I've just returned from my longest visit to London in some years. My cousin from NYC was in town and I had the week off work, so we were able to enjoy a decent catch up with each other and of course with her Mum, the elderly aunt who's often mentioned on these pages. It was a good break, much less of a rush than my usual trips down the M11, allowing me the opportunity to spend several hours on Monday afternoon, wandering off the beaten track around the backstreets of E1 and E2. While ambling, I fired off a few shots with my trusty phone. I couldn't decide on just one to feature, so here are a handful of my favourites. Click on any of them to enlarge.
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'London Is Swinging By His Neck' is the only physical thing I own by London born, New Zealand based musician Roy Montgomery. He's played in a number of bands over the years, though his solo work is more often than not lo-fi instrumental in nature. This particular tune however, features a spoken word vocal from writer/actor/director/singer Kirk Lake.
Mrs S & I are out of town for the next few days, so the halls and corridors of Swede Towers have fallen silent. In fact, all being well, as you read these words we'll be in Oxford checking out the dreaming spires, plus the odd pub, gallery and coffee shop, before heading down into London's East End later in the week to visit my elderly Aunts. I'm a fairly regular visitor to Cambridge, that other great seat of learning, but have only ever been to Oxford once before and that was 45 years ago, so I don't recall an awful lot about the place. I'll report back with our impressions next week.
Here's the great Shirley Collins with 'The Oxford Girl', an ancient murder ballad that has appeared in many guises over the centuries. Shirley apparently heard this particular arrangement as 'The Wexport Girl', performed by Suffolk singer Phoebe Smith on a Topic Records LP. Shirley's reading of the song is taken from the 1970 record 'Love, Death and the Lady', made with her sister Dolly, a phenomenal album that remained on constant rotation in my car for well over a month late last year.
As you read these words I'm many miles from my desk and faithful laptop, on day one of a whistle-stop tour of London and the South East. My Aunt in Bethnal Green took a nasty tumble last week, breaking her right shoulder and fracturing her left hand. Understandably, she's feeling a little sorry for herself, so I'm going to pay her a surprise visit to see how her recuperation is coming along. She turns 90 this year, so these things take time - try telling her that though. While I'm down in the smoke I'll be staying with my other Aunt in East Ham, who's of a similar vintage. These two old ladies are the last remaining family members who have known me since birth.
From London, it's on to another, long pre-arranged, appointment with the great Alasdair Roberts, who is appearing at the Colchester Arts Centre on Sunday evening. Alasdair's new LP, 'Pangs', is released today, so with any luck I'll be able purchase my copy directly from the artist himself. Here's the video for the title track, which features an unexpected acting cameo by another firm favourite of this parish, Cambridge's own primitive guitar maestro, C. Joynes.
We're back home in Norfolk after a week down in olde London town. What was that bloody weather all about? Temperatures in the mid 30's with ridiculously high humidity does not make The Swede a happy boy. I had a big wobble on Monday and genuinely thought I was going to pass out while I was on the Tube, even though I'd kept my water intake high. To top it all, the car's electric windows jammed shut on Tuesday and have refused to open since - there's no aircon, it's been utterly stifling. As I type this though, it's 19° and raining steadily - absolute bliss. Time to start catching up with what's been going on while I've been away. The Fall - British People in Hot Weather
As I write these words, the old bone-shaker is at the garage being fine tuned in preparation for the journey and by the time you read this we should be speeding our way down the M11 towards London, where Mrs S has an important three day artistic gig in the heart of the sprawling metropolis. And me? I'll be ticking off a few odd jobs for my two elderly East End-based Aunts. Curtain changing, plant watering, a little gentle tidying - you name it, I'll probably be dusting it. It promises to be a flat out, non-stop, nose-to-the-grindstone few days for me, with interruptions only for extended coffee breaks (with hefty slabs of homemade cake, natch) and taking the dear old ladies in question out for a leisurely lunch or two. I'll be glad to get back home on Tuesday for a rest.
I've managed to catch at least one London date (often several) on every UK Bob Dylan tour since 1981. The one exception was in November of 2005 when work pressures prevented me from attending. So imagine my utter dismay when I checked the setlists online following Bob's Brixton Academy shows, to find that he'd commenced his encores with a brief snatch of 'London Calling', a direct nod to the city and of course, the mighty Clash, the only band that mattered.
87 years ago, my Aunt was born in a rented
Edwardian terraced house on this street in
the East End of London. She has vivid
memories of hiding in the cupboard under the stairs with
her Mother, as the bombs of The Blitz rained
down just a couple of miles away and she also
recalls the euphoric street parties thrown at the conclusion of the War. When she married at the
start of the 1950s, she and her husband moved
upstairs, while her Mother lived on the
ground floor. My Aunt and Uncle started their
own family in the house. They all shared an
outside toilet and had no bathroom.
In the late 1950s much of the
area was condemned and the terraces were
slated for demolition. The rental
tenants were given the option to either take
a flat on the new estate that would rise from
the rubble, or move out of the area
altogether. My Aunt and Uncle secured a sixth floor flat and my Aunt's Mother took a small ground floor apartment in the new development.
For the first time in their lives, they were
each able to enjoy their own indoor private
facilities and wash in something more than
the kitchen sink or a tin bath on the living
room floor. My Aunt still lives in the tower
block overlooking the spot where her house
once stood and appreciates these luxuries to
this day.
In the early 1960s, halfway through the redevelopment and after a local government
rethink, demolition was halted and tenants of
the surviving terraced housing were offered
the chance to inexpensively buy their own
properties and receive substantial financial
aid to improve them. Those that weren't
purchased by the sitting tenants were snapped
up by property developers. In recent years,
much of the area has gone through a period of
gentrification. One of those small terraced
houses in the photo, considered unfit for
human habitation 60 years ago and only saved
from the bulldozer by a hair's breath,
recently went on the market for in excess of
£1,000,000. Meanwhile, my Aunt's tower block
and the estate within which it sits, are
scheduled for demolition within the next
couple of years, to be replaced by another,
newer, version.
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