rdn32

One Saturday last November, Mr H. and I went to London to go for a walk. G. came down too, to visit Kew Gardens with a friend, so it was convenient for our walk to start off in Kew.

Before I really get started, I possibly ought to mention that, whilst I’m generally interested in the concept of genre, I’m still rather finding my feet when it comes to the genre conventions of blogging. This is my attempt at a touristy “trip report” style of post, with lots of photos. G. thinks that about ten photos would be a sensible limit, but it was quite a long walk, so I’m going to exceed that. I’ll try to have a fair bit of prose mixed in there too.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Kew.

Kew is a very genteel part of London. For example, you know how some places you’ll see that someone has left a old, broken down car in their front garden? Well, they do that differently in Kew:

After having a cup of tea by the station, we walked up to Kew Gardens where we left G. and friend. We headed off initial plan of going roughly north and east.

Kew gives the impression of self-consciously regarding itself as still being a village. Some people might find this pretentious, but I think it’s rather charming. Next to a road that makes it impossible to forget that you are in London there is a village green: at one end of the green is an 18th century church, and at the other end is a cricket pavilion.

Of course, if it were all tea rooms, florists, and meetings of the Village Green Preservation Society then it might be overly twee. There’s nothing like signs of light industry to keep things grounded:

We were heading towards Kew Bridge, so the obvious thing might have been might have been to go over it. Instead we turned right and went under a railway with the intention of going along to Putney and crossing the river there.

We passed by the National Archives. I’ve not been there myself, but G.’s been. I’ve long been interested in how knowledge accumulates, and how it dissipates, and what its material infrastructure is. Whenever some supposed materialist says that to understand how thought and knowledge work you need to study “the brain” I jut think of libraries and archives, of shelving schemes and card catalogs. Peter Oborne, in his scathing assessment of David Miliband’s political career, talked about the corporate memory of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office being permanently damaged by the closure of its library: I couldn’t possibly comment on the specifics of that case, but corporate memory is real, no metaphor.

Another aspect of knowledge that intrigues me is how memories are triggered by particular places. There is an old trick, the method of loci used by public speakers to associate things they want to remember to talk about within a speech with places encountered along a route. It is somewhat akin to embedding ideas in a narrative. Personally, rather than imagine walking somewhere in order to cue predetermined associations, I like to walk in real places, and free-associate, looking for connections. However, I fear I am digressing. Onwards!

We walked along the footpath along the south side of the Thames. There were some evidence of damage done by the recent St. Jude’s day storm, such as a fallen tree that interrupted our progress.

Here’s a view across to Chiswick:

When I lived in Walthamstow I would sometimes go for walks along the River Lea. I once saw Ken Cambell out jogging. Cambell was one of the people interviewed in Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital which part of the cannon of books “London psychogeography” books. Mr H. and I talked a bit about Sinclair as we were walking along the Thames because, as it happens, there had been an interview with him in the previous day’s paper.

East from Kew is Mortlake.

The only thing I knew about Mortlake is that this is where Dr. John Dee, the Elizabethan mathematician, lived. Dee is an interesting character. He wrote the preface to the first English translation of Euclid’s Elements. He acted as a mathematical consultant for the Muscovy Company, with a particular interest in providing training in navigation for their ships’ pilots. He coined the term “the British Empire” and is thought to be the model for Prospero in The Tempest. He also designed astronomical instruments that were used by Tycho Brahe. (Brahe’s detailed measurements of the movements of Mars provided the data for Johannes Kepler’s theory of planetary motion, which in turn fed into Isaac Newton’s work on gravity.) Like I said, Dee is an interesting character. So what is he famous for? Mucking about with the occult. It’s sad.

The only new thing I found out about Mortlake on our walk is that there is a brewery there:

Mr H. commented that calling Budweiser “The King of Beers” is like calling Tesco’s mild cheddar “The King of Cheeses”. (Even if Tesco tried this, I doubt they would then sue cheese-makers of the Cheddar Gorge for trademark violation.)

Next was Barnes, which has strategic benches and a house once occupied by Gustav Holst.

It also had a farmer’s market on, right near the duck pond, where we bought a few things for lunch. I passed up on the fish, though.

After lunch we headed east to rejoin the Thames. On the way we passed the London Wetland Centre. I might be tempted to visit one day, were it not for the fact that I live pretty much in the fens, and so can see wetland whenever I want.

We also passed some sporting facilities. It had never occurred to me that people in Richmond would play beach volleyball, given that it lacks a beach. However, it has a volleyball pitch with sand on it, and that’s almost the same thing.

