Living in West Hampstead brings its unique challenges, opportunities and emotions. One minute you’re all This place is awesome and the next it’s more Why aren’t there any useful shops?
There are the ups and downs of West End Lane.
You might bag the last table for brunch at the Wet Fish Café.
I’m a seriously local person. I don’t like to leave my manor. When I leave Whamp, I feel like I need a decompression chamber to prevent the bends. I’m a homey, hanging with my FG-massive. I’ll stop being embarrassing now.
My favourite place to eat: The Wet Fish, for posh nosh. We’ve tried the new posh one, Ham, and liked it. The Czech & Slovac Club (74 West End Lane) for schnitzel, dumplings, goulash – everything Czech in fact. And the best beer. I’ve been going there since my Czech grandfather first took me aged 5, so ahem a few years now. It hasn’t changed one jot except the smoking ban cleared the air somewhat. If you’ve never been, try it.
Sunday roast at: home, obvs. Or The Green Room or The Alliance. There is def an opening for more Sunday roasts out – Ham, are you hearing us?
I still miss: Tom & Jenny’s Kitchen Table. Dizar gift shop – remember that one? The flower lady who used to be at the entrance to the cemetary, before Tesco came.
I don’t take change easily.
West Hampstead could do with more: clothing and general shops. An old fashioned DIY store. I have a secret yen for a GAP. Pants and socks, people. Pants and socks.
West Hampstead could do with less: estate agents, obvs. What have we done to deserve this plague of shiny suits?
I hate that: the pavements are cluttered with wheelie bins, the high street awash with rubbish bags which the foxes raid. As a sight-impaired person, my travel down the payment is fraught with risk on bin day. But after hearing Georgia Gould, Camden Labour leader, talk about the brutal cuts to local authority budgets, I reluctantly concede that the bin changes were necessary. Reluctantly, I tell you. I mutter audibly to myself as I step around seeping bags on Fortune Green Road.
The best place to walk: round the cemetery in high summer, across the Finchley Road and up the paths to the Heath in autumn, down to the farmers market on Saturday mornings.
Hold your kid’s party at: Play centre on Fortune Green, which also happens to be the best after school/holiday play scheme in town with the loveliest staff.
Get drunk at: I’m a notoriously tame drunk. Half a shandy, home by 9pm. But I choose to spend those precious un-drunk minutes at Bobby Fitzpatrick’s, because it’s so like being in my living room. Also, excellent nachos slathered with everything.
Exercise at: I’m sorry what? I can’t hear you.
Have your hair done at: Tila Studio, on Fortune Green Road. Amazing hair colouring. Also, profesh make up – useful if crap eyesight leads to frankly bizarre make-up application.
Fill the cultural tank at: West End Lane Books of course. Brilliant readings by authors (not just me), seriously good thriller recommendations from Danny and an all round warm hug of a shop. Also hilarious on Twitter. JW3’s not bad also.
I will be at West End Lane Books on April 26 to celebrate paperback publication of Persons Unknown, my latest Manon novel, along with the murder squad detective who advises me on all things procedural. He’s seriously interesting. Come for him. Contact West End Lane Books (see below) to reserve a spot.
My books have a distinct local flavour. Missing, Presumed mentioned Fordwych Road and Fortune Green both appearing, and a couple of characters buy Soleros on Mill Lane (gripping), while Persons Unknown is awash with Killy High Road refs. It’s out in paperback on April 5 and signed copies are available from West End Lane Books or tweet them @welbooks.
Actor George Rose travelled an unusual path from Bicester to Broadway. He lived in West Hampstead for the best part of a decade while he learned his craft from great actors and directors such as Tyrone Guthrie, Laurence Olivier, Peter Brook and John Gielgud. And after a very successful career on the stage, he died a tragic death in the Caribbean.
George was born in 1920 in the market town of Bicester, 15 miles north of Oxford. The son of a family butcher, he was educated at Oxford High School and went to see plays in the city every week. George left school at 16 to work as a secretary at Oxford University and then tried farming. After serving in the Army during WWII, George studied music at the Royal School of Music where he saw an advert for singers at the Old Vic and joined the company. With a letter of recommendation from Lawrence Olivier he got a one-year acting scholarship at the Central School of Speech and Drama; which was then at the Royal Albert Hall, moving to Swiss Cottage in 1957. Rose worked in Shakespeare at Stratford before joining Peter Brook’s productions at the Haymarket and the Phoenix theatres.
By 1948 Rose was living at 49 Howitt Road in Belsize Park before moving to 109 West End Lane in 1951. He stayed in West Hampstead and was at 21 Lymington Road in 1957, leaving by 1959.
