 This is the CBS radio workshop This is possibly one of the most lovely views. I thought it was good from West, Mr. Bridge But I shall always now think that Big Ben has a very special one I'm looking directly down on West, Mr. Bridge Over the Thames I can see St. Paul's and it is the perfect time of day the end of the day and The sun is shining and everything looks pretty all right from up here CBS radio presents the CBS radio workshop Dedicated to man's imagination the theater of the mind Tonight from England the workshop presents Miss Sarah Churchill's portrait of London daughter of one of the 20th century's greatest statesman and former Prime Minister of Great Britain Miss Churchill has established herself as a talented and sensitive actress in both America and England Because of American interest in the great cities of Europe. We have asked Miss Churchill a question about her home Recorded from London. Here is her reply You asked me what does London mean to me? Well It's a city in which I was born and have lived for more than half of my life Even though now I am a wanderer and perhaps should be able to take a Detached view of it. I can't Whenever I return to London. I am simply coming home However, since you have started me thinking Whenever London is mentioned or the chimes of Big Ben ring out from a newsreel or radio. I See a large city Mostly gray in color Except for the vivid splashes of green when the parks are in leaf or bloom So when I think of London perhaps it is the parks that flash most quickly through my mind Perhaps this is because I was a child here and spent many happy hours playing in them I've always felt that London had a very special tempo of her own Somewhere in a football crowd or a racing crowd or in the Hubble bubble of Covent Garden Market in the early morning or In petticoat Lane with its vendors on a Sunday morning or in a stock exchange with its Brokers and jobbers or in the House of Commons with its debates among all these sounds and rhythms of London I feel a steady pulse as reassuring as a heartbeat Well, we've got a wonderful day for going around London. I thought we'd start with a zoo It's quite early in the morning. So there's nobody here But I wanted a pair of visit to my father's pet lawn which was given to him by the lawn club of America in Chicago, he's quite a young lawn and here is somebody who can tell me much more about it It's one of his keepers. His name is mr. Swain mr. Swain Is rusty nice does he have any particular characteristics? Well, Rusty is very nervous As you see he goes at the back of the cage when he got the strobe in Well, I thought that was very alarming But he's not too bad at the moment. He may grow out of it. Do you think so? Yeah, how soon must you stop treating him as pets? I mean when they're quite small you can pick them up I mean I can see you couldn't pick him up now But that's one thing you can't say you mean they develop characteristics like people they may get better or worse That's right. Yes, that's very correct. He's all right as he goes for a young sir. Rusty. I think you're very nice Rusty Rusty Thank you. Well, I think he's giving me a wonderful smile. Goodbye Rusty Well, we're just passing a cage with some birds called quaker parakeets, which is simply Enormous and they make quite a lot of noise. It must be because we're walking by Incidentally people think that it's foggy in London. They should be here today because it's really quite Hot and we're sitting on the grass taking a rest before we Take you along to Buckingham Palace Mr. Gregory, would you tell me something about the London Zoo and what you do here? I have been employed here on the bird section For over 30 years Of course, we reckon it's the best zoo in the British Isles naturally because we work here it holds the Royal Charter and It's a great favorite with all the people in London We have huge crowds here on Bank Holidays And I think they all appreciate they have the value for their money. Mr. Gregory. How long has this zoo been in existence? Our zoo London Zoo has the Royal Charter. The correct name is the Zoological Society of London The first chart was granted in 1828. Well, thank you very much and thank you for showing me Rusty. Goodbye now. It is a pleasure to have you. Thank you They're changing guard in Buckingham Palace. Christopher Robin went down with Alice A Milne's poem for his son Revives for all London children the continuing delight of watching the guards change outside Buckingham Palace You know, I can't believe that there is a Londoner Who does not as he passes Buckingham Palace on foot Bicycle by cab or car who does not shoot a glance up to the flagpole atop of Buckingham Palace To see where the Queen is at home This you can tell by seeing whether the royal standard is flying it is today Flying in a strong fresh breeze so we know that the Queen is at home When a Londoner sees this London becomes just that much more of a home to him And when the flag is down We all of us wonder Where she is How she is and it all goes well with