Whitechapel Bell Foundry

Saturday afternoon I booked a tour at the Whitechapel Bell foundry. Whitechapel is a area immediately east of the City (London proper, which is actually quite small). The Bell Foundry is the oldest continuously operating business in the UK, started in 1570, but has roots even a bit further back into the mid 1400's. They cast bells of all descriptions and sizes, from small bells for doors, to big bells for tower clocks.

The owner was showing us around, he's the third generation of the current owners, and has worked in many of the workshops at the foundry. It has been located here since the mid 1700's, and the building is designated heritage building, so can't be modified too much. Sloping wooden floors, open rafters, steep narrow stair-cases, and 'primitive' conditions are the order of the day. In the casting room there were three bells which had been cast on Friday and were still warm on Sunday. These are medium sized bells of between one and two tons each.




Tuning bells is tricky. They're cast to be flatter than the pitch desired and then tuned 'up.' If they go to high, there's no way to bring the pitch down. Larger bells have five dominant tones, and after being cast the five tones can be out of tune by different amounts. To bring all the tones to the correct pitch at the same time, material is removed from the bell at different points on the inside of the bell, using a giant lathe.



Whitechapel also make handbells for choirs. They actually make a set which is the full range of a piano. These are cast in a different way, cut on the lathe to bring close to pitch, and then polished to a high finish that brings it to perfect pitch. This is the only section of the factory that is air-conditioned -- the hot summers have driven the temperature in the attic (where they finish the bells) so high that the accuracy of the pitch was being affected. The owner joked (sorta) that the priority was the bells, not the comfort of the staff!

It's rather neat to see the workshop with bells of all sizes just stacked like cord-wood. Many are old bells being brought in for 'service.' Bells don't require repairs or service in the usual sense; unless they crack or break, they're good for ever. But often the pitch was not accurate, and they're brought in for tuning accurately using modern equipment. The other task is removing the yokes on old bells for more secure mounting. The yokes are liable to breakage, and are also no suitable for change ringing.



Whitechapel has been making bells for all over the world. The new set of bells of St. James Cathedral in Toronto was a recent installation. One of their biggest bells at 11 tons was installed in Montreal, and the biggest and most famous bell is Big Ben, at over 13 tons.

London

I've been in London since Thursday, staying at the Anglican Communion office in Westbourne Park. Thursday and Friday much of the day was spent at the British Library doing some research, and in the evenings I went to a number of plays Everything is very expensive in London, with the exception of theatre, which you can see at a reasonable price.





Thursday night was a new version of Noel Coward's 'Brief Encounter,' a rather successful integration of elements of film with stage. The actors provided the spoken parts and singing, but also playing instruments for accompaniment. Other parts of the play were projected on a screen, in the style of the original movie.





Six Characters in Search of an Author is about six characters from an unfinished novel who appear to a different writer, wanting her to finish the book so they can be 'complete.' This version, based on Pirandello's orginal, blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. "So many layers it would give an onion an inferiority complex!" was one review. Instead of being an author, this one is a video producer doing a documentary about a euthanasia clinic. The broadcaster doesn't think it's 'authentic' enough, so they hire actors to impersonate the original family. That's when the six lost characters come in.





My last night in London I went to see "French & Saunders: The Final Farewell Tour." If you don't know them, it's the comedy duo of Dawn French (well-known for Vicar of Dibley) and Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous). They're hugely popular in the UK, and I was lucky to get a single ticket at Theatre Royal Drury Lane (or as they say, Dreary Lane). It's one of the biggest theatres in London, and it was all-but-sold-out.

Township 2

There’s a huge but marginal economy in the shack-towns. People living in the townships often have real jobs (Brian himself lives in a township), but many of the shack-dwellers do not, so some are creating local enterprises. Many shacks lining the roadways are selling food, clothing, furniture, etc., car repair and washing, lots of barber and hairdressing, and cell phones. The ‘better’ shops are in shipping containers, which provide a secure space. Others are just in shacks with an open front.

In quite a few places we saw women cooking food on the site of the road. Open fires with pans of meat or vegetables cooking. Brian explained that meat is fairly expensive, but most people expect to have it – it’s a normal part of their diet from where they come. So, when money is scarce, you end up eating the ‘less desirable’ cuts. We saw piles of sheep’s heads: they’re cleaned of all the wool and then boiled whole. The meat and the broth are supposedly tasty – we didn’t try it. When the head is cooked, the skin shrinks a lot, so when it’s finished, the skin is pulled back from the mouth, which is why they’re called ‘Smileys.’ The other thing that’s common is cooking chicken heads and feet: the local term is apparently “Walkie-Talkies.”

We visited four households in the township: Vicky’s Bed and Breakfast, a three-guest-room B&B right in the middle of the township. She’s built a second storey to accommodate guests, and has been in operation for a couple of years. It’s rough but look comfortable, and she’s making a go of it.

Behind the B&B is a nursery school for children from infants to age 5. There are three rooms, four adults, and about 40 children. The older ones are already wearing uniforms in anticipation of going to school in the next term. It’s hectic and it’s packed, but the alternative is for the mother to not work. Apparently there is still a widely held belief that a man with AIDS can be cured by having sex with a virgin, so young girls are particularly vulnerable.

Across the road we met Beauty, who used to work in the garment industry in Cape Town. That industry has collapsed much like the Canadian equivalent, under the pressure of cheap imports. She’s now running a small sewing business form her house, and is teaching others how to sew as well.

