It’s all a long time ago now but I spent the summer of 1969 playing. With a shiny new degree in Eng.Lit and headed to London University in September to qualify as a teacher. I saw this notice in the college student handout. I went up to London for the weekend, met Rhaune Laslett, spent time on the playground and…
The sun shining … just there in the sky like a force-ripe orange That striking image is from Samuel Selvon’s novel The Lonely Londoners. Henry Oliver, who earns the nickname Sir Galahad for his bravado, has just arrived from Trinidad. Here he is on that first morning in the big city – in Westbourne Grove – suddenly realizing he is…
This is not really a book review, although I did re-read, and enjoy The Lonely Londoners as part of the #1956club. It is rather an excuse to pull out some quotations, share some research and images, and post a quite remarkable documentary. Along the way my journey took me deep into the North Kensington of the novel – a part…
Six stops on the Hammersmith and City from Euston Square to Westbourne Park, up the stairs, along the bridge over the lines that run east to Paddington and west to Wales, Change at Didcot for Oxford, Change at Swindon for Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa. Turn right out of the yellow-brown station past the Extra! Extra! and the Metropolitan with its…
The farmers’ market is full of strange squash and gourds and pumpkins of every color, shape, and size. Autumn – mists and melancholy, falling leaves and nostalgia – is a time for memories. Mists that burn off by mid-morning and skeins of geese and migrating birds. Dark evenings when you can still play outside exhilarated by the chill, and the smell of…