How Splosh met Pecks . . .
QUESTION Did flamingos once live in the roof garden of a London building?
The flamingos Bill and Ben, and Splosh and Pecks once lived in the Kensington Roof Gardens on top of the old Derry & Toms department store in London.
They were designed and built in the 1930s by Cardiff-born Ralph hancock, who had created spectacular gardens at the Rockefeller Center in New York and was a gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show three years in a row.
The gardens at the Rockefeller Center were visited by Trevor Bowen, managing director of the London department store Barkers, which had bought Derry & Toms. he commissioned the landscape gardener to create a similar effect in the heart of London.
hancock built three themed gardens: Tudor, complete with herringbone brickwork and arches; Spanish, featuring palm trees, fountains and Moorish colonnades; and a woodland with a cascade, stream and grassy banks.
The gardens were completed in 1938 at a cost of £25,000 and were opened by the earl of Athlone.
In 1973, Biba, the fashion boutique, took over Derry & Toms and the gardens continued to flourish.
Biba went bankrupt two years later and the building went through several owners and was divided into separate retail outlets. The roof garden became the property of Rama Superstores, but received only minimum attention.
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea issued preservation orders on the trees in 1976.
In 1981, the Virgin Group, headed by Sir Richard Branson, bought the gardens and opened Babylon restaurant and a members- only nightclub. In 1986, the gardens were awarded Grade II-listed status by english heritage.
Bill and Ben arrived in the 1980s and Splosh and Pecks were introduced in 2008. The gardens were replanted and Branson hosted a spectacular 75th anniversary party in 2013 attended by Ralph hancock’s family.
In 2018, Virgin announced it was closing the Roof Gardens with immediate effect.
The flamingos were re- homed at Pensthorpe Natural Park, a nature reserve near Fakenham, Norfolk. The hancock family is hoping to work with the new owners to ensure the gardens — and Ralph’s legacy — continue to thrive.
Leslie Chester, Welling, Kent.
QUESTION Why are the largest and best known cities in the U.S. rarely the state capital?
THIS is due to a combination of history, geography and economics.
When state capitals were established in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the road network was poor so it was important they were located centrally for administration purposes.
Columbus in Ohio was selected because it’s in the middle of the state, as is Montpelier in Vermont.
New York’s capital rotated between Poughkeepsie, New York City and Kingston, before settling in Albany, due to its central location.
Charleston was the capital of South Carolina until it was replaced by the more central Columbia in 1786.
In many cases, the state capital has been superseded economically.
Springfield became the state capital of Illinois in 1839 because of its central location, but it became dwarfed by the economic hub of Chicago. established as a water transit hub, Chicago evolved into an industrial metropolis.
Wichita didn’t surpass Topeka as the largest city in Kansas until the early 1900s. Olympia was larger than Seattle when it became the capital city of the Washington Territory.
Carson City was chosen as capital before the formation of the Nevada Territory in 1861 because it was the site of the Comstock Lode, a rich deposit of gold and silver. Alan Beith, Glasgow.
QUESTION Does the phrase ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ come from the Bible?
PROVERBS 13:24 states: ‘he that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.’
however, the precise wording ‘ spare the rod, spoil the child’ comes from the 17th- century epic poem hudibras by Samuel Butler.
his 11,000-line satire mocked religious extremism and hypocrites. It follows the trials and tribulations of Sir hudibras and his squire Ralpho. The supposedly noble and pious knight is soon revealed to be a pompous nitwit.
A rich widow says she will arrange to have him released from jail if he proves he truly loves her, but she revels in making a fool of him.
She suggests he kill himself, but he considers that ‘ too harsh’. She then suggests self-flagellation:
‘What med’cine else can cure the fits Of lovers when they lose their wits? Love is a boy, by poets styl’d;
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.’ The poem has a sexual connotation not found in the Bible.
Jane Murray, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
QUESTION Has city life affected the way animals evolve?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, while the extent of human-induced rapid evolutionary change has been recognised only recently, there is a classic example from the Industrial Revolution.
Black-bodied forms of the peppered moth Biston betularia became more abundant due to air pollution blackening trees and buildings.
The common pale form of the moth was camouflaged against lichen growing on tree bark. The insect underwent a process of ‘industrial melanism’ to aid its survival. The frequency of black moths decreased when the air became cleaner.
There have been surprisingly quick cases of evolution, such as a Caribbean lizard species with larger toe pads, crucial for clinging to surfaces, following two major hurricanes in 2017.
Graham Smith, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
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