Sunday 13 December 2020

New Talk for 2021

 



The Folklore of Underground London went very well: over 1000 bookings and 600 viewers (it is normally around two thirds of bookers who actually show up, live or online, it would appear). Some interesting questions in the Q&A afterwards.

Secret Tunnels of England has now sold out and I must consider whether to reprint as a paperback in 2021.

There will be another online talk in February 2021 for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea's Fantasy February. The Folklore of London will be a more general overview of some of the unusual customs and ceremonies, pub lore and folkloric characters of our capital city.

The colour photograph above is from The Lions Part who enact a number of theatrical ceremonies around London during the year. 

Bookings for the talk can be made via Eventbrite here. There have already been around 100 bookings and it was only advertised yesterday evening. 

Saturday 21 November 2020

Underground Folklore Talk

 

There have been over 200 bookings so far for the talk on 8 December.

As it's a virtual talk on TEAMS there are plenty of places left.

Booking here.

It will probably be the last occasion to buy a hardback copy of Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore & Fact as there are less than 10 copies left and I imagine they will all sell on the night.

Accumulator Press books can be bought here or keep an eye out on eBay.

I heard on Radio 4 the other day about an online folklore project (The Everyday Lore Project) that could be of interest to some. 

See here

When I was working on my book The Folklore of London I tried to attend as many folklore events and ceremonies in London in one year as I could, work, family and eligibility permitting. I imagine this year very few of them went ahead. Let's hope that some of them will be taking place once more in 2021.

30/11/20 I've been told that there have now been over 600 bookings for the talk! There are still places left. I'll have to start doing some serious preparation!

08/12/20  There area now over 1000 people booked for this talk, which is very impressive, if intimidating.



Thursday 12 November 2020

Corruption and Frightmare






An online double bill of horror last night - both films can be found in very watchable versions, but I won't give the links as they are available to buy, with extras.

Corruption is a 1967 British film starring Peter Cushing who was apparently ashamed of being in it, but nevertheless gives a great performance. The plot is based on the French film Eyes Without a Face, which I saw a couple of years ago and has similar gory surgery scenes. One of the chief attractions for me is the period in which the film was made - there's a wonderful swinging 60s party at the beginning in which Cushing's character, an eminent surgeon, shows how old-fashioned and square he is, although his beautiful girlfriend (played by Sue Lloyd, memorable from The Ipcress File) is a fashion model about 25 years younger than him. Her photographer - played by Anthony (later father-in-law to Tony Blair) Booth in an obvious homage to David Hemmings in Blow Up - gets into a fight with Cushing and in the melee a spotlight gets knocked onto Lloyd damaging her face. The surgeon then discovers a way of recovering her beauty, but it involves taking the pineal gland from living female flesh and the use of a laser; his (and soon her) obsession with retaining her looks leading to him becoming a Jack the Ripper style serial killer.

The murders are pretty graphic for the time - apparently there are more violent and nude versions that were shot for the overseas market - and are filmed with distorting lenses making Cushing look even more twisted and malevolent. One takes place on a train going from Seaford (where Cushing has a charming clifftop cottage) to Lewes, a journey I've made many times. This scene reminded me of the old railway carriages that had separate compartments where you never knew who you might be sharing with. About half an hour from the end there's a really abrupt change in the plot when a gang of thieves invade the cottage and threaten Cushing and his girlfriend - an unusual performance from David (Pink Panther) Lodge as a psychopathic mute. The ending is truly bizarre, as the laser, which just happens to have been brought down to the cottage (they must have had a lot of trouble fitting all that equipment into the back of his sports car), goes haywire and destroys everything. Then in the final seconds it appears to have all just been a bad dream. Despite the nastiness and misogyny (see the poster above) it's worth watching, especially for fans of Swinging Sixties cinema. The hip jazz score (Bill McGuffie) would sound good on its own, but is too intrusive and inappropriate in the way it's used here.

More information can be found here and here.

I'd read quite a lot about Peter Walker's films but never seen one, so I decided to finally dip a toe in the water and Frightmare (1974) was better than I was expecting. The story of London-based sisters who have a cannibal mother living in a country cottage, it was well shot and acted and had some unpleasant murder scenes involving an electric drill - this is a few years before the notorious Driller Killer. 

