1.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
2.
Herne Hill railway station
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Herne Hill railway station is in the London Borough of Lambeth, South London, England, on the boundary between London fare zones 2 and 3. The station building on Railton Road was opened in 1862 by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. Initial service was only to Victoria, but by 1869 services ran to the City of London, Kings Cross, Kingston via Wimbledon, the arrival of the railways transformed Herne Hill from a wealthy suburb with large residential estates into a densely populated urban area. Herne Hill railway station sits at the bottom of the hill gives the area its name and is close to Brockwell Park. The section of Railton Road outside the station is mixed usage for pedestrians, the Chatham Main Line and Sutton Loop railway lines through Herne Hill are elevated above road level on a brick viaduct that runs north–south. The stations 1862 Gothic, polychrome brick building is on the side of the viaduct. The building houses an office and newsagent, and was Grade II listed in 1998. It was described by Cherry and Pevsner as a handsome group, the station entrance canopy was removed in 2015 due to its disrepair and a new one installed in July 2016 with a new timber valance design and cornice based on the original Victorian one. Thameslink and Southeastern services cross each others paths at the junctions, the station also has a turnback siding on its eastern side, adjacent to Milkwood Road. The area now known as Herne Hill had been a part of the Manor of Milkwell since the 13th century. Two tributaries of the River Effra met at the site of the future station. In 1783 a timber merchant, Samuel Sanders, bought Herne Hill from the Manor, Sanders granted leases for large plots of land to wealthy families – John Ruskin spent his childhood at an estate on Herne Hill. The Effra was covered over in the 1820s, and the area had become a suburb by the mid-19th century. The opening of the station, which provided convenient and cheap access to central London. All of the estates were eventually cleared to make way for many smaller houses. An 1870 railway travel guide noted the population of Herne Hill was 701, a railway line through Herne Hill was proposed in 1852 by the Mid Kent and London and South Western Junction Railways Company. No construction work was undertaken at that time and the company had ceased to exist by 1860, in the late 1850s, the East Kent Railway had ambitions to run passenger trains between Kent and London, but it did not own any railway lines in inner London. It reached an agreement with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1858 to use its West End and Crystal Palace line to access Battersea and this arrangement incurred costly access fees, but it was necessary until the company obtained Parliamentary authority to build in London
3.
Brixton
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Brixton is a district of London, located in the borough of Lambeth in south London. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London, Brixton is mainly residential with a prominent street market and substantial retail sector. It is a community, with a large percentage of its population being of Caribbean descent. It lies within Inner south London and is bordered by Stockwell, Clapham, Streatham, Camberwell, Tulse Hill, the district houses the main offices of the London Borough of Lambeth. Brixton is 2.7 miles south-southwest of the centre of London near Lambeth North tube station. The name Brixton is thought to originate from Brixistane, meaning the stone of Brixi, Brixi is thought to have erected a boundary stone to mark the meeting place of the ancient hundred court of Surrey. The location is unknown but is thought to be at the top of Brixton Hill, at a road known at the time as Bristow or Brixton Causeway, Brixton marks the rise from the marshes of North Lambeth up to the hills of Upper Norwood and Streatham. At the time the River Effra flowed from its source in Upper Norwood through Herne Hill to Brixton, at Brixton the river was crossed by low bridges for Roman roads to the south coast of Britain, now Brixton Road and Clapham Road. The main roads were connected through a network of country lanes, such as Acre Lane, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton Water Lane and Lyham Road. The area remained undeveloped until the beginning of the 19th century, with the opening of Vauxhall Bridge in 1816, improved access to Central London led to a process of suburban development. One of a few surviving windmills in London, built in 1816, is just off Brixton Hill, Brixton was transformed into a middle class suburb between the 1860s and 1890s. Railways linked Brixton with the centre of London when the Chatham Main Line was built through the area by the London, Chatham, in 1880, Electric Avenue was so named after it became the first street in London to be lit by electricity. By 1925, Brixton attracted thousands of new people and it housed the largest shopping centre in South London at the time, as well as a thriving market, cinemas, pubs and a theatre. In the 1920s, Brixton was the capital of South London with three large department stores and some of the earliest branches of what are now Britains major national retailers. Today, Brixton Road is the shopping area, fusing into Brixton Market. A prominent building on Brixton High Street is Morleys, an independent department store established in the 1920s, on the western boundary of Brixton with Clapham stands the Sunlight Laundry, an Art Deco factory building. Designed by architect F. E. Simpkins and erected in 1937, the Brixton area was bombed during World War II, contributing to a severe housing crisis, which in turn led to urban decay. This was followed by slum clearances and the building of council housing, in the 1940s and 1950s, many immigrants, particularly from the West Indies, settled in Brixton
4.
