London: Walk With Me

Lockdown. We truly are a nuclear unit: no wider family, no friends. Fixtures in the calendar fall one by one and we begin to doubt that any of the things we planned will take place. Every year, I meet up with two friends for a day of walking during one of the school holidays; we are in an endless break from school now but there is no prospect of a ten-hour trek. With 2020 looking like a write-off, my mind turns back to last Easter when, after ten years of rural walks, the three of us broke with tradition and set off on a Maundy Thursday urban odyssey. As the only Londoner, it fell to me to plan a route across the capital that took in some of the things that always dominate our walking conversations.

Having met at Victoria station – two of us arriving from Sussex and one from Somerset via an Airbnb that was a converted domestic garage in Vauxhall - our first stop was the Regency Café. Designed in an art deco style in 1946 and still retaining the original glazed tiled exterior and interior, the café has featured in film and television many times as a current and period location. Its Formica-topped tables, full English breakfasts and builders’ tea make it popular with workers and tourists alike and it was amid a heaving and noisy atmosphere that we fuelled ourselves for the day ahead.

I had deliberately chosen the timing of our walk to coincide with, not only the Easter holidays, but also an exhibition at Tate Britain. As we walked down to the Tate through the Lutyens-designed council flats of the Grosvenor Estate, and the Millbank Estate where each block is named after a Victorian artist, we discussed why the photographer Don McCullin had always cropped up on our walks: primarily because of his photographs of Somerset and Sussex, but also because we constantly confused his name with television presenter Don Maclean of Crackerjack! (Crackerjack!) and we further confused him with Bernie Clifton, the guy who used to pretend to ride an ostrich on the same television programme. It became a running joke - but perhaps you had to be there. McCullin’s retrospective of sixty years of photography was stunning: the stark monochrome images, each hand-developed himself, of conflicts from Vietnam through to Syria, via Northern Ireland and Cyprus, and poverty in London and Bradford, are a vivid and influential commentary on the post-war world.

Leaving the gallery and walking north up through Westminster, we crossed Parliament Square where the pro and anti-Brexit protesters had temporarily ceded possession to Extinction Rebellion. Cutting through St. James’ Park we headed for Regent Street where we turned off into Heddon Street. Heddon Street is where, on the evening of 13 January 1972, Brian Ward persuaded a young rock musician to leave the warmth of the photographic studio to take some pictures outside in the cold, dark street. Wearing a jumpsuit, with a guitar slung over his shoulder and his foot on a rubbish bin, David Bowie posed under the sign of K.West, a firm of furriers, for a black and white shot that would later be colour tinted and find its way on to the cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. In all the years I lived in London, I had never visited this spot. We unfurled a homemade K.West sign to recreate the scene and posed for photographs next to the commemorative plaque. The alfresco diners at the restaurants that now dominate the street didn’t bat an eyelid: this sort of thing must happen all the time.

Crossing Regent Street to start heading east, we made our way through Soho, pausing only for a spot of record buying at Sister Ray and Reckless Records in Berwick Street. One of our number had expressed a wish to eat pie and mash for lunch as a typical London delicacy. Not having the time to cross south of the river to visit Manze’s in Tower Bridge Road, we had to settle for a tourist alternative; at Battersea Pie Station (groan) in Covent Garden we had pie and we had mash but it wasn’t pie and mash.

After our brief lunch stop and a quick cider, we walked north to Bloomsbury and then on to the fringes of Clerkenwell. All three of us being English teachers, two of us having read all of Charles Dickens’s novels and one of us having been taught at Birkbeck by Michael Slater the foremost Dickens academic, a visit to 48 Doughty Street, WC1 was a must. Now a museum, Dickens lived there from 1837; it is the house in which Catherine Dickens gave birth to their first three children and where The Pickwick Papers was completed, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby written and Barnaby Rudge begun. We saw the desk where he wrote and also drafts of his novels and articles for the Evening Chronicle. A tall, narrow Georgian terrace, its interior has been recreated as the Victorian family home the expanding Dickens family left in 1839.

All our walking in recent years having been in open countryside, it struck us that travelling half the distance in London made you twice as tired. It was late afternoon and the stretch of Clerkenwell Road ahead of us seemed a daunting prospect; but the traffic and the crowds temporarily thinned as we progressed further east. The sun had been shining all day and as the shadows lengthened we knew we were nearing our final destination. The roar of traffic from the roundabout increased but we turned off Old Street and plunged into the relative quiet of Bunhill Fields. Graves of the famous – Malcolm Lowry, Spike Milligan, Frankie Howerd, Siegfried Sassoon - have been a feature of our walks over the years but none so illustrious as that of poet, painter and visionary, William Blake. Blake was buried in a shared grave at Bunhill Fields when he died in 1827 at the age of 69 but, until recently, it was only marked by a stone that declared his remains were ‘near by’. In 2018, following 14 years of work, the exact location of Blake’s remains was found. A group of street drinkers directed us from the original stone to the new one with its inscription of a verse from, probably his best-known work, Jerusalem.

