Never getting tired in the search for diversity, bookshops and hidden London

Searching for Hodge the Cathedral Cat in the souvenir shop in Southwark Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Samuel Johnson once told his biographer James Boswell, ‘Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’

Above the north-west door of Southwark Cathedral, a stained glass window depicts Samuel Johnson, creator of the first great English dictionary, who was familiar with Bankside and Southwark. It seems appropriate that the Cathedral Cat is named Hodge after Johnson’s own cat.

Visitors to Southwark Cathedral are invited to search for Hodge, and during a recent visit I found myself exploring some hidden and often unknown places in Southwark and other parts of London.

Southwark is known for its links with Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims and the founder of Harvard University. But do tourists ever hear about Cross Bones Graveyard? In mediaeval times, this was an unconsecrated graveyard for the marginalised, including the ‘Winchester Geese’ or local prostitutes, paupers and the ‘Outcast Dead.’

An early campaigner to save the graveyard was the Irish philanthropist Lord Brabazon, later the 11th Earl of Meath. But the burial yard only received the church’s first official blessing on Saint Mary Magdalene’s Day, 22 July 2015, when the Dean of Southwark Cathedral, the Very Revd Andrew Nunn, conducted ‘An Act of Regret, Remembrance, Restoration.’

The Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral recalls the founder of Harvard University, baptised here in 1607 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Cultural diversity in
Soho and Chinatown

Greek Street, between Soho Square and Shaftesbury Avenue, is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature. Greek Street takes its name from a Greek church that was built in 1677 in adjacent Crown Street, now part of the west side of Charing Cross Road. The church is depicted in William Hogarth’s ‘Noon’ in Four Hours of the Day.

The name of Greek Street and its Bohemian atmosphere reflect the diversity that is flourishing in London, even in these post-Brexit days.

Maison Bertaux, at 28 Greek Street, is the oldest French pâtisserie in London. It was founded in 1871 by a Monsieur Bertaux, a communard from Paris. He arrived in London as a political refugee and opened his shop in the heart of the French community in late 19th century London. The French Protestant church is nearby in Soho Square, while the Catholic Notre Dame de France is in Leicester Place.

Three of the mirrors in the shop contain the inscriptions Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Each year, the shop creates a tableau vivant on 14 July to celebrate Bastille Day.

Nearby on Frith Street, Bar Italia is an Italian café that was opened in 1949 by the Polledri family, and is still owned by Veronica and Anthony Polledri today. Bar Italia inspired the song of the same name by the band Pulp, the last track of their album Different Class (1995). The song describes the café as ‘round the corner in Soho’ and ‘where other broken people go.’

Dave Stewart, formerly of the Eurythmics, once said, ‘This coffee shop is very small but what goes on in there is as big as the world.’ Bar Italia has been named at times as London Coffee Shop of the Year. Next door, Jimmy’s opened at No 23 in 1948 and was the oldest Greek restaurant in Soho until it closed in recent years.

Maison Bertaux at 28 Greek Street is the oldest French pâtisserie in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

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Chinatown borders Soho and Theatreland, in an area around Gerrard Street, off Shaftesbury Avenue. It includes Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, banks and other Chinese-run businesses.

London’s first Chinatown was in Limehouse in the East End and the present Chinatown only dates from the 1970s. After World War II, the increasing popularity of Chinese cuisine and the arrival of immigrants from Hong Kong led to an increasing number of Chinese restaurants opening in the area that became Chinatown.

The Chinatown gate on Wardour Street opened in 2016. It was made by Chinese artisans in the style of the Qing dynasty and assembled in London.

Chinatown grew up around Gerrard Street, off Shaftesbury Avenue, in the 1970s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The lost bookshops of
Charing Cross Road

Charing Cross Road, north of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields and Trafalgar Square, is still known for specialist and second-hand bookshops. From Leicester Square station to Cambridge Circus, the street is home to antiquarian, specialist and second-hand bookshops. Between Cambridge Circus and Oxford Street, the street includes more generalist bookshops.

Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest bookshop in terms of shelf length, at 30 miles (48 km), and for number of titles on display. It was a tourist attraction in the past and was known for its literary lunches and for its eccentric business practices.

Foyles moved from 111-119 Charing Cross Road to 107 Charing Cross Road, once the premises of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. It was bought by Waterstones in 2018 and now has a chain of seven shops in England.

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No 84 Charing Cross Road is no longer a bookshop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The New York-based writer Helene Hanff had a long-standing correspondence from 1949 with Frank Doel, the chief buyer of Marks & Co, antiquarian booksellers on Charing Cross Road. She was in search of obscure classics and British literature titles that she could not find in New York.

The books she bought ranged from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and John Donne’s Sermons to the writings of Samuel Johnson and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

Their exchange inspired her book 84 Charing Cross Road (1970). It has been made into a film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins (1987), and also into a play and a BBC radio drama.

