Category: Battersea

In the paw steps of Britain's best known cat

6/9/2023

You can see where I've been this week. In the footsteps - well, the paw steps - of the country's most famous cat.

Larry was selected to be the Downing Street Cat from a shortlist of three inmates of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. Although he now has the title 'chief mouser', he was chosen not because he showed any aptitude for catching mice but because he was good with people. You can imagine the scene if Larry had shown his claws to Gavin Williamson or snarled at Matt Hancock!

My visit to Battersea was to make a donation. Not money, but a slice of history.

Many year ago, I bought at an ephemera stall a fragile handbill from the 1860s soliciting support for a 'Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs'. I was attracted to it because I live not far way from the onetime dogs' home in Holloway. But it turns out that in 1871, this dogs' home moved to Battersea and became ... yes, you've got it.

Battersea's archivist explained that they have vanishingly little in their holdings about the home before it moved south of the river. Well, now they have this -

And if you're curious what the dogs' home looked like in its Holloway incarnation, a drawing of it has survived:

Wonderful! But you can sort of see why the neighbours were keen to wave the home goodbye.

The handbill emphasises that it's for lost and stray dogs only, not for ancient or no-longer-wanted domestic pets ...

Indeed, as you can see, it suggests that if your favourite pootch is getting a little long in the tooth, perhaps the kindest thing would be to put it down. Given the lack of veterinary care at the time, that's perhaps understandable ... but it's the exact opposite of Battersea's current approach.

The home is happy to accept and rehouse unwanted pets, and says the cost of living crisis has sadly prompted more pet owners to wave a fond farewell to Rover or Mogs (the home's name was changed to include cats in 2002). And they only put down animals with very serious health problems or those dogs that are aggressive.to the point of being unhousable.

The Battersea campus is ultra-modern - and indeed the oldest building there, dating from 1905, looks almost comically out of place amid the lines and curves of the new wings and the Battersea Power Station development beyond.

The home also makes use of a row of railway arches, a couple of which used to be the home of a small rail station (Battersea Park Road station, which opened in 1867 and closed in 1916). The station's splendid late Victorian decorated brick is worth a look.

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Battersea Power Station rekindled

12/10/2022

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Temperance and Billiards on Battersea Rise

6/8/2017

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Temperance and Billiards ... they don't feel a natural match, do they? Billiards suggests bottles of ale, overflowing ashtrays and an ample measure of the dissolute. I came across this wonderful sign on Battersea Rise in south London, just off Clapham Common, Not a billiard hall any more, of course. Not temperance either. It's a pub.

But it's a splendid building, an unlikely survival. And, I discover, a remnant of what was once a nationwide movement to break the link between billiards and beer.

The Temperance Billiard Hall Company - no, I am not making this up - was set up in Lancashire in 1906. Its aim was to provide a salubrious location for the hugely popular pastime of billiards way from the corrupting influence of alcohol and the licensed trade.

An architect, Norman Evans, designed a dozen or more of these halls in the years before the First World War. There's one in Fulham which is listed; it's also now a pub, cheekily called The Temperance. But as you can see this Battersea Rise billiards hall also has a touch of style about it, with almost an oriental ambience to its tiled frontage complete with cupola. I'm not sure, but I'd guess it's one of Evans's.

As late as 1958, this was one of more than twenty temperance billiard halls in London. P.J. Kavanagh, indeed, wrote a poem entitled 'The Temperance Billiard Hall' - thugh sadly I can't find the text online.

A brave attempt at social improvement - snookered by the popular appetite for something a bit stronger than sasparilla.

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Anarchy in KX

24/10/2015

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I went today, for the first time in a few years, to the Anarchist Book Fair.- and discovered it as vibrant and crowded as ever. It has a new, and at first glance unlikely, home - in the splendid, mega-expensive redevelopment of the King's Cross Goods Yard. And here on the ground floor of Central St Martin's - which fronts on to the majestic Granary Square - there was room for all a hundred or so stalls, selling books, pamphlets, T-shirts, badges, poetry, art, old clothes ... And as you can see, the place was packed, with the red-and-black bunting adding a touch of distinction to the surroundings.

