The Story of Southgate's Blind Phil
Tom Mason (4/5/51)
Southgate is proud of the fact that Leigh Hunt, the great essayist, was born at a house in High Street. It is also proud of its connection with Lord Lawrence, Thomas Hood, Lord Truro and Sir Thomas Lipton
There are less known worthies of whom we may be equally as proud and one of them was the blind ostler at "The Cherry Tree". His name was Philip Irish and he was known as Blind Phil. His life was full of adversities, in the face of which he preserved a cheerful disposition, and he never complained. His courage won him many friends.
Blind Phil was bom in 1860. His father, Thomas Cowling Irish, was a chemist, and kept a shop next door to the Cherry Tree. In addition, he was the editor of our first newspaper, and the secretary of our first Gas Company.
When Phil was quite a small boy, he lost the sight of one eye owing to a neighbour's child throwing a broken bottle over the fence. At about twenty his father obtained a job for him as a dispenser at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In a boxing match with one of the medical students, he lost the sight of the other eye, and became totolly blind.
For over twenty years he was the blind ostler at "The Cherry Tree". As if to make up for the loss of his sight, his other faculties were very acute. By hearing he knew whose carriage it was entering the inn yard, and by feeling, he knew which horse was pulling the carriage.
His bump of locality was such that on very foggy nights, he waited at Palmer's Green station for the incoming business trains and would lead the passengers to their homes. He did the same on foggy nights for "The Cherry Tree" customers. He is said to have earned as much as £2 in this way in one evening.
He had a good friend in Mr. W.M.Ellenor, Clerk to the Council. Standing in Mr. Ellenor's garden in Fox Lane, Blind Phil once said to him - "Your trees want pruning badly". "They do," replied Mr. Ellenor "but how can you tell, Phil?" "By the sound of our voices among them" said Blind Phil.
His poverty in his later years was slightly relieved by a small Pension received by one of the City Companies. This was eked out by the proceeds of an annual benefit concert arranged by Mr and Mrs Bert Plumb. At one of the last concerts given in 1919, Miss L. Plumb was one of the artistes.
He died in one of the big wards of St.Bartholomew's Hospital, where he had been a dispencer. He lived as he died - cheerful, uncomplaining and grateful. In the Hospital Ward, his face always lit up with pleasure at the sound of a Southgate voice.