He made his New York debut in the 1946 production of Henry IV, Part 1. He did two further Broadway productions, Much Ado About Nothing (1959), and A Man for All Seasons in 1961, when he moved permanently to New York. Rose became very successful on Broadway and won two Tony awards for his performances in a revival of My Fair Lady (1976) and in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1986). He was particularly good at comedy roles ranging from Shakespeare to light opera, and in 1981 he appeared in The Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline and singer Linda Rondstadt.
Friends loved him for his warmth and eccentricities. Fellow actor Paul Scofield said George had ‘a smile like a big log fire’. In New York, George lived in a flat in Greenwich Village which he shared with a lynx, a mountain lion and other wild animals. His working life was devoted to theatre while his spare time was spent reading, cooking and listening to his collection of 17,000 records.
About 1979, George bought a holiday home in Sosua in the Dominican Republic. Friends warned him about the dangers of living there but he loved the country life as a break from New York. In 1984 he adopted a fourteen-year-old local boy called Juan and in 1986 made him heir to his $2 million estate.
In May 1988, the New York Times reported that George had been killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic, but the local police soon said it was not an accident. Juan, now 18, his natural father and two other Dominican men confessed to having murdered the actor for fear that Rose had turned his attentions to a younger boy and was about to alter his will. The police said George had been held prisoner for eight hours. The men faked the car crash to try and hide the fact that George was beaten to death. They did not stand trial for the murder, though all but Juan were imprisoned for several years.
A few days before his death George had asked an American friend on the island to take him to see a lawyer as he wanted to change his will as he realised that Juan did not really care for him. But he never made the meeting. In a private settlement after George’s death, the penniless Juan received the house in Sosua, which he promptly sold and then he disappeared. He reappeared on the island in 1997, the year the three men were released from prison.
The Dominican authorities gave out little information about the murder as they wanted to protect the valuable tourist industry. This meant George’s friends and family were unaware of the details of his death for some time.
In June 1988, 800 people gathered in New York’s Shubert Theatre to celebrate George Rose’s life in a memorial service. Theatre producer Joe Papp referred to him as a Broadway legend. Henry Fonda once described his artistry as a marvel, and Jack Lemmon said Rose’s performances had given him the most pleasure in theatre. Cleo Laine, who appeared with him in Edwin Drood, recalled his singing and encyclopaedic knowledge of music. Lynn Redgrave said he taught her everything she knew about playing comedy and was the first person she phoned when she arrived in New York. In 1964, after George stole the grave scene from Richard Burton when they played together in Hamlet, Burton humorously said ‘Never share the stage with animals, children or George Rose’.
George Rose also appeared in more than 30 films – his IMDb entry lists 76 performances in film and TV between 1952 and 1988, and this does not include his many stage performances. Alix Kirsta wrote a very good article about Rose in the Sunday Times on 25 May 1997 which is available (along with many photos) on her website.
There was revived interest in Rose in January 2016, when Ed Dixon wrote and starred in a one man play Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, which was performed in small theatres in New York. Dixon said he wanted to take the audience on his personal journey. In 1973, Ed had met and become friends with George who was 30 years older, when they toured together in The Student Prince. Dixon said, ‘He was famous and gay, powerful and gay, rich and gay. People couldn’t say no to George. His personality was overwhelming’. Dixon was in awe of Rose and the first hour of the play looked at his career with anecdotes and impressions of famous actors such as Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn. In the last half hour Dixon tells how George had invited him to Sosua. Here, Ed said he felt uncomfortable with the young men at the house and he returned to New York. A short time later he heard about George’s death, and he was stunned and horrified as he learned the truth about his friend, mentor and idol.
In April 1977, Tony Drayton moved to London from Cumbernauld, a new town in Scotland between Glasgow and Edinburgh. From 1976 to 1979, Tony was the editor of the early punk zine, Ripped and Torn. He lived in London, Paris, and Amsterdam and had a very varied career, including fire eating. In the summer of 1978, his sister Val joined him in London. After living in several squats, in the autumn of 1979 they met some punks in West Hampstead. One was Adam Ant’s (Stuart Goddard) ex-wife Eve (Carol Mills) and one was Kevin Mooney, a bassist who later joined Adam and the Ants. They let Tony and Val move into an empty flat at 33 Sherriff Road, a house run by the West Hampstead Housing Association (WHHA).