My favourites among the array of stalls were then handful selling old stuff for which, as any regular readers (are there any?) of this blog will know, I am a complete sucker. Nice to get this copy of Colin Ward's Anarchy - cover by Rufus Segar - from August 1968, looking at the student unrest of that politically scorching summer.

... and a homage to Frank Kitz

My most pleasing purchase at today's book fair was from further back - a handbill advertising a socialist carnival in Battersea in May 1920 to raise money for an old, and renowned, revolutionary... including (why can't we give this a go now?!!) a 'historical revolutionary dress competition' with prizes for 'the best representation of chosen revolutionary characters of historical importance. Such characters to be imitated in dress, in features, and in quotation from their writings or speeches'.

'The Whole Proceeds of this Carnival will be handed over to the benefit of Comrade Frank Kitz, the oldest among all of the Socialists in our midst, the active leader of the revolutionary movement in the late Seventies and early Eighties, when it was no soft job to preach Socialism to the free born of London. ... All who take part in this Socialist Carnival will have the pleasure of knowing that while enjoying themselves they have also contributed to the happiness of our aged and well-deserving Comrade.'

Kitz, a dyer by trade and a colleague of Wlliam Morris in the Socialits League, died three years later, in his mid-seventies.

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'Demonstration in Battersea, 1939'

11/12/2014

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This is such an arresting painting, I can't resist the temptation to post it here. It's by Clive Branson, a Communist artist who fought in Spain and died in Burma during the Second World War. It is, of course, intensely political ... and with a strong sense of place ... and through its use of colour, and the affection with which those peopling the canvas are depicted, an optimistic image as the clouds of war darkened.

The painting's title is 'Demonstration in Battersea, 1939'. I've blogged before about Clive Branson and his daughter Rosa Branson and their shared enthusiasm for art, though in markedly different styles. The image appeared in the Guardian a short while back - here's the link - in a review of an exhibition devoted British artists and the Spanish Civil War. It's at Chichester and is on until February.

The Guardian's caption: Demonstration in Battersea, 1939 by Clive Branson, dedicated to Comrade E Marney: ‘a parade of hungry volunteers… sometimes shirtless, often ill, but always wearing their brigade badges or caps’. Photograph: Collection of Rosa Branson/© The Estate of Clive Branson

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Clive Branson, Rosa Branson and 'red Battersea'

12/10/2013

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Clive Branson was a communist, poet, artist and soldier - he fought in the Spanish Civil War and died in Burma where he was serving in the British army during the Second World War. I blogged about him recently - and included copies of some of his paintings held by the Tate.

One of the nicest aspects of a blog is the way that one thing leads to another. So that posting helped put me in contact with Clive's daughter, the artist Rosa Branson - and a day or two back I called on her and had the privilege of seeing more of her and her father's art.

Both Clive and his wife Noreen were from wealthy families. They met in London, both uncomfortable with their privileged backgrounds. They married, went to live in Battersea and joined the Communist Party. Rosa tells me that she was named after 'Red Rosa' Luxemburg.

This is a self-portrait by Clive Branson which Rosa has on display at her home (she has given permission for all the pictures you see here to be posted). Rosa's father died when she was ten - one of the last things he said to her was to urge her to be an artist. That has been the biggest spur to her own highly successful and productive career.

Rosa told me of her great pride in her father - in his poetry, art, and more so in the qualities which shined through in his life and politics. She recalled that her mother once said how proud her father would be of her and her success as an artist - and that in turn gave Rosa a great sense of satisfaction.

I am really taken by Clive Branson's political paintings, mainly from the late 1930s - let me show you why:

This last painting, Rosa explained, depicts a wartime barrage balloon which was pierced and deflated over Battersea - and the escaping gas turned the air green.

The painting on the right is again Battersea - Rosa has photographs of these street scenes in more recent years. Can anyone help me identify where they are?

All these paintings have simply been photographed on an iphone - so I'm sorry that they do not do full justice to the originals, but I hope you will get a sense of the style as well as the subject matter.

Rosa also has what she calls her father's archive. His letters have been deposited at the Bishopsgate Institute and the Marx Memorial Library - but she has copies of all his correspondence, as well as the original of a letter, very precious to her, sent by Clive to his daughter during his war service in India.

