LONDON PRIDE
Greenwich Morning
By DAVID ROGERS
"'THURSDAY. Early morning. Still dark, but the
I park gates are already open. Shadows on the wet grass. We slip quickly past Wolfe's house, and come out near Greenwich Theatre. Sixty thousand pounds needed to rebuild it, and the company, by keeping a shop in Greenwich High Road and playing music hall in the 'Green Man' each night—`Teacher to little Jewish boy in school in Commercial Road: "Johnny, what's 10 per cent of £100?" Johnny: "Ten per cent, teacher? I'm not interested." '—they will do it.
We cross by the Spread Eagle Antique shop, scramble by the cars parked along Nelson Road, and walk along Turnpin Lane, into the market. Fruit and vegetables. The large lorries parked in the centre, and vans and dormobiles loading from the sides. Apples and plums spill into the alleyways. A drunk staggers along the doorways, dropping to his knees and scrabbling amongst the garbage.
- It is half-past six. Outside the 'Horse and Groom' a notice offers rum and coffee, served until half-past eight.
Nobody is drinking rum and coffee. It's all bitter and brown ale. I have a pint of bitter. The barman yawns, 'I'll be glad to get to bed.'
'Yeah. All right for you. I got to go and sit in the café till eleven when the "Cricketers" open.'
Beer and yawns. The barman is drinking a mug of tea and reading a morning paper. .The young and fit loaders come and go quickly. The old, in dark old suits, without ties, sit and drink They don't buy rounds, just their own drink, and sit. The stall-owners rarely come in.
We walk through the market. On the other side of the square the 'Admiral Hardy' is also open. Outside, the Greeehwich day has started. A tired old man heaves himself from the steps of St. Alfege's Church, built on the spot where Alfege -was martyred by the Danes, and forlornly makes his way into the park. The butcher's has opened. Next door, fish is being slapped into the window. The brass on the Cutty Sark, majestic in its dry dock, is being polished. A boat is being pushed away from the pier.
We climb to the old Greenwich Observatory, site of Greenwich Castle, and created the Obser- vatory by Royal Warrant in 1675. Flamstead was appointed Astronomer Royal with the specific task of perfecting the method of measur- ing longitude. Although Flamstead had to leave this to Captain Cook's navigator, away in the distance Greenwich Mean Time was already ticking, and the Prime Meridian was inter- nationally adopted at Washington in 1884. On the line of nought we look up at the red ball that still drops at 1 p.m. each day. The story is told in the 'Plume and Feathers' that before the war, when there were midshipmen at the college, lunch was served at 1 p.m. Tourists were en- couraged to stand by Wolfe's statue and look down at the college courtyard to watch 200 mid- shipmen smartly bring up their left hands to check their watches, by the red ball, as they marched to lunch.
At this time of day Wolfe stands alone, his eyes fixed on the most superb scene. The gardens planned by the designer of Versailles—Le Notre —glisten, broad and green. This is formal. But King Charles, who started to pay for it all, Wanted to hunt. So to the east it curves and buckles until a spot is reached with a single tree and an almost sheer drop of some sixty feet. Here are all the sights of London. St. Paul's and the Post Office Tower. The Surrey Com- mercial and East India docks. And the streets and alleys of Greenwich, where Johnson first lived when he came to London, and Lady Hamilton waited for her lover, who came only to lie in state. The houses of Greenwich cluster, around the Royal Palace where Ann Boleyn first got a job as a lady-in-waiting, and where Elizabeth was born.
Now the National Maritime Museum, the hos- pital, and the college stand firm, in case the Dutch ever try to sail up the Thames again. To the thousands who visit these buildings the guide- book says, 'The authorship of the various parts of the present buildings has been a matter of much controversy . . . it would be wiser to ascribe the entire work to the "firm" of Wren, Vanbrugh, and Hawksmoor.' So that, I suppose, is that.
From the clock on the old Trinity Almshouses the hour is striking, and along the riverside path, beneath the Greenwich power station, a steady stream of people flow. They follow the path between the college and the river and disappear into a dome that takes them down and under the Thames. In five minutes they will be on the Isle of Dogs. Below us, Maze Park Station is becoming crowded. Soon nannies and dogs will invade the park. We hurry down the slope and, avoiding the junk yard, turn into Union Wharf. We pass a pub where there is another story told to those who, after buying their prawns from a stall in King William Walk, and looking at the deer, linger in the little streets. When Thornhill painted the ceiling in the painted hall at the college in the 1720s, he painted, so the landlord says, 400 maidens, but only 799 breasts. To anyone who can spot the one-breasted female, the landlord offers a free pint. 'And it's not a gimmick,' he adds, 'I just want to know.'
Now the shops are open. The streets are crammed with traffic trying to decide whether the tunnel or Southwark is the quicker way. The market has closed. A policeman is taking numbers. In South Street, children chatter to school. Wolfe's peace has been disturbed. Until early morning the village has vanished.
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