Herne Hill
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Herne Hill /hɜːrn/ is a district in south London, England, approximately four miles from Charing Cross and bordered by Brixton, Denmark Hill, Dulwich Village, Loughborough Junction and Tulse Hill. It overlaps the boundary between the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark, there is a road of the same name in the area. In Rocques 1746 map, the area is shown as Island Green, probably reflecting the presence of the River Effra, early references to the area also use the form Ireland Green. The earliest documented reference to Herne Hill is in two insurance policies issued by the Sun Insurance Company in 1792. The area now known as Herne Hill was part of the Manor of Milkwell, which existed from at least 1291 and it was divided between the ancient parishes of Camberwell and Lambeth. In 1783, Samuel Sanders bought the now occupied by Denmark Hill and Herne Hill from the Manor. By the mid-19th century, the road from the modern Herne Hill Junction to Denmark Hill was lined with residential estates. Herne Hill was transformed by the arrival of the railways in 1862, the Half Moon is a Grade II* listed public house in Half Moon Lane. Herne Hill escaped lightly from V-weapons attacks during World War II, with five V-1 flying bombs, thames Water admitted liability and estimated the total cost of the damage to be around £4 million. The Half Moon reopened in March 2017, following a local campaign to save it as a pub. Herne Hill is situated between the areas of Brixton, Dulwich Village and Camberwell and it also straddles two boroughs, and is a community of just under 12,000 people, with a range of independent shops, art galleries, bars and restaurants. The Southwark half of Herne Hill is part of what is now called the North Dulwich Triangle, famous Herne Hill residents from history include John Ruskin and the Lupino family, and actor Roddy McDowall was born there. The area is home to the 50.8 ha Brockwell Park, near a hilltop in Brockwell Park stands the Grade II* listed Brockwell Hall, which was built in 1831. The hall and the land surrounding it were opened to the public in 1891 after being purchased by London County Council, Brockwell Park hosts the annual Lambeth Country Show and was the site of Londons Gay Pride festival for several years in the 1990s. The park also houses Brockwell Lido, a 1937 open-air swimming-pool that faces on to Dulwich Road, Herne Hill railway station on Railton Road was opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in 1862, the Gothic, polychrome brick station building was Grade II listed in 1998. The Herne Hill Velodrome, situated in a park off Burbage Road, was built in 1891, unlike most modern, steeply-banked velodromes, it is a shallow concrete bowl, the Save the Herne Hill Velodrome campaign is seeking a way to secure the future of the site. The same park also has a pitch and was the home of Crystal Palace F. C. from 1915 until 1918. A Blue Plaque at 84 Burbage Road marks the former home of the athletics coach Sam Mussabini, Mussabini was later immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire, in which he was played by actor Ian Holm
5.
