Zed Nelson's The Street (2019)

This is Zed Nelson's first feature film, about just one street close to central London, Hoxton Street. Nelson says it's about gentrification, austerity, Brexit. It's a wake-up call, not intended as a poke at the new people moving into the street, just a reflection of a moment taken over three years.

All the same, it's a picture of a dying community forced out by rising prices, of increasing pressure being put on the original working-class people to move out of the area not only in which they may well have been born but their parents too before them, and so on. There's the pie and mash shop now opposite a craft beer shop, a 'Buzz Shop' for building web sites, advertising, copy writing, numerous other things, there's even a gallery. The older people can't understand, or can only understand that they're on the way out: even the priest has to move out of the church at the age of seventy, and he can no longer afford to live in London.

There's a feeling by the older residents that they've been conned by Brexit: some have voted for it as they thought too much money was spent being in the EU, but now maybe too much is being spent on leaving it? There's confusion everywhere. We see a bunch of youths waving flags around, demanding 'their' country back, but what country?

There's racist talk that wouldn't be seen by the locals as racist: the blacks have been there for decades, but they're not happy with the fact that they used to know everyone but now don't, some people can't speak English, and one reckons that they're being given priority over the locals in the council flat queues.

Certainly flats are around, but they belong to private companies and we all know about their breaking rules: the Grenfell Tower tragedy broke out during the filming, and 72 people were killed due to combustible cladding: the ensuing mess continues. Aviva, the insurance company, has bought most of Hoxton Square. Where can these people go now they've been forced out of their homes? Errol sold his garage and the demolition squad are moving in, but at least he's accepted the offer. For those who rent, well there's always the street of course.

I found it most enlightening that the guy who sleeps rough under a bridge and who was the victim of mindless yobs burning what little property he had had an East European accent. Most significant of all though, he was much more cultured than any of the others we see on the street: he quotes from Stendhal's Le Rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black), and we see a charred copy of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightnesss of Being. The books were written in different centuries, but both from writers living in France, although Kundera is a now nationalised Czech immigrant.

I think Nelson's right in suggesting that this film could serve as a witness to a particular historical period in British history.

Isabella Beeton in West Norwood, London

'IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY

OF

SAMUEL ORCHART BEETON,

AUTHOR EDITOR PUBLISHER

BORN 1830 – DIED 1877.

AND HIS WIFE AND FELLOW WORKER

IN MANY OF HIS LITERARY ENTERPRISES

ISABELLA MARY (MAYSON)

BORN 1836 – DIED 1865.

ALSO OF THEIR TWO ELDEST SONS,

WHO DIED IN INFANCY 1857 & 1863.

THIS STONE WAS ERECTED BY THEIR TWO SURVIVING SONS IN 1933,

IN REPLACEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL FALLEN INTO DECAY.'

This grave is one I forgot to post in 2012, although Robert Hughes (great-nephew of Lionel Britton) quite by chance jogs my memory by telling me of a book Lionel gave his brother Bob and sister-in-law Maisie Britton, Robert's maternal grandparents, as a wedding present on 30 July 1914. This was Isabella Beeton's immensely successful Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1862), which was added to through the years, and Wikipedia claims that it had sold almost two million copies by 1868.

Funny how the inscription on the headstone pushes Samuel's literary works so much but not those of his 'wife and fellow worker', because Samuel Orchart Beeton, if he's remembered at all today, is only remembered as Isabella Beeton's husband. According to Wikipedia again, biographers Nancy Spain and Kathryn Hughes make the suggestion that Samuel 'had unknowingly contracted syphilis in a premarital liaison with a prostitute, and had unwittingly passed it on to his wife'. Another page is of more interest: 'The 2006 TV drama The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton, based in part on Kathryn Hughes' biography The Short Life & Long Times of Mrs. Beeton, implied that Isabella Beeton suffered from syphilis contracted from Samuel, and that this could have led to her early death and those of her first two children, and an alleged number of early miscarriages, although there is no firm evidence for this speculation'.

