pantomimes. One early example is Harlequin and Guy Fawkes: or, the 5th of November, which was performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, on 16 November 1835. After the Plot is discovered, Fawkes changes into Harlequin and Robert Catesby, the leader of the Plot, into Pantaloon, following which pure pantomime begins.

Fawkes also features in the pantomime Guy Fawkes, or a Match for a King, written by Albert Smith and William Hale and first performed in 1855. The opening scene shows an argument between Catesby and Fawkes over the fate of Lord Monteagle, the man who raised the alarm after receiving an anonymous letter warning him not to attend Parliament on 5 November 1605.

More information: History Extra

Catesby wants to save his friend Monteagle, but Fawkes, who regards him as an enemy, wants him blown up with the rest of the aristocracy. The two fight, at first with doubtful swords and then with bladders, before Fawkes is done. The remainder of the pantomime consists of clowns acting out various comic scenes unrelated to the Gunpowder Plot.

The play Guido Fawkes: or, the Prophetess of Ordsall Cave was based on early episodes of the serialised version of Ainsworth's 1841 novel.

Performed at the Queen's Theatre, Manchester, in June 1840, it portrayed Fawkes as a politically motivated sympathiser with the common people's cause.

Ainsworth's novel was translated to film in the 1923 production of Guy Fawkes, directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Matheson Lang as Fawkes.

Several traditional rhymes have accompanied the Guy Fawkes Night festivities. God Save the King can be replaced by God save the Queen depending on who is on the throne.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!

More information: National Geographic

In more common use the bonfire cry is occasionally altered with the last three lines (after burning match) supplanted by the following;

A traitor to the Crown by his action,
No Parli'ment mercy from any faction,
His just end should'st be grim,
What should we do? Burn him!
Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring,
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the King!

Some of the Bonfire Societies in the town of Lewes use a second verse reflecting the struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics. This was widely used, but due to its anti-Roman Catholic tone has fallen out of favour.

A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A fagot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

More information: History of York

A variant on the foregoing:

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason, why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
A stick or a stake for King James' sake
Will you please to give us a fagot
If you can't give us one, we'll take two;
The better for us and the worse for you!

Another piece of popular doggerel:
 

Guy, guy, guy
Poke him in the eye,
Put him on the bonfire,
And there let him die

Or, today used frequently, instead of Put him on the bonfire, Hang him on a lamppost. Another variant, sung by children in Lancashire whilst begging A Penny For The Guy:

Remember, remember the fifth of November
It's Gunpowder Plot, we never forgot
Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your purse
A ha'penny or a penny will do you no harm
Who's that knocking at the window?
Who's that knocking at the door?
It's little Mary Ann with a candle in her hand
And she's going down the cellar for some coal

More information: The Telegraph

The following is a South Lancashire song sung when knocking on doors asking for money to buy fireworks, or combustibles for a bonfire, known as Cob-coaling. There are many variations, this is a shorter one:

We come a Cob-coaling for Bonfire time,
Your coal and your money we hope to enjoy.
Fal-a-dee, fal-a-die, fal-a-diddly-i-do-day.
For down in yon' cellar there's an owd umberella
And up on yon' cornish there's an owd pepperpot.
Pepperpot! Pepperpot! Morning 'till night.
If you give us nowt, we'll steal nowt and bid you good night.
Up a ladder, down a wall, a cob o'coal would save us all.
If you don't have a penny a ha'penny will do.
If you don't have a ha'penny, then God bless you.
We knock at your knocker and ring at your bell
To see what you'll give us for singing so well.

More information: Mental Floss

From Calderdale: The Ryburn Valley Gunpowder Plot Nominy Song Calderdale had a plentiful store of rhymes and nominies, or short pieces of doggerel. Many of them were common to Yorkshire generally, where Gunpowder Plot rhymes were numerous.

Here comes three jolly rovers, all in one row.
We're coming a cob-coiling for t' Bon Fire Plot.
Bon Fire Plot from morning till night!
If you'll give us owt, we'll steal nowt, but bid you goodnight.
Fol-a-dee, fol-a-die, fol-a-diddle-die-do-dum!

(Repeated after each verse.)

The next house we come to is a sailor you see.
He sails over the ocean and over the sea,
Sailing from England to France and to Spain,
And now he's returning to England again.
The next house we come to is an old tinker's shop,
And up in one rook there's an old pepper-box-
An old pepper-box from morning till night-
If you'll give us owt, we'll steal nowt, but bid you good-night.

Since the release of the 2006 film V for Vendetta, set in a dystopian United Kingdom, the use of the Guy Fawkes mask that appears in the film has become widespread internationally among anti-establishment protest groups. 

The illustrator of the comic books on which the film was based, David Lloyd, has stated that the character V decided to adopt the persona and mission of Guy Fawkes -our great historical revolutionary.

More information: The Mary Sue

 

The Guy Fawkes mask has now become

a common brand and a convenient placard

to use in protest against tyranny

and I'm happy with people using it;

it seems quite unique,

an icon of popular culture being used this way.

David Lloyd