1979, the International Year of the Child

There's always something new to discover in London, even if it takes over 45 years to find it...

I'm sure that I have mentioned before that I am one of the small team of volunteer guides who leads tours in The Royal Parks, specifically in Kensington Gardens and St James's Park. See more here. We report to staff within the Learning Centre building in Hyde Park, AKA The Lookout. I'm mentioning this because had I not been helping out as a steward* for a small 5km run last week I would still be none the wiser about what I am about to share with you.

As I left the Learning Centre, hi-vis in hand, I glanced sideways at the toilet block and pondered that I'd never had cause to use these facilities. This is probably why, until this particular day, I had never noticed the free-standing sculpture that faces the building. With time to spare before the runners set off, I went to take a closer look. 

Well, blow me down, the artwork is marvellous. 

I looked closer and saw that it is festooned with toys and some well-worn buttons. Turns out it's a drinking fountain. 

I pressed one of the buttons and strong jet of water jetted across my left shoulder. I repositioned myself and tried again but didn't manage to catch anything in my mouth. I tried another button which produced the same strong squirt effect but only managed to splash my face – but, oh, what fun!

I assumed it was a fairly new installation. But no. Who made this, when, and why? I could see no information panel on the plinth or at the base. I made a few circumnavigations to investigate the details and the other buttons and found some crudely-carved lettering around the bottom edges that show this artwork commemorates a huge event that happened here in 1979. It was hard to see very well so I took lots of snaps to be able to decipher it later.

"This fountain was made to commemorate the great children's party during the International Year of the Child 1979 when two hundred thousand children came to Hyde Park on two days in June"

Blimey! First I knew about it!  

I did a bit of googlywooglysleuthing and discovered that the event was organised by The United Nations. However, there are a couple of errors in that inscription in the sculpture – the event actually happened in May that year, not June, specifically on the weekend of May 5th & 6th, and other info such as here states that "over 160,000" children attended, which is short of 200K. 

There's a pic of the event on Alamy, but I haven't as yet found any newspaper reports. Surely it must have been covered on Nationwide? Thanks to David at London Inheritance for finding this filmed footage on YouTube. It's likely that similar gatherings happened in other major cities around the world. 

At that time I would have been 16 going on 17 and in the first year of Sixth Form. My Romford school was within OLEA (Outer London Education Authority) so surely this mass gathering must've been known to all schools? May 5th was/is my mate Gill's birthday and she confirms that she had a party at her home that Saturday. None of us who are still in touch from that time can recall hearing about the Hyde Park event at all. Hmm. Perhaps it was only the Inner London schools that got the memo.

Back to the whimsical sculpture. It was created/installed two years after the event in 1981 and I'm delighted to discover that it was designed by Theo Crosby, sculpted by Polly Hope. I've not seen anything similar except, perhaps, The Elfin Oak in Kensington Gardens, but that doesn't have interactive capabilities such as water spouts.  

Imho, Theo Crosby was one of the most important and innovative designer/architects of the 1980s. He was responsible for the revamp of Unilever foyer where his marvellous geometrical Retro-Deco panels and lighting were installed into any area that had, post-WW2, been stripped of its 1930's features. But his efforts were subsequently removed – a sad loss because, these days it appears that much of the innovative eighties is being dismantled, being not old enough yet to be revered. However, fans of alternative architecture clamour to see the MDF creations within Jencks' The Cosmic House, which I have visited (twice) and now realise that I haven't written about or shared my photos, so here's a montage:

That's it. Please get in touch if you have any personal memories of or info about the Hyde Park event, either in the comments or via jane@janeslondon.com

*This basically entailed wearing hi-vis polyester (ugh!) and pointing 'this way' whilst standing aside a post that had an arrow on it. It was actually a very pleasant ways to pass an hour or so because not only were the runners very jolly and thankful as they passed me, park users also came up to me and asked for directions.

All pics: Jane Amelia Parker / Janeslondon

It's World Toilet Day – Carnaby Street in inconvenienced

Today is World Toilet Day, an unofficial United Nations day designed to raise awareness for the need for publicly accessible toilet facilities. Surely this matter needs attention every day?!

Last Sunday, I was in central London and headed for what I knew to be some excellently maintained facilities at the Gt Marlborough Street end of Carnaby Street. Below is a screenshot of the latest available google streetview (July 2024) followed by two pics I took in Jan 2024:

As I approached on Sunday I noticed a huge black box surrounding the entrances:

Oh dear – these lavatories are no longer available. We are inconvenienced. I'm not sure when they closed but I'm pretty sure they were available in the summer. 

I did a quick circumnavigation of it looking for a Westminster Council sign that would explain what was happening and/or where the nearest available loos might be, but couldn't find anything. I might have  missed it because I had something important to attend to. 

These loos were featured in a post I wrote last year during a period when I had become interested in why so many of our public conveniences are now unavailable to us. I travelled all over the metropolis taking photos of my own and hunted for archive evidence, saving my findings into folders labelled Open/Closed/Converted/Gone – it's an ongoing project and, at a convenient time when I am not otherwise engaged, I will download some of my other photos here. 

"Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop." Attributed to William Shakespeare

I had written last year that whenever I use these Carnaby Street toilets I am often the only person down there. As you can see from the pics below, it was/is clean and bright below ground with salmon pink panels and basins and painted tiles depicting fashions from Carnaby Street. 

It's well-lit, both from the entrance as via ceiling lights. The attendant's room, visible through a shoulder height window is opposite the cubicles. Oh, and they are free to use. Those coin-operated pay gates are these days as good as redundant being as most people now use card readers, so perhaps that's one of the main reasons for renovation here. Whatever they do, I hope at least the tiles will be retained. I particularly like the panel at the far end wall depicting 1960's girl in a Mondrian inspired dress: 

I have read recently that some of these facilities are to be modernised. But it seems to me that councils across London have not grasped that it's not the facilities themselves that are at fault, but the fact that they are below ground and people are reluctant, for whatever reason, to venture down the stairs. Mindsets need to be adjusted. A bit of promo wouldn't go amiss – how about getting Crisis or Shelter involved to offer attendants jobs? 

Any ideas?

This article can also be found on my Substack/janeslondon

A Deco-tastic wander around Claridges at Christmas – sensational and slapdash

A couple of weeks ago I attended an Art Deco-themed event at Claridges when the stylish and ever-young Virginia Bates showed us a selection of some of her Jazz Age clothing and accessories. Ooh lovely. I was so taken by the quality of the items and the conversation that I only took these two pics. 

After the event, it would have been remiss not to pop into the lovely ladies' lavs adjacent to the Davies Street entrance. It's gorgeous in there (go google for pics) but this time I noticed some recent bodge jobs that are at odds with the impeccable quality of the original elements. For instance, why oh why have they employed cowboys to fix substandard cheap fittings that can be bought off the racks in any homewares store? 

Two-pronged 'butterfly' hooks of this type can be bought four in a bag for about £2 here in Holloway. Yet Claridges' management has allowed these cheap things to be screwed onto wood panels and mouldings, as well as the insides of the marvellously marqueted doors within the cubicles. Most of the hooks are are not even hung vertically, which I know is hard to ascertain in my wonky pic (how ironic!). Notice also the use of basic cross-head screws where surely some chromed dome-heads with straight grooves would have been better suited. I took a pic of the gorgeously flamboyant door handle to cheer myself up and later noticed that the brass panel beneath it it is also affixed with nasty modern screws. 

Ugh! 'It's all in the details' here takes on a new meaning. Read on, dear reader...

Last year, walking along Brook Street I stopped to take a couple of snaps of the entrance to the ballroom which is only ever open when an event is happening in that space. I particularly love the metal gates in a style I personally refer to as 'Hollywood Deco' and the canopy above with its zig-zags panels and various finishes.

On that late November evening it had occurred to me that seeing as the Christmas decorations were already installed I should go inside and to investigate. Until a couple of years ago hotels wouldn't put up the decs until the first weekend in December. What's gone wrong with the world?!

Heading through the main door into the hotel... 

...then turned left and followed my nose into other areas, finding that most spaces were available to me because there weren't as yet, any events happening.

There are some evocative displays of Art Deco items either side of the corridor that leads towards the entrance to the ballroom. Below left is the view to the ballroom and other salons. The second pic is the view to the Brook Street:

Elegant Jazz Age metalwork and multi-layered mirrors are everywhere.

Two framed artworks by George Sherringham enhance one space. 

These are retrospective illustrations of the Britannia Theatre Hoxton and the Drury Lane Theatre, 1800. I have no idea if these venues have a specific relevance to Claridges in particular. Sherringham was contemporary of D'Oyly Carte and had created many backdrops for his Gilbert & Sullivan productions at The Savoy Theatre as well as a large scale artwork for the ballroom here which I can find no reference of today. 

The ballroom didn't seem that impressive to me. It all looks a bit corporate, sanitised and bland, more like the spaces you see in modern Dubai hotels, all black and white marble with square-cut corners, but with none of the artistry or clever design. 

In most of the pics I have cropped out other hints to the our modern world, such as trailing electrical leads, nasty plastic shelving, things made from that shiny chrome-effect stuff that looks like it was bought from B&Q, and shoddy repairs here and there. It's a shame that it's now only the original mirrors and light fittings that give a hint that these spaces are almost 95 years old.  I'd love to be able to time travel to see what it was actually like here in the thirties. 

I had a good wander about. Hardly saw another human, except for a couple of guests who had taken a wrong turn and wanted to get back to the reception, and the odd member of staff who either ignored me completely or gave me a cheery hello as they whizzed past. 

Before leaving I took a quick selfie in the mirrors and used the felicities (as I like to say) then headed back outside into the chilly streets to investigate more twinkling spaces. 

I'll pop in again soon and add pics of this year's decs. 

Not bog standard – Central London's public conveniences

We often read that there are hardly any public conveniences in London these days. Campaigners complain that there are scant facilities available to us. We've lost our loos, they say. It's outrageous.

