The Meaning Of Life – Part Thirty One Of Forty Two

Why do the British drive on the left?

As today is my 60^th birthday I thought I would celebrate by pondering one of those really fundamental questions, why do we in Britain drive on the left when so many of our continental brethren drive on the right?

In the good old days there were only two ways of getting around – Shanks’ pony or on horseback. If you were a knight and were on horseback (and right-handed) you would want to ensure that your sword hand was unencumbered to enable you to defend yourself against attackers. It was also easier to get off your mount on the left, particularly if you had a sword in the way. This meant that horseriders naturally preferred to ride on the left hand side of the pathway, a practice which had been enshrined in legislation by 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII.

Things became a bit more complicated around the 18^th century when horse-drawn waggons were used to convey heavy loads, drawn by teams of horses. The driver didn’t have a seat but rode the left rear horse, leaving his right arm free to wield the whip. What it meant was that the driver sitting on the left, was happier if everyone passing him did so on the left. In other words, they adopted a preference for driving on the right hand side.

What gave a real impetus to the driving on the right movement was the French revolution of 1789 and subsequent events. The French aristocracy had traditionally ridden on the left, forcing the peasants to travel on the right. When the sans culottes gained the ascendancy in 1789 they made driving on the right de rigueur. Napoleon’s rampages across Europe introduced the trend of driving on the right to many of our European friends.

Naturally in Britain we eschewed everything that smacked of foreign ways and steadfastly stuck to our guns, ploughing our furrows on the left. The practice was enshrined in legislation here in 1835 and just as Boney had done, we introduced the custom of driving on the left to those parts of the world that had the good fortune to come under the yoke of enlightenment, otherwise known as the British empire. That is why some 35% of the world’s population including countries such as India, Australia and New Zealand and some African countries drive on the left to this day. Showing the laissez-faire for which we are famed some countries such as Egypt which moved from French to British control were allowed to retain their French customs.

The Japanese, who were never British subjects, still drive on the left. This is due to their Samurai heritage – they too needed to have their sword hand free – but it wasn’t until 1872 that this unwritten custom became official, a year which coincided with the Brits helping the Japanese build their railways. It became enshrined in law in 1924.

The Americans, of course, drive on the right. Initially, when it was a British colony the inhabitants drove on the left but following their rebellion in 1776 they eschewed all practices they associated with their colonial masters. Of course, the influx of settlers from European countries who had been subjected to the dread influence of the French also helped. The state of Pennsylvania was the first to pass legislation that required people to drive on the right (in 1792), followed by New York (1804) and New Jersey (1813).

The answer then is due to knights, Napoleon and British perversity. So now we know!

The Streets Of London – Part Six

Snow Hill, EC1A

If you visit this neck of the woods and look carefully at the railings of the church named St Sepulchre without Newgate, you will see a rather nice marble water fountain, bearing the admonitory sign, “Replace the cup”.

In 18^th and 19^th century London finding drinking water which would not imperil your health was a bit of a challenge. So dirty and polluted was the water supply that beer or gin was the safer option, although that custom brought with it other social malaises. After a series of cholera outbreaks in the early part of the 19^th century the authorities decided something needed to be done to impose a greater degree of regulation on the nine companies who had sprung up to supply water to the populace of the metropolis.

The Metropolis Water Act of 1852 made it illegal for water companies to obtain their domestic water supply from the tidal Thames, not least because that was where the sewerage companies deposited their untreated waste.

Even though this piece of legislation was to improve matters, the problem was that the cost of clean water was beyond the purse of many of the indigent Londoners. This is where two philanthropists, Samuel Gurney and Edward Wakefield, stepped in, creating the wonderfully named Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association. As its name suggests, its mission was to provide free drinking water to the masses.

The first fountain that was built by the Association was that which can be seen in Snow Hill which still works and has two cups on a chain, or it did when I visited it. It opened on 21^st April 1859 and was so popular that it was used by up to 7,000 people a day. It has remained in operation ever since, although it was temporarily relocated in 1867 and reinstated in 1913 when the Holborn Viaduct was being built.