Like so many other premises, 84 Charing Cross Road is no longer a bookshop; it eventually closed in December 1970. It is now part of a McDonald’s outlet, with its entrance around the corner in Cambridge Circus. A brass plaque on a stone pilaster facing Charing Cross Road commemorates the former bookshop and Hanff’s book.

The two sets of caryatids at Saint Pancras New Church were inspired by the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Caryatids and
Old Saint Pancras

Walking between Euston Station and King’s Cross, many visitors to London have noticed and even been challenged by Saint Pancras New Church and the sight of its two sets of caryatids, inspired by the Erechtheion on the Acropolis, and its vestibule and tower inspired by the Tower of the Winds in Athens.

The church was completed 200 years ago in 1822, to serve what was then a fashionable end of Bloomsbury and with seating for 2,500 people. It cost £76,679 to build, making it the most expensive church to be built in London since the rebuilding of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

When Saint Pancras New Church opened in 1822, Saint Pancras Old Church, about 900 metres away, fell into disuse, and it was virtually in ruins by the 1840s. However, the industrial expansion of London brought in a new population, and the Church underwent a complete restoration in 1847-1848.

Local lore claims that church is of a very great age, perhaps even the oldest church in England. Although little remains of the original medieval church and certainly one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, possibly dating back to the early 4th century.

The present building has been there since the 11th or 12th century and is close to the River Fleet, which was culverted in the 19th century. The church was ruinous in the 13th century, rebuilt in the 14th century, half abandoned in the 16th century, restored in the 17th century and again substantially rebuilt in the mid-19th century, when the 13th century West Tower was dismantled and the new bell tower added.

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During the English civil war, the church was used as a barracks and stable for Cromwell's troops. Before the troops arrived, the church’s treasures were buried and lost, only to be rediscovered during restoration work in the early 19th century. The items included a sixth century altar stone said to have been used by Saint Augustine of Canterbury.

The burials there include Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, the parents of Mary Shelley. The Soane Mausoleum was designed by Sir John Soane, the celebrated architect of the Bank of England, following his wife’s death. Charles Dickens refers to Old Saint Pancras Churchyard in his Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Sadly, the churchyard is about to lose the Hardy Tree, which is being felled due to disease. The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) once studied architecture in London from 1862-1867 under Arthur Blomfield.

When the railway line was being built over part of the original Saint Pancras Churchyard in the 1860s, Blomfield was commissioned to supervise excavating 10,000 graves. The task fell to his protégé Thomas Hardy, who placed the headstones around the ash tree that became known as Hardy’s Tree.

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On the river embankment close to the north entrance to Southwark Cathedral, a plinth is inscribed with well-known words by Sir Walter Raleigh: ‘There are two things scarce matched in the universe, the sun in heaven and the Thames on Earth.’

For the visitor, London continues to display a delightful diversity and has many hidden corners to explore and discover. As Johnson told Boswell, there is no need to tire of London, ‘for there is in London all that life can afford.’

Thomas Hardy placed the headstones around ‘Hardy’s Tree’ in Saint Pancras Old Churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

This two-page feature was first published in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) in July 2022

Which old country house was the true inspiration for Toad Hall?

Toad Hall … ‘The Wind in the Willows’ is popular Christmas reading (Image: Artstation.com)

Patrick Comerford

One of my favourite childhood and Christmas-time books is The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Milne, and I look forward to any of the cartoon versions that are scheduled for television channels at this time of the year.

The book was first published in 1908, and despite its place in children’s fiction it is also appropriate reading at Christmas, not only because of its many winter settings, but also because of the themes of mysticism, morality and camaraderie that run through its storylines.

This is not accidental, for Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was introduced to the riverside and boating by his uncle, Canon David Ingles, who was then the curate at Cookham Dean in Berkshire and who had rowed for Cambridge in 1860. He would often take his sister’s children out on the ponds and the river, telling them stories as they explored the waterways. Cookham was also the home of the artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), who often used Cookham and the river as the backdrop to his religious paintings.

But The Wind in the Willows is also a hymn to a long-lost England that may never have existed. It was an England that Edwardian society wistfully hoped could be conjured up but that could never be returned to, and it is an England conjured up by the Brexiteers but, ironically, is being destroyed by them.

The sign at Toad Hall, Abbots Bromley (Photograph: Hackworthappenings)

Sometimes as I travel through the Staffordshire countryside beyond Lichfield, I have noticed a house called Toad Hall on Bagot Street in Abbots Bromley, about 19 km north of Lichfield.

This Toad Hall is period village home with beamed rooms and a witty name plate outside. It is a long-established bed and breakfast house, and was recently on the market through John German, estate agents in Lichfield and Burton on Trent, with an asking price of £475,000.

But since my childhood I have wondered about the original house that inspired Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows.

Grahame is said to have been inspired by the River Thames at Cookham, where he lived at ‘The Mount’ as a child, and he returned to the village to write the book. Quarry Wood nearby in Bisham is said to have been the original Wild Wood.

