Reflections on the Thames as seen from London Bridge

The following is a reworking of a poem and post that originally appeared in 2018:

Come rain or shine
Cometh the swarm
Over dark waters rushing
Beneath the City
Sunrise

Dawn cracking
Upon bowler hats
Under which
Eyes firmly fixed
As bows on high seas
Rough commerce ahead

Kilo three zero
Kilo three zero

For one’s troubles

Tea in a polystyrene cup
Swirling vapour of ripe endeavours
Steaming up the Congo
Rising to fade
Into busy haze
Ghostly
Uncaring

To think now
Of stopping there
Freely
Without ire
Sitting
Watching
Sipping
Winking

Kilo three zero
Kilo three zero

Not noticed
All too focused
Getting from A
And so on

Pondering with
Polystyrene tea
For company

Why cross on foot
Bear the exposure
When Underground’s faster
Surely securer

Such questions
Such grand designs
Such that they matter

Claustrophobia
Collapse
Getting stuck and knowing
About the water
Darkly rushing

Anxiety
Pious devoted
Bloated misshapen

Kilo three zero
Kilo three zero

After all
The tea is weak
Tepid
Kilo three zero, copy

There’s a parcel for pick-up
Needs super urgent delivery
Over

Aah! So it is then . . .
The start of a new day
Just like any other

In the early 90s I spent about nine months, including a winter, working as a motorcycle despatch rider.

Though spending half my life to that point living a mere five minute drive from the square mile that is the City of London, I’d never had any reason to be there other than driving through; something only tending to happen at weekends when its streets are (were?) empty. Despite the short distance it was an entirely different world. Such is its size London can be a bit like that – even when only five minutes away.

I was given London Bridge as my morning start point. I’d park up on Arthur Street, the little left hand turn on the bridge’s north side (just behind the building mentioned in the image below).

A postcard of unknown origin dated 1910 . A bit before my time, though the perspective of the bridge and the building facing the river on the left are (were?) the same.

Something that came as a surprise was the old antiquated image I found alive and kicking in the form of some of the older bankers still wearing bowler hats. Sat there in the morning, it was like watching history in motion; though there was nothing stuffy about the men wearing them: calculating and briskly eager to get on with making lots and lots of money regardless.

I could’ve taken it, then, that bowler hat wearing in the City would happen to some degree come what may, that it was a tradition traditionally followed as bankers got older, and really I hadn’t witnessed anything all that spectacular at all. Except, before the decade was out, I returned to the Square Mile on a daily basis as a pest control field manager; and when I did there wasn’t a bowler hat in sight.

I had managed to catch a glimpse of a fading tradition after all then (that said, what with the whole gentrification thing, there’s a good chance they’re back).

Image dated 1927. A sign of things to come is on the right. In the above image dated 1910 The Monument to the Great Fire of London (the tall white column) can be seen clearly; above only its pinnacle peeks out above the new building.

As for despatch riding per se not a great deal exciting happened beyond trying not to get knocked off, trying to stay dry and warm—something made unnecessarily difficult by the amount of places insisting helmets were removed, which meant having to take gloves off—and trying to locate more often than not places, buildings and companies never heard of before.

Though one day, when riding down Park Lane from Marble Arch, I heard the unusually low deep roar of what was likely two Harley Davidson’s behind me. To see if I was right, I made a point of sitting with traffic in the inside lane, hoping they’d overtake. We entered the massive roundabout at Hyde Park Corner level, and it was then that I got the real surprise:

They weren’t just Harleys, but fully kitted out Metropolitan Police Harleys, with fully uniformed officers riding them too. Holy shit! I stuck with them through the roundabout and a couple of roads after before really having to get back on track. I later read in Motorcycle Cycle News that the Met had trialled them for a couple of weeks, but had decided not to move forward.

(I had a quick look online to see if I could find any images/articles relating to the trial, but found absolutely nothing, though did return results relating to other occasions and Force’s that had trialled the make. I also found finding images of London Bridge a bit of a challenge (2018) – see below image)

Finding pictures of London Bridge, one of the eldest in the world, can be a lot harder than it sounds. Image results returned 18 pictures of Tower Bridge before one actually of London Bridge appeared. On Google Maps hovering over at least three bridges on the Thames returns images of Tower. In this image Charles and Lucy Glidden are shown on London Bridge in 1902 during their round-the-world automobile trip. They were the first people to complete the feat. Tower Bridge can be seen in the background.