 When it comes to architecture, Leamington Spa - sorry, Royal Leamington Spa - is best known for its Pump Rooms and other examples of Regency elegance. So its rail station tends not to enjoy the limelight. But it is an impressive piece of Art Deco, don't you think?  And in the January sun, it looked particularly fetching. So I'm not saying it can cure gout, but it can stir the soul a little bit. 'Dekko' by the way is a loan word from Hiindi - an example of Indian army slang lodging in the English language. You 'have a dekko' or 'take a dekko' - a peep or a quick glance. It's from deknaa, Hindi for 'to look'. Nothing to do with 'deco' but the words are pleasingly alliterative when twinned. 
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 It's back. Highgate Library has come back to life after a refurbishment costing £1.8 million which took almost a year. And doesn't it look grand!  This is the Highgate Library on Chester Road in Highgate New Town - so part of Camden; it has a step-sibling near Highgate tube station (in Haringey). Good on Camden for finding the resources. And what a spectacular achievement by the Friends of Highgate Library who have been so effective in lobbying for the library, organising voluntees and seeing the renovation through to completion.  The money has been spent on reducing the carbon footprint of this Grade II listed building and making it more comfortable and accessible for users. A heat pump has been installed along with insulation, double glazing and new lighting. A building which is well over a hundred years old now looks ready to last out the century.  And don't get the impression that because there aren't many people in these photos, there isn't much demand for this library. When I asked the librarians for permission to take a few photos, I made clear that I would not include those who were browsing the shelves, using the terminals or enjoying the children's room.   V.K. Krishna Menon was once the chair of St Pancras's library committee. I'm sure he would be proud of all the work done to safeguard his legacy.   George Jones has a footnote in history - the only Communist to get more than 10,000 votes in a Parliamentary election for an English constituency when facing Labour opposition. No, he didn't win; indeed, he came third. I've blogged about him before. This election leaflet is from fourteen years later - when he stood again for Hornsey in north London as the Communist candidate. It's part of an assortment of Jones election literature that has come my way. The interesting thing about this leaflet is, as you will have noticed, it's in Greek. Here's my short article published in the latest Hornsey Historical Society Newsletter which provides the context.    Well, this is quite a discovery - and one which will feature in my new book, Curious Muswell Hill, which should be published in the Spring. There I was strolling along Alexandra Gardens in Muswell Hill - a street which runs between St James's Lane and Muswell Hill itself - when I noticed a building which stood out among the Edwardian terraced houses.  No. 27 is a little taller and grander, with large first floor windows which suggest a public rather than domestic purpose. And then there's the inscription on the brickwork -  A Village Club in Muswell Hill? Really?? Well, some of the club's records, including early minute books, are held in the London Archive in Clerkenwell. The Club was built under the sponsorship of the local parish church, St James's. It opened in 1889 and offered premises where working men could relax in the evening, read the papers, smoke and chat and partake in 'quiet' games. There was a bagatellle table and a piano - but no alcohol. The Club was sufficiently proud of its home to feature a drawing of it on the Club rules and handbills. Apart from the loss of the chimneys, and the cross, it's hardly changed over the intervening 136 years -
The Club hosted meetings and smoking concerts - and Sunday services too. Membership cost just a shilling (5p) a quarter - so that's 20p a year, which even given inflation was a fairly trifling amount.
 It seems the Village Club didn't survive all that long. For one thing, 'dry' clubs were going out of favour - larger working men's clubs had bars, variety nights, snooker tables and rifle ranges. And for another, Muswell Hill never had many working men. And the expansion of the new suburb from the late 1890s was all about homes for the aspiring and newly prosperous middle class not for working class families. But the Village Club, wonderfully, still stands. And it still has a civic purpose - as a venue for parent and toddler sessions, children's music lessons, that sort of thing.   It's 'neighbour day' at Highgate Cemetery. So we went to see our neighbours. What a place! What a crew! Here are a few of the graves - first some of those in the West Cemetery then below those in the East. I've blogged about the cemetery before and I've avoided reposting photos of graves I've already visited. Come along ...  
