Hogarth, debauchery, and a distant view of Hampstead

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RECENTLY, WE VISITED the Foundling Museum near Russell Square in London. One of the many interesting items we saw there was a painting by the artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), who donated it to support the Foundling Hospital, which was established in his lifetime.

The large oil-painting, “The March of the Guards to Finchley” was completed in 1750. It depicts troops gathering at the northern end of London’s Tottenham Court Road. In the foreground, there is a disorderly-looking crowd of soldiers who are mingling with civilians, mostly ladies. The soldiers and the other people appear to have been having a jolly time, bordering on debauchery. The military do not look as if they were in a fit state to face the enemy, whom they are about to head towards.

The soldiers were about to head north from London to defend it from the second Jacobite rebellion of 1745, which was part of a series of uprisings that were aimed at returning the Stuart Dynasty to the throne after the Glorious Revolution of 1688

( See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rebellion_of_1745) .

Behind the rabble of soldiers and other merry makers, Hogarth had painted an orderly parade of soldiers, dressed in red jackets, heading away from London through open countryside towards a distant range of hills. They appeared to be heading north by northeast. On the summit of a hill, there is a cluster of light-coloured buildings – a hill town, which is shown to the northwest of the soldiers marching in an orderly fashion.

Hogarth’s painting shows what was the northern edge of London in 1750. Eighteenth century maps, including one drawn by Rocque in 1746, show that north of the northern end of Tottenham Court Road, the roadway continued north by northeast, and this was most likely the path being followed by the orderly line of soldiers. Today, this road still exists, and is now named Hampstead Road.

Hampstead Road runs north to Camden Town, and its continuation, Chalk Farm Road that becomes Haverstock Hill, runs northwest and steeply upwards before becoming High Street Hampstead. The modern roads follow the old roads that existed at the time when Hogarth created his painting, “The March of the Guards to Finchley”.

Now, you might be wondering where this discussion is heading. Apart from the wonderful portrayal of soldiers and civilians enjoying a merry time, what interested me most was the small town on the summit of the distant hill. From what I have discussed above about London’s geography both in 1750 and today, it is most likely that the hill town shown in the painting was Hampstead.

Hogarth’s 1745 depiction of Hampstead as a hill town separated from London is a great illustration of what I wrote in my book about Hampstead, “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs”:

“The essayist and poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), a sometime resident of Hampstead, related in his book The Town (published in 1848):

‘In Elizabeth’s time, you might set out from the site of the present Pall-mall, and, leaving St. Giles in the Fields on the right hand, walk all the way to Hampstead without encountering perhaps a dwelling-place.’

During the first few decades of the 19th century, the village (or town: call it what you wish; I will stick to ‘village’) of Hampstead was still as it was in Elizabethan times: separated from the rest of London by open countryside. It was linked to London by a single road, which followed the course of the present Haverstock Hill and its continuation, Hampstead High Street. However, by 1848, Hunt noted that:

‘…every village which was in the immediate and even the remote neighbourhood of London, and was quite distinct from one another at the beginning of the reign of George the Third, is now almost, if not quite, joined with it, including Highgate and Hampstead ….

George III reigned from 1760 until 1820.”

Finally, when looking at Hogarth’s picture at the Foundling museum, an attendant told me that in the artist’s time, people in London sometimes believed they could see snow covering the hillside around Hampstead, even in the height of summer. What they were seeing was sheets and other laundry that had been laid out to dry. Hampstead was, and is now to a lesser extent, richly endowed with sources of clean water.

Among from the many other exhibits in the fascinating Foundling Museum, I found the painting with its distant view of Hampstead to be most interesting – so much so that I need to revisit the museum to savour its other items properly.

Visualising numerals as colours and in patterns

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EVER SINCE I was able to count, I have visualised numerals as colour.

In my mind:

1 is black

2 is light blue

3 is green

4 is reddish

5 is brown

6 is yellow

7 is dark blue

8 is light green

9 is dark green

10 is black,

and beyond that, I can no longer visualise numerals as coloured. Mention, for example 3, and in my mind’s eye, I see a green figure 3.

