Purple and Orange and Blue...

Several people have been kind enough to respond to my earlier post, asking why the rainbows over Camberwell are so vibrant and frequent.

Many have pointed out that Camberwell has a Rainbow Street, named after the Rainbow Cottage where 19th century poet Robert Browning was born. Unfortunately there seems to have been no literary citation of the multi-coloured marvels, even from Browning himself.

Incidentally, both Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett had mixed race, scottish and jamaican heritage. This is more common than you might think. Every time I walk the streets of Camberwell wearing my kilt, even more so in Brixton, I am greeted by caribbean men who tell me with great pride that they have scottish ancestors.

I wondered longtime why this might be - a desire to ally with percieved anti-english rebellion? or to get on up in a skirt? or to match Malcolm X's pride in the same lineage?

Me, I think it's to do with the way Scots travelled the world in the early 19th century. Young, single, well-educated Scots went out into the New World, India, and Africa as cartographers, engineers, men of commerce, doctors, ministers, and artists. Not as Viceroys, Generals, and Exisemen. Consequently they would have spent much more time in the company of the local population; and doubtless finding them interesting, amicable, and socially alluring...marriages, alliances and a reluctance to return to [say] Dunfermline must have followed close.

In short, it was a Scottish Empire, but the English taxed it.

Andrew Mishmash