Opening in an atmospherically filmed empty Battersea Fun Fair (mentioned earlier in this blog with reference to the film Mutations) we see the murder of Andrew Sachs, which is the beginning of the mother's cannibal spree. After spending a period in an asylum she is deemed 'cured' and released back into society - the film, written by David McGillivray seems to be an indictment of liberal justice and the middle classes - I can imagine a large Media Studies phd industry being based on Walker's films. The film stars an impressive Sheila Keith as the mad mother and Rupert Davies as the father, with an appearance by Paul (Rosie) Greenwood - the 'good' sister, played convincingly by Deborah Fairfax, reminded me of Katherine Parkinson - the ending is a bummer. The film was not greeted well by critics - 'A moral obscenity' The Telegraph, 'A despicable film' The Observer.

More information here and here.



Thursday 5 November 2020

The Return of Fu Manchu



 

I watched The Blood of Fu Manchu last night. Known in the USA as Kiss and Kill and also Kiss of Death and Against All Odds (?). Released in 1968 and directed by Jesus 'Jess' Franco, it's not very good and I got bored after about half an hour. The cast is fairly star-studded: Christopher Lee reprising his yellowface role (there were 5 FM films starring Lee), Richard ('Robin Hood riding through the glen') Greene as Nayland Smith, Fu Manchu's arch enemy and upholder of British values and Howard Marion Crawford as Dr Watson, sorry, Dr Petrie (looking unwell and as if he was on the bottle, it was no surprise to find out that he died the following year at 55). 

There's even an unusual appearance by Bond girl Shirley Eaton in a short scene which seems to come from an entirely different film - in fact it did come from another film, The Girl From Rio (a Franco-directed film based on the character of Sumuru, also created by Sax Rohmer, essentially a female Fu Manchu) and Eaton only found out years later and never got a fee. 

Starting promisingly, a group of beautiful women are brought to an ancient South American temple where Fu Manchu is hiding out with his daughter Tsai Chin and 'Dacoit' henchmen - cue plenty of gratuitous whipping, bare breasts and hanging from chains. They are bitten by a poisonous snake, whose poison has the rare quality of preserving their life but spells death to anyone they kiss. The glamorous girls are sent around the world to give the 'kiss of death' to Fu Manchu's enemies, all of whom suffer, except for Nayland Smith who is blinded but survives. He travels thousands of miles to find the temple and a possible antidote.

Unfortunately the film soon changes tack and turns into a bandit film for about half a boring hour with the chief, named Sancho Lopez, straight from central casting - at least he doesn't say "Badges! We don't need no steenkeeng badges!"

We also have to put up with risible dialogue like: 

"Dr Wagner is dead." 

"Completely dead?"

"Yes, completely dead."

In the film's favour the ambassador's residence is an interesting set and the proto-Indiana Jones archaeologist played by Gotz George is quite fun and some of the locations, such as the waterfall at the end, are pretty. However, if you've never seen it you haven't missed anything. The sequel The Castle of Fu Manchu (also directed by Franco) makes it look like Citizen Kane and is truly awful. Recycled footage from A Night to Remember is used to show the sinking of an ocean liner by the evil genius and this film essentially sank the entire franchise.

The DVD I watched was a twofer of Blood and Castle, but was obviously hastily produced, as on the box the plots of the two films are mixed up. The reason I'm writing this is that a new box set has been released by Indicator of all 5 Fu Manchu films - the first three of which are worth watching (Dublin often standing in for London) - with tons of extras. The other Indicator films I have are excellent packages. Despite that enticing prospect I'm probably going to stick with the DVDs I already have. It seems unfortunate timing to bring this set out at a moment when the role of China in world affairs is held in mistrust and suspicion and Fu Manchu will always be a deeply racist character who most people under 40 have probably never heard of, but who refuses to go away. Time to also plug the book Lord of Strange Deaths.

A very detailed review here has made me change my mind about acquiring the boxset, if only for the extras - maybe a Christmas present?


Saturday 31 October 2020

Talk on the Folklore of Underground London

It looks as if online talks will be with us for the foreseeable future.

My next online talk will be on Tuesday 8 December and the topic is Folklore of Underground London. Expect secret tunnels, strange creatures and subterranean spectres, some of which have appeared in this blog over the years.

The event has been organised by the City of Westminster Archives Centre. 

Booking through Eventbrite. See here.

The advantage of these talks is that anyone anywhere with access to the internet can participate.

Happy Halloween!

Thursday 8 October 2020

The Mystery of Subterranean Selfridges: A Summary





A couple of 'meaningful' coincidences in the last week have alerted me to the fact that I should update the blog post on the alleged Victorian street beneath Selfridges. It's by far the most visited post and the way it's laid out is rather confusing and cluttered. So, here is an attempt to present the material in a more logical way with some added comments in the light of new material.

It was first posted on 10 April 2013.