But a number of houses claim to be the original inspiration for Ernest Howard (EH) Shepard’s illustrations of Toad Hall, including Mapledurham House in Oxfordshire, as well as neighbouring Hardwick House, Foxwarren Park in Surrey, Fawley Court in Buckinghamshire, Nymans in West Sussex and Fowey Hall Hotel in Cornwall.

Mapledurham House, near Reading (Photograph: Motmit / Wikipedia)

Mapledurham House was built ca 1585 in the Elizabethan E-shape, and a later 18th-century chapel was built in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style for its Roman Catholic owners, the Blount family.

Like the Moat House in Tamworth, the house has priest holes, used to hide Catholic priests in the 16th and 17th centuries. The house was a location for the filming The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and for several television series, including Midsomer Murders.

Hardwick House was the home of Sir Charles Rose (Photograph: Andy Stephenson / Wikipedia)

Hardwick House, a nearby Tudor-style house on the banks of the River Thames, near Whitchurch-on-Thames, also claims to be the inspiration for EH Shepard’s illustrations of Toad Hall.

The Liberal politician and horse breeder Sir Charles Day Rose (1847-1913), who bought Hardwick House shortly before he was given the title of baronet in 1909, is also said to have been one of the models for Toad of Toad Hall.

Foxwarren Park, at Wisley in Surrey, is a Victorian country house designed in 1860 by the railway architect Frederick Barnes for the brewer and Liberal politician, Charles Buxton (1823-1871).

It is a stark Neo-Gothic house, with polychrome brickwork, red with blue diapering, and terracotta dressings, and renewed plain-tiled roofs with crow-stepped gables. It has been the location for films and TV series, including The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Fawley Court … built by Christopher Wren and rebuilt by the Wyatt brothers (Photograph: Paul Highnam / Country Life)

Fawley Court is a country house on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in Buckinghamshire, near Henley-on-Thames.

The story of Fawley Court dates back to the Domesday Book. The house was completely rebuilt by Christopher Wren for William Freeman in 1684, and was redesigned by James Wyatt and his brother Samuel Wyatt, from Weeford near Lichfield, in the 1760s and 1770s.

After World War II, Fawley Court, was acquired run by Polish Congregation of Marian Fathers, who ran a library, museum, school and Polish cultural centre from the house.

The house was severely damaged by fire in 1973, the school closed in 1986, and the house became a retreat centre. It was finally closed and sold in 2009 to Aida Hersham, an Iranian heiress, reportedly for £13 million.

Nymans in West Sussex also claims to be the inspiration for Toad Hall

Nymans in West Sussex, owned by the National Trust, also claims to be the inspiration for Toad Hall. The gallery at the rear of the house has hosted a collection of Wind in the Willows pictures, including a few of EH Shepard’s original pencil-drawn sketches for the book and others that were hand-coloured by the artist.

The exhibits included a pencil drawing of Nymans that Shepard did during a visit there, and it is suggested that Toad Hall may have been based partly on the Nymans House.

Fowey Hall Hotel … often visited by Kenneth Grahame

Fowey Hall Hotel, overlooking the Fowey Estuary in Cornwall, also claims to have inspired Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows. Kenneth Grahame was certainly a frequent visitor when it was a family house, and it advertises itself as ‘a perfect location for messing about on the river like Ratty and his friends.’

The house was built by Sir Charles Augustin Hanson (1846-1922), who made his fortune in the lumber trade in Canada. When he returned to England, he built this house on a plot of land bought from the Rashleigh family, owners of Daphne du Maurier’s Menabilly.

Hanson was Conservative MP for Bodmin (1916-1922) and Lord Mayor of London in 1917. Fowey Hall was sold in the late 1950s, and became an hotel in 1968. The ground floor remains largely in its original layout, with the library, morning, drawing and billiard rooms and the dining area returned to their original uses.

Kenneth Grahame was a first cousin was Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins (1863-1933), a son of the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906), Vicar of Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street, London. As Anthony Hope, he was the author of another early 20th century Edwardian fantasy, The Prisoner of Zenda, and they were cousins too of the Irish rugby superstar and war hero Basil Maclear (1881-1915).

The Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth … can make no claims to being the original Toad Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I should like to think – but would be totally wrong – to suggest, with these Comerford family connections, that Grahame’s Toad Hall was inspired by the Moat House on Lichfield Street in Tamworth. The former Comberford Tudor-era manor house certainly would have been an ideal choice over 100 years ago, before its sylvan setting gave way to the urban needs of an expanding Tamworth.

When I visit the Moat House, with its riverside setting – by the River Tame rather than the River Thames – and surrounded by willows, it often reminds me when I visit it of childhood images of Toad Hall.

Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, in 1932, and is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

Grahame’s cousin Anthony Hope wrote his epitaph, which reads: ‘To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time.’

Swapping the Moat House in Tamworth for a summer picnic on the lawn at Toad Hall

Toad Hall … an ideal location for a summer picnic and Pimm’s by the willows and the water

Patrick Comerford

Last week, I changed the cover photograph on my Facebook page from a photograph of the Moat House in Tamworth to a colourful illustration of Toad, Mole, Rat and Badger enjoying a summer picnic by the willows and the river on the lawn of Toad Hall.

