 This is the wonderful inscription in a first edition of Henry Mayers Hyndman's The Historical Basis of Socialism in England, published in 1883. Hyndman - a Tory and a toff by background - was the key figure in the socialist revival in England in the 1880s. He popularised (and bowdlerised) some of Marx's writings and was the swashbuckling key figure in the establishment in 1883 of the Social Democratic Federation. Hyndman was a flawed and controversial figure - a jingoist (his support for Britain's involvement in the First World War split the party he led, by then renamed the British Socialist Party) and an anti-semite. But he was crucially important in the development of a socialist political party. One of the SDF's areas of strength was Islington. This book was presented to Hyndman (I assume by 1906 the first edition was difficult to come across) by the SDF's four Islington branches.The inscription was signed on the branches' behalf by A.P. Hazell, a printer who joined the SDF in the mid-1880s and who sometimes signed letters in the party press as ''summat stronger of Clerkenwell". A few years later, Hyndman gave the book to his wife, with the fond inscription you can see above.
Perhaps that's why on the Brecknock Road estate in north Isington there is, to this day, a Hyndman House -  Indeed, the names of the blocks on the estate offer homage to socialists of ages past - with buildings named after Hyndman's onetime colleagues in the SDF, H.W. Lee and Harry Quelch (or perhaps his son Tom), as well as such prominent figures in the progressive pantheon as William Morris, Edward Carpenter, William Cobbett, William Blake, Henry Hetherington, Thomas Paterson and Beatrice Potter (or perhaps the trade unionist George Potter), along with some whose names I don't recognise.  And happily, the Hyndman first edition presented to the author by the Islington branches of the SDF is once more back in Islington - where I live.
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 The Baron Seven: l to r Andrew Whitehead, Ken Worpole, Muriel Walker, Sean Longden, Susie Thomas, Nadia Valman, Anthony Cartwright. Photos courtesy of Larraine Worpole The wonderful Old Church on Stoke Newington Church Street was the venue over the weekend for a book launch - part of the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. The volume is about a son of Stoke Newington, the novelist Alexander Baron, best known for his D-Day novel From the City, From the Plough and his cult classic of post-war Hackney, The Lowlife. Six Baron enthusiasts have come together in So We Live: the novels of Alexander Baron to examine aspects of his life and writing. We were joined by Muriel Walker, who is 92 and worked alongside Baron in the late 1940s on the journal 'New Theatre'. She read from a letter Baron had sent her in 1949 when she was in Italy - where Baron had served during the war.  Ross Bradshaw of the publishers Five Leaves with Nadia Valman. Photo: Larraine Worpole The launch was a great success with a hundred or so people packing the church pews. And lots of books were sold.
So We Live is published by Five Leaves - and they have also just published four of Baron's novels, three of them republications and in one case, The War Baby, the first publication of a powerful novel set amid the International Brigades fighting Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
There's more about Alexander Baron here - and we have also posted online a 'walk round Baron's manor', complete with map, which will guide you round Stoke Newington and Dalston in the footsteps of the author.