City of London
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The City of London is a city and county within London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, the City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London, however, the City of London is not a London borough. The City of London is widely referred to simply as the City and is colloquially known as the Square Mile. Both of these terms are often used as metonyms for the United Kingdoms trading and financial services industries. The name London is now used for a far wider area than just the City. London most often denotes the sprawling London metropolis, or the 32 London boroughs and this wider usage of London is documented as far back as 1888, when the County of London was created. The local authority for the City, namely the City of London Corporation, is unique in the UK and has some unusual responsibilities for a local council and it is also unusual in having responsibilities and ownerships beyond its boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the current Lord Mayor, as of November 2016, is Andrew Parmley. The City is a business and financial centre. Throughout the 19th century, the City was the primary business centre. London came top in the Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, published in 2008, the insurance industry is focused around the eastern side of the City, around Lloyds building. A secondary financial district exists outside of the City, at Canary Wharf,2.5 miles to the east, the City has a resident population of about 7,000 but over 300,000 people commute to and work there, mainly in the financial services sector. It used to be held that Londinium was first established by merchants as a trading port on the tidal Thames in around 47 AD. However, this date is only supposition, many historians now believe London was founded some time before the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD. They base this notion on evidence provided by both archaeology and Welsh literary legend, archaeologists have claimed that as much as half of the best British Iron Age art and metalwork discovered in Britain has been found in the London area. One of the most prominent examples is the famously horned Waterloo Helmet dredged from the Thames in the early 1860s and now exhibited at the British Museum. Also, according to an ancient Welsh legend, a king named Lud son of Heli substantially enlarged and improved a pre-existing settlement at London which afterwards came to be renamed after him, the same tradition relates how this Lud son of Heli was later buried at Ludgate
6.
London County Council
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It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council. The LCC was the largest, most significant and most ambitious English municipal authority of its day, by the 19th century the City of London Corporation covered only a small fraction of metropolitan London. From 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works had certain powers across the metropolis, many powers remained in the hands of traditional bodies such as parishes and the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. While the Conservative government of the day would have preferred not to create a body covering the whole of London. It was established as a council on 31 January 1889. Shortly after its creation a Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London considered the means for amalgamation with the City of London. The LCC inherited the powers of its predecessor the MBW, but had authority over matters such as education, city planning. It took over the functions of the London School Board in 1903, from 1899 the Council progressively acquired and operated the tramways in the county, which it electrified from 1903. One of the LCCs most important roles during the late 19th and early 20th century, was in the management of the expanding city, in the Victorian era, new housing had been intentionally urban and large-scale tenement buildings dominated. Beginning in the 1930s, the LCC incentivized an increase in suburban housing styles. The LCC set the standard for new construction at 12 houses per acre of land at a time when some London areas had as many as 80 housing units per acre. By 1938,76,877 units of housing had been built under the auspices of the LCC in the city and its periphery, many of these new housing developments were genuinely working-class, though the poorest could rarely afford even subsidized rents. They relied on an expanding London Underground network that ferried workers en masse to places of employment in the city center and these housing developments were broadly successful, and they resisted the slummification that blighted so many Victorian tenement developments. The LCC undertook between 1857 and 1929 to standardize and clarify street names across London, many streets in different areas of the city had similar or identical names, and the rise of the automobile as a primary mode of transportation in the city made these names unworkable. In an extreme case, there were more than 60 streets called Cross Street spread across the city when the LCC began its process of systematic renaming and these were given names from an approved list that was maintained by the LCC, containing only suitably English names. If street names were deemed un-English, they were slated for change, Zulu Crescent in Battersea, for instance. By 1939, the council had the powers and duties. The LCC initially used the Spring Gardens headquarters inherited from the Metropolitan Board of Works, the building had been designed by Frederick Marrable, the MBWs supeintending architect, and dated from 1860
7.