The exchange was interesting, for I have wondered sometimes whether the Moat House, with its setting among the willows by the banks of the River Tame, might have been an ideal location for Toad Hall until the surrounding Staffordshire countryside gave way to the expanding urban needs of Tamworth.

But the exchange of responses on Facebook to that image of Toad Hall was interesting too. On an evening that was marked by heavy August rains, I had asked whether this is what summer should be like, drinking Pimms on the lawn of Toad Hall with Toad, Rat, Badger and Toad, by the willows and the river.

One two-word reply called out Semper Buffo! I was impressed that someone in middle age could still remember Toad’s motto, although I descended to pedantry with classical pretensions when I pointed out that the spelling is Semper Bufo.

Someone else thought ‘No,’ this was not what summer was about, for Toad is ‘completely unreliable and has probably drunk all the Pimms before he goes off to crash his car!’ Another friend posted a warning to watch out for the stoats and weasels.

Others sentimentally recalled that The Wind in the Willows is ‘One of the best books ever written' or that it is 'one of my all-time favourite books.’

It all goes to show that The Wind in the Willows, known to many readers through theatrical adaptations such as AA Milne’s Toad of Toad Hall, is one of those classics of modern English literature that remains a firm favourite across the generations.

When I wrote my first book, Do You Want to Die for NATO?, over 30 years ago (1984), I dedicated it “to those children who bring light into my life: that nuclear war may never happen, and that they can tell their children about Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad.’

One of those children, one of my nieces, thought these were four nicknames I had conjured for her and her two brothers and sister. It was a joy to introduce yet another generation to The Wind in the Willows.

It is a children’s book that appeals to endless and successive generations of children and adults alike, and that is recycled time and again, over and over, in print, cartoon and cinema, even in the most unlikely places: Chapter 7, ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,’ provided Pink Floyd with the name for their first album half a century ago in 1967.

When Boris Johnson visited Saint Mary’s Primary School in Battersea as Mayor of London in 2013, he asked a group of 10-year-old children: ‘What’s your favourite book?’

‘Harry Potter,’ said one.

‘Harry Potter? Nah,’ said Boris. ‘Come on, follow me, we’re going to read a real book.’

Perched on cushions in the school library, he read from The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, which he said is one of his favourite childhood books.

‘It’s about a rat and mole,’ he began. ‘My particular hero is a guy called Mr Toad. His family motto is Semper Bufo, which means ‘Always a Toad.’ Mr Toad was a very keen motorist you see and also a Latinist,’ he explained.

The Moat House by the willows and the banks of the River Tame in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Wind in the Willows, first published in 1908, is a hymn to a long-lost England that may have never existed. It was an England that Edwardian society wistfully hoped could be conjured up but that could never be returned to.

I cannot imagine that Kenneth Grahame ever knew of the Moat House, the Comberford family’s former Jacobean townhouse in Lichfield Street, Tamworth, by the willows and the waters of the River Tame. But there was a Comerford family connection, for his first cousin was Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins (1863-1933), a son of the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906), Vicar of Saint Bride’s in Fleet Street, London.

As Anthony Hope, he was the author of another early 20th century Edwardian fantasy, The Prisoner of Zenda, and they were cousins too of the Irish rugby superstar and war hero Basil Maclear (1881-1915).

Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932) was introduced to the riverside and boating by his uncle, the Revd David Ingles, the curate at Cookham Dean in Berkshire. Cookham was also the home of the artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), who often used Cookham and the river as the backdrop to his religious paintings.

Grahame is said to have been inspired by the River Thames at Cookham to write The Wind in the Willows, as he lived at ‘The Mount’ in Cookham Dean as a child, and he returned to the village to write the book. Quarry Wood nearby in Bisham is said to have been the original Wild Wood.

Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. Grahame’s cousin Anthony Hope wrote his epitaph, which reads: ‘To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time.’

Some Christmas cheer with ‘The Wind in the Willows’

Winter willows by the river bank … the River Dodder at Orwell Road Bridge in Rathgar this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Yes, I have had a number of ‘Wind in the Willows’ moments this past week or so.

Standing by the banks of the River Nanny in Laytown on Saturday, crossing over the River Liffey after the Sung Eucharist and after lunch on Sunday, or finding myself by the banks of the River Dodder on Monday and Tuesday, my mind seemed to wander along the riverbanks and to imagine Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad by the river and the willows.

Perhaps The Wind in the Willows came to mind too when I recalled the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins, his son Anthony Hope, author of The Prisoner of Zenda, and their cousin, the Irish rugby superstar and war hero Basil Maclear, for Anthony Hope was a first cousin of the author Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932).

Grahame is best known for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the all-time classics of children’s literature. He was introduced to the riverside and boating by his uncle, the Revd David Ingles, the curate at Cookham Dean in Berkshire. Cookham was also the home of the artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), who often used Cookham and the river as the backdrop to his religious paintings.

