LONDON WALK NO 89 – GROUP 3 – MUSEUM OF BRANDS & ADVERTISING & GREEK CATHEDRAL - ORGANISED BY MARGARET LEE & BETTY SIMMONS – Wednesday 18th May 2016

With thunderstorms and torrential rain forecast, we were hoping to dodge the bad weather and stay dry. Nineteen of us gathered at the new ticket office at the front of Tonbridge Station. Poor Julie had had a bad fall, running to be on time, and was badly shaken, but “the love of the Group” ensured she was well cared for. It was the day of another strike by Southern Rail about removing RMT conductors, but we were surprised at how quiet the platform was, although our South Eastern train was quite full.

Reaching Charing Cross, we hurried to the bus stop and were pleased to see a No.23 bus arriving immediately. Piling in we settled down to enjoy the ride through areas our group walks are less familiar with. It was the State Opening of Parliament, so some roads were closed and from the top of the bus we had a good view of the security barriers.

At Marble Arch, we spotted two pieces of artwork – two 20’ giants, joined at the head, and forming an arch under which the general public can walk. This work is called ‘Brothers’ created by sculptor David Breuer-Weil as part of Westminster’s City of Sculpture, installed on the grass between Tyburn Way and Cumberland Gate. It is described as ‘the joining of minds’ intended to show that all people have the capacity for good and evil. A strange green statue revealed itself to be a horse’s head once the bus passed alongside. Called ‘Still Water’, it is a 33’ bronze created by

Nic Fiddian-Green and was part of the 2011 City of Sculpture but it was so popular it is now a permanent statue. Nic hired a cherry-picker and cleaned the statue himself in 2012.

Travelling down the Edgware Road, the shops were very diverse and the cafés had tables outside with people smoking hookah pipes. Hookahs are water pipes that are used to smoke specially made tobacco that comes in different flavours, such as apple, mint, cherry, chocolate, coconut, liquorice, cappuccino, and watermelon. (Don’t make the same spelling mistake I did when looking up

these pipes!). The UK smoking ban in enclosed spaces also affected hookah pipes, so all cafés now have tables outside. It is understood that these pipes released dangerous levels of heavy metal in the smoke, with users inhaling at least 26 times the recommended limit of uranium. The pipes are smoked through a single mouthpiece, which is passed round the group. (Does H&S know the implications of this?) Reaching Westbourne Park, we were all turned off the bus …. Had we read the destination on the front we would have seen that was as far as the bus went. But we didn’t have too long to wait, and we made the rest of our journey to Ladbrook Grove Station. Then a short walk to the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Lancaster Road. We took our group photo outside the entrance just as it began to rain.

Not the best photo, as some people are hiding, and Betty does not appear to be anywhere to be seen!

The Museum staff were so welcoming, and had reserved an area, with coffee and biscuits ready for us, including a welcome sign. We were given a short talk on the history of the Museum, its contents, and the use of the building, before Margaret gave us some information on possible lunch venues and handed out discount vouchers for

purchases in the Museum and Café. This area was bordered by glass walls leading out into a wonderful garden, but the heavens opened and we decided to do inside first. Fifty years ago, Robert Opie saw the need to unravel the fascinating story of how consumer products and promotion had evolved since Victorian times. By 1975 Robert had enough material to hold his own exhibition, The Pack Age, at the Victoria & Albert Museum. After a sixteen year career in market research, he opened the first museum devoted to the history of packaging and advertising in Gloucester in 1984. Although the focus of Robert's research has been the history of supermarket brands, his other interests extend to all other aspects of the consumer story: toys and games, travel and transport, leisure and entertainment, magazines and newspapers, technology and fashion, as well as the evidence of historic events like wars, major exhibitions and royal occasions.

The first area we visited was the Time Tunnel - taking visitors on a journey of discovery from Victorian times to the present day. Photography was not allowed, so this is a Museum of Brands’ photo.

High up in one of the display cabinets was an interesting item bearing the markings GUGNUNC. Shortly after Jeremy and I questioned what it meant, others were heard querying its meaning. The Handley Page H.P.39 was a wooden biplane design of the late 1920s. The aircraft was intended to compete in a competition proposed by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics - the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft Competition. The original working name for the aircraft

was the Guggenheim Competition Biplane. The name Gugnunc was at first unofficial, coming from the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred newspaper cartoon (in the Daily Mirror and later in silent films), but it later became official. "Gugnuncs" is a combination of two baby-talk words used by Wilfred (the rabbit), who as a toddler-aged child cannot speak yet, Nunc being his version of Uncle. We made our way back to the Café for

some lunch, many of us choosing to have either soup and bread, or paninis. Jeremy left us to get back to check that Ros was OK. As the rain had stopped, I made my way out into the garden. Our guide had told us the story of the Museum location – The museum is based around over 12,000 items from the Robert Opie Collection which were housed in a Museum in Gloucester from 1984 until its closure in October 2001. The collection moved to Notting Hill in 2005. Since originally opening in Colville Mews in 2005, the museum's visitor numbers increased fourfold; and having outgrown the premises, it reopened in September 2015 at the London Lighthouse Building in Lancaster Road, formerly owned by the Terrence Higgins Trust - the first charity in the UK to be set up in response to HIV, having been established in 1982. The Trust wanted to ensure the

