'General' William Booth of the Salvation Army set up his tent today in 1865 on the Mile End Waste in London's poverty-stricken East End. His hell-fire sermons, tambourines and soup kitchens saved the lives of thousands even before the organization became worldwide. Booth's book In Darkest England highlighted the social problems of the day - drunkenness, prostitution, crime. I feel a strange affinity with this man - I own a frock coat like the one he used to wear and at Cambridge, my landlord had met him when he (the landlord of course, not General Booth) was twelve.
This link to history reminds me that I once had my hair cut by George Bernard Shaw's barber, but that, like the Giant Rat of Sumatra, is a story for which the world is not yet ready. Suffice it to say, I destroyed all the photographs, although my sister used to have one, with which to scare the children.
In other news ...
Today in 1644 the Battle of Marston Moor turned the tide in the English Civil War. For the first time the hell-for-leather cavalry charges of Prince Rupert of the Rhine failed to break the infantry squares of Fairfax's New Model Army. The Prince's dog, Boye, lay dead on the field and it was rumoured that Boye wasn't a dog at all, but a familiar, an imp sent by the devil to serve Rupert. Oliver Cromwell, whose tactics won the day, had an imp too but his, very cunningly, pretended to be a wart on his chin.
I kid you not.