Bunhill Fields is now a public garden and, as we sat on a bench reflecting on our walk, we were joined by meditative City workers at the end of their day taking advantage of the oasis of calm the setting provided. Like any well-prepared teacher, I had an extension activity planned in case we finished early but it was not required. One year on, and I’m sure the drinkers will have been moved on and the office workers discouraged from lingering and I know that all the places we visited during the day are now closed. When the lockdown ends, we’ll meet again in Bunhill Fields to complete that extra task; we’ll walk north up City Road to the Angel and visit 25 Noel Road, where playwright Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell so tragically lived and died; then we’ll retire to the legendary Island Queen pub further down the road and spend the rest of the day drinking. I don’t know when that will be but, whenever it is, everybody’s welcome.

Home Alone

The sunshine mocks the situation: hard to believe the country is in crisis when the shackles of winter have been cast off and the cries of peewits battle the bluster of the sharp wind on this bright spring morning high up on the Sussex Downs. It's Sunday but in the village of Firle, nestling down below, St. Peter's church is quiet; and in the Ram Inn there is no bustle of preparation for the Mothers' Day hordes.

Self-isolation is the order of the day; but with dogs to walk and three teenagers suffering from sporting cancellations, estrangement from friends and schoolwork at home, a remedy for early onset cabin fever is prescribed. Even at this hour of the day we are not alone: already, there is a mountain-biking Mamil, all rictus grin and crimson flush, a pair of horse riders trotting with dogs in tow and a group of Nordic Pole-wielding walkers taking up the width of the way; social distancing is required. Although we don't have exclusivity, it is still glorious: the panoramic view to Crowborough in the north, Hastings to the east and Seaford at the southernmost point is breath-taking; and squares of chalky fields pave the path to Lewes, cradled by the Downs further to the west.

However, relative solitude is never easy to maintain and by the time we reach the apex of Firle Beacon and turn to retrace our steps, it is clear that many more are seeking respite from confinement. Rows of windscreens now glisten in the car park that marks our starting point and very soon there are groups of walkers using the breadth of the downland to maintain the recommended two metres distance. Next time, we need to be earlier or take our constitutional in a less popular spot - or come to terms with the fact that we can only be alone at home.

Brothers in the Dust

In Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Christmas present admonishes Scrooge for his lack of charity to those less well off than he. “O God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”, he exclaims at Scrooge’s declaration that the poor should die to decrease the surplus population. Dickens’s leaf was metaphorical but in Eastbourne, twenty years after Dickens wrote those words, there was a more literal leaf that sought to raise those less well off out of the dust.

Today, on a slightly down-at-heel stretch of Seaside, the road that runs behind Eastbourne’s coastal Royal Parade, sits an imposing buff and red brick building. Topped with a four-faced clock tower and a high pitched roof with a gothic arched window at its gable end, it manages to appear both civic and sacred at the same time. Squashed between Senlac House - where future motorists come to sit their driving theory test - and a National Tyres garage, its signage advertises that it is home to an academy of performing arts and a community arts centre; but this was not always the case.

Leaf Hall – the town’s oldest public building - was named after William Laidler Leaf, Victorian philanthropist and evangelical Christian, who had a holiday home on the town’s Grand Parade. Leaf was aware that the dwellings to the east of the pier were in stark contrast to the hotels, houses and apartments occupied by the wealthy; and he noticed that the occupants were largely unemployed and virtually destitute when the holidaymakers, that the resort’s trade relied upon, left at the end of the season. Wishing to alleviate poverty and, more importantly for Leaf, keep the idle out of the pubs, he persuaded William Cavendish, the 7th Duke of Devonshire and the town’s largest landowner, to donate a space where Leaf could build a venue to sustain and educate the working classes.

The architect was Robert Blessley, who also designed Eastbourne’s Grand Hotel, and construction began in 1863. The building’s commanding exterior was intended to inspire reverence in its users and, once inside, respect for its lecture hall, library and reading room. Books could be borrowed for tuppence a week, at a time when the town had no public library, and penny lectures could accommodate audiences of up to 200. But the focus was not just improvement: there was also a large kitchen and serving room and, in the harsh winters of the 1880s, Leaf Hall dispensed 3,000 pints of soup and 3,000 loaves each week.