Also sharing the house were Andi, the singer, and Ross, the bass player, of Australian band The Urban Guerrillas, and Dave Roberts, later a member of the band Sex Gang Child. There were more: Leigh Kendall, Andy Groome and Malcolm Baxter, who were members of The Last Words, another Australian punk band. They earned £6 a day by delivering leaflets and Tony said they spent most of it drinking in the nearby pub, The Railway, or listening to the punk bands at the Moonlight Club which was run at the pub by Dave Kitson from October 1979 until 1993.
Brett and Val on Westbere Road c1981
Tony began to edit a new punk zine and the first edition was produced for Adam and the Ants’ 1980 New Years Day gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. The run of 500 copies sold out on the night and had to be reprinted. Tony and his friends, who called themselves the Puppy Collective, produced six issues up to 1983. Tony also wrote articles for the Record Mirror, New Musical Express, and Zigzag. In the summer of 1980, Tony and Val moved to another WHHA house at 39 Westbere Road. Artist Jo Brocklehurst lived in the same street and saw them as they passed by her home. She thought they looked fantastic and invited them to her studio where she made wonderful pictures of them.
Tony Drayton, fire eating c1986 (Tony Drayton archive)
Jo Brocklehurst moved into 12 Westbere Road in the 1960s and stayed there until her death on 29 January 2006. She was born Josephine Blanche Brocklehurst in Lambeth in 1935. She was a very good athlete, and in the 1950s she competed for the Selsonia Ladies Athletic Club in the shotput and discus.
A precocious talent, Jo first entered St Martin’s School of Art shortly before her 14th birthday, on a junior art scheme. Having left the school at 18, she was a regular visitor to the costume life classes in the fashion department. From the late 1990s, Howard Tangye, then St Martin’s head of women’s wear and a close friend, invited Jo be a visiting lecturer to work with his students.
In the 1960s, Jo sketched jazz musicians such as George Melly, and worked in commercial fashion before becoming swept up in the punk scene. She is best known for her paintings of the early 1980s and her subjects included the punks in West Hampstead, The Blitz Kids, Siouxsie Sioux, Marc Almond, Philip Salon, Boy George, and, in Berlin, the dance company of Pina Bausch.
Her first one-woman show was in Amsterdam in 1979. Following her big breakthrough at the ICA’s Women’s Images of Men show the following year, Jo had considerable success with her drawings, showing twice at the Francis Kyle Gallery in London in 1981 and 1982, and later at Leo Castelli in New York and the Connecticut State University Gallery.
In 1994 the V&A (which holds a collection of her work), showed a series of her figure drawings in Street Style. Brocklehurst began to spend more time in Europe, especially in Amsterdam and Berlin where she sketched in the clubs.
Her friend Isabelle Bricknall said, ‘She liked Berlin because it was very punk in a lot of ways; it was before the wall came down. There’s so little known about her here, but in Germany and Poland at the arts festivals, they all knew her. She played artist in residence – she’d be sketching on a daily basis for newspapers such as Berliner Zeitung, drawing different acts from theatre to art. She also made some very good friends in Berlin.’
Although sometimes compared to the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918), Jo was an original and she drew people without the aggression of Schiele’s work. Jo was always drawing. She never minded being stuck on a bus for hours in traffic, as she always carried paper and pens. She drew places, situations and people. She enjoyed landscape, and would regularly cycle to Hampstead Heath.
Tony and Val at the Jo Brocklehurst Private View, 1980s
In her house in Westbere Road there were vibrant pictures of characters from Alice through the Looking Glass, each with more than a hint of the fetish club. She was fascinated by Charles Dodgson’s alternative persona as Lewis Carroll and called the work ‘Brocklehurst through the Looking Glass’.
Isabelle Bricknall met Jo through Colin Barnes, a lecturer at the Royal College of Arts, St Martins, and Nottingham Trent where Isabelle studied for her MA in fashion and textiles. Jo was a lecturer with Colin Barnes in fashion illustration.
Isabelle worked in the fashion industry with many top designers, such as Zandra Rhodes. She has been a fashion designer, textile designer, artist and model, working in many art different mediums including fabrics, glass, steel, film, and photography. This drew Jo and Isabelle together to create with each other’s art work. Starting with Isabelle modelling her own designs and Jo drawing them, to working on art exhibitions and other art projects, and helping Jo to archive her work. She and Jo visited clubs together and their creative relationship lasted until Jo’s death.
A retrospective exhibition of Jo Brocklehurst’s work, Nobodies and Somebodies, was shown at the House of Illustration, King’s Cross London from 3 February to 14 May 2017. It was co-curated by Isabelle Bricknall and Oliva Ahmed.