Grahame is said to have been inspired by the River Thames at Cookham to write The Wind in the Willows, as he lived at ‘The Mount’ in Cookham Dean as a child, and he returned to the village to write the book. Quarry Wood nearby in Bisham is said to have been the original Wild Wood.

Grahame’s cousin Anthony Hope wrote his epitaph, which reads: “To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time.”



Recently I came across this adaptation by Michael Hague of a Christmas story inspired by The Wind in the Willows. It is a heart-warming tale of friendship, and homecoming, of generosity and hospitality.

Since living with his good friend Rat, Mole has been away from his home, Mole End, for quite some time. But with the help of Rat’s unwavering determination, he rediscovered Mole End and the empty place is transformed into a haven of warmth and contentment for Mole, Rat, and the cheerful field mice who come to the door carol singing.

They sing the carol Ding Dong Merrily on High, one of the carols that the choir sang at the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Christ Church Cathedral on Monday night [21 December 2015]. The lyrics were written by the Anglican priest and English composer, the Revd George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934), and the carol was first published in A Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons in 1924. Woodward took an interest in church bell ringing, which no inspired his words. He was the author of several carol books, including Songs of Syon and The Cowley Carol Book.

The tune used on Monday night was harmonised by the Irish composer Charles Wood (1866-1926) when it was published with Woodward’s text in The Cambridge Carol Book. Together, Wood and Woodward collaborated in the revival and popularisation of renaissance tunes to new English religious texts. Wood, who was born in Vicars’ Hill beside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral of Armagh, studied under Stanford and Parry, and became Professor of Music at University of Cambridge in 1924. His pupils included Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) at Cambridge and Herbert Howells (1892-1983) at the Royal College of Music.

This carol is particularly noted for its Latin refrain:

Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!

It moves from the choirs of heaven, to the choirs of the parish church, to inviting all into the church at Christmas to rejoice in the news of the Incarnation.

Rat and Mole, have found no room at the inn, and tredge through the snow-covered fields on the mountainside where shepherds might tend their flocks by night. They invite the carol singers in and share the meagre meal with them. It turns this child-like story into a retelling of the story of the Loaves and Fishes and there is a Eucharistic theme in the shared meal around a common table.

The little mice are a reminder of the meek and lowly, and though Rat and Mole are poor compared to those whose houses they have peered into, they are rich this Christmas because of the child-like presence that has come among them.

And I hope this helps you to share the Christmas spirit with others and with good cheer.

Thinking of Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad by the banks of the River Nanny last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Ding dong merrily on high,
In heav’n the bells are ringing:
Ding dong! verily the sky
Is riv’n with angel singing.
Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!

E’en so here below, below,
Let steeple bells be swungen,
And “Io, io, io!”
By priest and people sungen.
Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!

Pray you, dutifully prime
Your matin chime, ye ringers;
May you beautifully rime
Your evetime song, ye singers.
Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!

Visions of blue Aegean skies and seas in Bettystown this afternoon

A vision of the Aegean on the beach in Bettystown, Co Meath, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Bettystown was like an Aegean island this afternoon, with Mediterranean blue skies and seas, just little patches light fluffy white clouds, and once the tide had gone out there the beach was an inviting array golden and silver sands, divided by rivulets and small pools of water that reflect the blue skies.

I have been working all through the week and right through the weekend, apart from a short break of an hour or two yesterday afternoon when I went for a walk through Harold’s Cross and Rathgar.

When I finished early this afternoon, there was a warm Spring feeling in the air, and two of us decided to head north to Bettystown, Co Meath, for a late lunch in Relish Café, where there is always a warm welcome.

The field of golden daffodils in Gormanston this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Before we got there, we stopped in Gormanston to admire that the large field of daffodils that always comes to full bloom at this time of the year.

As the green buds start opening into yellow flowers it is important to pick them immediately or they miss the markets. In the warmth of the sunshine this afternoon, at least three people were busy at work in the field, hunched over as they hand-picked the fresh flowers.

At Julianstown, it was a delight to see that the pub that has been closed for about four years has reopened.The newly-named Lime Kiln Gastropub is an exciting development for village has been without a post office, hotel, pub, restaurant or place to eat for too many years. The car park outside was full, and this looks like a good start to a new business.

We continued on through Laytown, and along the coast to Julianstown. The tide was beginning to recede and we had a short walk on the beach for taking our table by a window in Relish.

Aegean reflections seen from the terrace at Relish in Bettystown this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Later, I stood on the terrace behind Relish, on the top of a sandbank, looking out on the islets of sand left in the rivulets and pools by the ebb tide.

We walked for a mile or so along the beach, with the towers at Mornington before us and the Cooley Peninsula and the Mountains of Mourne beyond in the distance.

The sun was setting in the west as we drove back round the M50 on the outskirts of Dublin. We stopped briefly at the Grand Canal in Inchicore, where a dozen or more swans were lazily enjoying the late evening, with a distant purple and orange glow left behind by the setting sun.