Art Deco
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Art Deco, sometimes simply referred to as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. It took its name, short for Arts Decorators, from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925 and it combined modernist styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, Art Deco was a pastiche of many different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by a desire to be modern. It featured rare and expensive materials such as ebony and ivory, the Chrysler Building and other skyscrapers of New York were the most visible monuments of the new style. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the became more subdued. New materials arrived, including chrome plating, stainless steel and plastic, a more sleek form of the style, called Streamline Moderne, appeared in the 1930s, it featured curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco became one of the first truly international architectural styles, with examples found in European cities, the style came to an end with the beginning of World War II. Deco was replaced as the dominant global style by the functional and unadorned styles of modernism. The term arts décoratifs was first used in France in 1858, in 1868, Le Figaro newspaper used the term art décoratifs with respect to objects for stage scenery created for the Théâtre de lOpéra. In 1875, furniture designers, textile, jewelry and glass designers and it took its present name of ENSAD in 1927. The term Art déco was then used in a 1966 newspaper article by Hillary Gelson in the Times, describing the different styles at the exhibit. Art Deco gained currency as a broadly applied stylistic label in 1968 when historian Bevis Hillier published the first major book on the style. Hillier noted that the term was already being used by art dealers and cites The Times, in 1971, Hillier organized an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which he details in his book about it, The World of Art Deco. The emergence of Art Deco was closely connected with the rise in status of decorative artists, the term arts décoratifs had been invented in 1875, giving the designers of furniture, textiles, and other decoration official status. The Société des artistes décorateurs, or SAD, was founded in 1901, a similar movement developed in Italy. The first international exhibition devoted entirely to the arts, the Esposizione international dArte decorative moderna, was held in Turin in 1902. Several new magazines devoted to decorative arts were founded in Paris, including Arts et décoration, Decorative arts sections were introduced into the annual salons of the Sociéte des artistes français, and later in the Salon dautomne. French nationalism also played a part in the resurgence of decorative arts, in 1911 the SAD proposed the holding of a major new international exposition of decorative arts in 1912
8.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
9.
Hyde Park, London
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Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in London and one of its Royal Parks. The park is divided by the Serpentine and the Long Water, the park is contiguous with Kensington Gardens, which are often assumed to be part of Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens has been separate since 1728, when Queen Caroline divided them. To the southeast, outside the park, is Hyde Park Corner, during daylight, the two parks merge seamlessly into each other, but Kensington Gardens closes at dusk, and Hyde Park remains open throughout the year from 5 a. m. until midnight. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the park, for which the Crystal Palace, the park became a traditional location for mass demonstrations. The Chartists, the Reform League, the suffragettes, and the Stop the War Coalition have all held protests there, many protesters on the Liberty and Livelihood March in 2002 started their march from Hyde Park. Hyde Park is also a ward of the City of Westminster, the population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 12,462. Hyde Park was created for hunting by Henry Vlll in 1536, Charles I created the Ring, and in 1637 he opened the park to the general public. In 1652, during the Interregnum, Parliament ordered the then 620-acre park to be sold for ready money and it realised £17,000 with an additional £765 6s 2d for the resident deer. In 1689, when William III moved his residence to Kensington Palace on the far side of Hyde Park, public transport entering London from the west runs parallel to the Kings private road along Kensington Gore, just outside the park. In the late 1800s, the row was used by the wealthy for horseback rides, the first coherent landscaping was undertaken by Charles Bridgeman for Queen Caroline, under the supervision of Charles Withers, the Surveyor-General of Woods and Forests, who took some credit. It was completed in 1733 at a cost to the public purse of £20,000, the 2nd Viscount Weymouth was made Ranger of Hyde Park in 1739 and shortly after began digging the Serpentine lakes at Longleat. The Serpentine is divided from the Long Water by a bridge designed by George Rennie, one of the most important events to take place in the park was the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace was constructed on the side of the park. The public did not want the building to remain after the closure of the exhibition and he had it moved to Sydenham Hill in South London. At the age of twenty-five, Decimus Burton was commissioned by the Office of Woods and he laid out the paths and driveways and designed a series of lodges, the Screen/Gate at Hyde Park Corner and the Wellington Arch. The Screen and the Arch originally formed a single composition, designed to provide a transition between Hyde Park and Green Park, although the arch was later moved. An early description reports, It consists of a screen of handsome fluted Ionic columns, the extent of the whole frontage is about 107 ft. The two side gateways, in their elevations, present two insulated Ionic columns, flanked by antae, all these entrances are finished by a blocking, the sides of the central one being decorated with a beautiful frieze, representing a naval and military triumphal procession
10.