Four years ago, most public conveniences were closed during the pandemic. But many of them were never to reopen, or they were available to us for only a short while before being locked up again, such as Westminster's Council's facilities opposite Madame Tussauds and in Broadwick Street, Soho (shown above). Information notices often told us in these instances thatthese facilities had been closed due to them being used for illicit purposes or abused/misused by revellers. 

Yet, just around the corner from Broadwick Street at the rear of Liberty's there is another pair subterranean conveniences, that remain open. They are well-designed, clean and lovely. Here's the interior of the Women's* loos decorated in ice cream tones, the tiles depicting 1960's fashions to echo Carnaby Street's groovy heyday: 

I was there for at least ten minutes taking photos and no one else came down the stairs. My male friend checked out the men's toilets. He was the only person in there too. 

I have returned whenever I am in the vicinity. I have only once seen other people in there, when I chatted to four Swedish girls last August. 

I suggest that the people who are campaigning for more public toilets have not experienced how under-used the existing ones are. It's a shame because Westminster, in particular, offers to us some delightful, facilities, all with bespoke tile art and differing colour schemes.  

First, Covent Garden Piazza, accessible at the side of St Pauls:

Next, Westminster Underground station/Whitehall:

Similar tiles are now hidden from us within other Westminster toilets such as at Kensington Gore where the wall tiles depict images of The Albert Hall etc, and at Hyde Park Corner too which. Although I have used these in the past, it didn't occur to me to take photos back then. Illustrations in the same style continue through the subways at Hyde Park Corner, telling us abut the historic monuments above.

UPDATE: I have just discovered this article from Nov2024 announcing that Westminster is going to open some of the closed facilities and upgrade some of the ones shown above. I really hope this does not mean the loss of these unique tiles, but I think judging by the main image on that article that is exactly what will happen I don't think a change of wall covering will encourage more beople to use these toilets. Read  my reasons for that further down...  

There are also some other tiled facilities available to us in the form of marvellous Edwardian era lavatories that retain their chunky Art Nouveau basins and heavy wooden doors. These can be found in the Hampstead area (West Hampstead below) and although perfectly amenable are always devoid of other people whenever I pop in. I discovered that the similar ones at King William Walk, Greenwich closed only a few years ago and I very much doubt they will ever open again.  

So, how come these were all empty when I visited them?

It's clear to me that the public, perhaps specifically the British public, is reluctant to use these basement conveniences, perceiving them to be sleazy places, frequented by perverts and drug dealers. Having to descending into an underground space that isn't visible from the outside is also off-putting to most people, hence the masses prefer to use the facilities in nearby shops, bars and restaurants, which means that the council's well-maintained, clean and efficient public conveniences become under-used and subsequently abused and, because of they are secluded environments they then get used for the wrong reasons... and so the cycle begins again.  

On the flip side, some of London's public toilets are frequently in use during working hours. These can be found in zones that surround street markets such as in Portobello Road (below) and Camden Town where they have a visible attendance rate, therefore promoting the safety, popularity and convenience of the space beneath street level.

*It's interesting how the male/female signage changes from site to site. For instance, at Carnaby Street it's Men/Women and at Camden it's Gentlemen/Ladies. 

There's a strange additional plural applied at Lincoln's Inn Square (above), something that I pointed out to one of the cabbies there because he asked why I was taking a photo of a toilet. But when I explained that the ladies loo is just LADIES not LADIESS, he just smiled inanely at me, in that 'avnt gotta clue wot yor on abaht luv' way!

In a similar punctuational vein, there's a MENS LAVATORY at Gt Portland Street station (inaccessible and looks to remain so for the foreseeable future):

The Ladies is not marked as a lavatory. Ladies don't pee you see, they rest. And so must I. 

This is not bog standard

A while back I made mention of the marvellous ladies' toilet interior at The Duke Of Sussex pub near Lower Marsh (which I am pretty sure have since been renovated, boo hoo).
Well, tidying up my photos this week I found this snap I took of another lovely evocative sunshine yellow toilet room at The Shakespeare's Head, just behind Saddlers Wells.
Nice eh.

Has anyone spotted any other time capsules like this?

John Wesley's House & Chapel, City Road, London

Non-conformist John Wesley was an interesting man to say the least.
His house and chapel on City Road are well worth a visit.

Pic top left shows me with some London Historians on our guided tour 

I won't give away too much here but I really recommend a guided tour to see and hear about JW's life and the internal spaces that he lived and preached in (when he wasn't on his horse). See also his exercise machine, some fabulous old Victorian toilets an exhibition and pay a visit to the museum shop.
More info on the Wesley's Chapel site.

Nicholls & Clarke, Norton Folgate

I have always admired the clock on the imposing building that used to be the home of Nicholls & Clarke sanitaryware and ironmongery on Norton Folgate, and had been meaning to find out more about the company.
Lo and behold The Gentle Author posted this piece about it the other day which includes some lovely images of colourful bathrooms. See here for more about the company.
This ties in beautifully with some snaps I took in the Ladies' toilet in The Duke Of Sussex, Waterloo (Waterloo!)

Pastel yellow tiles, pale blue pipes and borders, turquoise toilet seats, pale pink accessories and navy blue skirtings – lovely!

More info about the Norton Folgate area can be found by searching the  Spitalfields Life site.