John Betjeman

This story of Archibald Ormsby Gore, the bear, was written by John Betjeman for his family when they lived at Uffington in Berkshire under the shadow of the White Horse. Since childhood, Archie, whose Christian name came from one of George Robey's music-hall songs, has been an inseparable companion--like his master he is now getting on in years. This book tells of his youthful adventures while hunting for history, and flying with home-made wings (what might now be called hang-gliding) over the Berkshire Downs and over the village in the valley with its church, its four chapels and four public houses.

This book is illustrated entirely by contemporary photographs. The earliest pictures belong to the 1840s, when Fox Talbot's camera was just in time to record the Old Hungerford Suspension Bridge and the erection of Nelson's Column. The latest show the London of seventy years further on, when the motor-car had begun to supplant the carriage, the hansom, and the horse-drawn omnibus. These photographs illustrate every aspect and district of London. The emphasis is on the streets, and the people and traffic in them, rather than on the buildings. Here are pictures of a vanished population of street traders and entertainers: the muffin men, umbrella menders, ginger-beer sellers, sweeps, dancing bears and organ grinders, flower girls, rabbit sellers, and Punch-and-Judy shows which were an everyday feature of London street life. The pictures in which they appear are often strikingly beautiful, though whether they are so from the conscious intention of their photographers it might be hard to say.--From publisher description.