'They came from all over' - London Christmas Drive 2023 - photos by Eszter Halasi
It’s a wet, wintry Saturday lunchtime, the day of the London Christmas Drive, and we are standing on Camden High Street straining to listen out for the unmistakable clip-clopping of loads of horses trotting in time to each other. Camden's main drag is ram-packed with Christmas shoppers and tourists, I’m trying to keep my camera dry, and the Drive, which set off from east London an hour earlier, has not yet arrived.
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show)
A quick search on social media tells us that the Drive – which the organiser John later tells me was made up of over 140 horses and carts - has had to make a last-minute change of route because Buckingham Palace, which was one of the destinations, has been cordoned off by the police to allow a pro-Palestine march to take place. Some of the Drive are now heading towards Camden, some are still blocked at Buckingham Palace, and some are heading on to Soho – which is the next pit stop after Camden.
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Suddenly, there it is a clip-clop sound in the distance, coming from the direction of Camden tube station. I get just enough time to get out my camera to start filming as the first horse and cart rolls into view. I want to video the Drive coming down the iconic Camden High Street and then over the canal bridge as it heads towards its first pit stop outside the Hawley Arms public house.
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show)
My plan doesn’t go exactly to plan because as the first horse and cart comes into view, a two-wheeler with the horse trotting furiously with its trademark feathers flying in the wind, just about every other person on Camden High Street – with sharper elbows than me – are reaching for their mobile phones and cameras and lining the road to also film the unexpected (for them) spectacle of a Gypsy and Traveller (and friends) horse drive clattering down a London main drag.
And what a spectacle it is, Gypsies and Travellers (and friends) in their element with their horses and carts – some of which are decked out with bits of tinsel – out and proud and claiming a little bit of London as their stage - just for one day. As more carts come into view, the sound is both unmistakable and incongruous - the horses trotting hard on the tarmac in unison, the rattling of wheels, and the cries of the drivers. It's a sound that hasn’t been heard in this city – or any city – for over 150 years. Apart from on previous London or city-based horse drives that is.
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show. All photos in above slide show (c) Mike Doherty)
We hurry around the corner to just outside the Hawley Arms, once the drinking-hole of indie rock stars like Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, and Liam Gallagher, where I have arranged to meet John, the organiser – or rather should we say co-ordinator because no one is really in charge - of this year’s London Drive. He is on his own this year because another main co-ordinator – Donna – is poorly and doesn’t want to risk worsening her injury, although she has been helping out in the background arranging overnight stabling and accommodation for some of the lots coming to the Drive from “up north”.
John doesn’t want his second name used because, he explains, because that although throughout the drive hundreds, if not thousands, of bystanders take photos and selfies and enjoy the show; “there will always be some people who will complain,” and he just can’t be bothered with dealing with that, adds John.
“You know - complaining about saying that its cruel, or holding up the traffic and that,” John tells me.
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So, for starters, lets examine those potential complaints that John is speaking about. The horses are mainly cobbs and related types of trotters. Trotting is what they are bred for and they love working with their drivers – to pull carts. Cobs are hardy working horses – descended from Welsh ponies mainly – and the cold and the rain does not phase them. As for "holding up the traffic;" the Drive does not hold up the traffic; it IS the traffic – threading its way among the cars, the SUV's, the London buses, the taxis, and the delivery vans, mopeds and bikes - just for one day.
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show.)
“We never have any trouble,” says John. He breaks off the interview to field a call about the part of the drive heading away from Buckingham Palace – apparently it has picked up a bit of a police escort. “I didn’t know about the demonstration happening on the same day,” he says. “The drive has been going for 15 years, but I took it over in 2019. It used to happen on different dates every year, or sometimes miss a year, but now its more regular,” he adds. “It’s probably the biggest one day drive in the country. People come from all over; Wales, up north, and a lot from around Kent and places like that nearer London. I vary the route some times, to make it a bit different.”
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show.)
As we speak more and more lots are pulling up outside the Hawley Arms and under the Camden Town rail bridge. Horse are being unhitched from carts and tethered to lampposts, railings, street signs, cycle racks and other handy street furniture, and are being given bundles of hay to chomp on. The rain has also stopped. Some of their riders go off back to Camden High Street and the market to buy takeaway street food, others have flasks and packed lunches, and some are starting to fill the already busy Hawley Arms, whose three bar-tenders are working heroically to serve the sudden unexpected extra guests that line the bar four-deep. The atmosphere is boisterous, friendly and very very noisy. People are helping to get the buses through – re-positioning the carts and horses to make way if necessary - a lone police officer in a baseball cap turns up and starts directing traffic, and a traffic warden on a moped stops, looks around at all the horses and carts, bursts out laughing, and rides on.
“I think it’s the location that makes it popular,” says John. “London, the sights and all that,” he adds. “Most other Drives will only pull in people from around that area, but for London they come from all over."
(Above - SWIPE LEFT on the photo or click on the little black dots to see the next photo in the slide show.)
And then, about an hour and a half after they arrive, the Drive has shook itself free of its tethers and clattered off and on to the next pit stop in Soho, taking our photographer Eszter Halasi and my girlfriend Katie Jones with them, and then on to its final destination in Borough Market, south of the river.
As I trudge back down the High Street to get a bus and then make my way home, I can sense Camden Town settling back down to a normal Saturday afternoon - or what passes for normal - now that the carnival of the Drive has shifted on to its next atchin tan.
Mike Doherty/TT News
(All photos (c) Eszter Halasi unless otherwise stated)
The Travellers' Times would like to thank all at the Drive for the welcome they gave to our photographers