J. G. Ballard: Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography (2008)

Written quite a short time before his death from prostate cancer, J. G. Ballard's autobiography is relatively short, often amusing, and remarkably gentle on almost everyone, even – rather scarily for a republican such as Ballard – the Queen of England.

Perhaps unexpectedly, almost half of the book covers Ballard's first sixteen years – his growing up in the International Settlement of Shanghai, where he was born into his parents' comfortable lifestyle, considerably cocooned from the realities of China itself, and then his rather surprisingly happy days in the World War II prison camp.

The book charts Ballard's progress towards becoming a writer, one of the few writers of science fiction to break through to the mainstream, although he perhaps only became really recognised after the autobiographical The Empire of the Sun (1984), particularly after it was filmed in 1988. And of course this success was enhanced by more than a touch of infamy (a reaction scorned by Ballard) on the filming of Crash (1973) by David Cronenberg in the 1990s.

It slightly surprised me to learn of Ballard's friendly relationship with Kingsley Amis (before he became a reactionary bigot), although he notes that he had relatively little contact with the literary scene. He speaks warmly of his long friendship with fellow SF writer Michael Moorcock (now based in Texas), and of very stimulating conversations with Will Self and Iain Sinclair, and he has only bad words for the wife-bashing B. S. Johnson.

I don't think I have a bad word to say about Ballard's autobiography: as I said at the beginning, it's rather short, but then so was the time in which he had left to write it.

Samuel Rogers in Hornsey

The tomb of the poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), where he joined his brother Henry and his sister Sarah in the churchyard at St Mary's, Hornsey. The inscription on the tomb notes that he was the author of 'The Pleasures of Memory'.

 

Below is a link to an online book of his poems:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Poems of Samuel Rogers, with a Memoir (1850)

Alexander Pope in Chiswick

'ALEXANDER

POPE

1688–1744

Poet

lived in this row,

Mawson's Buildings

1716–1719'

 

The building the plaque is on is now a pub, although for some reason I shot it at a very bad angle. 

 

And the pub has two names – the Mawson Arms and the Fox and Hounds, as there were once two pubs on the site. The above plaque says that Pope lived here with his parents from 1716 to 1719, although Pope's father died in 1717.

 

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Alexander Pope's Grotto in Twickenham
Alexander Pope in St Marys Church, Twickenham
Alexander Pope in Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire

Anthony Beckles Willson: Mr Pope & others at Cross Deep

Van Gogh in Isleworth, Hounslow

Twickenham Road, Isleworth, Hounslow.

'VINCENT

VAN GOGH

the famous painter,

lived here in

1876'

 

At the age of 23, Van Gogh taught at the non-conformist minister Reverend Slade-Jones's school, Holme Court House in Isleworth.

The Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, Lewisham

'THE
HORNIMAN
MUSEUM
AND GARDENS
WERE GIVEN TO
THE PEOPLE OF LONDON
IN 1901 BY
FREDERICK JOHN
HORNIMAN
WHO LIVED NEAR
THIS SITE'

 

Frederick John Horniman (1835–1906) inherited his father John Horniman's firm, which towards the end of the 19th century was the largest tea business in the world. Frederick travelled the world collecting various specimens of natural history or cultural objects, his stated purpose being to 'bring the world to Forest Hill'.

 

The mosaic is Humanity in the House of Circumstance, designed by Robert Anning Bell. From the left, the figures represent Art, Poetry, Music, and Endurance; the central figure represents Humanity, with Love on the left and Hope on the right; then come Charity, Wisdom, Meditation (seated), and Resignation. The door on the left represents Birth, the door on the right Death.

 

The museum, in the Arts and Crafts style, was built by Charles Harrison Townsend, who also designed the Bishopsgate Institute and the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

Just an indication of the size of the place.

 

The Conservatory.

 

(As a point of interest, Annie Horniman (1860–1937), the daughter of Frederick and Rebekah (née Elmslie) Horniman, founded the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester, noted for what became known as the Manchester School of playwrights (e.g. Harold Brighouse, Stanley Houghton, Allan Monkhouse, etc).)