Do give it a try!  The Boston Arms - that gothic monstrosity of a pub opposite Tufnell Park tube station - is having a makeover. And some of the signage from its heyday, engraved on wooden board, has come to light - probably for the last time. The pub was then known as the Boston Hotel, and the grandeur of the signage - not just engraved, but the lettering highlighted in gold paint against a lilac backdrop - p0ints to just how splendid this local landmark once was.  Some of the wood on which the signage is painted seems to be rotten - and I suspect it is being removed as part of the renovation.  The Boston is, these days, a hard drinking, Hibernian, sports-on-big-screen sort of place. It has a leading music venue, The Dome, in premises adjoining which were once the Boston's own music rooms (and much earlier, I believe, were dance rooms known as the Tufnell Park Palais). The pub has been at the heart of Tufnell Park - iconic, in a sense - since it was built well over a century ago. This vintage postcard, showing Junction Road with only cycles and horse-drawn transport - must date from shortly after the Boston Hotel opened in 1899. The Boston Arms is grade 2 listed - and some of the signage has a wonderfully dated feel. Why would anyone advertise 'foreign wines'? Where would punters imagine the wine came from?   For these relics of the past - "time's up, ladies and gentlemen please!"   I am just back from Delhi, where I was a regular panellist commenting on the elections for WION, one of India's best TV news channels. It was fairly full on - but I managed to take a couple of hours off to go to Hauz Khas Village, where I was able to pick-up this remarkable print. It's a wonderfully stylised portrayal of a meeting - clearly in London - between M.K. Gandhi and the King Emperor George V and Queen Mary. You can see how the diminutive Gandhi is portrayed as the biggest figure in the room. Indeed, his chair appears to be the more imposing 'throne'. This is not simply cheap agitprop, but there's certainly an Indian nationalist message evident. I wondered at first if this 'interview' was mythical - much like Queen Victoria's visit to India. But I discover that in November 1931, while in London for the Round-Table Conferences, Gandhi was indeed invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the King. Gandhi was reputedly asked whether he felt under dressed for a visit to the Palace - he is said to have replied that the King was wearing enough for both of them!  It seems that no photographic record was made of this Gandhi-Emperor encounter - allowing the artist responsible for this image free rein. Gandhi was accompanied to the Palace by Sarojini Naidu - there's a decent likeness of her in the print - and by his personal secretary, Mahadev Desai. But it seems to be not Desai who is represented in the print but another Congressman, Madan Mohan Malaviya, who was certainly present at the Second Round Table Conference - he's shown next to Gandhi below - but I'm not at all convinced he was at the Palace. Anyone know?   Sandiya is thirteen and she runs quite the most unusual roadside stall I've come across. She sells cattle feed - both greens and grain - in small quantities to motorists and scooter drivers who stop off here and spend twenty or thirty rupees on a bunch or bowl-full of nourishment. They then give that to the cattle waiting all around (and the ever grateful pigeons) apparently to get the benefits of a good deed - cows of course are revered within Hinduism.  Business is brisk - I've passed by quite a few times and there's usually someone either buying or dispensing the feed. The stall is close to a car park serving people using Mayur Vihar Extension metro station in Delhi - though many of Sandiya's customers seem to come on scooters and to be regulars at the stall. It seems a strange combination of livestock management and devotionally-minded benevolence. But, hey, it works!
Stranger and stranger! I went today to the shopping malls and crowded market streets of Noida Sector 18, part of a city of a million plus which is now the eastern-most part of Delhi (though it's across the state border in Uttar Pradesh). It's a middle class area, largely prosperous but not on a par with the tree-lined elite colonies and housing developments of South Delhi and Gurgaon. The mall I popped in to bore the name ...  .., but judging by the array of western shop names, there's not all that much of India in the place.  I popped into a coffee bar - Costa, of course - for a flat white, and ended up forking out 240 rupees (that's not far off £3). So some of the prices are more firangi than desi as well as the brands.  But the most remarkable sight was a London bus - OK, it was novelty for kids, but bearing the label 'LONDON BUS' - perambulating round the mall. And you could buy tickets for your 'bus' ride at a mock-up of a red London phone box. It's amazing the way that these iconic London institutions have found a resonance in Uttar Pradesh!
Overwhelming the Sector 18 skyline is a vast new development - mall and offices, by the look of it - which is evidence of the investment still pouring into this part of India's capital. Cycle ricks still ply their trade in its shadow, reflecting the deeply uneven development India is undergoing.  On the streets, there's still the food carts and the mehndi stalls. This woman was doing something I'd never seen before - having mehndi applied to both hands at once.
Noida is a beneficiary of the most spectacularly successful of Delhi's innovations - the metro. It's cheap, clean (really!) and ultra-efficient - and Noida is now no more than half-an-hour from Connaught Place, the heart-beat of Delhi.
 It's so much quicker than a London bus!