The Association built an additional 85 water fountains over the next six years, mainly funded by a combination of public donations and contributions from Gurney. The Association obtained royal imprimatur when Queen Victoria contributed towards the cost of a fountain in Esher.

In 1867 the Association changed its name to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association and turned its attention in conjunction with the RSPCA to matters of animal welfare. A number of water troughs were built for the use of horses, dogs and cattle and were common around the Smithfield market area and were also used to water the horses which drew the hackney carriages. Maps of the time were extended to show their location and they were known as filling stations.

The Association is still going, although, as is the modern way, its name was abbreviated in 2011 to the Drinking Fountain Association.

Next time you are in the area stop and look at this fascinating example of Victorian philanthropy. The water doesn’t taste bad either, but remember to replace the cup!

Revelation Of The Week

So, according to our indiscreet PM, the Queen purred when he told her the result of the Scottish referendum vote.

Of course, was it the Queen or had she realised who was calling on and so put a royal moggy on the line or was Cameron mistaken and it wasn’t a purr but the sound of gentle snoring?

On the other hand, the Queen, like many of us down sarf, may just have been astonished by the result. After all, we are forever bumping into Scotsmen begging for change!

Meal Deal Of The Week

As if those of us who tramp the streets of London don’t have enough to contend with, news reaches me this week of a pop-up restaurant that is trying to lure customers with a burger which is supposed to taste like and have the texture of human flesh.

The product of the fevered imagination of a so-called freelance creative known for her macabre food concoctions and launched to coincide with the start of the fifth series of the TV show The Walking Dead, it seems a tasteless stunt on so many levels, even more tasteless than the normal burger.

The question has to be asked – how do they know that it tastes like human flesh? And should we be worried if they have little flags with names written on them?

You have been warned!

What Is The Origin Of? (55)….

The two words under scrutiny today came into prominence during the First World War but owe their origin to the Indian sub-continent.

Blighty

This is used as an affectionate or ironic reference to Britain. It owes its origin to the Urdu word, vilayati, which was used to describe someone who was European and, specifically, English or British. A regional variation, bilayati, is probably the direct antecedent.

The word was adopted by British soldiers serving in India during the 19^th century to describe their far-off home, often in the form of dear old Blighty, but it was also used, as an 1886 dictionary of Anglo-Indian words shows, to describe products that the Brits had imported into the country such as tomatoes and soda water.

However, its use took off during the First World War and was adopted both wistfully and ironically by the poets Wilfred Owen and Seigfried Sassoon to describe the homeland. A humorous weekly magazine called Blighty was distributed to the troops during the War with contributions from men on active service and subsidised through donations and sales to the public. A Blighty wound was a self-inflicted wound designed to ensure a passage home and an escape from the horrors of the front.

Dekko

To have a dekko is to take a look. There are numerous ways of spelling the word and dekko seems to be the most commonly used. However, it is a misspelling of the Hindi origin of the word, dekho, which means to look. The word was adopted by the British during their time in India and was in use at least in the middle of the 19^th century because Allen’s Indian Mail, a newspaper, of January 1856 contains the phrase, “The natives of the place flock round, with open mouths and straining eyes, to have a dekko”.

Its usage spread like topsy during the First World War, although it had to jostle for pre-eminence with other idioms for having a look. Soldired, particularly from London or seeking to adopt a faux-Cockney accent would use, as alternatives, have a Captain Cook or have a butchers’, both of which are examples of rhyming slang, Cook rhyming with look and butchers’ requiring the listener to insert hook to get the rhyme.

Another idiom for taking a look was to take a shufti. The origin of this phrase is the Arabic word, sufti, which means have you seen. Our notorious inability to speak another language and our magpie like habit of picking variants of words and phrases from other tongues and integrating them into English meant that this word, doubtless heard in the Middle East or Egypt, became part of the soldiers’ and, ultimately, our own vernacular.

To have a gander, which is another variant of having a look, does not owe its origin to adoption from a foreign tongue. Rather it is a reference to the goose’s habit of stretching out its neck when it is looking for predators.

So now we know!