Acknowledgements:
We would particularly like to acknowledge the help of Tony and Val Drayton, and Isabelle Bricknall. Anna Bowman helped us with information about the WHHA.
This month we spoke to Roma Agrawal, engineer and debut author (and West Hampstead resident).
Roma spent six years working on the construction of the Shard. During that time she was asked to give presentations about the Shard, first to other engineers, to outside groups such as the Womens Institute, and then to schools. She really enjoyed going out and raising awareness, “People don’t really hear about engineers and certainly not in a positive way”.
Before we learn more about the book, what brought you to West Hampstead?
“I had family connections to the south in St. John’s Wood and to the north in Mill Hill, so when we were looking for somewhere to live this seemed like an obvious choice. I love the fact that it is between the Finchley Road and the Kilburn High Road but also has its own high street”.
What is your first/fondest memory of the area?
“The first time I went to the farmer’s market. I just loved it, it was so lively and it really felt like there was a community here.
A close second was the opening of the Sherriff Centre, it’s been a great addition. And as an engineer, I love just looking up at the brickwork and the ceiling.”
Tell me a bit more about ‘Built’?
“It came out of my talks and lectures. I just loved telling people about engineering. It’s all around us; the buildings we live in, the bridges we walk over and the tunnels we travel in. I wanted to peel back the facades.
Here in West Hampstead, the Victorians built a lot using different types of brick (which are made from clay that can be 50 million years old with tiny fossils in it). The churches, in particular, are amazing – I sometimes just go into the Sherriff Centre and gaze at the soaring ceiling.
I also researched people such as Emily Roebling, who engineered the Brooklyn Bridge (taking over after her father-in-law who died suddenly and her husband who got the bends from diving too deep). Or Fazlur Rahmen Kahn, a Bangladeshi child prodigy, who has changed the way we design skyscrapers. It used to be that they were 60-70 storeys, now they can build double that height.”
As for the book, Roma quipped “Do judge a book by its cover – I’m really happy with design!”
What is for lunch (or dinner)?
“I’m a huge fan of Anjanaas in Kilburn, at the bottom of Willesden Lane. They do South Indian food – I’m from India but don’t generally like Indian restaurants in London, but I love Anjanaas.
There is another good restaurant next door, Vijay’s which is also good but it is only vegetarian. Whereas Anjanaas does some meat and fish as well, in fact it does great fish, so it’s got the edge.
We also really liked Mamacita, so I miss that since it’s closed.”
On a very cold New Year’s Day in 1962 the Beatles arrived in West Hampstead for their audition at Decca Studios.
The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein had several record shops in Liverpool and had a meeting with the marketing people at Decca. They told Dick Rowe – Decca’s A&R (Artists and Repertoire) manager – about The Beatles and he sent his assistant Mike Smith to Liverpool to see them at The Cavern on 13 December 1961. Smith was very impressed by the audience reaction and an audition was arranged in London for 1st January 1962.
Back in 1962, New Year’s Day wasn’t a public holiday but Dick Rowe was away, and it was left to Mike Smith to organise the session. Brian Epstein travelled to London by train, but John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and drummer Pete Best, had to drive down the previous day in a van with their equipment. The freezing weather, with fog and snow, meant the journey took ten hours instead of the usual five. After getting lost, The Beatles finally arrived at the Royal Hotel in Woburn Place around 10pm on New Year’s Eve. Pete Best (who was replaced by Ringo Starr later that year) recalled what happened:
“Brian Epstein had read the riot act to us before we went down to London. You know, be good little boys, you mustn’t be out after 10 o’clock. And there we were with everyone else in the middle of Trafalgar Square as drunk as skunks. We were late getting to the Decca Studios the next day. Brian was there before us. He was livid and tore a strip off us left, right and centre. John said, Brian shut up, we are here for the audition’. (From: Love Me Do; the Beatles ‘62, TV documentary 2012).
The boys arrived at the Broadhurst Gardens studio at 11 o’clock and were not at their best after a long journey and a night of heavy drinking. Mike Smith was more than hour late himself, having been held up by the snow, and Epstein was very annoyed. They briefly met Tony Meehan who went into the producer’s box. He had grown up in West Hampstead and been the drummer with Cliff Richard and the Shadows before working as an assistant producer at Decca. The Beatles started to set up their equipment but the Decca engineers asked them to use the studio amplifiers as the group’s were in poor condition.
Over the next few hours The Beatles played 15 songs, mostly cover versions; only three were Lennon and McCartney originals (Like Dreamers Do, Hello Little Girl and Love Of The Loved). Epstein had persuaded them to do a set that he thought would show their range of ability, including Besame Mucho, The Sheik Of Araby, Money and Till There Was You. Lennon and McCartney later said they had wanted to include more rock numbers. Epstein thought the audition had gone well and he treated the boys to a meal at a restaurant in Swiss Cottage recommended by Mike Smith.