Highgate Cemetery (West) #5: Jacob Bronowski

'JACOB BRONOWSKI
1908–1974

RITA BRONOWSKI
1917–2010'

 

Polymath Jacob Bronowski is perhaps best remembered for his BBC TV series of 1973, The Ascent of Man, and the book of the same name, the title an obvious allusion to Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871).

Highgate Cemetery (West) #4: Frederick Tennyson

'SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
FREDERICK TENNYSON,
POET AND SCHOLAR,
BORN AT LOUTH, LINCOLNSHIRE,
JUNE 15th 1807,
DIED AT KENSINGTON, LONDON,
FEBRUARY 26 th 1898,
IN HIS 91st YEAR.
ERECTED BY HIS ELDEST SON
JULIUS GEORGE TENNYSON,
IN TOKEN OF AFFECTION.'

 

Frederick Tennyson was an elder brother of Alfred who was temporarily expelled from Cambridge University for refusing to accept punishment for not attending chapel. He lived in Florence for twenty years and was heavily influenced by Swedenborg.

Highgate Cemetery (West) #2: Ellen Wood

Ellen Wood (1814–87), who used to write under the self-effacing name of Mrs Henry Wood, is best known for her novel East Lynne (1861). She lived with her husband and family in France for twenty years, returning on the failure of her husband's business. In London, she supported her family on the profits of her many novels.

Below is a link to many of her works:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Ellen Wood novels

Highgate Cemetery (West) #1: Radclyffe Hall

Unfortunately, admission to West Cemetery is by guided tour only, which means that you're at the mercy of the guide, and that (at least on the occasion when I went this August) could well mean that you'll be subjected to the predictable: the 'menagerist' George Wombwell, the boxer Tom Sayers, etc. If the guide isn't interested in literature, as ours obviously wasn't – then there'll not even be a mention of Christina Rossetti, let alone Radclyffe Hall or Ellen Wood. Which isn't good enough for me, so it was fortunate that I'd done some online research before, and had worked out that we'd be passing by the last two authors at least. In the end, I was surprised to find the number of graves I did find – but in spite of, rather than because of – the guide. 

The Egyptian Avenue, leading on to the Circle of Lebanon.

 

 

 

Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) is probably most well known for her 'lesbian' novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), which was the subject of a court case. She lived with the singer Mabel Veronica Batten from her husband's death until Batten's own death in 1916.

'RADCLYFFE HALL

1943

...AND, IF GOD CHOOSE,

I SHALL BUT LOVE THEE BETTER

AFTER DEATH.

UNA.'

 

Batten's cousin Una Troubridge (1887–1963) was a sculptor and translator (notably of Colette) who lived with Hall from 1917.

The Geffrye: Museum of the Home, Shoreditch, London

The Geffrye Museum on Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, was established in 1914, originally being almshouses built in 1714.

 

Sir Robert Geffrye, the founder of the almshouses and Master of the Ironmongers' Company.

 

Up to fifty elderly poor people lived around this front garden area.

 

A partial view of the inside of the chapel.

 

The apse is a late 18th century addition.

On the other side, the reading room overlooks the back garden.

But the essential part of the museum is its display of home interiors, of which I found that the most recent ones were the easiest to photograph. They all represent middle-class homes. The room above is a reconstruction of an Edwardian (1900–14) drawing room in a semi-detached house. Electricity would have been a feature.

A 1930s living-cum-dining room in a London flat, which would have had running hot water, central heating, and wide windows.

A living-cum-dining room typical of an early 1960s house. The focal point of the room moves from the fireplace to the television.

 

Finally, from the 1990s, commercial premises converted into living space. Bare floorboards, minimal furniture.

The back garden.

An outside view of the reading room.

 

There is also a tiny cemetery which includes the founder's tomb.