At the talk for the South East London Folklore Society last week an audience question came up yet again about the existence of a perfectly preserved Victorian street of shops somewhere beneath Oxford Street. I think that the first time this came to my notice was when I was asked about it by Robert Elms during my first appearance on his radio show c.2001; at the time I honestly professed to know nothing about it and the whole thing seemed pretty absurd to me. It has since resurfaced (so to speak) on numerous occasions. I did say at the SELFS talk that I would look into this tale one more time and put my findings on the blog. The result has turned out to be more interesting than I might have thought.

Searching on the internet you can find a number of threads devoted to this topic. On one for example someone poses the question:

'Does anybody know anything about the supposed Victorian High Street underneath the present Oxford Street? Evidently Oxford St was raised up years ago but there is a tunnel underneath where the original cobbled road still stands and the part facias [sic] of Victorian shops. Or is this just an urban myth?'

In my Folklore of London book (2008) I wrote this [original text not the edited published version]:

‘Viewers of the 1991 Channel 4 Christmas Special The Ghosts of Oxford Street, directed and narrated by Malcolm McLaren were treated to a rare sight: behind a door in the basement of Selfridges there survives a complete underground Victorian street, perfectly preserved, with period frontages intact, supposedly lying directly beneath the modern street above. This piece of trickery has since entered London’s subterranean folklore and references to it continue to appear in magazines and on websites.’ 

My information was taken from various discussions about the film on the internet; perhaps naively I assumed that one or two of these participants had actually viewed it and remembered it accurately.

At the time that I was writing my folklore book I tried to obtain a copy of The Ghosts of London but it wasn't out on dvd and didn't appear on You Tube or anything similar; nobody I knew had recorded it. Last week, however, another audience member told me that it could now be seen on Channel 4’s tv on demand website here. So yesterday I finally managed to see this intermittently entertaining former rarity (with a ridiculous performance from Leigh Bowery) on my laptop and guess what? I cannot find the scene filmed in a perfectly preserved street of Victorian shops under Oxford Street. 

Selfridge’s certainly features heavily (the whole of part 2 of the 54 minute film is devoted to it) and there is a scene where Tom Jones dressed in Edwardian [?] costume (as Gordon Selfridge presumably) descends on an escalator to a floor of the store where the staff are dressed in period clothes – Twenties-looking to me, although the displays and products are modern. Other scenes take place inside Regency/Victorian rooms or sets or outside modern Oxford Street shops.  

The main candidate for the street scene must be the section on Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), played by John Altman, filmed in what looks like a set, dressed to signify decadent dilapidation, intended to represent shops, as an obviously non-authentic sign reads ‘Boots apothecary’. There are however no ‘perfectly preserved’ Victorian shop fronts, nothing to indicate that it lies beneath Selfridge's and, owing to the camera position, no view of a cobbled street. On the same thread mentioned above another contributor claims that:

‘John Altman who played Nick Cotton in Eastenders… was in a bit of the film apparently actually under Oxford Street where there still exists part of this Victorian Street…He claimed Malcolm McLaren let him through a hole in the basement of Selfridges.’  

In another scene the present-day (1991) McLaren chases an actor playing his younger self into the Eisenhower Centre secure storage facility in Chenies Street. The boy descends in an old-fashioned ‘cage’ lift to a dimly lit tunnel that could be part of the former deep level shelter beneath Goodge Street tube station (you can also hear a tube train in the background, although this could have been added in post-production). Security Archives appear in the credits, so it seems that this sequence was filmed within that facility.  

By a strange coincidence the deep level shelter was used by Eisenhower (in his capacity as Supreme Commander of COSSAC, later absorbed into SHAEF) and his officers for a period during the Second World War, after he had rejected an annexe of Selfridge’s at No.14 Duke Street W1 - ‘a sizeable steel and concrete structure blessed with deep basements running 45 feet down’ - which later housed the SIGSALY code-scrambling computer. 

It should also be borne in mind that the now defunct Mail Rail/Post Office Railway (opened 1927, closed 2003) runs around 70 feet down, just to the north of the section of Oxford Street on which Selfridge’s stands. The Central line, opened as the Central London Railway from Bank to Shepherd’s Bush on 30th July 1900, also runs under the bustling thoroughfare. All the above is covered in my book Subterranean City, beneath the streets of London (now - October 2020 - out of print and just waiting for an enterprising publisher to request an updated version).