In addition to their colouration, I can see in my mind a pattern between 1 and 12 .

A number pattern as visualised by Francis Galton

For many years, I believed that I was alone in imagining numbers as being coloured. However, this changed when I became a student at University College London, and began browsing the shelves of its many splendid libraries. I came across books by Francis Galton (1822-1911) in which he described exactly what goes through my mind when I think about the numerals.

In the scientific journal Nature (Jan 15, 1880), Galton published a paper “Visualised Numbers”, in which he described in detail the phenomenon that I had hitherto believed was unique to me. According to his research about one man in thirty, and one woman in fifteen can visualise numerals. He wrote:

“Persons who are imaginative almost invariably think of numerals in visual imagerv. If the idea of six occurs to them, the word “six,” does not sound in their mental ear, but the figure 6 in a written or printed form rises before their mental eye. The clearness of the images of numerals, and the number of them that can be mentally viewed at the same time, differs greatly in different persons.”

As for the numerals appearing in colour, he described the following example:

“One of the sisters sees … the figures themselves are coloured, (1) black, (2) white, (3) yellow, (4) red, (5) greenish yellow, (6) blue, (7) black, (8) red, (9) grey. (0) gold. The other sister has a fainter, but still a decided tendency to see figures in a mental diagram. It is without colour but has variations of shade.”

Of the spatial patterning that people including me experience when visualising numerals, Galton said the following:

“Nearly all of my correspondents speak with confidence of their forms having been in existence as far back as they recollect. One states that he knows he possessed it at the age of four; another, that he learnt his multiplication table by the aid of the elaborate mental diagram he still uses. Not one in ten is able to suggest any clue as to their origin. They cannot be due to anything written or printed, because they do not simulate what is found in ordinary writings or books.”

What I began by describing at the start of this essay and that which Galton described in his article are examples of what is known as ‘synaesthesia’ (in USA: ;’synesthesia’). A reliable-looking article in Wikipedia defined this as:

“… a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in other sensory or cognitive pathways.”

It added:

“In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as “graphemes”) are “shaded” or “tinged” with a color. While different individuals usually do not report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies with large numbers of synesthetes find some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red).”

On number forms or patterns, the article revealed:

“A number form is a mental map of numbers that automatically and involuntarily appears whenever someone who experiences number-forms synesthesia thinks of numbers. These numbers might appear in different locations and the mapping changes and varies between individuals. Number forms were first documented and named in 1881 by Francis Galton …”

From what I have read, and that which I have quoted, I am not, as I first imagined, alone in experiencing numbers as patterns and colours.

Finally, relating to the above, I found the following on the Tate Gallery website (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/synaesthesia) :

“People with synaesthesia tend to be drawn towards the creative arts and some artists have explored the concept in their works, like the Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky, who had an interest in visualising music in his paintings. In the film ‘Sensorium Tests’ which explores mirror-touch synaesthesia, the contemporary artist Daria Martin challenges the idea that the act of looking is a passive experience.”

And in case this is of any relevance, I have been quite creative during my life. As a teenager, I drew and painted, and then later I spent several years engraving and etching, and more recently, I began writing.

Celebrating my birthday in Kosovo

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My birthday is on VE Day (8th of May). In 1990, I celebrated it in the former Yugoslavia. That year, I was driving around Serbia in a rented car with my friend from Belgrade, Raša Raičević. His birthday was the day following mine. Before I rented the car, my friend Raša, a very wise fellow, advised me to rent a car from one particular company because its cars carried Slovenian registration plates, rather than Serbian. This proved to be sound advice.

On the seventh of May, Raša and I booked into the comfortable accommodation provided at the beautiful Prohor Pčinjski monastery in the hills of southern Serbia. We decided to stay there two nights in order to celebrate our birthdays.

My birthday wish was to drive into the autonomous region of Kosovo and Metohija, which was populated by a high percentage of Albanians. Then as now, I was greatly interested in all matters connected with Albania and the Albanian diaspora. Both Raša and I had separately visited the area in the 1970s. We were both keen to see it again.

