Music pub, Kennington

I came across the Sir Robert Peel in Langdale Close, SE17 on my travels.  Not only does it do music in that after-work hiatus on a Friday night (Juanita will be performing right now, until 7:30) but above each door it has a tune, complete with music.  I've never seen that before.

 and

 Here are the lyrics for the 2 songs.  The connections between the two seem to be a) Jimmy Roselli has recorded them both and b) they both reprise the changing of hair colour from gold to silver. 

PAL OF MY CRADLE DAYS  (1919)
Recorded by: Rose Marie; Ann Breen; Jimmy Rosselli;

What a friend, what a pal, only now I can see,
How you dreamed and you planned all for me,
I never knew what a mother goes through,
There's nothing that you didn't do.

Chorus:
Pal of my cradle days, I've needed you always.
Since I was a baby upon your knee,
You sacrificed everything for me.
I stole the gold from your hair.
I put the silver threads there,
I don't know any way I could ever repay,
Pal of my cradle days.

Greatest friend, dearest pal,
It was me who caused you
Every sorrow and heartache you knew,
Your face so fair Is wrinkled with care,
I placed every line that is there,

Repeat Chorus: End

WHEN YOUR OLD WEDDING RING WAS NEW
(Douglas / McCarthy / Solieri)

Jimmy Dean - 1964
Jimmy Roselli - 1967
Sonny Knowles - 1990
Also recorded by: Joe Longthorne; Rose Marie;
Sydney Devine; David Alexander; Schmitt Bros;
Ray Anthony; Nighthawks Barbershop Quartet;
George Wallington Trio; Majella; Pat Roper;
Tony Kenny; Don Cornell.


Shades of night are falling
Bringing memories
Memories of a bygone day
Though it may be December
Though we're old and gray
To me you're still my blushing bride of May

When your old wedding ring was new
And each dream that we dreamed came true
I remember with pride how we stood side by side
What a beautiful picture you made as my bride
Even though silver crowns your hair
I can still see those gold ringlets there
Love's old flame is the same
As the day I changed your name
When your old wedding ring was new

Bicycle Quoits, Onions and various fadeds.

Bicycle quoits looks like a fun game.  Does anybody know the rules?

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In the middle of this extensive cyclepath, by College Road, Dulwich, the council have thoughtfully provided a bin with a place to stub your cigarettes out.  I admit to liking the occasional roll up but I can usually cover that kind of distance without having to light up.

(On the positive side, though, it will protect you from colliding with the lamp post.)

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There was even a man in a beret selling onions and garlic outside this rather busy shop in Lordship Lane today.  Wow, I thought, a genuine French Onion seller!  Well, the writing and the prices are French so he may well have come over from Brittany but that bike hasn't gone anywhere for a long time to judge by the flat tyres...shame, really, I preferred the illusion.

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I spotted a few faded signs around the west end of Lordship Lane a while ago and remembered to bring my camera with me went I passed by today.  This one is on the corner with Blackwater Road.

And not far away on Pellatt Road, just off the north side of Lordship Lane, there's this one

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Below, a pretty well-known one from Stepney Green on an earlier day's ride.  I've uploaded it simply because it's the best-preserved sign I know of around here.

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You get to spot some strange things when you're exploring the  [snigger, snigger] back routes.  This is something I saw while I was behind [ahem!] Daren...

Where are these?

Instead of saying where these are, I wondered if anyone could pinpoint these, or work out roughly where I'd been cycling on yesterday's lovely autumn afternoon.

 Location 1: Cycle and Motor Works

 

 Location 2: Plumber, ''...& Hot Water Engineer, Carpenter, Decorating...'' and ''The House Shop and ...''
(all three taken from the same spot)

 Location 3:  ''Sharon''

Location 4: ''John Campion, Merchant Tailor, Hosiery and Boys Outfitter''
                    ''Broadway House, for Clothing Hosiery Hats, Boys Outfitting''

Serving red herrings since 1770

This seems to be a local Greenwich speciality - backdating heritage.