My copy of The Twopenny Tube by Bruce & Croome (1996) says on p23: ‘The large store of Harry Gordon Selfridge was being built near Bond Street station in 1908 and opened on 15th March 1909. Selfridge used many innovative marketing initiatives, but his suggestion that Bond Street station be renamed Selfridge’s was cold shouldered by the railway.’  

I have never had a behind-the-scenes tour of Selfridge’s myself, but a reporter from Time Out who has, certainly did not uncover anything unusual, although it’s interesting that while she makes no mention of the ‘preserved street’ she does refer to an alleged ‘abandoned tube station’ (article posted on the Time Out website on 10 November 2006):

‘We start by heading down into the basements. Myths abound about this subterranean world and, sadly, most of them are just that. There is no abandoned tube station, though Selfridge did lobby to get an underground tunnel built from Bond Street station up into the store – and have the station renamed ‘Selfridges’. Neither was there a river running through it – though there was an artesian well that served the building for years.

There are two levels of basement beneath the lower-ground shop floor: the ‘sub’ and the ‘sub-sub’, descending 60 metres below street level. These are split into two more areas: the dry sub and sub-sub, and their ‘wet’ equivalents. The wet area, more dank than watery, is beneath the original building, while the dry is under the rear building, known as the SWOD (after the four streets – Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard and Duke – that once enclosed it). 

During WWII, the SWOD’s basement was used by 50 soldiers from the US Army Signal Corps; there were even visits from Eisenhower and Churchill. The building had one of the only secure telex lines, was safe from bombing, and was close to the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square. According to Jarvis, a tunnel was built from Selfridges to the embassy so that personnel could move between the two in safety. Interrogation cells for prisoners were hewn from the uneven space available.’ 

With reference to the last two sentences, do we have another folkloric ‘secret tunnel’ to add to the hundreds supposedly under London? This is the first time I've seen reference to a tunnel from Selfridge’s to the American Embassy, but as it was constructed during wartime, as many other similar tunnels and shelters were, it cannot be dismissed totally. Perhaps when the American Embassy site is vacated in 2017 more details will come to light. 

If you think about it logically, had this street really managed to survive intact, it is incredible that it has not been opened to the public as an attraction or 'vintage retail experience' – especially given its hugely busy and tourist-heavy location.

Could this now firmly established piece of subterranean folklore be based on a misremembering of a small part of the Ghosts of Oxford Street that was, as far as I know, only shown on the one occasion in 1991; the urban legend does not appear to predate that year (Robert Elms asked me about it ten years later). The film had not subsequently been readily available on video or dvd (although some people must have taped it presumably?) so this fascinating misinterpretation (possibly coupled with the John Altman comment –if indeed that was ever actually said - or deliberate misinformation from the arch-prankster and former Situationist McLaren) became known through word of mouth, programmes such as the Robert Elms show and the internet? I shall have to go with this theory for now.

On 10 April 2013 I added the following;

As I intend to talk about this topic tomorrow night at Kensington Central Library I thought it was about time that I asked Selfridge's Press Office about this long-standing rumour. They told me that it was  a myth started by the Ghosts of Oxford Street film, as I suspected. Funnily enough, a few months ago, I was emailed by someone at the City of Westminster Archives Centre who had been contacted by a man who swore that he had visited a street of shops beneath Selfridge's in his youth.

On 23 June 2015 I added:

During research for my next book [Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore & Fact] I found out that Selfridge's is adding to its underground domain:

'In 2004 Selfridges announced a multi-million pound refurbishment and expansion programme for the store, which will include the construction of a tunnel connecting it to the recently-acquired Nations House in Wigmore Street, probably for the use of its 3000 staff, rather than customers.' Iain Withers 'Selfridge's picks team for revamp of flagship Oxford Street store' Building 27 February 2014.

On 19 April 2016 I added:

The mystery of the Victorian street under Oxford Street deepens (perhaps). A fairly old online post that somehow eluded me previously states that in fact the remnant of Victorian shops could be found several levels below what was the Lilley & Skinner shoe shop at 356-360 Oxford Street (very close to Selfridge's) and it was this location that Malcolm McLaren used when filming the Ghosts of Oxford Street. The cobbled street gets a mention and we are also told that the council had a 'preservation order' on it. The building is now a branch of Forever 21. I shall endeavour to check this out as soon as I can.

Another personal account was given to me in the pub (so my recall may not be perfect) after the hugely successful Subterranean Saturday talks at Conway Hall on the 9th of this month. A man told me that in the late 1960s he had delivered some clothes to Selfridge's - he had to take them down to a basement area that had been dressed to resemble a Victorian street. 

