Pump and Circumstance

[deptfordmarmoset]

I haven't seen this mentioned on here before so here goes: I bumped into a 20 minute Radio 3 programme this afternoon about Edward Elgar, his Royal Sunbeam and the birth of Edwardian cycling. I found it fascinating.

This programme is best listened to while wandering through the Enigma Variations.

 

[ASC1951]

Nowadays we think of Elgar as a stuffy establishment figure, partly because of the flag-wagging masses braying Land of Hope and Glory at the Proms, partly because all the Edwardian photographs are heavily posed.
Not a bit of it. He spent a lot of his spare time delivering radical pamphlets, loathed the LHG jingoistic lyrics, cycled all over the place, turned up on the terraces at Molyneux to watch Wolves - I think he would have been good company.