her and hers We're standing at the foot of the Queen Victoria Monument just me to take a cross from Buckingham Palace There's a very nice fountain Splashes about hey Policemen will make you get down off there Well, yes, I mean a cop Do you live in London? Oh Oh in Kensington. Oh, yes, I know that I didn't know Melbury Road. Well, maybe he'll let you stay The guards are in their full summer dress of scarlet tunic blue trousers and bare skin cap And and the horseguards The house her cavalry guard They they have the plumed helmets and the burnish breastplates and the white buckskin breeches long black riding boots There must be I suppose some two thousand people here, but don't think that they're all tourists More than half of them are Londoners who like to come again and again to see this particular pageant I think we should go down into the heart of London, which is a city pass and poor way down and Go to a rather strange market Now this is a market that runs just for about four hours during a Sunday morning, and it's called petticoat lane It is principally a market for clothes Perhaps that's why it's called petticoat lane I don't know, but it is about 11 o'clock in the morning And if we hurry we'll get there before it closes at midday This is the famous petticoat lane in London where you can buy anything and buy a puppy dog You can buy Jellied eels. I just noticed a stand that is selling Very nice little statues of my papa puffing away the cigar. I simply have to go and look at those How much are these ashtrays of Sir Winston? The ashtrays are two shillings Oh, and how about the little statues? The small ones are one shilling complete with three cigars. You place In each model you see there's a hole beside of his mouth You place the imitation cigar in and light it up with either a cigarette lighter or a box of matches I'll show you how it's done And before you can say Jack Robinson, there he is puffing and smoking Well now we'll take a walk down Petticoat lane and let the market speak for itself The man who is talking in the background is Trying to sell things to a large crowd like he's do that an auction and he's waiting around for bidders And as I'm holding a microphone. I might have to buy it. So I'm moving on You're satisfied. They're all right. That's all really matter So that's 30 9 and 11 in the shop. See I'm doing it for 30 bucks Well, it this really is an amazing speak. You can buy anything as I said the clothes Very nice and you can get oh, I saw some Western clothes being so bad. Did you know that all the David Crockett? hats are having a tremendous success in England and I have a confession to make I've never been here before London still has a certain amount of horse traffic Some of the milk carts and cold carts are still drawn by ponies or horses Here comes a vendor with a very sweet shaggy pony like a little baby cart horse And I think if we ask him he'll give us a nice fry I I'm fine man. Any old red iron bottles today. Oh, I see you're buying That's wonderful. Thank you very much St. James Street is Composers and very old and beautiful 18th century houses. They will have the high spacious rooms and The entire street really consists of Clubs men's clubs now these form a very important part in the Englishman's life You've heard that his home is his fortress. Well Even that isn't enough for him He has to have a place to get away from the women and so he goes to his club famous clubs It is boodles whites brooks bath Pratt and the conservative club they're all in the same street now I can't go inside so I found an English friend who is going to take my American friend in But first I want to ask him Donnie would you tell me how did the clubs originate really well in the 18th century? groups of friends used to meet in coffee houses to drink coffee and tea and chocolate which were rather exotic drinks in those days and Gradually they became rather a closed circle and the people who went there used to frown on those They didn't know coming in and they used to meet that a bet It was a sort of betting shop as much as anything Now what did they bet on well mainly on horses and sporting events But also on every sort of thing political as well one of the bets I recall was a bet that in 18 to that in three months time mr. Pitt would no longer be in office But the wall do you know this well they keep a betting book they kept one in those days which listed all the bets and if they're paid or not and Well another one one of the famous more fantastic bets mr. Fox and his friends Sitting in Brooks is on a rainy afternoon betted a fortune on raindrops coming down the window one against the other Which would reach the bottom first That's wonderful Now I shall wait out here, and if you would take mr. Rogers and show him the club I will be very grateful. Yes. Let's go in we're fighting our way through London traffic If you think you have traffic problems in New York come and spend some time sitting here I think perhaps the London taxicab is a very important part of London too. They're all the