LONDON BELONGS TO ME PART ONE
I.
Holland Park London London
Each one chooses its moment
then a letting go,
the moment of separation
falling slowly through the damp autumn air.
No, not fluttering
more acceptance,
a closing of the eyelids.
In choosing your moment
you chose less carefully.
For Caspar Ringrose 11/1/71 – 26/6/94
As you can see I dedicated it to Caspar Ringrose on whose bench I was sitting when I composed the poem. I never knew him, though parks bestow poetic licence on all who enter them.
Kensington Gardens is a different sort of open space to Holland Park, providing passage for cyclists and joggers between Bayswater and south Kensington. Actually Kensington Gardens isn’t really a park in its own right at all, but is an adjunct to Hyde Park. I used to walk to work taking a route through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and finally St James Park before finally reaching my office just around the corner from New Scotland Yard. The geography of each park brushing against the other allowing for such pleasant journey into the heart of London.
I recently learned that this is more or less the same route to work taken by John Stuart Mill over a hundred and fifty years earlier. It was on one such journey that he found two dead babies in Kensington Gardens, abandoned by a mother too poor to care for them. Shocked by this discovery he took to handing out leaflets advocating birth control in the East End, this action earning him a short spell in prison.
Thankfully the most shocking thing I have ever come across on a London walk is a rather splendid looking dead fox, foxes now regular visitors to night time London. Engaged I imagine in clubbing to the early hours of the morning in the West End.
St James Park is the most ordered of the central London parks, I used to take my lunch there. It is also of course a notorious meeting place for spies. I often used to look out for likely suspects, latter day Kim Philby’s, men in hats carrying brown envelopes who, after looking furtively around, turn to a complete stranger and say “I think the ducks have not been fed today!” To which with any luck the stranger replies. “Fortunately I have come with a bag of breadcrumbs.”
Not all of London’s parks and green spaces are open to the public. Particularly around Holland Park and Kensington there is a plethora of padlocked parks and gardens. These are the reservations set aside for the wealthy inhabitants of the crescents and squares that make up this area of West London. In the film ‘Notting Hill’ Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant clamber over the railings of one such park to enjoy some quality time together. In reality if you ever did try this I imagine some monstrous alarm system would start screeching into the night.
During the war the railings around these parks were removed, ostensibly for scrap iron, though also feeding into the democratic spirit of the war. It was a move greatly applauded by George Orwell, who until recently had been living at the Notting Hill End of Portobello Road.
Towards the end of the war the railings began to be put back. When Orwell protested this move an indignant correspondent accused Orwell of advocating theft. Orwell responded:
‘If giving the land back to the people of England is theft, I am quite happy to call it theft…In his zeal to defend private property my correspondent does not stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title deeds.’[1]
He goes on to describe the reality that:
‘Except for a few surviving commons, the high roads and land owned by the National Trust, a certain number of parks and the sea shore below high-tide mark, every square inch of England is ‘owned’ by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms.’[2]
If anything things have got considerably worse since Orwell’s day. There are now whole areas of Dockland, and parts of the City in which you are ‘allowed’ to walk and may be permitted to take pictures, however these privileges, not rights you understand, can be taken from you on a whim from the ‘owners’ of the land. Whilst the maintenance of Hyde Park has now been privatised and recently the company who won the contract has started to levy charges for playing football or cricket on parts of the park that Londoners have played on for free for hundreds of years. Needless to say these moves has met with stiff resistance[3] and as I write this the charges have been suspended.
Londoners have over the centuries have proved a difficult populace to govern, quick to defend any transgressions of their rights and liberties, with a propensity to riot if the ruling elite push their luck too far.
*Planting a fruit tree representing a really wonderful bequest to generations to come, who though they might never have known you can still taste the fruit of your labours.
This post will form part of a much longer essay to be published fully on The Blue Room at a later date. Watch this space.
[1] The collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, As I Please, p241.
[2] Ibid
[3] http://www.westendextra.com/news/2013/jul/%E2%80%98pay-play%E2%80%99-hyde-park-petitioners-slam-royal-parks-chiefs-introducing-new-charges
Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.
I have lived in London 4th
July 1983 . I don’t know
how long you normally have to wait to claim squatter’s rights but thirty years
seems a good enough period to me.