Swans on the Grand Canal in Inchicore this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I had walked along the banks of the Grand Canal yesterday as well, watching the swans in the afternoon sunshine at Harold’s Cross, and two or three people in kayaks paddling up and down between the bridges at Rialto and Portobello. It certainly was not Venice, but the bridges and the canal waters, with fresh life, were exhilarating.

The grassy banks in Harold’s Cross were covered in clumps of daffodils too, and a park that I knew well for part of my teens has been spruced up, with a new café and the Victorian “dripping pool” has been cleaned-up.

On my way from Kenilworth to Rathgar, an unfamiliar figure waved at me and came up to say hello. Maurice Curtis is an author and editor and publisher of a number of local histories.

As he introduced himself, I remembered Maurice, and his brothers Stan and Joe, from childhood. How could he recognise me, I wondered. I am still wondering: as a young teenager I did not have a beard, a bald head or a broad black hat to protect me against cold weather.

Spring willows at the River Dodder in Rathgar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Oh well, I walked on along Orwell Road to the banks of the River Dodder, where the surface water and the weirs were sparkling in the afternoon sunshine and the willows dipping into the water were beginning to show signs of green growth.

Perhaps it’s a Wind in the Willows thing, but I have always liked being by willows that drip into waters, pools and lakes.

Perhaps it goes back to those teenage days in Lichfield, when I associate my spiritual awakening in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital in Lichfield, with long walks in the days that followed around the edges of Minster Pool, enjoying the water and the willows.

At least four willows have been planted one after the other to maintain a line of succession with a willow first planted here by Dr Samuel Johnson.

Earlier in this busy week, I had visited Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square off Fleet Street in London.

I stood by the banks of the Dodder for just a short time yesterday afternoon, watching the fresh willows dip into waters of the river as it made its away along to the cascading waterfall, and thought of Kenneth Grahame’s description in The Wind I the Willows of how “the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”

‘The river still chattered on … a babbling procession’ … the River Dodder in the sunshine yesterday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Does Winnie the Pooh also suffer from Vitamin B12 deficiency?

Winnie the Pooh ... suffering from the symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency?

Patrick Comerford

One of my favourite television programmes is the BBC’s Have I Got News For You? It makes a cutting connection between humour and current affairs and each week provides some of the sharpest observations of political life in Britain.

Flaking out last night in front of the television after a long and demanding day at the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, humour and reality came to the fore when the panellists’ attention was brought to a recent news story about students who are asking questions like:

● Does Winnie the Pooh have a B12 deficiency?

● How many lies could Pinocchio tell before it became lethal?

● Is it really possible to enter a room on a wrecking ball, Miley Cyrus-style?

Third-year natural science undergraduates at the University of Leicester have wrestled with these bizarre dilemmas and more as part of a project on submitting research to peer-reviewed science journals.

For example, one question asked: How many lies could Pinocchio tell before it became lethal?

The answer was that Pinocchio could only sustain 13 lies in a row before the maximum upward force his neck could exert could no longer sustain his head and nose. The head’s overall centre of mass shifts over 85 metres after 13 lies, and the overall length of the nose is 208 metres.

The researchers concluded: “Lengthy, extensive lies are advised against, for the health and well-being of Pinocchio.”

But personally I was more interested in the work of the students who observed characteristics in Winnie the Pooh that appear to correlate with a B12 deficiency. They point out: “Such a condition is common in those with restricted diets, such as vegetarians and vegans, coinciding with anaemia where the patient is often tried, easily fatigued and shows a paling of the skin.”

I was particularly interested in this topic, which sounds humorous but is a serious one for me as I suffer from Vitamin B12 deficiency and require monthly B12 injections.

I was diagnosed with this condition almost six years ago, brought about by being a vegetarian for over 40 years, since my late teens. The combination of the symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency and the symptoms of sarcoidosis can be particularly debilitating at times, and I love with constant lower joint pains and persistent, painful tingling under my feet and at the tips of my fingers.

Winnie the Pooh ... students at the University of Leicester are asking whether he has a B12 Deficiency

In their submission to the Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics, Steffan Llewellyn and David McDonagh of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science, University of Leicester, asked: “Does Winnie the Pooh have a B12 Deficiency?”

With great humour but some sharp insight, they say decades of research studying the unique behaviour of Winnie the Pooh has provided a strong indication that a honey-specific diet could be causing a vitamin deficiency.

They say that in 1958 a bear was first observed in the Hundred Acre Wood displaying anthropomorphic characteristics, including a preferred attire of a red T-shirt and “significant bipedalism,” which, over a number decades, has grown as a household name as Winnie the Pooh, or simply Pooh Bear, both for its ambiguous evolutionary origin and charming personality.

Despite his joyous demeanour, they say, physiological changes have been noted throughout its lifetime, likely linked to a honey-specific diet. “This has given rise to concern that vitamin deficiencies, particularly in B12, are now putting his health at risk.”

They say that his symptoms have been identified throughout an extensive period of observation from 1988 to 2002. They acknowledge data from “Walt Disney and his research group” and “Alan Alexander Milne for his pioneering work in first discovering this unique species of Ursidae.”

