Christmas on Greek Street.
Posted: December 22, 2011 Filed under: Literary London, London Labour, Theatrical London 2 Comments
© David Secombe 2010.
From Act Two of The Homecoming, Harold Pinter, 1965:
LENNY: […] I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I take her with me up to Greek Street?
Pause.
MAX: You mean put her on the game?
Pause.
We’ll put her on the game. That’s a stroke of genius, that’s a marvellous idea. You mean she can earn the money herself – on her back?
LENNY: Yes.
MAX: Wonderful. The only thing is, it’ll have to be short hours. We don’t want her out of the house all night.
LENNY: I can limit the hours.
MAX: How many?
LENNY: Four hours a night.
MAX: (dubiously) Is that enough?
LENNY: She’ll bring in a good sum for four hours a night.
MAX: Well, you should know. After all, it’s true, the last thing we want to do is to wear the girl out. She’s going to have her obligations this end as well. Where you going to put her in Greek Street?
LENNY: It doesn’t have to be right in Greek Street, Dad. I’ve got a number of flats all around that area.
MAX: You have? Well, what about me? Why don’t you give me one?
LENNY: You’re sexless.
… and a Merry Christmas to all our readers.
(see also: Old and New Soho no.5)
Croydon. Photo & text: David Secombe.
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: Architectural, Lettering, Literary London, Out Of Town, Transport | Tags: Croydon, Edgeland, Empowerment Centre, J.G. Ballard, John Betjeman, lost idyll Comments Off on Croydon. Photo & text: David Secombe.
Photo © David Secombe 2011.
David Secombe writes:
This photograph was taken on that faceless stretch of The Brighton Road which runs between Purley and the mean streets of downtown Croydon. Technically, I think we are in South Croydon – or perhaps Sanderstead. Purley Oaks maybe? The Empowerment Centre is still listed on Internet databases as ‘a function room and banqueting centre’, but business seemed a bit slow the day I took this picture. ‘Empowerment’ is one of those words that has become tarnished through endlessly repeated misuse, and prompts thoughts of other terms that have become similarly degraded: ‘passionate’ (mandatory for politicians and CEOs); ‘celebrate’ – and its evil cousin, ‘celebrity’; ‘inclusive’; ‘accessible’, ‘iconic’, etc. These words have suffered a migration of meaning that might be said to constitute a failure of language, or perhaps its defeat.
But The Empowerment Centre’s fate seems appropriate to its location. Central Croydon is a pitiful 1960s attempt to construct an international city on the corpse of a Surrey market town. It is particularly anomalous to discover such futuristic pretensions to civic grandeur in that peculiar interzone between the South Circular (A205) and the M25: an aggregate of 20th Century suburban housing, golf clubs, retail parks, and marooned remnants of historic or industrial ‘heritage’ (there’s another one). This ‘edgeland’ has something in common with J.G. Ballard’s beloved west London suburbs, but none of their seedy glamour: the ancient village of Heathrow made way for London’s main air terminal, and the decommissioned rump of Croydon Airport – its Art Deco terminal hall and a shabby, decorative turbo-prop airliner – is a sad and perfunctory reminder of the district’s lost prestige. The airfield – its runways too short for post-war, inter-continental passenger jets – has long been built over, affording a misty, sylvan setting for an array of retail units.
John Betjeman’s poem Croydon evokes memories of a sweeter time, one of his idylls of lost suburban innocence …
Croydon by John Betjeman
In a house like that
Your Uncle Dick was born;
Satchel on back he walked to Whitgift
Every weekday morn.
Boys together in Coulsdon woodlands,
Bramble-berried and steep,
He and his pals would look for spadgers
Hidden deep.
The laurels are speckled in Marchmont Avenue
Just as they were before,
But the steps are dusty that still lead up to
Your Uncle Dick’s front door.
Pear and apple in Croydon gardens
Bud and blossom and fall,
But your Uncle Dick has left his Croydon
Once for all.
St. Pancras. Photo: Tim Marshall, text John Betjeman.
Posted: November 9, 2011 Filed under: Architectural, Literary London, Transport | Tags: Edward Mirzoeff, John Betjeman, St. Pancras Comments Off on St. Pancras. Photo: Tim Marshall, text John Betjeman.
© Tim Marshall 2011.
From London’s Historic Railway Stations, John Betjeman, 1972:
“For the last ninety years almost, Sir Gilbert Scott has had a bad Press. He is condemned as facile, smart, aggressive, complacent and commercial.When at the top of his form Scott was as good as the best of his Gothic contemporaries. He was so firm a believer in the Gothic style as the only true ‘Christian’ style – Scott was a moderate High Churchman – that he was determined to adapt it for domestic and commercial purposes. St. Pancras Station hotel was his greatest chance in London and well he rose to the occasion.
I used to think that Scott was a rather dull architect, but the more I have looked at his work the more I have seen his merits. He had a thorough knowledge of construction, particularly in stone and brick. For St. Pancras the bricks were specially made by Edward Gripper in Nottingham. The decorative iron work for lamp standards and staircases and grilles was by Skidmore of Coventry, who designed the iron screens in some English cathedrals for Scott. The roofs of the hotel are of graded Leicestershire slates; the stone comes mostly from Ketton. Scott’s buildings are so well-built they are difficult to pull down. He had a grand sense of plan and site. The Grand Staircase, which alone survives of the hotel’s chief interior features, ascends the whole height of the building, by an unbelievably rich cast iron series of treads with stone vaulting and painted walls. The chief suites of rooms are on the first floor and the higher the building, the less important the rooms, until the quarters for the servants are reached in the gabled attics – men on one side, women on the other – and separate staircases. Yet even these are large and wide and compare favourably with more modern accommodation. The building has been chopped up and partitioned inside for offices. It is odd that it is not used again as an hotel especially now that hotels are so badly needed in London.”
Edward Mirzoeff writes:
Not long after this book was published I approached British Railways proposing a BBC documentary on London stations, with Betjeman. BR insisted on charging a facility fee at the same daily rate as that for feature films – which killed the idea, doubtless as intended.
Dmitri Kasterine. Text: Tim Turnbull. (4/5)
Posted: October 27, 2011 Filed under: Literary London, London Types, Sartorial, Transport | Tags: London cabbies, The Knowledge, Tim Turnbull Comments Off on Dmitri Kasterine. Text: Tim Turnbull. (4/5)
Hailing a cab, Mayfair, 1965. © Dmitri Kasterine.
Black Cab Blues by Tim Turnbull:
All Hail! All Hail! the cabbies of London,
who are rammed to the gunwales with Knowledge;
so stuffed to the gills with it that it would turn
any lesser bloke’s brains into porridge.
Wave! Wave your brolly! and preen there bespokely,
the cut of your coat won’t persuade them to stop;
they do if they want, and for that reason only –
they’re nothing if not democratic, Old Cock.
Hark! O Hark! to their myriad opinions
but don’t venture yours, they’re never impressed –
you’re not in chambers, they’re not your minions
and so, for all your rhetorical prowess,
you’re bleeding mistaken if you think they might
go sarf uther river at this time o’night.
… for The London Column. © Tim Turnbull 2011.
The London Column 