Old hammam in Prizren, Kosovo

Raša, a Serbian, had some reservations about driving into Kosovo, where there had been some unpleasant violent incidents between the Serbian and Albanian communities some months earlier. However, he decided that he would accompany me for two reasons. One was that our car bore Slovenian plates, not Serbian. The other related to his excellent command of the English language. He said he would only speak in English in Kosovo, not a word of Serbian.

We set off, driving through the relatively empty Serbian countryside. The boundary of Serbia and Kosovo was at the summit of a low mountain pass. As soon as we entered Kosovo, we discovered that, unlike the part of Serbia we had just left, the countryside of Kosovo was relatively crowded with people, by the road side and in the fields. The landscape was liberally dotted with recently constructed homes and other buildings. This was quite different from what we recalled of our earlier visits.

We drove into Priština (Prishtinë), the capital city of the autonomous region. The main road was filled with a sea of people. We inched forward. The crowds parted slowly to allow us to proceed. Raša advised, nay forbade, me to sound the car’s horn. He did not want to upset anyone. I had never before driven through such crowds. Four years later, I did it again, but in the central market area of Bangalore in India. There, I and other motorists sounded horns incessantly, but nobody paid the slightest notice to them.

We parked in the centre of the city in a car park that looked like it was the site of a large, demolished building.

I was keen to buy recordings of Kosovan Albanian music for my ever-growing collection of music from all over Yugoslavia.  The best supplier turned out to be a tiny kiosk that sold cigarettes, magazines, and newspapers. I bought about fifteen cassettes, the kiosk’s entire stock, but had no bag to carry my haul. The enterprising shop keeper saw my plight. He opened a couple of cartons that each contained twenty packs of cigarettes and emptied the packs onto his small counter. Then, he carefully packed my cassettes into the cartons.

After lunch in what seemed to be the grandest hotel in the city, we drove to see the beautiful Serbian Orthodox monastery at Gracanica.  Then we wended our way back towards Serbia, stopping for coffee at Gnjilane (Gjilan). There, I spotted a kebab shop that used a logo identical to the well-known McDonalds ‘M’. When I pointed this possible breach of ‘copyright’ to my friend, he shrugged his shoulders and said:

“This is Kosovo. Anything goes.”

We reached Prohor Pčinjski, where we ate a lavish and tasty dinner. The following day, Raša’s birthday trip was a drive through parts of Yugoslavian Macedonia. After passing some rice paddy fields, we were stopped by a policeman with a speed measuring device. He fined me the equivalent of £1 Sterling for speeding. My friend was fined half of that for not wearing a seatbelt. Otherwise, we had a good day, visiting an attractive small town, Kratovo, and the Roman ruins at Stobi by the River Vardar.

The following day, we drove back into Kosovo, stopping at the small town of Prizren. On both the 1990 and my 1975 visits, Prizren captured my heart more than any other place in Kosovo. Recently taken photographs I have seen show that it is still a delightful place.

From Prizren we drove to a dramatic pass that led from Kosovo into southeastern Montenegro.  We spent the night in Rozaje, a small Montenegrin market town. Thus ended a memorable double birthday celebration.

Soon after we visited Kosovo together, it was time for me to fly back to England. Raša accompanied me to Belgrade airport. Just before I entered the secure departure area, I waved to him and experienced a weird sensation. I felt that Raša knew that we would never meet again.

My sensation was not without basis. Soon after I left Yugoslavia, the country began its painful dismemberment. Visiting my friends in Belgrade and elsewhere in Yugoslavia became inadvisable.  Sadly, by the time that uneasy peace began to reign again in what was once Yugoslavia, Raša had passed away.

VE Day marked the end of hostilities between the Axis and Allied powers in Europe on the day that was to become my birthday a few years later. The imposition of socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe that followed did not put an end to festering sores that had been troubling the Balkans and elsewhere since the decline of the Ottoman and Austro Hungarian empires, which had already begun at the beginning of the twentieth century.  This was certainly the case in what was Yugoslavia. During the ‘reign’ of Marshal Tito, a semblance (or maybe more) of unity was achieved in his country. However, after his death, as if recovering from a general anaesthetic, old unresolved conflicts reawakened. President Milošević did little to resolve these, but instead helped to exacerbate them. Hailed by some Yugoslavs, mostly Serbs, as the new hero of Yugoslavia, this assessment was not shared by many, especially the Albanian folk in Kosovo.