AA Milne tells the stories about the adventures of Christopher Robin and the toy animals Pooh, Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Tigger, Rabbit, Owl, and Eeyore in his enduringly popular Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). They were illustrated by Ernest Howard Shepard, who also illustrated The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

The symptoms the students have identified in Pooh Bear that infer potential health problems include a characteristic yellowing of the skin. They found this by comparing initial photographs of the animal and those taken at a later date. They also observed a “restricted gait” which “can be seen to show limited lower joint movement.”

Frequent memory loss and fatigue are also present, so that Winnie Pooh frequently forgets levels of honey reserves.

They say the symptoms they have observed in Winnie the Pooh appear to correlate with a B12 deficiency and that this condition “is common in those with restricted diets, such as vegetarians and vegans, coinciding with anaemia where the patient is often tried, easily fatigued and shows a paling of the skin.”

But, despite the obvious good humour these undergraduates show, Vitamin B12 deficiency is no laughing matter. Typically, the first sign is anaemia, which can lead to a host of symptoms, such as diarrhoea, fatigue, loss of appetite, pale skin, problems in concentrating, shortness of breath, and a swollen or red tongue or bleeding gums.

Over time, should vitamin B12 levels get really bad, other cells are interfered with, such as nerves and white blood cells – a key part of the human immunity system. Signs of this are dementia, depression, loss of balance, numbness and tingling of the hands and feet.

Research has shown vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to anaemia and hypotension. Some studies have even shown that those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease have been found to have severely low levels of vitamin B12.

B12, or Cobalamin, is the largest and most complex vitamin we know currently. It plays a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system. B12 can only be manufactured by bacteria and can only be found naturally in animal products.

The human body needs B12 to make red blood cells, nerves, and DNA. According to a study at the Harvard Medical School, the average adult should get 2.4 micrograms of B12 each day. In the US, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey recently estimated that 3.2% of adults over the age of 50 have a seriously low vitamin B12 level, and up to 20% may have a borderline deficiency.

Like most vitamins, B12 cannot be made by the body. It must be obtained from food or supplements. The foods highest in vitamin B12 include shellfish, liver, fish, crustaceans, beef, low fat dairy, cheese, and eggs. People who have eliminated these sources from their diets need to take professional advice from their GPs and nutritionists.

As for Miley Cyrus, the students decided the singer would be unable to “come in like a wrecking ball” without sustaining “significant injury.”

Their study at the University of Leicester focussed on the lyrics of the singer’s hit single Wrecking Ball on her album Bangerz. David McDonagh, a 24-year-old student from Brighton found that she would be unable to gather sufficient momentum to have “impacted” on either “love, or the walls of someone’s house,” as her lyrics suggest.

He concludes that she would need to be travelling at around 316 mph to demolish a wall – meaning she would need to be propelled by an outside force. “Based on these findings, it is clear that a human being cannot possess the characteristics of a wrecking ball without sustaining significant injury, and other objects should be sought as an analogy,” he concluded.

And as for me, I like this quote from Winnie the Pooh: “If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart, I’ll always be with you.”

If, like me, you suffer from the symptoms of either Vitamin B12 deficiency or the symptoms of sarcoidosis, then I hope you can take courage. I have these symptoms, but they will never have me.

It’s a ‘Wind in the Willows’ thing

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing”

Patrick Comerford

I suppose it’s just a childish thing. But ever since childhood, I have enjoyed the idea of messing about in boats on the river.

Perhaps it’s a throwback to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, which was essential childhood reading for everyone in my age group, with all those stories about Mole, Ratty (who is, in fact, a water vole), the donnish Mr Badger and Toad of Toad Hall.

In my teens, my father brought rowing on Lough Ramor in Virginia, but – despite having a good swimming pool at school – I never learned to swim until I was 35, and it is only in recent years that I have started to regret that I never learned to scull or row, or for that matter never learned to sail. When I am in Cambridge each year, I enjoy watching those who are rowing, sculling and punting on the Cam, and I have enjoyed being on a punt once or twice.

Broxbourne hosted the Canoe Slalom events at the Olympic Games last year (2012), and Hoddesdon was supposed to host other canoeing events at Dobb’s Weir, but the water was polluted and the events .were moved further south on the Lee Valley.

I am in Hoddesdon this week for the .annual conference of the Anglican mission agency, Us, which is the new name for UPG, the United Society for Propagation of the Gospel. I am staying on the ground floor in a room near Willow Hall … perhaps I could just imagine staying at Toad Hall, even if I am not around for one of the 50-minute weekend river cruise available at from Dobb’s Weir.

There are some great stately homes in this area, such as Luton Hoo and Brocket Park, and they could easily have been inspirations for Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows. There are castles, old waterside pubs, gazebos and a busy boating centre at Broxbourne with boats for hire, day trips and cycle hire.