 BJP workers outside a polling station in East Delhi It's more than a month since the first votes were cast, but still India's election juggernaut rumbles on. Today is the sixth of seven polling days - the final day is in a week's time - and Delhi is among the areas where voting is taking place. I'm in the Indian capital to be an election pundit on WION, a news channel which is part of the Zee group. I popped out this morning to see how voting is going. This is the East Delhi constituency - currently held (as are all seven Delhi seats) by Narendra Modi's BJP, but where the Aam Admi Party (it means the party of the common man) is putting up a strong challenge.
There was a steady stream of voters at this polling station in a government school, but hardly a torrent. Turn-out in Delhi is usually well below the national average, and is lowest in middle-class areas. In many countries, it's the marginalised underclass that doesn't engage with elections - in India, the poor know their electoral strength and it's the upper middle class who are often the most reluctant to cast their ballots. That's partly out of disdain for 'dirty' politics - partly that they feel they will be hugely out numbered by the hoi palloi - and as the temperature is touching 40 degrees and you can taste the grime in the Delhi air, it's very tempting to stay put in air conditioned comfort.
At some distance from the polling stations - about 200 yards away - the main political parties have stalls, keeping track on who has voted and offering encouragement (and in the BJP's case free saffron-coloured caps) to those heading to vote.  Congress party workers in Mayur Vihar this morning  An Aam Admi Party stall in East Delhi The party workers all have voters' lists complete with mugshots and make attentive notes about whether their supporters are showing up to vote. The Election Commission has really cleaned up the polling process over the last twenty years. Voting is electronic, and all those who vote get an indelible mark on a finger which takes about a month to fade away. But there are still huge problems - with the under-supervised use of WhatsApp and other digital platforms to campaign, cajole and sometimes misinform ... the huge amounts of cash disbursed to buy votes and favourable coverage (voting has been postponed in one South Indian constituency after the seizure of cash amounting to more than £1 million believed to have been intended to influence the result) ... and a persistent problem of personation. The friend who showed me round the Mayur Vihar polling stations said he and his wife won't be voting - but by 6pm, he added, his vote would still have been cast. Those who don't vote are sometimes victims of impostors voting in their name. And some of those who come to cast their ballot late in the day are told that they have already voted - even though they haven't.  And what next? Well, the exit polls will be released when the last polling stations close next Sunday - and then votes are counted four days later, on May 23rd.
Who do I think will win? Watch WION - and you'll find out!  Bob Dylan at the Pindar of Wakefield, December 1962 - copyright of the photographer, Brian Shuel This marvellous photo was taken by Brian Shuel during Bob Dylan's first visit to London in December 1962. The venue was the Pindar of Wakefield on Grays Inn Road (it's now the Water Rats!), where the Singers' Club - then run by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger - gathered every week. Was this Dylan's first ever public performance in the UK? Well, that's discussed in my Curious King's Cross - here's the link. But because of Brian's photographs, Dylan's performance at the Singer's Club is the best known episode of the 21 year old's initial musical encounter with London. I have often wondered about the young women in the photograph who are so clearly enraptured by Dylan and his music. Who are they? How did they come to be there? A week or two back, I gave a talk about Curious King's Cross at Holborn Library and showed Brian Shuel's photo - one of those who had come along came up at the end to say that she thought she recognised one of the women in the photo. That's how I came to have a cup of tea the other day with Natasha Morgan - she's the woman in the bottom left of the photo.  Natasha was then sixteen, living with her left-wing parents in Surrey and she had a few months earlier travelled with a coach-load of folkies - 'lovely people' - to a CND peace march. She knew Bob Davenport, already a key figure on the folk scene, and in spite of her parents' concerns about a young woman wandering alone around King's Cross - Davenport would make sure she got a taxi home - she was a regular at the Pindar's folk evenings. 'I didn't know Bob Dylan was going to be there - the name didn't mean anything to me', Morgan recalls. 'But he was so different from the other singers - for a start he was young, and he didn't simply sing the traditional, unaccompanied songs.' 'At the Singers' Club there was an emphasis on being authentic - many of the singers and performers were older men, a bit beery, slobbery. You had to watch your bottom with some of them - they were always saying "come sit with me". Dylan was very different from that.' Next to Natasha Morgan in the photo is Anthea Joseph, now dead, who was already an important figure on the folk scene. Natasha was friends with her brother, Tom - a 'natural troublemaker' in the words of the obituary of him in the Camden New Journal.