William Hogarth in Chiswick

 

'WILLIAM

HOGARTH

Painter & Engraver

1697–1764

LIVED AND WORKED

HERE FOR 15 YEARS'

 

Unfortunately I missed the opportunity to include the famous mulberry tree in the top photograph. The Hogarths lived in what is now Leicester Square and began their stay in this early 18th century house in Chiswick, just at weekends and in the summer, in 1749. William's widow Jane kept the house on and her cousin Mary Lewis (who died in 1808) inherited it.

 

This model of Hogarth was made in 1999 and is the first thing that greets the visitor inside the house: it was made by Jim Mathieson (1931–2003), who will be mentioned again later.

 

This diorama by Rhoda Dawson, dating from the 1950s, is a recreation of the present downstairs exhibition room in Hogarth's day. A brief biographical note at the side of this model states that Dawson grew up on Chiswick Mall the daughter of arts and crafts enamellers and metal-workers, and that she worked at Gunnersby Park Museum. She married puppeteer John Bickersdike and they put on shows together.

 

Upstairs, the parlour or reception room is in the oldest part of the house. The two portraits above the fireplace are reproductions of Hogarth's representations of his younger sisters Mary and Anne. One of the exhibits in the cabinet is William's father Richard's Latin primer: he unsuccessfully taught and translated as a profession and spent five years in the Fleet prison for debt (although William kept silent about this).

 

Hogarth published The Analysis of Beauty in 1753 and this, The Analysis of Beauty II, is an illustration from it.

 

It was almost certainly Hogarth who had the bay window added.

 

This room is an extension the family built in 1750.

 

The Distrest Poet (1737) shows a man starving in a garret and working on a poem called Poverty. A picture above his head is titled The Gold Mines in Peru, illustrating the gulf between wishes and reality.

 

Long after Hogarth's death the poet Henry Francis Cary (1772–1844) lived in this house with his family from 1799 to 1817. He became curate at nearby St Nicholas's Church in Chiswick and welcomed here such writers as William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Thomas de Quincey and D. G. Rossetti. 

 

On the wall is one of Cary's poems:

Sonnet on the Death of His Daughter

Thrice has the dart of Death my peace bereaved;
        First, gentle mother, when it laid thee low'.
        Then was my morn of life o'ercast with woe,
        And oft through youth the lonely sigh was heaved.
But in a child I thought thou wert retrieved.
        She loved me well, nor from my side would go
        Through fields by summer scorch'd or wintry snow:
        How o'er that little bier at noon I grieved!
Last when as time has touch'd my locks with white,
        Another now had learnt to shed fresh balm
        Into the wounds, and with a daughter's name,
Was as a seraph near me, to delight
        Restoring me by wisdom's holy calm.
Oh, Death ! I pray thee next a kinder aim.

A bedroom in the original part of the house.

The wardrobe shows clothes based on those Hogarth wore for his self-portrait of 1757, such as linen shirt and buckle shoes.

An excellent way to spend an hour or two, and free of charge.

In St Nicholas churchyard, the tomb containing the remains of Hogarth, his wife Jane, his sister Anne, and Mary Lewis. David Garrick's tribute, with obvious reference to Hogarth's very famous pictorial narratives, reads:

 

'Farewell great Painter of Mankind

     Who reach'd the noblest point of Art,

     Whose pictur'd Morals charm the Mind,

     And through the Eye correct the Heart.

 

If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay,

     If Nature touch thee, drop a tear:

If neither move thee, turn away
     For HOGARTH'S honour'd dust lies here.'

The tomb of Italian poet Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827), who died in great poverty in Chiswick,  is in the churchyard extension.

An interpretation board in Hogarth's House states that Foscolo was a great admirer of Henry Francis Cary's translations of Dante, and asks if Foscolo's presence in Chiswick was due to Cary.

 

Finally, the sculpture of Hogarth that should be familiar from the model shown towards the beginning of this post: this is in a prominent position on Chiswick High Road, was sculpted by Jim Mathieson and commissioned for the millennium by Chiswick Traders Association. The essential difference between this statue and the model in Hogarth's House is the addition of Hogarth's pug dog. The statue was unveiled by Ian Hislop and David Hockney in 2001.