THE Hampstead Central Library, the ghost library within the modern building that still maintains its old, taunting exterior...it preoccupies me.
The blankness on one side of the building--is that where once stood the rest of the structure obliterated by the air raid nearly eighty years ago. I ought to return soon. The female watcher on War duty and killed in the raid needs to be better remembered.
Diary, 8th May 2017
Monday, 8 May 2017
Tuesday, 18 April 2017
Just William among the new architecture
diary, 8th April 2017
IT WAS a hard fight, but William won.
The Society that meets annually to relish the comical stories of the well-meaning or revengeful schoolboy had their heads full of the imaginary landscapes of English villages, footpaths through farmers' fields, community halls with pretentious guest speakers, and disused barns to work out colossal plans. Yet these days meetings are held more frequently in glass and steel modern buildings. This meeting, outside London at a redesigned university, challenged participants in a sleek hall with sheer walls and sweeping floor to envisage the old-fashioned scenes from the William books. The challenge was met with pleasurable defiance.
No matter where they are, the Just William Society members maintain the visions of William landscape and adventure of a comical century from 1919 to 1969. Analysis and celebration of the past abound, a past that strangely is familIar to the present.
IT WAS a hard fight, but William won.
The Society that meets annually to relish the comical stories of the well-meaning or revengeful schoolboy had their heads full of the imaginary landscapes of English villages, footpaths through farmers' fields, community halls with pretentious guest speakers, and disused barns to work out colossal plans. Yet these days meetings are held more frequently in glass and steel modern buildings. This meeting, outside London at a redesigned university, challenged participants in a sleek hall with sheer walls and sweeping floor to envisage the old-fashioned scenes from the William books. The challenge was met with pleasurable defiance.
No matter where they are, the Just William Society members maintain the visions of William landscape and adventure of a comical century from 1919 to 1969. Analysis and celebration of the past abound, a past that strangely is familIar to the present.
Thursday, 6 April 2017
The Storey of Camden
diary 6 April 2017
David Storey reminds us of Camden in flight.
His novel Flight into Camden keeps for us the borough we once knew as it flitted into the future which is now the present.
He died aged 83.
I would pass him on the Heath and in the street, knowing who he was and slightly in awe of even the later man's physicality. I was thinking of the rugby player who wrote This Sporting Life.
David Storey reminds us of Camden in flight.
His novel Flight into Camden keeps for us the borough we once knew as it flitted into the future which is now the present.
He died aged 83.
I would pass him on the Heath and in the street, knowing who he was and slightly in awe of even the later man's physicality. I was thinking of the rugby player who wrote This Sporting Life.
Thursday, 16 March 2017
Diary 16 March 2017 Private library privilege
ACCESS to Bulwer-Lytton's private library at the weekend. What a writer was Lord Lytton in the age of Queen Victoria. All those volumes.
The visit to his stately home Knebworth, outside London, brought back memories of admiring the prolific, promiscuous lord. I had read his science fiction The Coming Race, about the civilisation that lives deep underground in the earth and the fear they would take over on the surface.
In another work, Haunters and the Haunted, hero takes his bull terrier to an empty house for some ghost hunting. I'm re-reading that story.
Edward Bulwer Lytton died about 150 years ago. He had a good brand, not happy to establish when he was alive, but invaluable to his literary memory. I remember him not only as a good, prolific writer, but also, according to the publicity, as a womaniser with a vengeful wife.
The media have used him as a butt for their stale joke, that he is a bad writer, when he isn't.
The visit to his stately home Knebworth, outside London, brought back memories of admiring the prolific, promiscuous lord. I had read his science fiction The Coming Race, about the civilisation that lives deep underground in the earth and the fear they would take over on the surface.
In another work, Haunters and the Haunted, hero takes his bull terrier to an empty house for some ghost hunting. I'm re-reading that story.
 |
| Edward Bulwer-Lytton: prolific, scandalous |
Edward Bulwer Lytton died about 150 years ago. He had a good brand, not happy to establish when he was alive, but invaluable to his literary memory. I remember him not only as a good, prolific writer, but also, according to the publicity, as a womaniser with a vengeful wife.