Mike Smith at Decca
Later that same afternoon, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes auditioned at Decca. After the auditions Mike Smith wanted to sign both groups but Dick Rowe said they could only take one and told Smith to choose. He went with the Tremeloes because their audition was better than The Beatles’ and he thought it would be easier to work with a Dagenham band than a Liverpool-based group. Smith lived nearby in Barking.
The Tremeloes at Decca
After numerous phone calls, Epstein was invited to lunch with Dick Rowe and the head of marketing on the 6 February. He was told that Decca had decided not to sign The Beatles. In his autobiography Epstein said he couldn’t believe his ears.
“You must be out of your tiny little minds! These boys are going to explode. I am completely confident that one day they will be bigger than Elvis Presley!”
He said that Rowe told him:
“Not to mince words, Mr Epstein, we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out …. Your boys are never going to get off the ground. We know what we’re talking about. You really should stick to selling recordings in Liverpool.” (From: Brian Epstein, A Cellarful of Noise London: Souvenir, 1964).
Dick Rowe strongly denied that he said this, and believes that Epstein was so annoyed that the Beatles had been turned down that he made it up. But the story stuck and Rowe went down in history as ‘the man who turned down the Beatles’. But this is unfair because it was Mike Smith who made the decision. And he wasn’t alone; as Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham pointed out in his autobiography, “Everybody turned them down. Columbia, Oriole, Philips and Pye turned the Beatles down, based on what they heard from the Decca session”.
Epstein left the Decca meeting with the tapes of the audition. He stayed in London for a few days and on 8 February he met Bob Boast, the manager of the large HMV record shop in Oxford Street. They knew each other from a seminar in Hamburg and got on well. Boast was not very impressed with the recording tapes in Decca boxes and suggested that Epstein go upstairs where there was a studio that could make copies onto disk. He thought these would look better when Epstein approached the other record companies. The disk-cutter Jim Foy was impressed by the fact that Lennon and McCartney had composed three tracks, as it was unusual at this time for a band to write their own material. Foy told EMI’s head of publishing Sid Coleman who arranged a meeting with George Martin, who was then the head of A&R at Parlophone, part of EMI.
You can listen to 10 tracks from the Decca session for yourself in the video at the top of the article.
Most critics agree that it’s hard to appreciate the Beatles’ potential from this material. They didn’t perform well nor did their unique talent emerge. The original tapes were recently sold at auction to a Japanese collector for £35,000.
You can hear Mike Smith, Pete Best and Brian Poole talking about their memories of the audition after 40 years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZofvIcXOE
Epstein met George Martin on 13 February 1962. Martin was not particularly impressed by the Decca sessions demo either, but he admired the confidence Epstein had in the Beatles and he was struck by the freshness of the three original compositions. In May, Martin told Epstein that he wanted to sign the group and the deal was done on 4 June, two days before their audition at Abbey Road. The band recorded their first hit, Love Me Do, there in September. It was released on 5 October and reached number 17 in the charts. Their second single, Please Please Me, was released on 11 January 1963 and reached number 1 in the NME and Melody Maker charts.
Liked the Rolling Stones
Although Decca did not sign the Beatles, it did get the Rolling Stones. On 10 May 1963, Dick Rowe and George Harrison were judges at a local talent competition at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. George told Dick Rowe about a band he had seen who were very good. Dick returned to London and saw the Rolling Stones at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond where they had a residency. Four days later he signed them to Decca. Their first single was Chuck Berry’s Come On, which was re-recorded at Decca Studios and released on 7 June. It reached number 21 in the charts. Shrewdly, manager Andrew Oldham wanted to retain the performing rights of the music and he produced most of the Stones’ other records at independent studios and then leased them to Decca.
Despite being lumbered with the tag of the man who turned down The Beatles, Dick Rowe in fact had a long and successful time at Decca. He went on to sign The Animals, The Moody Blues, The Zombies, Them (with Van Morrison), The Small Faces, Lulu and Tom Jones among many others. He died from diabetes in June 1986 at his home in Greenwich.
A rich history
What of the studio itself?
The building in Broadhurst Gardens was built around 1884 as a workshop and then converted into West Hampstead Town Hall. Despite its name, this was not a public building but a private venue that could be rented for weddings and concerts.
