Every year since the mid 1300’s, London has had a Lord Mayor’s Show. “What kind of show is that?” and “Who/What is a Lord Mayor?” are the questions you are probably asking now. Well, read on…The Lord Mayor is the Mayor of London. He/She serves a one-year term and is inducted to the position on the second Saturday in November every year. Before the induction, there is a big “show” which is actually a parade. The parade starts at 11:00 a.m. and goes from Mansion House (the Mayor’s home) and proceeds to Victoria Embankment on the Thames. At 13:00 (that’s 1:00 p.m. for you non-military and non-European types), the parade makes an encore performance going the other way (from Victoria to Mansion house).
Polling current London citizens, we learned that only about 1/3 of them even know what The Lord Mayor’s Show is. Shocking! As was true when we were in LA, we do things that are here and the locals have never heard of it or have never participated. Also shocking!
A little history on The Lord Mayor’s Show – it has occurred every year for the last 650+ years with only two exceptions: The funeral of The Duke of Wellington and The Black Death. There’s nothing like a Black Death to rain on your parade, n’est ce pas? Also, the Lord Mayor travels the parade route in the original coach used in the 1300’s – it is like a Cinderella coach. He is accompanied by his chaplain and two stewards. The photograph below shows the coach and his chaplain from this year’s parade.
You will notice the chaplain is wearing his proper white curls! We tried to get a photo of the Lord Mayor himself, but we were foiled by the camera gods that day and weren’t able to grab a snapshot (so much for our careers as Paparazzi).
We went to the show via train and tube, getting out at the Bank station. There were thousands of people there, but Debbie snagged a great spot on the side of a big financial building on Cheapside Street (we don’t make these names up, really!). It is peculiar to have a slew of banks located on Cheapside Street, isn’t it? Oddly enough, the return route goes down a different street, called Poultry. No “street” or “road” in that one, just Poultry. We stopped near 1 Poultry before we went to Starbuck’s after the parade. To prove it, we grabbed a snapshot of the building at 1 Poultry so you would believe us.
After the parade, we had a whirlwind of fun getting to a tube stop because they had suspended service on the Northern Line – reasons unknown (well, explained to us, but still unknown because the TFL worker was speaking very quickly). Our stop, which was “5 minutes away” took us 25 minutes to get to, but we finally made it. Then we had a yummy dinner of Steak and Kidney Pie and Chicken and Vegetable Pie – very English indeed!
We still can’t tell you the Mayor’s name (without looking it up), though we can tell you that the weekend before, we celebrated another Englishman, Guy Fawkes. But that is another story which we will post soon with pictures.
With warmest wishes that your next party is not cancelled due to The Black Death,
Deb and Jon in South London
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