Bright lights: Day three

This being notice of the third day of our Easter expedition to the big town.

I was up a little early on Easter Saturday and decided to take a stroll before breakfast around what was my stomping ground for many years. Two shifts, with stays in the Millbank and then the Norwich offices in-between.

Our Premier Inn Hub was next to Steel House, which I remember as the Institute for Manpower Studies, then closely linked with the Department of Employment on the other side of the road. The author of reference 2 takes an interest in the exterior decoration, but I can find out very little about the interior of the Institute. There is a piece in a personnel journal which tells me that:

'The Institute of Manpower Studies (IMS) was established because of a widespread belief that there was a need for a national centre of practical knowledge and experience of the manpower field; it would be available to all those working on manpower problems, particularly in employing organisations. It was thought that it should be possible to develop techniques and approaches of general applicability to those interested'

and invites me to stump up £29 if I want more. The paper does not seem to have leaked out, a process that would probably have been helped along had the author(s) been listed. In any event, an outfit from a past when we thought it was the business of the public sector to know about the labour market.

The building is now occupied by a branch of the Harris Federation, a large charity that appears to specialise in providing education in tricky locations. One of the many outfits which have filled the space once occupied by our local education authorities. See references 4 and 5.

I used to cycle down the ramp, just to the left of the yellow pillar. The mini-cycle-shed right did not exist in my day. Indeed, as far as I can recall, I was the only occupant of the building who arrived by bicycle.

Impressive hole in the road, opposite the Houses of Parliament. More gas works.

While inside the outer perimeter, we had this ancient tree. No idea what it was, or if it had any particular significance - perhaps as the tree under which Oliver Cromwell took his bread and cheese on the day that they decided to execute Charles I - but I am sure it is on the books of the heritage people. Quite right and proper too.

Over the bridge to capture the first of a number of what I took to be Korean nuptial photo-shoots, this one in the garden in front of St. Thomas' Hospital. Presumably not the actual wedding day, given the absence of support by friends and family. Visible middle left if you click to enlarge. The (red) memorial wall noticed at reference 6 is middle right.

Crossed the road to the downstream side to come back, by which time there were a lot more people about and a lot more selfies. Including one chap so wrapped up with hood and scarf that his selfie would not have included much face at all. Perhaps just the eyes.

As I recall, when I used to work in GOGGS, I scarcely used to notice all the tourists. I suppose they were just part of the furniture. 

The entrance to GOGGS which I mainly used is snapped above, in those days manned on a 24 by 7 basis. Government had to go on! Guarding the doors was privatised during my time, moving from a substantial Treasury Security Guard to private contractors - contractors who hired their staff from a rather different shop.

Something else which has been privatised. Resulting in rather patchy provision, which can be a problem for the older tourist. And, I dare say on occasion, the younger tourist, not used to our fine warm beer.

I did not manage to work out who managed the telephone box selfie operation. Were selected boxes put up for auction? Perhaps selling off five year slots? Were they not managed at all?

Back to Tothill Street to take in the entrance to Caxton House. I don't remember the visitors' entrance left and I don't suppose the brown box is the workmen's entrance. They are supposed to go down the ramp around the back. Not sure whether we had passes to get in - they were certainly not as de rigueur as they subsequently became. I remember that when I started out in the early 1970s, most office buildings did not both with security at all and were, in effect, open to all comers. Handy if you like sampling other peoples' canteens. Something else which I dare say has largely vanished. 

And we certainly did not have this gate for shutting the road. £50,000 all in, including delivery, erection and making good? Who is the registered key holder? Who knows where the register is kept?

The limestone does not seemed to have suffered in the fifty or more winters it has been there, despite all the cavities. I wonder if it gets cleaned from time to time?

Back for breakfast at 09:00, at which as well as the sausage sandwiches which are my usual fare in places of this sort, a couple of good portions of their fruit salad. I was amused, as I took my second portion, by one of the team emptying a fresh box into the dish. Clear plastic covered box, maybe 40cm by 30cm by 10cm. 5kg of the stuff? Clearly bought in.

I failed to find the box in question, but Brakes came nearest, at around £6 a kilo. Maybe the Hub is big enough to get a discount. As it is, it looks a good deal less than what it would cost me to make the stuff up by hand at Epsom.

Out to visit Westminster Cathedral, where I wanted to show off Eric Gill's Stations of the Cross. But we found a service in progress, and sat down at the back for that instead. 'Tenebrae: Office of Readings' - complete with a fine choir, I think all boys and men. I think we had the archbishop in his big red robes and mitre, from whom we got a short address. A reading by a lady, who came without the fruity accents you might get in a place like King's College Chapel. Not much audience participation, but it was an impressive performance. A congregation of maybe a hundred, maybe rather more. One bag lady who turned up late and sat down in front of us.

During the first part of the service, the candles gradually went out, symbolising, I suppose, the loss of the light of the world and the descent into the darkness of Hell. BH was very impressed by noise made by the choir banging their breviaries when the last candle went out.

The service included music by one Tomás Luis de Victoria, a sixteenth century Spanish composer much favoured by the Ripieno Choir whom we used to go and hear at Weston Green. See reference 8. In turning them up, I also turned up their performance of Handel's Messiah, noticed at reference 9, back in 2016. I had completely forgotten about this when we were at the Albert Hall the day before, as noticed at reference 1. Inter alia, a reminder than monumental performance of that sort were not always either possible or fashionable. When prompted, BH recovered more of the occasion than I have - without the help of an aide-memoire - but not does not remember standing for the Hallelujah Chorus. While I think that I would probably have included it in the aide-memoire, that is to say reference 9, had it happened.

All much more impressive than the Evensong we attended at Canterbury Cathedral, as noticed at reference 7. But to be fair to the Anglicans, this, being Easter, was a much more solemn occasion.

At which point, we broke up and headed for home, via Victoria. I might well have bought some tomatoes for grilling from the Tesco's at the station.

PS 1: although I had taken a book to read and charged up the Kindle for this expedition, in the event, I made very little use of either. 

PS 2: T. E. Lawrence wrote of pound note accents rather than fruity accents. This from his time in the RAF, some years after his time in the desert. He also wrote, as I recall, of rushing around on a big motorcycle to buy special Lincolnshire sausages for his hut.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/05/bright-lights-day-two.html.

Reference 2: https://ornamentalpassions.blogspot.com/2010/01/steel-house-tothill-street-sw1.html.

Reference 3: Institute of Manpower Studies - 1972. Personnel Review, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 99-102.

Reference 4: https://www.harrisfederation.org.uk/36/our-academies.

Reference 5: https://www.harriswestminstersixthform.org.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/brunswick.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/12/canterbury-second-day.html.

Reference 8: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/sutton.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/11/messiah.html.