In 1928, it became the recording studio of the Crystalate Record Company. During the depression of the 1930s, small independent record companies struggled to survive. Decca and EMI bought most of them and became great rivals. EMI opened its Abbey Road studios in November 1931, and in 1937, Crystalate was acquired by Decca which moved all its recording to Broadhurst Gardens. Thousands of records were made here by Decca until the company left in 1981. As well as many classical records, these included sessions by David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Tom Jones, Lulu, Van Morrison, The Moody Blues, and Eric Clapton with John Mayall.
In its final form there were three main studios at Decca: Studio 1: straight ahead as you entered the building, with the control room upstairs above the studios. This was used for many pop records. Studio 2: a smaller room, was downstairs and was the main rock & roll and blues studio. Studio 3: was opened in 1962 at the back of the building, and was large enough to take a full orchestra. Bing Crosby made one of his last albums, Feels Good, Feels Right, here in August 1976.
In 1974, The Moody Blues did a deal with Decca and took over Studio 1 as their Threshold Studios. They had made their previous albums at Decca and they recorded Long Distance Voyager at Threshold.
In 1980, Sir Edward Lewis, who created Decca in 1929, died. The company was sold to Polygram, and is now part of the Universal Music Group. The building on Broadhurst Gardens is now Lilian Baylis House, used by the English National Opera who took it over in November 1981.
Back in October 2017, I was asked by a Dutch radio station to give them a tour of the old Decca studios – it was also filmed and you can watch it here (the first bit is in Dutch, but the rest is all in English)
One of the best things about Christmas is the carol singing. It get’s you into the spirit of Christmas and those singing are raising money for good causes, a reminder of the true spirit of Christmas.
Well done Tessa Henderson (not in the picture as she was taking it) and her friends. Merry Christmas.
Every Christmas since 1977, West Hampstead resident Tessa Henderson has been organising her friends to go carol singing. They have had a pitch at Waterloo Underground ticket concourse for two evenings in the run-up to Christmas. I write ‘they’ because she couldn’t have done it without the support of friends and family, but she is very much the driving force behind it.
Tessa says “It’s all down to the tireless energy of the singers and collectors who come year after year. I just do a bit of organising. It’s an amazing feeling to raise that kind of money just from opening your mouth”.
These aren’t just any carol singers. Tessa has been singing all her life and has recruited friends from renowned amateur and professional choirs, including over the years, a few who were members of the ROH and ENO chorus. It is hard work singing for more than two hours non-stop, in a chilly underground station, but it is also great fun and rewarding to be part of such an incredible fundraising effort.
Over the 40 years, they have raised money mainly for Save the Children, although in the early years they also raised some money for Shelter, Oxfam and Marie Curie. Thalea Turowski of Save the Children says “Huge congratulations to Tessa Henderson and the Waterloo carollers on their 40th anniversary! The incredible amount of over £100,000 raised during that time makes it possible for Save the Children to help children in the UK and around the world when they need us the most – thank you so much for your amazing support!”
In the first year, they raised £268.30 setting off on a journey, which, 40 years later, would see her reach the grand total of £100,160. To help reach that, in lieu of presents for her recent birthday she asked for donations to Save the Children, and this year she has set up a 40th anniversary Just Giving page.
The carol that gets the best response? Ding Dong Merrily on High! (Click on the link to hear them in action).
It’s Thanksgiving in America, so what better time to dig into the link between Kilburn and the man behind one of the most iconic landmarks in the US.
American artist and sculptor Gutzon Borglum lived and worked at Harlestone Villa in Mortimer Road, Kilburn from about 1897 to 1902. The property was later renumbered as 6 Mortimer Place but was damaged in 1944 by the V1 flying bomb which destroyed North Hall, the house next door. Both buildings were demolished and today the site is covered by Halliwell House on the Kilburn Gate estate.
While at Harlestone Villa, Borglum painted murals for private homes but he is best known as the sculptor who produced the giant heads of US presidents carved into the summit of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
Gutzon Borglum in 1919
Born in a frontier town in Idaho in 1867, Borglum was of Danish extraction. His father was a Mormon with two wives who were sisters. Borglum ran away from home to study art in California, and at the Julien Academy and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was influenced by Rodin.
He arrived in London in 1896 and rented a studio in West Kensington before moving to Kilburn. Although gaining recognition as an artist he was not earning a lot of money. He said, “I have had the disturbing pleasure of being called Master by the French critics and some Americans, yet at the moment I cannot spend sixpence without wondering where the next one will come from.”
In 1901, the daughter of a Californian friend came to stay at Harlestone Villa. Her name was Isadora Duncan and at a party she danced for Borglum on the villa’s large lawn, scattering rose petals behind her.