All said and done, I cannot forget the warmth, hospitality, and friendship shown to me by ordinary people living in the former Yugoslavia, Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, Albanians, and many others during the 1970s and 1980s. They did not deserve what befell them during  much of the 20th century.

Read more about Yugoslavia as it used to be in my book “SCRABBLE WITH SLIVOVITZ”, which is available from Amazon:

A glass of milk by the lake in Northern Macedonia (formerly Yugoslavia)

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I have not visited anywhere in the former Yugoslavia since 1990. What follows is an account of one of my earlier visits to that now non-existent country sometime during the mid-1970s.

One of the earliest trips that I made to Yugoslavia was to visit Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. It began in Greece, where I was staying with my family and some of our friends from London. One of them, Hugh, and I left the comfort of the luxury hotels in which we were staying in Athens, and travelled by train to Edessa. We had to spend a night there before continuing to Florina in the north-east corner Greece. On the next day, when both of us had just about recovered from a dreadful bout of food poisoning caused by the injudicious over-consumption of undercooked pork kebabs that had been served on the train between Athens and Edessa, we boarded a small (two carriage) train. It took us slowly from Florina towards the Greek border village of Neo Kafkasos.

Hugh and I were the only passengers on the train when it stopped at the station on the Greek frontier. It was early afternoon and very warm. The only signs of life were the flies that spent much of the time swarming around us when they were not actually settling on our skin. Nothing happened for a long time. Then suddenly, another short train reversed into the station on the track next to ours, and stopped parallel to our carriage. It had come from the direction of Yugoslavia and bore the insignia of that country’s railway company. It stopped so that the carriage door of our wagon was exactly opposite one of its carriage doors. A uniformed man, a Yugoslav border guard, entered our carriage and escorted us across the short gap between the two trains.

Our new train rumbled north into Yugoslav Macedonia. All that I remember of Bitola, where we disembarked, was viewing a minaret in the distance as we approached the town at snail’s pace. We boarded a bus bound for the city of Ohrid almost immediately after getting off the train, and so saw nothing of Bitola. As the afternoon light began to fade, we crossed the mountains to the east of the town and arrived in the town of Ohrid after nightfall. 

In the town of Ohrid

We camped on the shore of Lake Ohrid in a campsite about one and a half kilometres north of the town. My original reason for visiting the place was that the lake was shared by Yugoslavia and its neighbour, the then almost impenetrable Albania. Little did I realise before arriving at Ohrid that I was going to be staying in one of the most beautiful spots in Yugoslavia. A line of white marker buoys bobbed about in the water about halfway across the lake, marking the boundary between Yugoslavia and Albania, whose distant shore shimmered in the heat haze. Although I was intrigued by the sight of these, the Yugoslav side of the lake was full of delightful attractions for the visitor.  Many years later when I visited Albania in 1984, I travelled along the Albanian shore from Lin to Pogradec, and discovered that it was not nearly as picturesque as the Yugoslav.

Whilst Hugh was content to spend the day basking in the sun beside the lake and eating watermelons, I spent my time exploring the city of Ohrid and its environs. The city was full of charm. Many of its narrow streets were lined with traditional Balkan dwellings. In some cases, their upper storeys projected beyond their lower ones, causing their facades to look like reversed staircases. In summer, so I read, the inhabitants used the upper light and airy storeys, and in winter they retreated to the more solidly built lowest storey where it was warmer and the animals were housed.

The city has an historic fortress; Roman ruins; some old orthodox churches containing beautiful frescos, many of them depicting the male saints wearing white robes decorated with black crosses; and at least one mosque with its minaret. I ate plenty of delicious grilled meats freshly prepared on braziers above glowing charcoal. Fortunately, I had not become averse to this kind of food, as I believe Hugh had, after our unfortunate experience on the Greek train. And I enjoyed numerous Turkish coffees.

