Big guns and birds of prey

Last week I made one of my infrequent visits to London. The place isn't far away really, and I only need to get to a station on the Brighton to London main line - simple to do in mid-Sussex. Even so, I don't often make the journey. I last went in September 2024. 

Why not oftener? Well, although London has plenty to offer, I am not in love with it. I lived there for eleven years (from 1978 to 1989) and worked there for twenty-seven years (from 1978 to 2005), for most of my working life in fact. I got very tired of the endless urban landscape, even though London has lots of excellent parks and green areas. I escaped to rural Sussex in 1989, and from then onwards wild horses wouldn't have been able to drag me back had a return to The Smoke ever. been in question. (London's twentieth-century nickname is completely inappropriate now, of course: you can see for miles) Once retired (in 2005) I went there strictly as a tourist, always on day trips, and from 2014 always using my Senior Railcard to keep the travel cost down. Nowadays it's strictly a photographic destination, though a good one - wherever you go, there are an overwhelming number of things to shoot, and passing people to take pictures of. 

Brighton may be London-by-Sea; but the converse is not true. London is far more than Brighton-on-the-Thames. It is still the grandest of cities, with stunning modern architecture as well as all the old-time sights. But life there is lived at a pace I find exhausting, and after three or four hours I have had enough. So when going there I choose my objectives carefully, and stick to that plan: it's impossible to do justice to more than two or three things it all in only a few hours. London is too vast.

By the way, when I say 'London' I am speaking primarily of Central London. The suburbs are full of interesting things too, but they are beyond the reach of a short day trip by rail. So if I wanted a nostalgic trip to Wimbledon, or Stanmore, I'd probably drive there and hope that the gods who provide parking spaces for Sussex folk are on the job. 

Last week I planned a train ride into London Victoria station, then a walk through Belgravia to Hyde Park Corner and then Hyde Park beyond. I'd follow the Serpentine into Kensington Gardens, emerging at the Italian Gardens, then make my way to the canal basin at Paddington. After that, a look at London Paddington station, and then a return to Victoria and home. If feeling up to it, I'd walk back from Paddington. If too footsore, or running out of time to catch my return train, then I'd ride the Circle Line on the Underground. (I did run out of time, so I experienced the Underground between Paddington and Victoria)

So this visit would treat me to the elegance of Belgravia, the wide, well-tended paths of Hyde Park, the hotel quarter of Paddington, what I imagined might be the eastern edge of Little Venice, and Brunel's Paddington station, not seen since 1980. I expected to see some changes (and, my goodness, I was right) and perhaps there would be some unexpected experiences (right there too). 

The first shock came in Hyde Park. I'd caught the clatter of horse hooves on the South Carriage Drive, a road that runs along the south edge of Hyde Park, and I hurried over to watch brown-uniformed riders pass by in well-disciplined formation.

Well, this was an unexpected sight. Where were they off to, and for what purpose? It was ten minutes to noon. 

I walked on towards the east end of the Serpentine, Hyde Park's long lake. Suddenly I jumped out of my skin as a gun went off with a huge crack. It wasn't a rifle or a handgun. It was a piece of field artillery. It was precisely noon, and a forty-one gun salute had commenced. The police (and army) had cordoned off a big area in the north-east of the park. The gunnery was coming from a dip in that fenced-off area. Nothing was in sight. But you could see the puff of smoke as the gun or guns went off at precise intervals, followed by the actual sound shortly afterwards. 

I learned soon afterwards that it was the third anniversary of King Charles' Coronation, hence the massive forty-one gun salute. I hadn't known beforehand that this was the very day. I asked a group of four women if they knew what it was all about. They didn't; so I wasn't the only ignorant one. We speculated, of course. The salute went on and on. It was a relief to one's ears when the salute was over. I would have loved to have seen it close up, but it was surprising how loud the gunfire was, even from half a mile or so, and I wondered whether the participants were wearing hearing-protectors. A real war zone is a very noisy place indeed!