Borglum received a commission for twelve painted panels to be installed in the Midland Railway Company’s new hotel in Manchester. The fee was five thousand guineas (today worth about £550,000). In 1903 he supervised installation of the panels which were made in America. They depicted scenes from ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’ and the court of King Arthur.
Returning to America, Borglum became a very successful sculptor. His politics were crude; he was anti-immigrant and a racist. He criticised other artists and even called for the destruction of a public statue. Borglum courted the press and they loved him. In 1915 he put his reputation on the line and promised to make a huge monument to Southern Confederacy at Stone Mountain in Georgia. His patrons, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, did not have sufficient funds so he mortgaged his 500-acre estate in Connecticut. But after ten years he had completed less than a tenth of the carving and was fired by the Stone Mountain Association, accused of wasteful expenditure and having an ungovernable temper. The Association claimed ownership of his models and put out a warrant for Borglum’s arrest. He destroyed the models and became a fugitive, deeply in debt and publicly humiliated.
Doane Robinson, a South Dakota historian, had read about the large numbers of people travelling to Georgia just to watch Borglum at work. He believed that a mountain carving could put the little known South Dakota on the map. He wrote to Borglum suggesting a project in the Black Hills, perhaps carvings of the western explorers Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill and Chief Red Cloud. Borglum replied that national heroes would be better and it should be the Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (a personal friend of Borglum). But the attempt to raise $50,000 as seed money from the public only realised $5,000. The project became a joke. One paper said, “Borglum is about to destroy another mountain, thank God it is in South Dakota where no one will ever see it.”
President Calvin Coolidge was persuaded to spend a summer holiday in South Dakota and this helped raise the total to $42,000. Coolidge pledged the government would provide additional funds. In 1929, Borglum began work with only about a tenth of the money he needed. He didn’t even know if the project was feasible as it was 500 feet to the top of Mount Rushmore and the weather in winter would make work impossible. Using jack hammers and dynamite Borglum thought the figures would take four years to complete. But money ran out and work slowed down.
In 1931 the Rushmore Association was in debt with little chance of raising any further funds during the Depression. Worse was to follow, after a severe drought created the Dustbowl. People left the state in droves and work stopped completely in 1932. Borglum and Senator Peter Norbeck persuaded influential contacts to obtain federal funds from the National Park Service and work recommenced after a year’s delay. Borglum’s 21 year old son Lincoln, who was very popular with the 400 workmen, was the site supervisor when his father was away.
In March 1941, just as he was completing the sculptures, Gutzon Borglum died suddenly from complications after surgery. He was 73. Congress stopped all funding as the United States joined the Second Wolrd War that December but Borglum’s son Lincoln finished the project, which had taken 14 years and involved removing half a million tons of granite to form the four 60-feet high figures.
Here is a film showing Gutzon Borglum working on the mountain:
Sad times on Monday night in Kilburn as the Good Ship hosted its final Monday-night comedy gig. The Good Ship closes this weekend after changes to its licence has made it unprofitable and forced owner John McCooke to sell.
Monday night comedy was a core part of the formative years of the West Hampstead community initiative I began in 2009. Thus it seemed fitting for a few of us to return on Monday to say farewell. It was a busy night. A great line up kicked off by Matt Winning (if you don’t know him – go see him), with local favourite Jay Foreman on the bill as well as one-time hosts Jonny & the Baptists. Angela Barnes will go down in comedy history as the woman who closed the final night – and she did a storming set.
Angela Barnes headlines the last night of Monday night comedy
The Good Ship always had a special place in my West Hampstead heart. For a couple of years around 2011/2012, a constantly evolving group of locals – initially loosely coordinated by me, but increasingly just turning up because they’d know someone there – would head along for an evening of (mostly) high-quality comedy hosted then by the irrepressible Juliet Stephens.
The Good Ship was a different sort of comedy night: low-key, friendly, light on the heckling, rich on the applause – and it even had a weekly raffle, free with your ticket entry. It attracted a mixed crowd. At just £4, it was well within the reach of most, so students from the Central School of Speech & Drama in Swiss Cottage were always well represented. But there were also some older people for whom it was clearly a friendly escape.
There were characters like Freddy, who some of you will remember from his stints as our doorman at whampgathers; there were running jokes about Fisk (look it up) and the bag of shit from the poundshop. But newcomers were always warmly welcomed and even the quieter nights were good fun, while the buzzy nights could be a pounding success with laughs reverberating around the pit. It was an integral part of creating a community.