  The Chapel The East Cemetery
   This is number 45 of the North Briton as originally published in April 1763. It's the issue that led to the arrest of John Wilkes, at the time a Member of Parliament, and his trial for seditious libel. In this issue, he criticised a speech by George III praising the Treaty of Paris which ended the Seven Years War – he said the treaty had ‘drawn the contempt of mankind on our wretched negotiators’. Wilkes was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. He successfully challenged the warrant for his arrest and the seizure of the paper – but in November 1763, the House of Commons resolved that issue 45 was indeed a seditious libel. Wilkes fled to Paris the following month and remained in Europe for four years. He returned from exile in 1768. He was arrested but from his prison cell secured re-election as an MP and as an Alderman of London with the cry ‘Wilkes and Liberty’. He is renowned as a champion of a free press and as an advocate of political reform. Here are all six pages of this issue of the North Briton in its original folio format. I have a political tract relating to the trial of another radical reformer, John Lilburne, which - from the inscription (here it is below) - was presented to Wilkes just as he was fending off his critics and prosecutors. I've written about the history of the book.  I now suspect that the inscription is in Wilkes's own hand. As you can see, there's a marked similarity in handwriting between the inscription and Wilkes's signature, this example of the latter (below) is from 1768 -  The final words of the offending issue of the North Briton read: ‘FREEDOM is the English Subjects PREROGATIVE.’ Well said, John Wilkes.
 This is such a wonderful association copy. Edward Carpenter's Love's Coming of Age - a collection of his essays about sexuality - with the author's inscription to his friend and fellow socialist, Lucy Henderson. Carpenter was a gay intellectual and activist who lived with his partner, George Merrill, at Millthorpe near the village of Holmesfield in the Peak District near Sheffield. He was an important figure in the early socialist movement and, among many other things, wrote Towards Democracy and the anthem 'England Arise'.
Along with the book is a handwritten note by Carpenter to Lucy Henderson - a real gem. It's undated, but probably from about the same time as the book (this is the 1897 second edition) or a little later. He muses about a visit to the Riviera as 'I ... rather crave for sunshine' (it was February when he wrote!)   So, what do we know about Lucy Henderson? She was married to Fred Henderson, a significant figure in the early socialist movement - a journalist, largely Norwich-based, the first socialist elected to Norwich City Council and in his old age the Lord Mayor of the city. Lucy Henderson was herself at various times a councillor and a Poor Law Guardian. Lucy's maiden name was Slaughter. She married in Holborn in 1892 - though the previous year she had given her name in the census as Lucy Henderson and the couple then had two children. I haven't yet worked out who were her brother and sister-in-law referred to in Carpenter's note.     I don't go to see tribute bands. But ... OK, so last night I went to see the Dark Star Orchestra recreating the Grateful Dead experience. Not bad! Lovely to hear live renditions of Uncle John's Band, Brokedown Palace, Cumberland Blues, and a magical Eyes of the World - though happily not the interminable Dark Star. The set - three hours in all, in best Dead fashion - also included Joni Mitchell's Woodstock, John Lennon's Imagine, Bob Dylan's Tom Thumb's Blues and - not an obvious! - Loretta Lynn's You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man). Why did I go? Well, these were a recreation - with a much amended set list - of two famous concerts by the Grateful Dead at this same venue, Alexandra Palace, fifty years ago. And yes I was there back then - aged 18 and about to go to college a few weeks later. So these two visits to Ally Pally just about bookend my adult life (not that it's quite over yet, thank you very much!)   Manu has run Orientalist, a business selling Persian and Oriental rugs, for 42 years. But he's decided it's time to downsize. He's selling off most of his stock, and keeping just a small part of his current premises - one of a cluster (well, there are three!) of Oriental carpet shops on Highgate Road, just north of Kentish Town.  Manu was born in Isfahan and brought up in Tehran. His shop is an Aladdin's cave of rugs - from Buhkara, Kashmir, Iran, Turkey, Baluchistan ... And in this photo below you can seem looming above the proprietor a performance artist who had, it seems, hired the shop for a photo shoot, and looked a little as if he was dressed in one of its rugs.  Of course, we couldn't pop in without making a small purchase. And Manu gave us (he says) a good discount.  These carpet shops have given some distinction to the distinctly perdestrian Highgate Road - it would be a much duller place without them. And as I am sure even Edward Said would agree, Manu is the right kind of Orientalist !   For a twentieth century suburban church, this is stylish. It's the Moravian church in Hornsey which is at the foot of Muswell Hill. I've blogged about it before - but now I've managed to set foot in it, or at least in the church hall at the back. The church opened in 1908 - and the HQ of the British province of the Moravian church is nearby (in a much older building, though it was the thriving Hornsey congregation that prompted the church to relocate its admin building to this corner of London after the Second World War). There's more about the history of the church and congregation here.  The church hall is huge - with comfortable sitting room for 150. The photo above is from the past week when I addressed the Crouch End district of the U3A about my book on the Siege of Sidney Street. What a turn-out! Next door, a mother and tooder group was meeting. Elsewhere, a nursery school was in full flow. I didn't manage to get into the church itself - this photo is from the Moravians' website and shows the church as it was being restored after a nasty fire in 2019.  Almost 120 years after the church was built, it seems to be doing well. In N8, the Lamb of God marches on!  |
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