The glory of London London Kensington Gardens Holland Park
Sitting on one of the park
benches in Holland Park
Each one chooses its moment
then a letting go,
the moment of separation
falling slowly through the damp autumn air.
No, not fluttering
more acceptance,
a closing of the eyelids.
In choosing your moment
you chose less carefully.For Caspar Ringrose 11/1/71 – 26/6/94
As you can see I dedicated it to Caspar Ringrose on whose bench I was sitting when I composed the poem. I never knew him, though parks bestow poetic licence on all who enter them.
Kensington Gardens is a different sort of open space to Holland Park, providing passage for cyclists and joggers between Bayswater and south Kensington. Actually Kensington Gardens isn’t really a park in its own right at all, but is an adjunct to Hyde Park. I used to walk to work taking a route through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and finally St James Park before finally reaching my office just around the corner from New Scotland Yard. The geography of each park brushing against the other allowing for such pleasant journey into the heart of London.
I recently learned that this is more or less the same route to work taken by John Stuart Mill over a hundred and fifty years earlier. It was on one such journey that he found two dead babies in Kensington Gardens, abandoned by a mother too poor to care for them. Shocked by this discovery he took to handing out leaflets advocating birth control in the East End, this action earning him a short spell in prison.
Thankfully the most shocking thing I have ever come across on a London walk is a rather splendid looking dead fox, foxes now regular visitors to night time London. Engaged I imagine in clubbing to the early hours of the morning in the West End.
St James Park is the most ordered of the central London parks, I used to take my lunch there. It is also of course a notorious meeting place for spies. I often used to look out for likely suspects, latter day Kim Philby’s, men in hats carrying brown envelopes who, after looking furtively around, turn to a complete stranger and say “I think the ducks have not been fed today!” To which with any luck the stranger replies. “Fortunately I have come with a bag of breadcrumbs.”
 |
| Fenced off gardens in Kensington |
Not all of London’s parks and green spaces are open to the public. Particularly around Holland Park and Kensington there is a plethora of padlocked parks and gardens. These are the reservations set aside for the wealthy inhabitants of the crescents and squares that make up this area of West London. In the film ‘Notting Hill’ Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant clamber over the railings of one such park to enjoy some quality time together. In reality if you ever did try this I imagine some monstrous alarm system would start screeching into the night.
During the war the railings around these parks were removed, ostensibly for scrap iron, though also feeding into the democratic spirit of the war. It was a move greatly applauded by George Orwell, who until recently had been living at the Notting Hill End of Portobello Road.
Towards the end of the war the railings began to be put back. When Orwell protested this move an indignant correspondent accused Orwell of advocating theft. Orwell responded:
‘If giving the land back to the people of England is theft, I am quite happy to call it theft…In his zeal to defend private property my correspondent does not stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title deeds.’[1]
He goes on to describe the reality that:
‘Except for a few surviving commons, the high roads and land owned by the National Trust, a certain number of parks and the sea shore below high-tide mark, every square inch of England is ‘owned’ by a few thousand families. These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms.’[2]
 |
| Football (soccer) in Hyde Park |
If anything things have got considerably worse since Orwell’s day. There are now whole areas of Dockland, and parts of the City in which you are ‘allowed’ to walk and may be permitted to take pictures, however these privileges, not rights you understand, can be taken from you on a whim from the ‘owners’ of the land. Whilst the maintenance of Hyde Park has now been privatised and recently the company who won the contract has started to levy charges for playing football or cricket on parts of the park that Londoners have played on for free for hundreds of years. Needless to say these moves has met with stiff resistance[3] and as I write this the charges have been suspended.
Londoners have over the centuries have proved a difficult populace to govern, quick to defend any transgressions of their rights and liberties, with a propensity to riot if the ruling elite push their luck too far.
*Planting a fruit tree representing a really wonderful bequest to generations to come, who though they might never have known you can still taste the fruit of your labours.
This post will form part of a much longer essay to be published fully on The Blue Room at a later date. Watch this space.
[1] The collected Essays Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, As I Please, p241.
[2] Ibid
[3] http://www.westendextra.com/news/2013/jul/%E2%80%98pay-play%E2%80%99-hyde-park-petitioners-slam-royal-parks-chiefs-introducing-new-charges
Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.