The four-mile walk goes through some of the greenest – and bluest – spaces in the heart of the Lee Valley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

High Leigh is less than two miles from the railway station at Broxbourne. So, this afternoon I fulfilled a long-time dream of walking a four-mile riverside walk that starts and finishes close to Broxbourne Station. This walk goes through some of the greenest – and bluest – spaces in the heart of the Lee Valley. The surrounding reservoirs and marshes are home to many species of birds, some rare breeds and many parts of the Lee Valley have been designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

The River Lea, which rises at Leagrave in Bedfordshire, is 98 km (58 miles) long, and much of its last 43 km (27 miles) from Hertford was turned into a canal from 1767 by the engineer John Smeaton. Occasionally the navigation leaves the river to follow Smeaton’s new channels, and meandering stretches of the Old River Lea can be seen nearby.

The river’s name has at least 25 different spellings – in addition to Lee and Lea, the names Lay, Ley, Leye, Lyge and even Lyzan have been used in the past, and by 1520 the spelling was Lee. But in the 19th century the Ordnance Survey decided to use both Lee and Lea. Today, the valley is usually known as the Lee Valley, but the river is the River Lea, while the canal sections are called the Lee Navigation. Is it any wonder then that the River Lee Navigation and the River Lea are often confused?

The original River Lea was made wider, deeper and new courses cut during the Industrial Revolution to allow better access for cargo-carrying barges. Grain and malt were brought from Hertford down to the Thames and timber and other cargo were carried back north. The new route was then renamed the River Lee Navigation. But at times during the walk at Broxbourne it is possible to pick out the original River Lea running alongside the River Lee Navigation.

The story of the original River Lea can be traced back over 1,000 years. It figures in the Treaty of Wedmore between King Alfred and the Danes, and later still it occurs in the Domesday Book. What are now quiet waterways were once filled with barges carrying cargo to and from London. Today, this is a place for pretty narrowboats carrying only passengers on their leisurely journey through this blue corridor.

This stretch of the River Lee is rich in wildlife and is the home to many species of mammals, birds and insects including Canadian geese, mallards, blue tits, and dragonflies and the more elusive such as the water vole – there goes Ratty from The Wind in the Willows once again, although mink are making this creature an increasingly rare sight in England.

Fine houses and lavish gardens with their willow trees spill over onto the west banks of the New River (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

At the west side or back of Broxbourne Station we began our walk along the banks of the New River, where, fine houses and lavish gardens with their willow trees spill over onto the west banks. Here too is Broxbourne Pumping Station, a Grade II listed building, was built by the Victorians in 1886 to pump water from below ground to double the output of drinking water for London city.

The path continued for over a mile along the side of this constructed water course, built in the early 17th century to bring drinking water from local springs to London. Almost 400 years on, this river still supplies London with drinking water and also provides a beautiful environment for people to enjoy.

We were parallel with Hoddesdon when we turned east and made our way through the fields down a narrow path, crossed the railway line at a level crossing (gingerly), and after a quarter of a mile found ourselves at the Lee Valley Caravan Park. From there, it was a few paces to Dobb’s Weir, with its original sluice machinery.

On the west side of Dobb’s Weir, we were in Hertfordshire, on the east side we were in Essex, and we stopped at the Fish and Eels pub (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

On the west side of Dobb’s Weir, we were in Hertfordshire; as we crossed over to the east side, we were in Essex. There we stopped at the Fish and Eels pub, and we whiled away half an hour by the waterside, with glasses in hand, watching life go by.

The Fish and Eels is the departure point for 50 minute round-trips on the River Lee with the Lee and Stort Boat Company at weekends and on bank holidays. But there were no boat trips today, and we headed south along the tow path to Carthagena Lock.

East is east, and west is west, and the Greenwich Mean Line runs through Carthagena Lock (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1889:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

The Greenwich Mean Line runs through the lock, dividing the eastern and western hemispheres of the world. We are away from everything here, apparently, yet at the centre of the world.

The Lady of Lee Valley and the Pride of Lee offer 50-minute pleasure cruises on the river (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

To the east was Admiral’s Lake, said to be one of the best feeding sites for bats in the Lee Valley. On the west bank, two passenger boats, the The Lady of Lee Valley and the Pride of Lee were moored with passengers disembarking after a 50-minute pleasure cruise that can be booked at the Lee Valley Boat Centre.

It was just another half mile south along the towpath to the Lee Valley Boat Centre on Old Nazeing Road and the beer garden of the Crown pub. The boat centre is an ideally place for exploring this part of Hertfordshire. From Easter to the end of the October, the centre offers Day Boats and the hourly hire of electric boats, rowing boats, pedaloes and a Canadian canoe. The centre also offers short breaks from three-four nights or weekly with three chalets with verandas overlooking the Mill Stream, a backwater of the River Lee.

The Crown pub ... at the end of this afternoon's walk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

We finished our walk at the train station at Broxbourne, where the sun was still shining. From there we made our way back through Broxbourne and Hoddesdon to High Leigh.

On a warm summer’s day like today, I can agree with Ratty who says in The Wind in the Willows: “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing.”

Messing about on the river ... a pleasure on a warm summer’s day

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