My Weekend As A Tourist in My Home Town



Home for the weekend

Okay, I know I'm from Romford but I've always felt at home in London, my family history on my father's side is, for three hundred years at least, concerned with the Borough of Tower Hamlets and I know the streets, back doubles and alleyways like the back of my hand.

I came up to town on Friday afternoon principally for the Kandinsky exhibition at Tate Modern and the Howard Hodgkin at Tate Britain. I was booked into the Tower Hotel for two nights and decided to be a tourist for two and a bit days before going home on Sunday afternoon.

The room at The Tower was functional, it had three telephones which struck me as a bit OTT, especially as one of them was in the loo!.

The view from room 550.

The one thing that I have never done when visiting London is to bring a camera, I've never felt the urge, well this time I decided to bring it all, digital camera, Mini DV recorded, tripod, leads for charging etc. If I was going to spend time sightseeing I may as well make the best visual record I could. If by chance anybody is reading this blog, I won't be publishing tourist photographs, we all know what Tower Bridge, Tower of London looks like, but I've included some shots of things that caught my eye.

I spent Friday night in Wapping, this is where one my great grandfather's settled at the end of the 19th century after moving from Suffolk. My grandmother (Mum's mum) grew up believing she was born in East Bergholt, it was only when I began my family history research in the early eighties that I found out she'd actually been born in Wapping after the family had moved, unfortunately my Nan had been dead for 10 years when I discovered this.

One thing that probably hasn't changed since the Victorian era is the potential for being robbed in the area. The signs on virtually every lamppost announcing that the Police are trying to stamp out street robbery wasn't the most reassuring bit of public information I've ever seen. This warning, combined with a total lack of any police presence and a couple of gangs of kids wandering aimlessly didn't exactly fill me with confidence, still there were plenty of people about.

Having walked along part of the Thames Path I decided to call in at the Town of Ramsgate pub for a drink, something to eat and to watch Germany v Argentina. The atmosphere was brilliant with everybody wanting Germany to win. I found this odd to begin with, given the bombing of the area some 60+ years ago and that the most vociferous German supporter was an East-ender who managed to begin and end every sentence with the word fucking, either as adjective or noun. It soon became clear however that the reason for this wasn't to do with 1982 being closer in the memory than 1940 but because of 1966, everybody was rooting for the Germans because they wanted the chance to replay the 1966 Final.

A group of German tourists came into the pub some point between the German equaliser and the start of extra time and they seemed pleased to have found so many like minded souls.

Modern art in Wapping High Street.

After the match I went out the back to the patio that overlooks the Thames and had my tea which was pretty good, especially as it was washed down with two pints of Youngs.

Saturday morning I was up at just after seven, which in itself was a surprise given the fact that my diabetes has made me almost allergic to alcohol and I'd probably drunk the equivalent of two months worth (yes I'm virtually teetotal these days) the previous night.

I walked along the south bank to Bankside, pausing to take photographs or shoot some video as the mood took me. One of the advantages that London has over little old Christchurch is the fact that you can get breakfast in a pub before 11 in the morning and so at just after nine o'clock I was seated in the Founders Arms, next to Blackfriars Bridge, waiting for the South African waitress to bring me my full English for £4.95 - this was £15 cheaper than my hotel was charging!

The Kandinsky was good, it's funny how the artists who are perceived as less user-friendly draw smaller crowds than the big favs. It was like this with Frida Kahlo and Edward Hopper, plenty of time and space to appreciate the works whereas the Turner, Whistler, Monet last year was so popular you could hardly breath as where exhibitions by Goya and Rembrandt to drop a couple of names.

Kandinsky's most famous painting 'Cossacks'

Then it was down to Tate Britain for the Howard Hodgkin exhibition. After the Hodgkin I decided to walk back via Westminster to see how the crowds were gathering in Trafalgar Square for the football, what I didn't realise was that it was the day of the Gay Pride march.

The noise was unbelievable, music turned up past 11, whistles, cheering, screaming it was organised chaos. At the front of the march were the Gay Police Officers Association who got a brilliant reception from the crowd. The whole atmosphere was brilliant and infectious.

I watched the England v Portugal match back at the hotel. The bar had two big screens and the people watching it were a mixture of England supporters, some Portugal supporters and the guests from a wedding who were a mixture of Pakistanis and British Asians who were all cheering England. The room fell silent whilst the National Anthems were played and there was some booing when Figo read out FIFA's anti-racism message, nobody suggested that Beckham's copy of the speech was in big Janet and John style letters.

After the match I went up to Charing Cross and via Trafalgar Square to Leicester Square where I caught but of Annie Lennox performance. It was one of those strange evenings you can only get in London, Gay Pride events going on and thousands of England supporters and Police on the streets. Compton Street was all to wall with gay men and the surrounding streets appeared to be full of lesbians, tv's, cross dressers, some really ugly looking blokes dressed up as women and some ugly looking women dressed as women. Hundreds of Brazil supporters all wearing their teams colours queued outside a bar in Shaftesbury Avenue that was showing the match waiting to get in and be, ultimately, disappointed.

Soho is great for people watching and I was walking past one of the clubs where the girls stand outside in their underwear, coming the other way were a group of England supporters in their early twenties. The moment when the lads realised that one girl was standing in the tiniest bra and knickers you could legally wear outside in London was a moment to behold. It wasn't the usual 'get your tits out' moment but it was the realisation that they were practically out and that her bikini bottom was cut so low that........ well, you can join the dots.

There were hundreds of police in vans, standing around, talking to each other or members of the public but I didn't see any trouble. One of the streets in Covent Garden had police vans at both ends, crash barriers down both sides and two Military Police officers with half a dozen police officers in it. I saw a few disgruntled supporters having a fight with a sandwich board outside a Greek restaurant but nothing too serious.

Later on I watched the Brazil v France game.

Sunday was spent taking it easy in the morning before checking out of the hotel and heading for Essex before coming home.