same that little black Orstins they're not like your gay colored convertibles that you have in America The color in our cars really comes from the great red double-deck buses The traffic is moving a bit now of course today. It's a little worse than usual because this is Rehearsal for trooping the color, which as you know is what we do to celebrate the Queen's birthday It doesn't matter when a monarch has his birthday They make an official day of it and we hold it in summer because as you know in summer in England It never rains press section the the stands are packed with Tourists and it's lucky that there are so many rehearsals because the parade ground is really very small And this gives people a chance to see what is perhaps one of the most moving and beautiful military pageants miniature military pageant. This is really what is Exceptional about it because horseguards parade isn't very big and so you have a great feeling of intimacy You really see like a little arena and you can now we have some wonderful names The mounted band of the Royal Horseguards known as the blues Grenadier Guards Coldstream Guards Scots Guards Irish Guards Welsh Guards music You're heading to they're doing a slow march of it's a mass band drums and pipes and They march across and then they double back through themselves They wear the red tunic and of course the famous bear skins and they really do look like Toy soldiers from here The precision is absolutely clockwork It was a wonderful day bright and sunny today, of course it is raining up to the umbrellas Crouching under one colors are now being presented at this moment And then of course they marched the colors around the whole square and as they pass as You do everybody stands up and then remove their hats the rain is now settling in lucky It's not great big drops. It's a sort of Well, I guess being British. I'll call it a scotch mist is descending and people who don't have Umbrellas are putting newspapers over their heads and handkerchiefs But nothing will drive them away Well I've been listening to the people talking in the crowd and I found another American Get to ask him what he thinks about it Excuse me. Are you enjoying it? Very much. I think it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen before in my life Does it always rain like this in England? Despite the fact that it's now pouring This has just been brought we left our raincoats in the car The car is about half a mile away because naturally they have to shut the streets to traffic So I suppose we just have to get wet. Oh The color is now being trooped Just a rustle of agitation in the crowd because it is not absolutely pelting down and The press are leaving They have to because of the cameras really cannot work without shelter in this rain. Although one man is doing his best He's completely draped in his Macintosh. I don't know what he thinks he's doing under there Laurie's Trucks as you would call them have arrived with the Macintosh Macintosh is for the guards So now we shall have the wonderful sight of Singapore put their Macintosh raincoats, sorry This of course if this was really the show they would just have to go on and get wet But as it's a rehearsal Practability and sense has taken place and they the oh yes and the horse the lifeguards are trotting back and away And and and at a pretty smart cat. Oh, no, this is all the King's horses and all the King's men It's wonderful. Look at them galloping up. Do you see look over there having a time of their lives? They must wait a long time, but they're allowed actually to go into a smart canter up the mall and hurry to their barracks Well now we are losing our bright colors. This appears to have gone too far even for us We're standing now in the pit or the well of Big Ben. We're going to make a journey up Isn't an elevator or a lift and we're going to have to do it On our feet, so we're pausing at the bottom while we look up and see The hike that we have to go Now this is quite an experience for me because the outside of the building is very familiar But I have never been here before and I'm longing to go up to here as I've said before the trimes Big Ben are known all over the world Both to foreigners and to Londoners, but I wanted to do something special My American friends, which is to hear the pulse of the clock Now without more do we're going to start along It's really getting towards the end of the day and we're on our way up and we've run into Some important people who have to do with a whole part of keeping Restored the house is a parliament. There's also a lot to do with the clock and I will let them identify themselves Would you tell me what you do here? well, my name is mr. Moore and We're working on the steel plates My name is mr. Charles pain. We're doing the painting up here now. Would you explain me what the steel plates works? Well, it's it's all repainted like you know, but We like to take the rust off the old plates and now we re-coat them. Would you tell me what you do here? Well, I don't know what I can tell you. You've