Soon after, I reached the Serpentine, a long, wide artificial lake that I first saw in 1964, when on a school trip to the annual Motor Show at Earl's Court. Being me, I'd taken myself off to see a few other sights. I was only eleven, but as eager to explore as I am now. Indeed it was my first visit to London, a place known to me only from an old pictorial map that my Uncle Des (Mum's bother) had left behind when emigrating to Australia in 1948. Riding the tube trains, and indeed sampling the London Underground as a wonderful exotic experience, was the prime objective in my mind that time. Cars were interesting - of course they were; I was already dreaming of when I could get behind the steering wheel - but I always intended to do my own thing on this school trip. I was aware of the dangers I might encounter while wandering about, although I thought in terms of getting knocked down by a bus, or being robbed in the street. Darker dangers didn't occur to me. In any case, I was tall for my age and therefore confident. Besides, I was already an accomplished map reader: I had no fear whatever of getting lost.

The name 'Serpentine' fascinated me, and I had to see it. So I ended up on the side of it, next to a café. And, as you will have guessed, a man came up to me and asked me whether I would like a cup of coffee. In my innocence, I politely declined and walked on, thinking what an odd thing he had done, as we didn't know each other. Fortunately, he didn't follow me. It was only much, much later that it occurred to me what he might have been after. And looking back on it now, I'm pretty certain that, without realising it at the time, I had deftly dodged a bullet. Back in 1964, child molesters or groomers were not in the news. They were simply regarded as a class of men that included 'flashers', who exposed themselves for some kind of abnormal, unfathomable gratification. They were sad figures to snigger at, or make jokes about. They might end up in a magistrates court and fined, but were otherwise considered harmless. I dare say the man who approached me was nobody to be afraid of, but nevertheless I mentioned the episode to no-one, and have never spoken of it until now. I just know that I was right to walk away. 

The incident went through my mind as I contemplated the Serpentine and took my pictures. I felt it was one of those peripheral experiences that you don't take harm from, but store away as you develop the awareness need to travel safely through life. 

I walked on. It was peaceful and very pleasant. Why hadn't I returned to Hyde Park before? 

Co-operative wading birds posed for me.

I was getting peckish. The first waterside eatery I'd seen was too restaurant-like for a simple lunch. But there would be others, and as I walked along the south bank of the Serpentine, the Lido Café came into view. You could sit outside in the mild sunshine, and by the water.

Those were the four women I'd spoken to about the guns going off earlier. We'd kept pace with each other, but this is where we parted company. I didn't see them again. Inside, I got myself a ham and cheese sandwich and a bottle of orange juice. I chose a waterside table. 

Ah, this is the life! It seemed such a relaxing pitstop. 

But then I had unexpected and uninvited visitors.

How cheeky! Four starlings: one guarding their rear; two in a forward position as backup to the boldest, their leader, who was going to get my sandwich if he could. He stalked a little closer. 'Oi, buzz off!' I said, loud enough for the girl in the green top on the next table to look up from her laptop. They ignore me. I brushed an arm towards them, and they scattered.

But they immediately returned, clearly undeterred and not to be thwarted. They eyed me truculently.

Then one of them flew at my face, brushing it with his wings. Hey! I snatched my sandwich just in time. 

Then another facial fly-past. They were shooing me away from the food they wanted. 

This was impossible. I got up, and sat instead just outside the Café, underneath its colonnaded frontage, taking my sandwich with me. It was annoying to be pestered away from a pleasant waterside table, but the shift did the trick. They didn't follow me. It seemed to me that they were keeping strictly to their own 'territory' - probably to defend it from other birds, as well as to plunder whatever was left on tables, or could be snatched from the hands of lunchgoers like me. 

I'm not sentimental about wild birds or any wild thing. I do say they deserve to live unmolested within the ecosystem they inhabit, and need our respect. Literally: if ever civilisation vanished, and you or I were one of the few survivors, day to day life would be a battle on equal terms with wild plants and animals, who have no safety net and must find prey and eat to stay alive. It would be an existence with weapons at hand, just in case older animals, now too slow to catch anything else, realised that a human being made a good meal. This would apply to domesticated animals too, such as dogs: they'd have to turn feral and therefore dangerous. Birds would become bolder and might make outdoor movement very difficult. If you have ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds, or read the even more disturbing original story by Daphne du Maurier, then you'll know what I mean.

This wasn't the entire story of my trip to London. Next post.