Just call me Brother by Laurie Graham

In the late summer of 2021, I gained a new moniker: I became, without recourse to surgery, hormone treatment or religious vows, Brother Laurie of the London Charterhouse. Those who are aware of the Charterhouse’s fabulous location ask me how I wangled such an enviable crib. Those who know of it only as an almshouse wonder how I ever came to such a pass.

In brief, widowed, off-loaded by my publisher and impoverished by years of nursing home fees, I was in the fast lane to destitution. The silver lining to this sad story is that I was judged to be a potentially suitable addition to the community of forty Charterhouse Brothers and so began a six-month probationary residence. I am now, yippee, a fully-fledged Brother.

 The Charterhouse has been an almshouse since the early 17^th century, but its style has evolved. The Brothers used to sleep in dormitories. Now, though we still eat communally, we have small, private apartments. Until six years ago it was a strictly male establishment, a walled and gated place of mystery in Clerkenwell. Then, under the leadership of Ann Kenrick, its first female Master, women were considered for admission  -  there are currently six Lady Brothers  -  and, better yet, the Charterhouse began opening its doors to the public. This has brought me the unexpected bonus of a new occupation. I have become a tour guide.

We live here thanks to beneficence of our founder, Thomas Sutton, and to the good management of his legacy. In return we are expected to contribute to the prosperity and happiness of our community, and as I’m unskilled at organ-playing, magazine layout or small talk, and unlicensed to steer wheelchairs, conducting guided tours seemed like my best bet. We offer two kinds of tour: those led by professional guides who really know their facts and figures, and those led by Brothers who, inevitably, add a personal, insider perspective to the mix.

Faced with 650 years’ worth of history and a regrettable inability to remember dates, I decided to put on my writer’s hat in order to design my tour. It tells, in chronological order, the story of the Charterhouse’s four incarnations. From 14^th century plague cemetery and Carthusian monastery, through neglected, post-Dissolution lumber room, then Tudor mansion, then almshouse and school, culminating in today’s architectural mash-up, tourist attraction and, paradoxically, central London oasis. The school has moved up in the world and out into Surrey. The almshouse remains.

In terms of the Charterhouse’s history, I find there are three sites in particular that enchant visitors. First, the atmospheric Norfolk Cloister. It is almost all that survives of the monastery and is named after Thomas Howard, 4^th Duke of Norfolk, who did some home improvements on it during one of his periods of house arrest. He lived in dangerous times.

Higgledy-piggledy Wash House Court is the stuff of a film location scout’s dreams, part medieval stone, part red Tudor brick and accessed through tunnel-like slypes. It was formerly the engine room of the monastery, the location of its laundry and bakehouse and living quarters of the lay brothers. Appropriately enough it still houses our launderette and the back entrance to our kitchens. 

 

And then there is the jewel in our crown, the Great Chamber.

During the stewardship of Sir Edward North, the Great Chamber was the place where the newly proclaimed Elizabeth I broke her journey from Hatfield House to London and held a Privy Council. She stayed five nights. We don’t know where she and her 1,000-strong entourage actually slept but we may imagine Sir Edward’s financial pain.

Elizabeth was to return to the property on several occasions during its occupancy by her doomed cousin, Thomas Howard, and Thomas’s heir had the similarly dubious honour of hosting a Privy Council held by James VI of Scotland on his way to be crowned James I of England.  The Great Chamber (now available to hire for weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate jollies) has seen a lot of history.

Brothers in gowns

Of course, a Brother’s Tour encourages a more mundane type of curiosity. What is life like in the Charterhouse today? Do we have to wear uniform gowns, as in olden days? No, we dress as we please. Are we allowed out? You bet. Are we summoned by bells? Sometimes, but responding is optional, as long as it’s not the fire alarm.  And do they feed us gruel? Absolutely not. When you come to visit, I’ll be happy to show you our very superior menu for the week.

The Charterhouse, equidistant between Farringdon and Barbican stations, is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday. We have a small, well-curated museum and a gift shop and our tours, open gardens and other events can be booked through the website, https://thecharterhouse.org

 

 

We are very grateful to ex-History Girl Laurie Graham for this post. The HG who should have posted yesterday has left the group without telling anyone.

The Queen of Tonga by Janie Hampton

Here’s a story to cheer you up on a miserable cold day at the end of January. On a June afternoon in 1953, a golden coach was pulled through the crowded streets of London in the pouring rain by eight grey horses.