I tend to think of the Thames—to the extent that it is used at all—as being a working river. I was surprised, therefore, by the amount of recreational users on this stretch of the river.

We had been planning on following the river all the way up to Putney Bridge. However, along the way we encountered a small stream running into the Thames, with a footbridge over it that was fenced off and had danger signs on it. It would have been possible to get past by climbing along the outside of the bridge, as a walker coming the other direction did, but we weren’t in a hurry and it didn’t seem worth the risk. Instead, we took a detour that ended up taking us through a rather pleasant looking council estate.

Once I was a member of a reading group, and one of the books we read was Lynsey Hanley’s history of council housing. As is often the way with these things, the book was interesting but the discussion less so. There was this old American guy, Syd, who seemed to take offence at the very idea of social housing. For him, the proof that “these people” were undeserving of decent homes could be seen in the appearance of blocks of flats being ruined by their inhabitants hanging washing to dry on balconies.

I took that picture because I liked the coloured tiles used for the balconies. However, it doesn’t really do the place justice. There were a number of these buildings in what was effectively a park.

How did I know it was a council estate? Well, there were some tell-tale signs:

In Putney we walked past a butcher’s shop. In front of the shop were fibre-glass models of a cheery butcher and a cow. The former is quite a common thing for butchers’ shops. The latter is more normally seen in front of places like ice-cream parlours. I suppose it is appropriate, in its way.

The bridge at Putney takes you to Fullham:

We had been this way on a previous walk. I can’t remember exactly where that one start off—perhaps it was Putney—but it ended up in Wembley. We’ve done a number of long walks in London. I rather wish I’d written them up, as I now find it difficult to remember exactly where we’ve been.

I think the other walks were as follows:

• King’s Cross to Kensal Green Cemetary, mostly via the Prince Regent Canal.
• Highgate Cemetary (where both Karl Marx and Max Wall are buried) to The Captain Kidd in Wapping. It was a fair way, but was mostly downhill.
• Portobello Road to the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace. That was a long walk, on a hot day. Lesson learned: sweaty underwear chafes.
• Along the length of the Victoria Line, from Brixton to Walthamstow.
• St. Paul’s Cathedral to Stratford and back. We unexpectedly saw the UN’s tapestry copy of Picasso’s Guernica when popping in to the Whitechapel Art Gallery for a cup of tea with my sister.
• A circular route starting at the top of the Isle of Dogs, going down to Island Gardens, through the foot tunnel under the river to Greenwich, along to Woolwich where there is another foot tunnel to go back north of the river, and then through Canning Town. Canning Town is not for the faint-hearted.

Just recently we had another walk—a good day but a poor effort—goingfrom Elephant and Castle to Borough via Camberwell, in the company of an American chap, a friend of a friend.

Back to this day’s walk. The reason we were talking this particular route into central London was that Mr H. wanted go to a pub in Parsons Green called the White Horse.

The pub was heaving inside, so we sat under the giant garden umbrellas in front of it. As you may be able to tell from the picture, it was threatening to rain. Whilst we were drinking it made good on its threat, forcing to stay a little longer than we’d originally intended.

Whilst there we got chatting to a young woman called January, and her American friend. January had glitter on her face, was a recent arrival to London, and worked in banking. (Well, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it…) Her friend had developed some herbal pills to treat Alzheimer’s disease, but was now looking to sell them as a cure for drunkenness. He gave us his card, so I hope he won’t mind me giving him some free advertising:

Eventually the rain eased off, and we went our way.

Here are a couple of pumpkins …

… a residential street (and boarded-up pub) in the vicinity of Earl’s Court …

… the gatehouse of Westminster Cemetery (with lots of chimneys) …

… and the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

The area around South Kensington is, in a sense, an old stomping ground for me, in that I did my Master’s degree at Imperial College. I also came by this way a number of years ago when, inspired by London Orbital I decided to spend a day walking the route of the Circle Line: this part of London was my least favourite part of it, for reasons that I will come on to shortly.

There is now a statue of Béla Bartók outside South Kensington tube station. I don’t know why. Here’s a photo of the nearby Michelin tyre depot turned fish restaurant:

After Kensington comes Chelsea. We walked down the King’s Road, and past Sloane Square. Nothing to see. Move along.

By the time we got to Pimlico Road we were in need of refreshment.