Despite these philanthropic endeavours, the people Leaf most wanted to reach were put off by his support for the temperance movement. Allowing the Band of Hope and the Salvation Army to base themselves at the hall, attendance amongst working men dwindled and the building became a target for violence organised by local publicans keen to protect their trade. In fact, this was to be the start of the Eastbourne Riots (an oxymoron if ever there was one – or a Half Man Half Biscuit song) of the 1890s when Sunday processions by the Sally Army would be violently disrupted by paid hooligans and large crowds would gather to watch the spectacle.

As the new century began, Leaf Hall lost its missionary zeal and concentrated instead on being a proto-foodbank and a pre-NHS medical centre where local doctors provided free care to those who could not normally afford their fees. With the advent of the welfare state after the Second World War, Leaf Hall’s philanthropy became largely redundant; although now, in the twenty-first century, the town is hosting a foodbank again.

One Tree Hill

High up to my right, I can see the oak on One Tree Hill, its shape unbalanced by the constant battering of the south-westerlies that curve across the Downs and pick up speed as they race inland. At this time of year, with animals in their winter quarters and walkers in their towns and cities, the tree is once again the solitary occupant of the hill. Despite its name, it is not so much a hill as a ridge or a barrow; lying between Lime End and Comphurst Farms, it runs parallel to the footpath behind Strawberry Field and shadows me as I make my way through the first hard morning frost of the winter. I have never seen it up close, but the tree has become a comfort to me; I feel its benevolence and protection whenever I pass and it has my admiration whether skeletal in winter or showing off the full bloom of its crown in high summer.

As the footpath rises, I can see beyond the hill to Flowers Green and the row of cottages behind the nursery’s now empty pumpkin field. Three summers ago, I worked in the garden of the house at the far end of the terrace, clearing nettles and brambles and cutting back hazel so that the owner could regain the view. Whether he felt the same pull of the lonely oak, I never had the chance to ask. He was rarely at home and was a late payer; I sensed that he was dissatisfied with my work as I was not engaged the following summer. His garden only stands out in my memory because a friend surprised me there one day: walking home, he had seen my vehicle outside and wandered in; we sat under the apple trees and shared my lunch.

Having, as usual, become disorientated on the Levels – the tributaries and irrigation channels continually diverting me from my objective – I abandon my plan to walk to the coast and turn and head for home by another route. At one point, the path is blocked by a tree freshly fallen in the week’s storms and I have to head across open fields. From a different perspective, the oak on One Tree Hill looks even more majestic and, when I approach it from a track that I am sure is not public (the spirit of Kinder Scout lives on), it is much larger than I imagined. Despite the sun now being as high as it will manage all day, the cattle trough in its shade is still topped with a sheet of ice and it feels a degree of two cooler up here than it did on the lower ground; the reality of its exposed position gives me a new respect for my sentinel tree.

1979 Now

A couple of years ago, I started writing a novel set in 1977. This meant researching/refreshing my memory of the events and music of that year and, even when it was completed and then published, I didn’t stop. I carried on tracking time and as 2017 rolled into 2018 there were LPs from 1978 to dig out and play; this year, I’ve been enjoying a vintage age for music 40 years in arrears with all that 1979 has to offer by listening to LPs from The Cure, The Raincoats, Wire, The Fall (two), Skids, Tubeway Army, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gang of Four, The Clash, Specials, PiL, Adam and the Ants, Joy Division, The Slits, Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Members and, of course, Bowie and Iggy.

Having said that, I don’t live entirely in the musical past: I buy a couple of dozen new albums annually and mostly see current bands live, with this year’s crop including Sleaford Mods, Yak, Rozi Plain, Fontaines DC, The Stroppies, Cate Le Bon, Callum Easter, Chastity Belt, Vic Godard, Edwyn Collins, The Murder Capital and Kate Tempest; but I often feel that I didn’t appreciate the quality of the times I was living through in my youth and failed to pay enough attention. So, I’m paying attention now and it is well worth it.

1979 is arguably the finest year there has ever been for popular music of my taste but it also has some interesting political parallels with our current position. Then, as now, the leader of the country was a blonde maverick, adored by their supporters but loathed by their enemies, about to usher in a right-wing project – monetarism then, Brexit now – that would disproportionately damage the most vulnerable in society. Then, as probably now, they were at the start of a 10-year period of power that would transform the landscape of our country.

The difference is that Thatcher’s reign came after a time when eleven of the preceding fifteen years had seen Labour governments delivering liberal social reforms and legislating to enshrine employment rights and to support women, gay people and ethnic minority groups, measures that would offer some protection against the worst excesses of the free-market agenda. Unfortunately, the start of Johnson’s administration follows on from nine years of suffering that we have already had under Cameron and May’s austere Tory governments: NHS, education and local authority cuts; hostile environment; Universal Credit; and no action on climate change, homelessness and racism. With all this as the foundation, I think that what we are in for in the twenties will be much worse than what we endured in the eighties.