The pouring rain did not dampen coronation spirits

A procession of soldiers, military bands, generals on horseback, bagpipers and foreign monarchs in horse-drawn carriages wound through central London on a five-mile route from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace. Hundreds of thousands of people had been waiting all night and most of the day in the rain. Considering it was June, with the trees in full leaf and the days so long, the weather was cold and miserable. When it wasn’t damp, it was drizzling; and when not drizzling, it poured. But the crowds remained upbeat and excited. After the dark years of the Second World War and the austerity that followed it, at last there was a reason to celebrate. They had been waiting for this day for over a year: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. ‘It was all organised by the Duke of Norfolk,’ said 12 year old Jane Roberts. ‘He had a face like a miserable dog.' The route was lined with policemen in capes, naval cadets, and soldiers from around the world, wearing the medals they had won in the war. As the procession made its stately way towards the palace, the roar of applause cascaded down the streets like a Mexican wave at a sports ground. The children cheered the Canadian Mounties in their red uniforms on their sleek dark horses. Scottish people cheered the bagpipers, with their swinging kilts. Older people cheered Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, stately and courageous, sitting in a glass coach with her glamorous daughter Princess Margaret. Others cheered the Life Guards in their pointed helmets with white plumes and shining brass breastplates. They all marched in unison to the thumping beat of the military bands playing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and the Victorian marching song, ‘We’re the soldiers of the Queen, m’lud’. But the strongest image that remains with everybody who was there that day is not of the beautiful young woman in the golden coach. The loudest and longest applause was for a monarch nobody had seen before, a woman of over six feet in height and 300 pounds in weight. Waving and smiling enthusiastically from her open carriage, her dark skin glistening in the rain, was the large and joyful Queen of Tonga, 
‘We heard the roar of the crowds from a mile away,’ said Enid Brown, who had come down from Birmingham with her sister Joyce. ‘We thought it must be for our new queen. The sound like the roar of a storm, it made my spine tingle. When the black carriage appeared we could see why. There was the usual pair of lovely black horses pulling. All the other carriages had their hoods up and you couldn’t really see who was inside. But this one was different alright. The top was down and there was this big lady. When we saw her, oh how we cheered! It was her joyful disdain of the pelting rain. You could see she wasn’t going to let a small thing like that ruin the day. We didn’t know who she was, but we still loved her.’

Queen Salote Mafile‘o Pilolevu Tupou III  of Tonga

Word went round the crowd that she was the Queen of Tonga. 'Who’d ever heard of Tonga? Some said it was in Africa, others said it was in the Pacific Ocean,'said Enid Brown, 'Some said she had come in a canoe. Well wherever it was, it was her spirit, her style, that won us all over,'
  Queen Salote of Tonga was one of 129 heads of state who had come to London to witness the coronation of Elizabeth II. Her landau carriage, with facing seats over a dropped footwell and hinged soft folding top, was driven by two old coachmen in top hats and velvet coats. Bringing up the rear was an escort of four mounted military police. She had insisted on keeping the hood of her carriage down, so that she could see the crowds, and they could see her. The 53-year-old Queen was dressed in gold and crimson robes, topped off by a golden tiara with a tall, red feather. She laughed and waved, and the people laughed and waved back, and she became the star of the day.
   The Kingdom of Tonga is an archipelago of nearly two hundred islands between New Zealand and Hawaii, scattered over five hundred miles in the Southern Pacific Ocean, with only fifty-five thousand inhabitants. First settled in 800 BC, with the same royal family since 1600, it was named the ‘Friendly Islands’ by Captain James Cook after his first visit in 1773. In 1900 Tonga became a British Protectorate but remained a monarchy. As well as ruling, Queen Salote Mafile‘o Pilolevu Tupou III wrote songs, love poems and lakalaka – the traditional Tongan dance performed en masse with synchronised arm movements.

Queen Salote was six foot two inches tall, part of a royal dynasty far older than the British monarchy.

     John Douglas was an army officer on duty on The Mall. ‘I had a splendid view of all the procession. The loudest cheer was not for Queen Elizabeth but for the Queen of Tonga. This very large lady was in an open carriage despite the torrential rain and waving furiously at the crowds, who admired her fortitude.’ For many people it was the first time they had seen foreigners other than American GIs in the war. Cross-cultural tolerance was required in all directions. The Sheiks from the British Protectorate of Qatar thought it perfectly proper to bring their personal African slaves. Nobody had thought to tell them that slavery had been abolished in Britain a hundred and fifty years earlier.
       On his small black and white television at home, the playwright Noel Coward and his companion were watching the procession. Perched opposite the Queen of Tonga in her carriage was the diminutive Sultan of Kelantan in Malaysia, husband to three wives and father of twenty-three children. Coward’s friend asked him, ‘And who is that sitting in Queen Salote’s carriage?’ ‘Luncheon,’ he replied.

When singing The Queen of Tonga, the author of this blog drinks coffee from this coronation mug

 Jack Fishman, editor of the Sunday newspaper The Empire News, wrote a popular song about that rainy day in June, with a lilting ‘calypso’ rhythm and catchy tune. Sung by Edmundo Ros, ‘The Queen of Tonga’, soon caught on and was being whistled all over the country.
In the pacific Islands of Tonga,
They make their people stronger,
Oh it can rain or storm or squall,
But they don’t feel nothin’ at all.
Chorus: Oh! The Queen of Tonga Cross’d the ocean from far away.
Oh! The Queen of Tonga Came to Britain for Co-ro-nat-ion Day.
And when the people saw her on that torrential morn,
She captured all before her, took ev’ryone by storm.
 In every heart will always live longer,
That reign-in’ Queen of Tonga.