Using the excellent local bus services, I visited the village of Struga at the north end of the lake, and, far beyond that, the town of Debar. This small town, which is about three kilometres from Albania, was full of men dressed in typical Albanian folk costumes – white flannel jackets and trousers, both trimmed with black edgings. This was exciting for me, as I was (and still am) passionately interested in Albania and the Albanians. I bought a couple of traditional shoulder bags made of rough textured woven fibres, most probably wool, and brought them home as souvenirs. The road that ran along the shore south from Ohrid led to the monastery of Sveti Naum, which I will describe soon.

Every day, I used to walk from the campsite into the town of Ohrid either to spend the day there or to embark on an excursion. At the end of the day, often after dinner in the evening, I walked back. There was little traffic on the road and no artificial street lighting. After sunset, it was lit only by the moon and stars. The main hazard that I faced at that time of day was meeting with bicycles travelling towards me. They were quite silent, and none of them used lamps at night. They seemed to loom up in front of me suddenly as if materializing from thin air. That gave me hardly any time to dart out of their way.

One hot afternoon, I was walking back from Ohrid to the campsite when one of its employees waved to me from outside the street entrance to his home. He invited me into his courtyard, where a fly-infested donkey was tethered, and then into his home. I entered a room in which his family, mostly women and girls, were seated on cushions ranged around its walls. Then, he asked me whether I would like some milk. Immediately, I visualised a condensation-covered glass of ice-cold milk straight from the ‘fridge, and accepted his offer. I was unprepared for what was handed to me. The glass of cream coloured milk was warm as were its contents. The milk, which I am certain had just been freshly collected from a cow (or maybe the donkey that I had seen outside), tasted strange to me. After taking one sip, I felt quite nauseous. Hoping that I would not vomit, I held the glass politely, smiled at those around me, and after a while, looked at my watch, and prepared to leave.

Some years later when I encouraged my friends, Robert and Margaret Harkness, to drive to Greece via Ohrid. We spent one night at the same campsite where Hugh and I had stayed many years earlier. Before we retired for the night, an elderly campsite worker approached me and greeted me like an old friend.  It was the same man who had invited me into his home and offered me milk. I was touched that he had remembered me from my earlier visit and by his warm greeting.

This was written some years ago, and published in my book “SCRABBLE WITH SLIVOVITZ – Once upon a time in Yugoslavia”.

It is available from Amazon (paperback and Kindle):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrabble-Slivovitz-Once-upon-Yugoslavia/dp/1291457593/

Shawls with embroidery from the Punjab in a neoclassical setting

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A FEW MONTHS AGO, we visited Claydon House (in Buckinghamshire) – a stately home filled with antiques and decorative features that are several hundred years old. We went to see an exhibition of contemporary art that was being displayed within the historic rooms of the house and in its gardens. I wrote about this show (https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2026/06/17/modern-art-on-display-in-an-english-country-house-setting/) and concluded:

“From the point of view of looking at these artworks, I see little point in showing them in the historic setting of Claydon House. There is something faintly amusing seeing the contemporary artwork almost competing with the variety of picturesque items within the house, which were created many years before their existence …”

In brief, I was not over impressed. So, it was with some trepidation that I set off to see a collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century Punjabi wedding shawls being displayed in the fine, neo-classical interiors designed by the eighteenth-century architect, Robert Adam (1728-1792) at Osterley Park (in west London).

The exhibition at Osterley Park, “Journeys – Wedding Shawls, Baghs and Phulkaris from the Karun Thakar Collection”, is on until the end of October 2026. The ‘journeys’ in the title refer to the fleeing of Hindus from Pakistan during the Partition of India (in 1947) and to the travelling that is often necessary during Indian weddings (for example, the bridegroom has to travel to meet his bride, and the married couple might need to move elsewhere after the wedding celebrations are over).

Before I explain the textiles, let me outline Karun Thakar, who was born in 1960. The British Museum website (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/AUTH234453)  summarises him as follows:

 “Born Kenya, brought up in Delhi. Moved to UK as teenager. Former dealer and collector of ethnographic textiles and antiquities. Major collector of textiles from Africa and Asia.”