The new fish and chip shop on the one-way system in Greenwich has only been open for months at most.  And yet they claim to have been serving fish since 1770.

No they haven't!  ''Established 2010'' has less of a ring about it though.  I wonder where they got the idea....

Established 2009, I believe.  They do do a beer that might taste like a beer would have done when there actually was a brewery nearby but I might as well claim to have be living in an Anglo-Saxon house because there might have been Anglo-Saxons around on the same site as where I live.

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Anyhow, here's a house martin's nest under the eaves of a Greenwich South Street house

This nest was established shortly after the last ice age.  Fact!

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And here's a photo of the film props in the Old Naval College.  I'm only posting it because security tried to stop me taking photos.  I'm not sure how you can privatise sight in a tourist centre.  Perhaps it's been like that since 1717.  Or was it 1770?

But I suppose if you're not allowed to take photos, it makes this a pirated image, which seems perfectly appropriate under the circumstances.

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This Creek Road tree's determination not to give up has long been a sort of encouragement for me.  But I noticed today that despite its regrowth, it might not be long for this world as the bark has dropped and the wood underneath is rotten.  Because it's been like a personal symbol for me, I found this saddening.

Partially Entire.

So it was off for a ride around Walworth for the last day of summer - which, given the band of rain descending on us from the north-west, could well turn out to truly feel like the last day of summer.  Trawling around the side roads, I came across this in John Ruskin Street, SE17.

As I was taking the photo, a chap on one of those electric wheelchairs came gliding past and said ''That used to be a good pub.''  ''Did it have its own courtyard?'' I asked and he said, ''Yes, but it's all 'Mews' now.''   Its sign has been well-preserved but looks strangely incongruous in what is longish continuously-terraced street.  But it may have been the length of the terrace that explains the courtyard - apparently it also served as a passageway to the next street, Grosvenor Terrace.  One of those short cuts that may have taken longer than planned on a hot day perhaps. 

And it strikes me as a strange name for a pub, The Entire. 

Here's the sign in more detail, showing the mosaic:

Around the corner, in Iliffe Street, I came across this attractive shop front.

And back on the Walworth Road, at the  junction with Fielding Street, here's a genuinely faded sign.  I can make out ''BANKS'' at the top and ''AND FANCY GOODS'' at the bottom.  I'll leave the rest for you to work out...

While we're remembering the Blitz...

It seemed very timely to come across an air-raid shelter sign on the 70th anniversary of the Blitz.

This is a Home and Colonial faded sign with a darker Shelter sign below it, on Dartmouth Road, just a few yards up the hill from Forest Hill train station.

Above the H & C, ...NIAL is all that's still clearly visible.  Below the H & C are the words ''VALUE, ECONOMY, and QUALITY.  As usual, I was on my bike, I was pleased to find a bicycle reference on the Home and Colonial Wikipedia entry.  John Betjeman's poem Myfanwy contains these lines

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.

I missed the black stockings though.

There are a few more faded signs around that part of Dartmouth Road.

The middle one is pretty well faded, but by tweaking the image in Paint.NET (I love free software!) I came up with something a bit more legible.

The good and the bad.

Yesterday at 8:36am I realised an ambition that has quietly been growing for a number of months...I am now a cycling grandfather!  A quick ride up to Sidcup and voilà! (Mother, father and granddaughter are all exhausted but fine.)

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And at pretty much the same time this morning, a cyclist ended up under the wheels of a rush-hour construction HGV at the junction of Deptford Bridge and Deptford Church Street.

Mercifully, it was not a fatality.  The woman was admitted to hospital with ''leg injuries'' - I couldn't get any more information out of the WPC I spoke to.  There's a lethal combination that repeats itself: London, drag-sweeps, construction lorries in rush-hour traffic and a disproportionate number of women cyclists. 

No one is ever in such a rush to get there - stay behind.  Always.