important historical legacy of the Lighthouse was protected, and so the Memorial Garden is retained as a place of reflection for people with a link to it. The enclosed space creates a microclimate, and enables an extraordinary variety of more exotic plants to be nurtured. Another part of the Museum is the Branding Histories area which shows previous incarnations of the packaging of products such as PG Tips, Marmite and Lyle's Golden Syrup side by side — a 3D timeline both of the products themselves, and the historical events and changes they've witnessed. Alongside this is a TV area, where adverts from the past can be viewed – black and white, colour, good or bad, our group could be heard guessing the ads as they started, and singing the jingles. Cadbury’s Smash, the Esso BleeDooler, Brooke Bond PG Tips, Murray Mints and Heinz Beans to name a few from the early 50s.

Joe, the tongue-tied Esso Blue paraffin salesman who

called himself the 'Esso Blee Dooler' was created in 1958 when paraffin was a relatively common household fuel, but its use steadily declined over the years, as did Joe. The Cadbury’s Smash martians laughed

helplessly when it was reported to them what lengths the Earthlings went to in

eating potato. This was voted the Ad of

the Century in 1999, and ITV’s Best Ad

Ever in 2005.

Also cabinets grouped in decades – leaving some of us wondering why food was being displayed with soap powder until we saw the date at the top! It was interesting to note the change in size/weight of some items and the packaging style – from cardboard to plastic. The Dairy Milk bars of today have been

2015/16

changed in size and shape. The largest moulded bar in the world was made by Cadbury Limited in October 1998 to celebrate the re-launch of Cadbury Dairy Milk. The giant 1.1 tonne block was nearly 9ft high and 4 ft wide. It would take an average person 120 years to eat! One display of Rose’s Lime Cordial bottles showed the progression of bottle sizes. Hilary has a half-size bottle which she will offer to the Museum. Rose's lime juice, often known simply as Rose's, is a concentrated fruit juice patented in 1867. This makes it the world's first concentrated bottled fruit juice drink. It was extensively used by the British Royal Navy. Rose’s bottles are always found in Boar War dumps.

The names on the Heinz soup cans prompted some comments about what actually was IN the cans originally, and whether they were full or empty now! A long cabinet displayed the

progression in design of radios and televisions and I will be offering two tiny TVs I have dating back to the 80’s. A visit to the shop completed our visit, and we left to go out into some very pleasant weather for our walk to the Greek Cathedral. Tony left us as he had a bowls match to get back to. Margaret led us left and right along a labyrinth of roads, and we passed some interesting sights en route.

Reaching St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Moscow Road, Betty and Margaret tried to contact the Father who was going to open up specially for our Group. Ringing the doorbell of the Presbytery, and trying to make contact by phone, Margaret was beginning to worry we would not get in.

We gathered at the front Cathedral doors, trying to decide what to do, when Barbara R went up and banged the door knocker several times, hard and loud !! It worked, and the Father let us in.

It was like opening a very plain box and finding it decorated like a Fabergé egg. The most wonderfully gentle-speaking Father talked about the history of the Cathedral, in soft tones and an entrancing accent.

He was delighted that we had chosen to visit his Church, and for some of us, it was an extraordinary comfort just listening to him speak. He explained how the impetus for

constructing a new church was that the majority of the Greek community who worshipped at the Church of Our Saviour, London Wall lived further afield, many in the

smart, new west London suburbs of Paddington, Bayswater and Notting Hill. The foundation stone was laid in 1878. The first service was held on Whitsuntide Sunday, 1 June 1879 and the church was consecrated by the Archbishop of Corfu on 5 February 1882, on completion of the majority of the interior decoration. In 1922, Saint Sophia was designated by the Oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as the seat of the newly-created Diocese of Thyateira, named after the See of Thyateira in Asia Minor, with jurisdiction over Central and Western Europe. It thus became a Greek Orthodox Cathedral and the seat of the bishop of Thyateira.

The church is Byzantine in inspiration and is a Grade I listed building. In the main church, the walls are lined in rich coloured marbles in green, black, white and pink (added in 1881-5) and, where exposed, there is polychrome brickwork. The floor is tessellated paving in geometric patterns with a double-headed eagle design at its centre, the traditional emblem of Byzantium; it dates to 1889. The windows are all acid-etched glass in a variety of floral designs. In 2006 a small museum was opened in the Crypt, but we were not offered the opportunity to visit it.

Leaving the peace and calm of the building, we made our way back out into the bustle of the people and traffic, and followed Margaret to the bus stop to catch the No.94 back to Charles II Street and the short walk to Charing Cross Station. En route we passed a number of people protesting about something and some men strangely dressed in polythene and dragging a long string behind them with odd items tied to it. Oh, I just love London – it is so normal! Our journey back to Tonbridge was uneventful, and

we all went our separate ways, full of the thoughts of a really great day in London, thank you Margaret and Betty.