About 70 pieces from his vast collection are on display at Osterley. As part of the exhibition, there is a short video of him talking most interestingly and sympathetically about the wedding shawls.

The shawls on display are/were worn during weddings and other festivals. They are all embroidered, and fall into two categories: baghs and phulkari.  They are both handmade, traditionally by groups of women working together. Each comprises silk thread embroidered onto a woven cotton cloth or backing. Michael Beste (www.m-beste.com) describes phulkari in his essay “Hopes & Dreams: Phulkari and Bagh from the Punjab” as:

“Phulkari in Punjabi literally means “flower work”and was originally used to describe all types of embroidery. In time, however, the term came to be used only for an embroidered head cloth or shawl …”

And he distinguishes the two categories in his essay:

“The major distinguishing feature between baghs and phulkaris relates to the amount of embroidery. In phulkaris, the motifs are more or less regularly divided over the whole cloth, and large areas of ground fabric are visible. As a rule, the ends have quite different patterns from the centre and are often much more richly worked. The motifs on a bagh, on the other hand, are embroidered so close to each other that the ground cloth shows as just a thin line around each motif. Also the ends of the bagh almost always pick up the motif of the main field.”

The patterns on the phulkari tend to be figurative with spaces surrounding them so that patches of the backing cloth are easily visible. The flowery motifs are like well-spaced plants in a garden. In contrast, the baghs are literally covered with geometric motifs that leave little or none of the underlying backing cloth visible.

All the shawls on display are beautiful and show evidence of painstakingly careful embroidering. At Osterley Park, each of the ground floor rooms, all of which had been decorated by Robert Adam, contains several of the shawls from Karun Thakar’s collection. A few of the shawls have been playfully placed to clothe some of the classical statuary that can be found within Osterley.

The presence of the Punjabi shawls at Osterley is not inappropriate. For some time, Osterley Park was owned by the Child family, owners of Child & Co., a private bank that financed some of the East India Company’s voyages and ships. The company had three trading ships named Osterley. The first of these, which was launched in 1757 was partially financed by Francis Child III (1735-1763). It was this man, who commissioned Robert Adam to redesign his country home, Osterley Park. The house contains several east Asian artefacts in its permanent collection. These were acquired through the Child’s involvement with the East India Company. So, Karun Thakar’s shawls feel, in a way, quite at home in Osterley.

Unlike the contemporary artworks that were being displayed at Claydon Hall and clashed, sometimes violently, with their historic surroundings, Thakar’s shawls seemed to harmonise with the historic environment in which they were being displayed. They are quite different to what surrounds them, but not at all out of place. To my great joy, what had been done at Osterley was far more satisfactory than what I had seen at Claydon.

Falooda far west of India and Pakistan

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THIS MORNING WE ate chaats (spicy South Asian snacks): dahi vada (aka: ‘curd vada’ or ‘dahi balla’) and pani puri (aka: ‘puchka’ or ‘gol gappa’). We were not in Mumbai nor in Kolkata nor in Lahore nor in Karachi. We were sitting in a small restaurant 4389 miles northwest of Mumbai’s Churchgate Station. But we were only 20 miles west of London’s Trafalgar Square.

Falooda

We were eating our chaats in Slough, which is not far from London’s Heathrow Airport. This rather unexceptional town on the edge of London has a large South Asian population, and many shops and eateries that cater to its tastes. We visit Slough occasionally to carry out certain errands, and usually have a coffee or snacks at places on Slough’s Farnham Road. The English man with whom we deal in Slough seems to be, as far we can judge from what he says, knowledgeable about South Asian cuisine and able to cook it well. He pointed out a new Asian restaurant near his office, and we decided to try it.

Today, 12 August 2026, we visited the place he mentioned. With its garish pink façade, it is called Falooda & Co. It serves a wide variety of Indian and Pakistani dishes including the snacks we ate. As the place’s name suggests, the eatery specialises in falooda. In case you have no idea to what I am referring, let me explain.