There are also Clive's school caps - and, as you can see below, the cap he wore while fighting with the International Brigades in Spain, along with his cap badge and another badge from that era:

Rosa's own painting - she still paints for seven hours a day, and has completed more than 600 works - often draws on family history. Below are details relating to her father and his death from two different canvasses:

Rosa has visited her father's war grave in Burma - and his gravestone and the cemetery are shown in the detail above.

On the left is Rosa alongside the full canvas. In recent years she has painted these large story-canvasses particularly at the request of charities and lobby groups, both for display and as a support to fund raising. Her own family (including cousin Richard Branson), as well as friends, neighbours, students and local shopkeepers, often feature in the paintings.

Although Rosa describes herself as an atheist, several of her large paintings feature Christ, saints, angels, haloes, harps and all things celestial - with again those close at hand serving as the models. She recalls her granddaughter creating quite an impact when, while queuing up at the local greengrocers, she pointed at the shopkeeper and exclaimed: 'Look, Jesus!'

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Clive Branson - poet, artist, activist, soldier, writer

31/8/2013

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You know the moment. You find a book you really like very cheap in an Oxfam bookshop, and for no very good reason, you buy it. You already have a copy - but it's too good to pass by.

That's how this morning, at the Oxfam bookshop in Crouch End, I forked out £2.50 for Clive Branson's British Soldier in India. Branson, a veteran of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (some of his poems are in the anthologies of civil war verse), served in India and Burma during the Second World War - and died there.

His letters are about India, communism, poverty, nationalism, war, famine - and the vivid colours and assault on all the senses that India brings with it to those from outside.

What tempted me above all, though, to make the purchase was a clipping loose inside the book - a review in the 'Daily Worker' of 21st October 1944 by, of all people, Sean O'Casey. Here it is:

In an introduction to the book - published in 1944, the year of Branson's death in Burma - the CP leader, Harry Pollitt, gives some details of his life history. Born in 1907 in India, where his father was an army officer (it seems his full name was Clive Ali Chimmo Branson though he was usually known as Frank - there must be a story behind that but I haven't yet found it), Branson moved to England as a baby. He attended the Slade School of Art, but once he joined the CP in his mid-twenties he forsook painting for a while: 'He used to say that to be able to paint you must first learn about life.'

British Soldier in india includes a few sketches that Branson made while in Maharashtra - this being a study for a much larger intended work:

I noticed in Pollitt's introduction an account of Branson's art work in the years just before he enlisted in the armed forces:

After the outbreak of the present war, while continuing his political work, he nevertheless spent a number of months painting very intensively, because, as he said, "it may be my last chance". He painted mainly the life in Battersea, where he lived, the workers in the streets, the events of the blitz.

And if you look on the web, you can see some of these very striking paintings. The one below dates from 1937 and is entitled 'Selling the Daily Worker outside the Projectile and Engineering Works' - it's held by the Tate, and I hope they will forgive me for posting the work here:

And here's another even more striking Branson painting which I found on the web - entitled 'Bombed Women and Searchlights', from the Blitz period. It's also at the Tate - one of five Branson paintings they hold (among the other is surely the only still life to feature books by Marx and Stalin):

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In the paw steps of Britain's best known cat

Battersea Power Station rekindled

Temperance and Billiards on Battersea Rise

Anarchy in KX

... and a homage to Frank Kitz

'Demonstration in Battersea, 1939'

Clive Branson, Rosa Branson and 'red Battersea'

Clive Branson - poet, artist, activist, soldier, writer

Andrew Whitehead's blog

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​Andrew Whitehead'sBlog

In the paw steps of Britain's best known cat

Battersea Power Station rekindled

Temperance and Billiards on Battersea Rise

Anarchy in KX

​... and a homage to Frank Kitz ​

'Demonstration in Battersea, 1939'

Clive Branson, Rosa Branson and 'red Battersea'

Clive Branson - poet, artist, activist, soldier, writer

Andrew Whitehead's blog

Archives

Categories

Andrew Whitehead's
Blog

... and a homage to Frank Kitz