almost heard everything what we can tell you. We're all on the same job My name is mr. Horrigan. Is it a continuous job? Well, it's finished That's wonderful. Thank you very much. Well now we're going to go right to the top and hear the clock We finally made it and now I speaking as a Londoner born and bred I'm standing in a place. I never thought I would be which is in the clock room and I'm sure you could hear the pulse Which is what we have been looking for to be technical It's a two-second beat The machinery is incredibly simple I expect one thinks after times and days and minutes and seconds one's gonna have the most fabulous amount of wheels, but actually On the hold it is rather a simple Form of mechanism. It's a little too big for your own mantelpiece however This is the great clock of Westminster to use its great title is a famous timepiece It's a relay throughout the world because of its accuracy The accuracy is brought about By adding penny weights to the pendulum to compensate for the weather conditions That is absolutely amazing. They really are pennies. That was just the half hour being struck Now we only have one thing left to do before we go down from the tower And that is actually to visit big Ben himself in person You see big Ben isn't the tower big Ben is the bell that lives in the tower And so we're going to see him before we go There's nice story about it I'm gonna hand it over to mr. Butler who really knows it The story as I understand it that a debate took place in the House of Commons to decide on the naming of big naming of the Great Bell and The first commissioner of works at that time who was responsible for the debate was a man a very large statue Known as Big Ben One of the back bench has called out why not call it Big Ben? And there was a great deal of laughter and the debate then came to an end and the bell has been known from that time onwards as Big Ben Well We've now left the clock tower and we have gone up and we are visiting Big Ben in person This of course is an open tower. We were in closed spaces before but once again now We are out like really in just the ordinary battlements of a castle. Mr. Butler will tell you his actual Dimensions that I can assure you for myself. He is big Big Ben is Approximately nine feet in diameter and weighs over 13 tons What when you first arrived at the Palace of Westminster? It was hoisted onto a temporary platform for the purpose of testing And a very heavy clapper was used which cracked the bell So the bell today has not a correct musical note This is possibly one of the most lovely views. I thought it was good from Westminster Bridge But I should always now think that Big Ben has a very special one I'm looking directly down on Westminster Bridge over the Thames I can see St. Paul's and it is the perfect time of day the end of the day and The sun is shining remember earlier We were seeing something of color and there was a downpour of rain but now you see it's all cleared away and Everything looks pretty all right from up here I'm back home again now and that was really quite a day From my window. I can see that the light atop of Big Ben has gone out well, this means that the House of Commons has finished for the day and The members are beginning to go home Now the Constable walks through the vaulted Corridors that are outside the chamber and calls Who goes home? This dates from the early days of our Parliament when the House of Commons was situated in quite a rough district and the members used to go home in Parties together because it wasn't safe to go alone and to this day around Barclays Square You can still see where they would hang these flaming torches after they'd delivered the members of Parliament safely home Well, because you asked me who reminded me of quite a few things that I really do think of when I hear London mentioned and I suppose that really the tangible thing that springs to my mind when it is mentioned Is the same as to a foreigner? I think that There they are now The chimes of Big Ben alone express very simply what London is for me And I would like to quote to you a sentence that became very famous and daring to us all in the war from one of your own Commentators Edward Morrow This is London. Well This is still London and What London means to me from London? You have heard the CBS radio workshop recorded by Miss Sarah Churchill The CBS radio workshop is produced in Hollywood by William N. Robson Next week from New York the workshop presents Starboy or the legend of the two morning stars a tale of the Blackfoot Indians This is Hugh Douglas speaking Caution Torian's violin concerto performed by David Oss strike at Norway's Bergen festival of music drama and folklore is Just one of the highlights of this Sunday's program on world music festivals Be sure you're listening on Sunday when world music festivals comes your way on most of these same stations Stay tuned for five minutes of CBS news to be followed on most of these stations by my son Jeep America listens most to the CBS radio network