Jay Foreman with his astonishing tube station song
Comedians themselves liked The Good Ship. It was a safe space to try out some new material – on one of my very first visits there Ed Byrne popped in to do 5 minutes – and the Edinburgh preview shows were a ridiculously good value way to see top stand-ups deliver full shows for a fraction of the price you’d pay once they reached Scotland.
Juliet finally moved on and after a few different interim hosts, her place at the helm was confidently taken by Ben Van der Velde, who has masterfully steered the Good Ship Comedy for the past few years. Ben has rebuilt the momentum of the club and kept that friendly vibe. Wonderful news therefore, that even as we mourn the end of the Good Ship, the comedy night will continue from November 6th at a new venue. The Colonel Fawcett pub in Camden will host; the name will remain (hopefully in perpetuity – no-one wants to see “Unfawced Laughter”) and (eek) the price will go up. By £1. Details and tickets here.
It’s going to be a a challenge to rebuild in a new venue, so do go along and support it if you can. The pub is really close to Camden Road overground station, so it’s really no big deal to get there from West Hampstead or Kilburn. The line-ups are just as good but any comedy night is really only as good as its audiences. The Good Ship’s always had one of the best. Long may it sail.
West Hampstead has a quite long literary pedigree – which continues to this day, with three local book launches in September alone. This month sees the launch of another one, but not in English and not at West End Lane Books. Mais non! This book is called “Le Plus Beau Reste á Venir” (Ed = The Best Is Yet To Come) and the launch will be at the French Bookshop, La Page, in South Kensington on Saturday 14th October. The author is Hélène Clément, one of West Hampstead’s large and growing French community.
What brought you to West Hampstead ?
Luck, really. When I had just moved to London nine years ago I was staying in Hounslow, which was way too far from… everything. When a colleague said she had a spare room in her flat on Lymington Road, I took it before even checking West Hampstead out. Best decision ever ! I immediately fell in love with the area. Since then, I’ve had to move flat twice, but never looked anywhere else. West Hampstead truly feels like home.
Behind the bar at the Alliance
Tell us a bit more about your book. Is it your first one ?
‘Le Plus Beau Reste a Venir’ is my first book, yes, so I’m over the moon and really proud that it got published by an important French publishing company.
The book tells the story of four characters, when they’re teenagers in the 90s, and when they meet again in 2010, after eleven years of estrangement, to overcome the loss of the teacher who had changed their lives and brought them together in high school. ‘Le Plus Beau Reste à Venir’ is about second chances, family, friendship and little attentions. Those little attentions which cost nothing but can make a huge difference in someone else’s life.
Where did you write it? And did West Hampstead inspire you?
Some writers need silence and stillness. I need activity. I need fresh air. I need to watch people and everyday situations. So I wrote 90% of my novel outdoors, in West Hampstead, on my notebooks. I was managing a coffee shop in Hampstead Heath at the time. Every day, I would leave work around 3pm and walk back to West Hampstead, to oxygenate my brain and gather my ideas. Once on West End Lane, I would find my writing spot of the day, at one of the cafes in the area if it was rainy. Otherwise, I would head to West End Green, Fortune Green, Hampstead Cemetery or the playground between Lymington Road and Potteries Path. And I would write for hours, inspired by the buzzing life around me.
My story takes place in a French high school, in the French countryside, so not in West Hampstead, obviously. But my readers will never know how much less obviously it’s been fed by West Hampstead. But it does and my affection for the area has grown stronger through the writing of my novel. I can assure you that, one day, I’ll write a novel all about West Hampstead !
What are you West Hampstead favourites ?
For coffee, I always go to Caffè Nero because the team, led by the lovely Teresa, is amazingly friendly, and I’m addicted to their mochas. For a drink, I would highly recommend Thunderbird. Moussa is a gem of a manager ! As for food, Lena’s Café was one of my all time favourites, I’m really sad it has closed down.
Now, if you’re looking for everything at once: great coffee, great drinks and incredibly good food, just come to The Alliance. I won’t get a pay raise for writing this, I truly mean it. I was a customer there long before starting to work for Mike. This is one of the coziest places around and the dining menu is a marvel!
How is life as a French expat in London? What do you miss the most ?
Life in London is amazing. I feel very lucky to live in such a vibrant and open-minded city. If it wasn’t for my accent giving me away, I wouldn’t feel like an expat anymore ! I’m from Carrières-sous-Poissy, a small suburban town, forty-five minutes west of Paris, really close to Saint-Germain (if you follow French football)!
What do I miss the most ? Cheese, obviously ! And pavement seating areas, there aren’t enough of those in Central London.