Named after a Persian dessert called ‘faloodeh’, falooda (or sometimes transliterated as ‘faluda’) is traditionally made with rose syrup, vermicelli, sweet basil seeds, sometimes kulfi (an Indian icecream made with boiled down milk), and milk. Since mediaeval times, when this dessert was introduced to the Indian Subcontinent, many variations have been developed. For example, Falooda & Co offers ‘The Salted Sunset’, which contains “Salted caramel and butterscotch paired with vanilla ice cream, finished with a sweet-salty crunch” and ‘The Royal Heritage’, which contains “Rooh Afza [a syrup made with rose, flowers, fruits], and cooling herbs blended into chilled milk, layered with rich kulfi and finished with royal dust”, as well as the more traditional version.

Most faloodas contain seeds, mentioned above. Because of the presence of these particles, I do not enjoy falooda. But as this type of drink is only one of the many things on Falooda & Co’s menu, there is plenty of other choice for a ‘falooda-phobe’ like me. We ate two of the chaats on the menu, and followed them by espresso coffees, which were expertly made, and remarkably good value.

In addition to South Asian offerings, Falooda & Co serves non-Asian dishes including club sandwiches, fish and chips, full English breakfast (with lamb, not pork, bacon), and also lemon posset.

We noticed several food offerings in the glass-fronted refrigerated cabinets, and recognised a few of them, but there were several that looked unfamiliar. We asked the young lady, who was serving behind the counter and had made our coffee so well, about the items we could not identify. She replied:

“I am sorry I don’t know. I am unfamiliar with Asian food.”

We inquired about the restaurant’s cooks, and she told us that the food was prepared by a team that included both Indian and Pakistani cooks.

As she did not look Anglo-Saxon, but not typically South Asian, and knew little or nothing about the food she was serving, we asked her about her background.

She replied:

“I am Albanian.”

Because I have had a great interest in Albania and the Albanians, we began chatting. She was born in England, but her parents had migrated to Britain over 30 years ago.

A survivor at Heathrow Airport

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UNLESS YOU WERE thirsty or hungry or in desperate need of a toilet, you would most probably drive past the Three Magpies pub without giving it a thought. The pub is near Heathrow Airport on the A4 road (the Bath Road), which links London to the west of England. However, this pub is of great historic interest.

Few people who land at Heathrow, London’s main airport, ever consider what was there before the airport was built.  The Three Magpies is part of the history of that place.

The origin of the name ‘Heathrow’ is obscure, but Gordon Maxwell and other authors mentioned that Edward Ironside wrote in 1791 that the hamlet, Heath Row, had a very considerable fishery for lamperns, a small kind of lampreys, which were used as bait by the English and the Dutch in the cod and turbot fishery barges. Maxwell noted that all traces of this old-time industry had vanished. He also provided a first-hand description of the village after which Heathrow Airport is named:

“In Heath Row are some old cottages … which might be in the heart of Devonshire, for their antiquity, their picturesqueness, and lonely situation. Very few people ever see them, for so few go along this road …”

A detailed 19th century map shows minor a road heading south from a point on the Bath Road a few yards west of an inn or pub. It led straight to Heath Row Hall and then veered slightly southeast to Perrot’s Farm, located next to a bifurcation. This thoroughfare ran approximately along the same course as today’s Tunnel Road East, through which passengers arrive and depart from Terminals 2, and 3. The western branch of this bifurcation led west to the small hamlet of Heathrow (aka Heath Row). On an 1862 map, this consisted of several buildings each in their own spacious grounds.  Terminals 2, and 3 and surrounding buildings stand on what was once the hamlet of Heathrow and its tiny neighbour Perry Oaks.

Nothing remains of Heath Row and Perry Oaks. They were demolished when Heathrow Airport began to be developed first as an RAF base during WW2, and then after that, a civil aerodrome. The inn I mentioned above – that on the Bath Road (the A4) – is the only survivor of the era before the airport began to be constructed. Established in the eighteenth century (before 1765), it was called ‘The Magpie’. Today, it is called ‘ TheThree Magpies’.