I have no solutions to offer of my own. Once again, just as in 1979, people of my class have voted in large numbers for a Conservative Party that does not have their best interests at heart. All I can do is put my faith in the hope that the Labour Party stops eating itself and holds the government closely to account; that, and turn up the music. Happy New Year.

Enduring Spirit

On tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their eponymous debut LP, The Raincoats should be assured of its legacy if last night's gig at the Komedia in Brighton was anything to go by. Amongst the expected middle-aged audience was a healthy contingent of young people - and young women in particular - and they seemed to know the words to the songs as well as us oldies. Part of that may be down to the album's enthusiastic endorsement by the late Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's Hole covering one of their songs; but even that was 25 years ago so I like to think it's more an enduring spirit that has been handed down through punk and riot grrrl and still has currency today.

The Raincoats were born from the west London squatting scene of the late seventies: inspired by The Slits, Gina Birch (bass and vocals) and Ana da Silva (guitar and vocals) started the band having met at Hornsey Art College. After some initial line-up changes, they became an all-female group in 1978 when they were joined by Vicky Aspinall on violin and Palmolive from The Slits on drums. They started from a point of little musical ability but were undeterred: as Gina advised last night, "write some lyrics, put them to a couple of chords - but be inventive." And The Raincoats were: at a time when so many bands were opting for rama-lama punk as a template, they were different and surprising; it was no wonder that disillusioned Pistol John Lydon was an early fan.

Only Ana and Gina from the line-up that recorded The Raincoats were present last night - Anne Wood and Vice Cooler were on violin and drums, respectively - as they played the original LP in its entirety book-ended with outstanding debut single Fairytale in the Supermarket at the start and songs from the Extended Play EP at the end. Still sounding angular and lo-fi but with uplifting harmonies, they worked through the tracks chronologically and it was a joy to hear songs such as Off Duty Trip, The Void and, my particular favourite, the Velvety nag of the discomfiting In Love, with its lyrics of turmoil: "I can't do a thing today/I can't see anyway/I haven't eaten all day." I last saw the band in early 1980 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden and it was such a treat to hear them live again, not in a nostalgic way but as confirmation that in the era of my youth there were people producing such distinctive and life-affirming music.

Charming and disarming in their interactions with the audience, the band were candid about the demands of playing live: Ana revealed the difficulty of getting their cover of The Kinks' Lola right (they did) and Gina, switching to guitar for a couple of songs, confessed that it was hard to sing when playing the bass. It was just this sort of honesty that made The Raincoats so refreshing and opened up the way in music for countless others. The honesty continued to the end of the night when Ana said, "This is the last song, we're not pretending, we have no encore, we have no more songs." And as they took a bow to rapturous applause, they were joined onstage by 'fifth-Beatle' Shirley O'Loughlin, The Raincoats' manager since the start.

Wise Heads

For quite some time now my late night listening has invariably been I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone, the 2017 album by Chastity Belt. Its understated guitar tones and introspective lyrics are perfect for that time of the day when everyone has gone to bed and the house is finally quiet. This year's eponymously titled successor is already set to follow suit as a midnight favourite.

The Seattle four-piece - Julia Shapiro (guitar and lead vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar and vocals), Annie Truscott (bass and vocals) and Gretchen Grimm (drums and vocals) - are actually on their fourth album, the first two being more rooted in the sound of Washington state's Riot Grrrl movement. On stage at Patterns in Brighton last night, coming towards the end of a 19-date European tour, that experience showed as they delivered a brilliant and hypnotic set mainly drawn from this year's release, but with a few diversions back into their third album.

Music magazine Louder Than War called Chastity Belt 'the spiritual granddaughters of the mighty Raincoats' but they have a more accomplished sound than those art-punk legends and on songs such as It Takes Time, Drown and Ann's Jam the harmonised vocals and the delicate guitar interplay between Shapiro and Lund put their sound somewhere between The Sundays and The Durutti Column; and underlining their ability, Shapiro and Grimm swapped roles for Stuck and Apart in the middle of the set.

When 2017's Different Now, probably their breakthrough track, was played towards the end, the crowd sang along to the guitar motif which made Shapiro smile. The song's lyrics are empowering and forward-looking - 'You'll find in time/All the answers that you seek' - but they can also be reflective and, when they sang 'When you were young/Nothing ever turns out like you think' on Elena, wistful; but mostly I was left with the impression that these women have wise heads on young shoulders. They finished the night with Pissed Pants, the new album's final track and the closest they came to rocking out.

Earlier in the evening we were treated to the lo-fi guitar pop of Sad Girls Club, who surprised us with a fun cover of Britney Spears' Toxic. They were followed by Gang, whose half an hour on stage seemed to consist of one song, or it could have been twelve such was the variety of time signatures on offer; they also had a nice line in Monty Python vocals.