The legion of Dylanologists has tried to resurrect every one of the singer's set lists - but there is no unanimity about what Dylan played on his handful of informal appearances during that desperately cold London winter. Morgan is fairly sure he sang 'Masters of War' at the Singers' Club and thinks that he may also have performed 'Blowin' in the Wind'. A few months afterwards a friend taught her to play guitar, and her initial repertoire included 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Don't Think Twice'. She saw Dylan several times on later concert tours - but never again looked on with such rapt attention.  A pilgrimage to Huddersfield yesterday, to see Town's last home game in the Premier League. This has been a dismal season - we have been rooted to the foot of the table for several months - and Lord knows when we'll be back. I went by train - a thirteen-hour round trip from north London for an hour-and-a-half of football. But this is big! In the thirty years before my birth, Huddersfield Town spent just one season out of the top tier of English football. In the past sixty or so years, they have had just four seasons in total in the top tier. I remember well Jimmy Nicholson's team - Frank Worthington and Trevor Cherry were among that number - which won the old Second Division championship in 1969-70. After two seasons in the First Division, they slipped down - and down - and down. Town were perhaps fortunate to win the play-off place and get a bunk up two years ago into the Premier League. But last season was glorious - I saw them win 3-0 at Crystal Palace in their first ever Premiership game and, towards the end of the season, I witnessed them secure a hard-earned draw at Stamford Bridge to keep their place. This season, there has been very little to smile about. We've lost our manager and our chairman, both great guys - and just about every game we've played.  I'd seen perhaps half-a-dozen games over the season. And I hadn't seen Town win. Jeez, I hadn't seen Town score ... until yesterday.  What a wonderful way to depart the Premier League - holding the Red Devils to a draw! Our heads held high ...
Two years ago, the Cowshed - the most vocal of Town's fans - were declaring: "we're going up!". Yesterday they were singing, with almost as much pride: "we're going down". It took away some of the sting of saying goodbye to Town as a Premiership team.
We all knew it couldn't last for long. It's been a grand two years. And I really hope to be around to watch Town fight their way back up again.  This is a spectacular ghost sign - and although huge, it's also one of the most hidden away I've ever come across. It reads: HOLBORN BOROUGH COUNCIL CIVIL DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS VOLUNTEERS WANTED ENROL HERE  Civil defence, Holborn, 1940. Courtesy: IWM It dates, I would guess, from the Second World War - when, as you can see, Holborn had an active civil defence operation. It's just possible that it's from the period of the Cold War, when fear of a Soviet nuclear strike prompted a revival of civil defence teams, particularly in sensitive areas such as Holborn in central London. The sign is entirely obscured by Holborn Library, a building completed in 1960 - this photo was taken from the local history section of the library on the second floor looking out through a rear window. The library building itself, on Theobalds Road, has been described as 'a milestone in the history of the modern public library'. Camden Council intends to refurbish the building - the spot I took this photo from is set to become a luxury apartment, and the local history collection is to be banished to the basement.
And the former Civil Defence HQ - in a building built between the wars as a furniture warehouse (and currently used by the council for storage and as the base for a number of arts and similar organisations) - is set to be demolished, though we don't quite know when, and the site redeveloped. Its side aspect is on John's Mews, if that helps. Holborn Borough Council, by the way, was swept away in the 1965 reorganisation of London local government when it was amalgamated with St Pancras and Hampstead in the new London Borough of Camden. So if you are in to ghost signs - or Holborn's history - or you are just curious (which is a good thing to be) - don't delay in getting a glimpse! |
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