In Search Of London Pride

'London Pride' is a phrase you hear a lot — but what does it actually mean? Lots of things, it turns out.

London Pride: the flower

I'd always assumed the 'London Pride' nickname was ascribed to the Saxifraga × urbium — a pretty white flower sprouting from a succulent red stem, and flecked with spots of mustard yellow and hot pink — after it started blooming rapaciously among the rubble of the Blitzed capital. In fact, it was already known as 'London Pride' at least 100 years before then.

London Pride's not its only pseudonym either: it's also known as St Patrick's cabbage (thanks to its glossy, thickset leaves), whimsey, prattling Parnell, and — best of all — 'look up and kiss me'. But it's 'London Pride' that's used most widely — thanks in no small part to the song named in its honour...

London Pride: the song

London Pride has been handed down to us,
London Pride is a flower that's free.

So commences the chirruping Noel Coward ditty, London Pride — penned by the smoking-jacketed playwright/songwriter, so he claimed, on a platform at Paddington, while watching Londoners bustle about their daily lives in spite of the chaos all around them. The song recalls the saxifraga mentioned above, a common — and uplifting — sight in a beleaguered London , and worked as a wider metaphor for freedom, hope and keeping that upper lip as stiff as possible. (Directly in contrast, you might say, to one of Coward's later hits, There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner.)

A little digging reveals that Coward wasn't the first to repopularise 'London Pride'. In 1940, a photo exhibition had opened at Charing Cross underground station, using the same title. It featured pictures of steely Londoners getting on with their lives while bombs rained down. (Probably doing things like, oh I don't know, going to art exhibitions about the Blitz.)

Something else that didn't click until I started writing this: Coward's song audaciously borrows its melody from the German national anthem: quite the middle finger to Hitler, what!

London Pride: the sculpture

Frank Dobson's South Bank sculpture was originally to be called Leisure, but the artist was inspired to change the name to London Pride, after it was commissioned for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Dobson's two nudes had originally been in a more intimate position (no, not THAT intimate) but were readjusted to act as 'spectators' to the throngs turning out to enjoy the festivities. The name, I assume, was chosen to reflect the immense sense of hope and future that came with the South Bank's postwar extravaganza. The bowl held by one of the women was apparently meant to be filled with saxifraga, and probably was at some point — surely at its unveiling? Maybe someone who has some London Pride growing in the garden can refill it?

London Pride: the beer

First concocted at Fuller's Chiswick brewery in 1959, London Pride is the city's near-ubiquitous bitter, brewed with Target, Challenger and Northdown hops, and which — when first spied by the thirsty Londoner strolling into any bar — evokes either a satisfied smile, or otherwise a jaded eye roll. In 2013, a series of ads cemented the origins of the brew's name, one depicting an empty bottle of London Pride acting as a vase for some saxifraga.

Though Coward's ditty might've played a part in the christening of the ale, Fuller's' official line is that it's named for the plucky flower. Mind you, the ad campaign also had Top Gear presenter James May explain in unornamented fashion: "This beer is brewed in London with pride. Hence the name." Er, cheers James.

London Pride: the LGBTQ+ festival

Until now on this list, one 'London Pride' has fed into the next — but not so the case with this one. Technically, of course, it's called Pride in London — although if you google 'London Pride', this is what will top your search. London's first Pride march took place on 1 July 1972, although its origins hark back a couple of years earlier, the name thought up by Brenda Howard and peers when putting together the inaugural Pride march in New York City on 28 June 1970. At this, LGBTQ+ New Yorkers were heard to chant "Say it loud, gay is proud!". Noel Coward died in 1973, although I do get the feeling that were he around today, he'd be proudly taking to the streets with 1.5 million other Londoners.

Other London Prides

• London Pride, a late 19th century novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
• London Pride, a 1920s silent comedy based on the play by Arthur Lyons and Gladys Unger. It's described in one paper of the time as "a heart appealing story of Cockney love and devotion... There's Suspense, Comedy, Drama, and Tragedy... especially Comedy. You'll like this quite a lot."
• London Pride, a 1941 novel by Phyllis Bottome (published the same year that Noel Coward's song was released, you wonder if he could have been prompted by the novel's title, if it was the other way around, or whether both were merely pouncing on a phrase that was in common parlance).
• London Pride Morris, a group of traditional dancers who can still be found doing the rounds in London's boozers.
• London Pride, three different oil tankers, including this one. And if that doesn't make you proud, nothing will.