The media have used him as a butt for their stale joke, that he is a bad writer, when he isn't.
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
Forgotten, but still half there
I FELT frustrated and a little guilty. I didn’t know what had happened to the Swiss Cottage Library before it became the Swiss Cottage Library. It used to be the Hampstead Library before all the little boroughs combined to become Camden, and it changed its name to Swiss Cottage Central Library. Swiss Cottage Central Library was built on different site, up the Finchley Road, London NW3, from 1964.
There is a certain weirdness to the tale, as a ghost of Hampstead Library is still there, well, half there, and almost forgotten is the fact it used to be the main Library. Now the ornate Victorian-age building is used as a modern arts centre, corner of Arkwright and Finchley roads. It is a complete arts centre in half a building. The other half was removed by Hitler and his German bombers when they invaded the skies over Finchley Road during the Second World War.
While the Second World War was on, Hampstead Central Library was damaged badly twice in air raids. Hitler’s bombs obliterated the Reference and Lending Rooms and the Book Store. More than twenty-five thousand books were lost. Touchingly, the Children’s Library, which survived, was changed to an emergency library. Repaired and rebuilt after the War, venerable Hampstead Central Library closed peacefully, and the offspring, Swiss Cottage Central Library, appeared near the Underground station in 1964.
Books that survived the bombing still shelter in the Reserve Stock at Swiss Cottage. Sometimes I order a book and unexpectedly it is a war veteran. When it is, and comes from the basement modestly into my hands, I look at the old label and tell it I can imagine what it went through during the War.
There is a certain weirdness to the tale, as a ghost of Hampstead Library is still there, well, half there, and almost forgotten is the fact it used to be the main Library. Now the ornate Victorian-age building is used as a modern arts centre, corner of Arkwright and Finchley roads. It is a complete arts centre in half a building. The other half was removed by Hitler and his German bombers when they invaded the skies over Finchley Road during the Second World War.
While the Second World War was on, Hampstead Central Library was damaged badly twice in air raids. Hitler’s bombs obliterated the Reference and Lending Rooms and the Book Store. More than twenty-five thousand books were lost. Touchingly, the Children’s Library, which survived, was changed to an emergency library. Repaired and rebuilt after the War, venerable Hampstead Central Library closed peacefully, and the offspring, Swiss Cottage Central Library, appeared near the Underground station in 1964.
Books that survived the bombing still shelter in the Reserve Stock at Swiss Cottage. Sometimes I order a book and unexpectedly it is a war veteran. When it is, and comes from the basement modestly into my hands, I look at the old label and tell it I can imagine what it went through during the War.
Friday, 15 April 2016
New wave of old tide
ON
the horizon, we were warned, was a coming tidal wave of HG Wells’s works published again. The
occasion is that this year he will come out of copyright. Riding the wave will
be the excellent editions of Oxford World Classics.
 |
| HG Wells at Sandgate, and soon with you again |
The news came at a reading-aloud of
Wells’s short story The Door in the Wall about a man who keeps seeing
the same tempting door in the same wall but in
different parts of London. At the lectern was Robert Lloyd Parry, the
actor-producer exponent of one-man
 |
| Robert Lloyd Parry: warning of HG Wells tidal wave photo courtesy Nunkie Productions re-enactments best-known for his M.R James ghost stories. The night location was a mysterious public house tucked away down an obscure historic alley in the city of London. |
Titles with a head start
THE
Sherlock Holmes stories are off to a head start with the reader because of
their gripping titles--especially the startlingly descriptive. For instance, The
Blue Carbuncle, The Crooked Man, and The Red-Headed League. Even if you don’t
finish the story, out of curiosity you’ll definitely start it. I’d be surprised
if you didn’t also want to finish it.
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