M came with me, and it was a beautiful day- weatherman was wrong again! The first floor showed a history of the Foundling Hospital, there were tokens left by mothers, to try and re-identify their children when they could afford to return, as all children were given new names. This was very moving, as these tokens, were never actually given to the children, as it was felt their identity needed to be protected. I was also obviously very interested in this because of my collections project, inanimate objects with such importance and meaning to only a few in the know. It was wonderful to see the generosity and hard work and campaigning of Coram, Hogarth and Handel.
The second floor was filled with beautiful art work. There were also some amazing pieces by the daughter of the secretary of the hospital, who had no formal training; and interesting links with Dickens and Oliver Twist.
At the very top of an impressive staircase was the Handel Collection, which fed my obsession with him -I have always been intrigued after studying the Messiah and performing it, which was written in an extremely short period of time, like a lot of his master pieces. The Handel Collection is located in a very peaceful room at the top and back of the building, filled with big red leather arm chairs with build in speaker.
After that we walked to Piccadilly for a few hours browsing in the giant Waterstones. I bought a couple of books, a Christmas present for a loved one, Ian Sinclair's 'Lights Out for the Territory' and Kristin Knox's 'Alexander McQueen, Genius of a Generation'.
Saturday night was filled with sofa, reading, and blue cheese.
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