My knowledge of the boundaries of different parts of central London is a bit hazy. Pimlico in particular is somewhere for which I’ve never had a good conceptual grasp. I know two things about Pimlico: (a) the Tate Gallery is there, (b) it’s where Passport to Pimlico is set. So I don’t know if we were in Pimilico, or still in Chelsea, when we got this unexpected view of Battersea Power Station:

I took the following picture because the Union Jack was strikingly odd, but it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with it. (Is this a consequence of having grown up with a black-and-white television?)

However, I’ve included it because it reminds me what it was, on my Circle Line walk, that I didn’t like about Chelsea and Kensington: long, boring roads where all the houses looked just like this; rows and rows of identikit houses, as if the whole area were a nineteenth century Barratt estate. This picture reminds me of something else, another Kensington thing: news footage of the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980.

We were headed back towards the river. On Horseferry Road we encountered the Channel Four building. The have a sculpture on the Channel Four logo in front of it, but I think they should have painted their sculpture more brightly: grey on a grey background doesn’t really work (which is why I’m omitting my picture of it).

On Millbank there is a roundabout with government buildings either side.

DEFRA is in the one on the right, so the people there probably spend their days on the phone to farmers. The building on the right is MI5. According to their website they don’t offer public tours of their offices, in case you were wondering. (Does this imply that there are public tours for other government offices?)

Both Mr H. and I have some history with DEFRA, or rather with MAFF, their predecessor organization. Mr H. used to work for them. Before that, back when I was still at school, I took an evening job cleaning their Cambridge offices. Because the supervisor was often late, he told me the lock combination for one of the side doors. Sometimes, when coming home from a gig in London, I’d let myself in late at night, and use their snack machine.

From Millbank we walked passed the Houses of Parliament, and then on down Whitehall. We talked a little about politics: it seemed fitting. Personally, I’ve never been very politically engaged, for the reasons indicated in my comment here. I’ve know a fair few hard leftist types, particularly when I was younger, but one kind of London walking I’ve never considered tempting is taking part in some big demonstration: the idea of marching into a set-piece confrontation with riot police, which the police will invariably win, isn’t my idea of a good time. These days I’m finding more Lib Dem people in my social circle, but I doubt there’s much significance in that: with strange aeons even a Tory MP may sound like an anarcho-syndicalist.

By this point in the day it was starting to get dark. Our plan at this point was to make Soho our final destination. Or somewhere in that vicinity. As I said, I’m never sure of exact boundaries. Here’s Cambridge Circus, home of the intelligence service’s head office in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy:

We thought we’d go to Ray’s Jazz Café on in Foyles’ bookshop. However, there was nowhere to sit down, so we left again.

This is an area of London that I’m familiar with from my teenage years. As I said, I used to go down for gigs, mostly going to the Astoria or the Marquee Club. The other month I noticed that some magazine (Mojo? Q?) had declared that Nirvana opening for Tad and Mudhoney at the Astoria was one of the best gigs of all time. This was a weird thing to read, given that I was there. Although I had a great time that night, I wouldn’t have said that it was my favourite Nirvana gig, nor my favourite gig at the Astoria. However, I doubt my favourite Astoria gig is ever going to get onto that sort of list: Dogs D’Amour, just before they recorded Graveyard of Empty Bottles.

That was a brilliant gig, but an odd night. I missed the last train home from King’s Cross. I thought the reasonable thing to do in that situation was to wait for the first train the following morning, but some policemen insisted that because there was an earlier train from Liverpool Street I should go there. The tube had stopped by this point, so I had to walk, and I ended up getting hopelessly lost.

I kept asking for directions, but different people told me different things. To confuse matters, lots of people asked me “Where’s the Acid House party?”—this was around the time of the so-called Second Summer of Love and somehow I looked like someone in the know.

Although it didn’t feel like it at the time, I suppose as a teenager wandering around central London in the small hours, with no way of getting home and nowhere else to go, I was potentially quite vulnerable. Eventually, one couple took pity on me: taking me by cab to their place in Wood Green, and letting me sleep in their band’s rehearsal room.

Rock’n’roll, eh? To be honest, I’m glad to be middle aged.

On the subject of which, we decided to end the walk at The Intrepid Fox, a refugee from Wardour Street:

We had thought we might be refused for looking too respectable, but there was no problem at all. I guess they get all sorts.

At this point we considered the walk to be officially over. However, we still needed to get back to King’s Cross one way or another, and we weren’t suffering any aches or blisters, so we walked there. I can’t say I remember much about this appendix to our wandering, other than we walked past the Swedenborg Society somewhere along the way. It occurs to me that a journey is like a story, concluding at its destination; but that we hadn’t been on a journey, and hence at some point the narrative simply stops.

At King’s Cross we caught a train home.