Golden used to be a miner, but now has a craft shop where he makes artificial flowers out of scrap metal – usually pop cans. He sells them to tourists, and has begun wholesaling them to gift and souvenir shops in Cape Town. Demand has increased such that he now pays local children to retrieve pop cans out of the refuse bins in the area.

It’s hard not to feel voyeuristic when you’re seeing all this from the safety and comfort of a tourist van. Brian (and the others) said they value and welcome the visitors, it helps share the stories and also brings business. At the same time the poverty and deprivation are very hard to see and walk away from. There is a high degree of crime (apparently giving credence to all the bars and razor-wire), and most of the townships and settlements have to deal with gangs. Yet throughout we saw people engaged in conversation, laughing and smiling amongst themselves; adults and children smiled and waved at us as we drove through, without a hint of resentment, hostility, or even opportunity for a hand-out. This relative peace may be shortlived, however. Cape Town is hosting the FIFA world cup semi-finals in 2010, and there’s huge pressure to ‘tidy up’ the town. Many of the settlements are near the airport, and the city is trying to move people out, especially in the shacks adjacent to the highways. Additionally, there are lots of promises of building new housing, but it’s going painfully slowly.

Township 1

My last day in Cape Town was remarkable because we decided to do something less typically touristy (although we had a tour guide for it). Rebekah and I went for a township tour. Brian, our tour guide was born in District Six, a large neighbourhood adjacent to the downtown that, up until the 1960’s was a mix of black, white, mixed, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, short and tall. You get the idea. Although perhaps sentimentalized, the pictures and text at the District Six museum show a neighbourhood that was vibrant, alive, and appeared to get along. The apartheid government of the time decreed that this should become a white neighbourhood; the goal being to make the city white and move all the non-whites to the suburbs and beyond. Systematically, residents were forced out and relocated to the townships – new neighbourhoods that were designated for blacks or coloureds. As they moved out, the houses were razed by bulldozers. The only buildings that escaped were several churches and mosques, and a handful of businesses that were on the edges, facing the existing white neighbourhoods. The picture above shows the field that was District Six.

The site of District Six remains empty except for those few churches and mosques – no new development has taken place in the intervening 40 years. Because of the unrest of the time, and the resistance by the residents, no one has taken up the offer of developing the area. Whether through solidarity with the removed residents, or from fear of retribution, potential residents never arrived, and except for a few cobbled sections of street and bits of foundations and steps, the area is grassland – not even shacks have been built. There is a growing demand for former residents to be returned to the area into new housing, and one housing complex of about 24 townhouses has been built for the most senior of the former District Six residents.

Most black and coloured (again, these are the Cape Town terms – people use them to describe themselves) live in the townships, areas specifically designated and created for them by the apartheid government. Formal townships tend to consist of streets with small houses closely packed along them. Informal settlements spring up all over on unoccupied lands. Sometimes these are strips of land alongside the road – eight or ten feed wide – others consists of hectares of tiny shacks made of scrap sheet metal, wood, cardboard or whatever comes to hand. The ‘street’s are little more than walkways between them. The largest township “name” consists of both formal and informal housing, and has a population of over a million.

Proper houses consist of two or three rooms, usually with electricity, water, and sewage (although this may be shared by other houses). Most of the shacks have no facilities, and draw water from a communal tap, use portable out-houses, and heat and cook with kerosene. Because of the huge fire hazard, the city has started providing electrical service. The extraordinary thing too, is that the city is designating land for shacks, by laying water lines, sewage pipes (the toilet it attached to the pipe, but the out-house isn’t built by the city, so you come across these toilets sitting in an open area), and electric poles in anticipation of people building shacks. Thousands of people arrive every week to the settlements – Brian showed us a whole area that didn’t exist the week before.

Tour of the Cape

Cape Town itself is at the northern end of a peninsula that extends down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. Much of it's very southern end is a national park. Cape Point is a high promontory with a light-house at the top. The height meant it could be seen about 60 km off shore, but only when there was no cloud cover. Too often, low clouds would block the light. Another light was built lower down.

Cape of Good Hope is more of a rocky beach, near the Cape Point.

Stellenbosch is a very pretty town east of Cape Town, renowned for its vineyards. We stopped for a very nice wine-tasting; I'm lugging two bottles home.

African penguins are unique to this part of the coast, and are distinct from those found in Antarctica.

The baboons are wild, and are frequently by the road. They'll beg food, and can get quite aggressive, even climbing through windows into cars or opening car doors.

Aquila Safari part 2

Seems like Blogger only allows a limited number of photos -- next time I'll put them on flickr. Spot the lion in the first picture. The rhinos are getting excited. Those are Springboks and Ostriches in the third. And I swear thoze zebras were angling to get their best side for that picture!

Aquila Safari

Aquila is a private game reserve (i.e., it is not a government-run operation), that is about two hours north of Cape Town. We were picked up at 5:15 A.M. for the trip out, along with eight other guests. We were greeted at the reserve with champagne and a delicious hot breakfast. Afterward, we clambered into the land rovers for three hours of trekking across 5,000+ hectares. The pictures tell the best story, aside from the delight of seeing the young elephants, zebras, rhinos, and springboks. There were only a few elephants and rhinos, one giraffe, many zebras, and countless springboks. And, we did see the springboks springing across the veldt; Geordie would’ve had fun chasing them, but I doubt he would’ve taken one down!

After a very nice lunch with lamb pie, vegetable stew, rice and beans, potatoes, and more, Rebekah and I embarked on a horse-back ride with two guides. We covered some of the same area and animals, but it was quite a different experience. Neither of us had been on horseback since we were kids, so it was a gentle ride!