Unlike the hamlets that have long since disappeared, the Three Magpies continues to do business, However, its future is uncertain as a local historian explained in her detailed blog (wendytibbitts.info/the-… ):

“Since the airport opened to the public in 1946 the area it covers has increased many times and the once remote pub is now surrounded by hotels. But it is a survivor. Even if the third runway gets built it is not scheduled for demolition, but will be stranded between the northern and third runways with no passing trade.  There is every hope that the airport expansion plans will be quietly forgotten, but a more worrying prospect is the fact that Greene King are considering closing many of their pubs.  It will be very sad if we lose this ancient pub which continues to be a welcome place for a drink and a good meal.”

I have driven past the pub several times (I have never been there when it is open), stopped to take photographs of it, but never been inside it. So, it seems that I should hurry back to try its fare before the new runway begins to be constructed.

A peaceful scene at an ancient place in India

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HAPPY INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY

As it is difficult to judge a book by its cover, here is a brief excerpt from my latest book “Road to Heaven – a passage through India”. It describes what we saw at one of the ruined gateways to Mandu in Madhya Pradesh.

Mandu is a huge hill fort at about 2400 feet above sea level, and 1200 feet above the surrounding plains. This irregularly shaped, undulating plateau extends from east to west for between approximately 3.7 and 5 miles, and from north to south, it measures 3 to 3.7 miles. Deep ravines cut into the steep, and in places vertiginous, cliff-like, slopes sweep almost vertically down to the plains below,

Here is the excerpt:

 Our journey continued along a rough track that ended abruptly and without a warning sign at the edge of a high cliff that dropped down precipitously to the plain far below. The view from the cliff edge was spectacular. We could see a couple of lakes or reservoirs amongst the fields and trees, but the horizon was obscured by haze. To our left, there were the impressive, crenellated  walls of the hill fort and one of its seven gateways. We had reached the fortress-like stone Tarapur Gate at the southwest corner of the plateau. A staircase leads up from it to a walkway that runs along the remains of the high walls.  Near the bottom of this, an old stone roadway, now in a parlous condition, made two right-angle turns before passing beneath an arch and continuing as a rocky track that wound its way down to the plains below, clinging precariously to the steep slope of the drop at the edge of the plateau. Of this path, Yazdani wrote:

“… the fall of the hill beyond the outer arch of the gate is very precipitous, and although there are traces of a paved path descending to the plains, it is very difficult to believe that heavy artillery or chariots could be brought up this way, for the garrison could easily have crushed them by rolling down heavy stones. History, however, records that the Fort was invaded several times from this direction …”

While we were looking around, a straggling parade of farm animals, many cows and goats, made its way quietly through the gateway, and down the rocky track. They were accompanied by a couple of herders. The right-angle turns in the gateway were probably designed to make it easier for those guarding it to control entry to the hill fort. Apart from the farmers and their animals, we were the only people at the Tarapur Gate. It was in a part of Mandu which felt more remote than the rest of the hill fort.

After leaving the gateway, we drove through a hamlet where I noticed a man seated on the ground, weaving a cane basket. Further on, we passed women in saris carrying bundles of straw on their heads. We drove northwards through luscious countryside, passing many country folk chatting and working outside their simple homes. Then, after passing the Jami Masjid in Mandu village, we reached …

[ My book is available as a paperback from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HBN8BZG2 ]

A few words on my new book about India

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It is difficult to summarise a 269 page book succinctly. So, here is something that captures the essence of my latest book.

India is a country whose vibrant contemporary life mingles intimately with its age-old traditions. My new book “ROAD TO HEAVEN – A PASSAGE THROUGH INDIA” explores the intimate interweaving of past and present in the life of modern India by describing a journey I made through western, central and southern parts of the country.

In addition to relating our travel experiences – places we saw and their histories, whom we met, what we ate, and how we travelled, I have included other topics. These include accounts of places we (my wife and I) visited written by earlier visitors, and a detailed insider’s view of the formerly British colonial clubs of India. These clubs used to be out-of-bounds to Indians, but since the country became independent, they are now part of the rich fabric of Indian social life.

And as for the Road to Heaven, this really exists, and I have described my journeys along it.

The book is NOW available from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HBN8BZG2