Richard Wagner
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Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare
11.
Pete Townshend
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His career with the Who spans over 50 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 20th century. He has also more than 100 songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles. He is self-taught on all of the instruments he plays and has never had any formal training, due to his aggressive playing style and innovative songwriting techniques, Townshends works with The Who and in other projects have earned him critical acclaim. He and Daltrey received The George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement at UCLA on 21 May 2016, Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend was born on 19 May 1945, at Chiswick Hospital, West London. The Townshends had a marriage, as both drank heavily and possessed fiery tempers. Cliff Townshend was often away from his touring with his band while Betty carried on affairs with other men. The two split when Townshend was a toddler and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother Emma Dennis, whom Pete later described as clinically insane. The two-year separation ended when Cliff and Betty purchased a house together on Woodgrange Avenue in middle-class Acton, London, Townshend says he did not have many friends growing up, so he spent much of his boyhood reading adventure novels like Gullivers Travels and Treasure Island. He enjoyed his familys frequent excursions to the seaside and the Isle of Man and it was on one of these trips in the summer of 1956 that he repeatedly watched the 1956 film Rock Around the Clock, sparking his fascination with American rock and roll. Not long thereafter, he went to see Bill Haley perform in London, at the time, he did not see himself pursuing a career as a professional musician, instead, he wanted to become a journalist. Upon passing the exam, Townshend was enrolled at Acton County Grammar School. At Acton County, he was bullied because he had a large nose. His grandmother Emma purchased his first guitar for Christmas in 1956, though his father taught him a couple of chords, Townshend was largely self-taught on the instrument and never learned to read music. Townshend and school friend John Entwistle formed a trad jazz group. The Confederates played gigs at the Congo Club, a club run by the Acton Congregational Church, and covered Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball. However, both influenced by the increasing popularity of rock n roll, with Townshend particularly admiring Cliff Richards debut single. Townshend left the Confederates after getting into a fight with the drummer, Chris Sherwin. Townshends brothers Paul and Simon were born in 1957 and 1960, lacking the requisite test scores to attend university, Pete was faced with the decision of art school, music school, or getting a job
12.
John Peel
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John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE, known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as the most important man in music for about a dozen years. In 2012 he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles Sgt, peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. Another popular feature of his shows was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners favourite records of the year. Peel appeared occasionally on British television as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s and he became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners domestic lives. John Peel was born in Heswall Cottage Hospital in Heswall on the Wirral Peninsula, near Liverpool, the solitary Peel was an avid radio listener and record collector from an early age, cutting his teeth on fare offered by the American Forces Network and Radio Luxembourg. He later recalled an early desire to host a programme of his own so that I could play music that I heard. In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel revealed that he had been raped by an older pupil while at Shrewsbury, whilst in Rochdale Monday to Friday, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street and developed long-term associations with Rochdale through the years. In 1960, aged 21, he went to the United States to work for a producer who had business dealings with his father. Once this job finished, he took a number of others, including working as an insurance salesman. While in Dallas, Texas, where the company he worked for was based, he conversed with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Johnson, who were touring the city during the 1960 election campaign and he later phoned in the story to the Liverpool Echo. While working for the company, Peel wrote programs for punched card entry for an IBM1410 computer. There, he presented the second hour of the Monday night programme Kats Karavan, following this, and as Beatlemania hit the United States, Peel got a job with the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official Beatles correspondent on the strength of his connection to Liverpool. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, until 1965 when he moved to KMEN in San Bernardino, California, using the name John Ravencroft to present the breakfast show. While in Dallas, in 1965, he married his first wife, Shirley Anne Milburn, then aged 15, the marriage was never happy and although she accompanied Peel back to Britain in 1967, they were soon separated. The divorce became final in 1973, Shirley Anne Milburn later took her own life. Peel returned to England in early 1967 and found work with the pirate radio station Radio London
Herne Hill