Now this is all very possible: that period did start to become fashionable in the late 60s and it is understandable that a large department store would want to evoke a Dickensian/Victorian atmosphere, especially around Christmas. But surely this arrangement would not have survived for another 20 years or so, when the Ghosts of Oxford Street came to be filmed? 

Later, I tried contacting Forever 21 to ask about the lost street beneath their premises, but to no avail, so one day, as I happened to be in central London I visited the store on Oxford Street. I have no recollection of visiting the Lilley & Skinner shop that was once based there in my youth. The building has only one lower-ground floor - this was confirmed by a member of staff - there are no lower levels - at least not accessible these days, if there ever were. It is on one side of Stratford Place, a fascinating historical cul de sac and close to the route of the 'lost' river Tyburn. I couldn't use Bond Street station as the area adjacent to the store is being prepared for Crossrail. See Westminster City Council's site here - under Stratford Place - where you can download a pdf.

In October 2020 I found that the estimable Survey of London had recently published a volume devoted entirely to Oxford Street, which has made what I always thought rather a dull street (apart from the thousands of bustling pedestrians) come to life and is packed with interesting architectural detail, maps and lovely photographs old and new. There is a long section (pp179-206) devoted to Selfridge's and contains all the detail you would need about the ownership of the land, plans for construction, the building and fitting out of the department store and the various expansions over the decades. Nowhere, of course, is there a mention that during its construction it was decided to preserve a row of Victorian shops in its basement area. In fact the building stands on what was previously the London branch of furniture makers Gillow & Co, who occupied part of the site from 1769 to 1906. There is also a very comprehensive history of the store by Gordon Honeycombe, Selfridge's Seventy-Five Years of the Store 1909-1984 (Park Lane Press, 1984).

Another very interesting blog post suggests that an early Medieval cistern under Stratford Place next to Forever 21 (once Lilley & Skinner) may be responsible for the belief in an underground structure of some kind in the vicinity of Oxford Street. See here. There is also a comment from 2017 written by a lady who says that she worked at L&S and saw the famed subterranean street with her own eyes.

See also a follow-up post here with other eye-witness claims that the street really does exist.

It looks as if this one will run and run - although a medieval cistern - fascinating as it sounds - is not a street of well-preserved Victorian shops with a cobbled street, which is what the original story is all about. For the history of water supply in the area see The Lost Rivers of London and books by Tom Bolton amongst others.



 





Thursday 16 July 2020

Another Online Talk



The Whistler talk that I delivered online through TEAMS on Tuesday went very well and there was a lot of positive feedback.

I've agreed to do another Decadent London talk remotely from my dining room on Tuesday 29 September.

It's FREE and you can book through Eventbrite here.

My books are available from Treadwells, Watkins, Atlantis and Gay's The Word. Also online through the Big Cartel.

I recently branched out onto eBay and I wonder why I waited so long. So far it has proved an excellent platform for not only selling books but offloading some books, CDs and DVDs that I no longer require. 

Secret Tunnels, Decadent London and Netherwood can also be purchased there. There are less than 10 copies of Secret Tunnels remaining.

Tuesday 30 June 2020

Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain

 

Good news about the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain.

According to the gallery's website they will be reopening on 27 July.

The Beardsley exhibition has been extended to 20 September. It's a great show and I can thoroughly recommend it. The gallery should also be selling copies of Decadent London in the shop.

Saturday 27 June 2020

Sussex Sects (Sussects?)



On recent walks in the countryside around the pretty village of Robertsbridge, a few miles north of Hastings, we encountered small groups of distinctively dressed people that I had noticed off and on over recent years whenever in the area. Turns out they are part of a rural religious community called The Bruderhof. In the present social and economic circumstances their existence is of more relevance and they are worth checking out. See for example here and here. They occasionally get into the mainstream media (see here).

Coincidentally I was also reading John Burke's book on Sussex (pub 1974, in the 1970s Batsford series) in which I learned about another group called The Society of Dependants, a Christian sect founded by John Sirgood in the nineteenth century in the Sussex village of Loxwood. I had never heard of them previously - unlike the Bruderhof/Darvell Community they no longer appear to exist. Also known as The Cokelers more information can be found here  here and here.

11/08/20 A documentary on the Bruderhof will be broadcast on 13 August on BBC1 see here

Esalen



A lockdown second viewing of the entire 7 seasons of Mad Men inspired me to find out some more about Esalen, the utopian 'human potential' New Age community precipitously perched on California's Pacific Coast in Big Sur. It is clearly the inspiration for the therapeutic outpost that Don Draper ends up at in the culmination of that excellent 60s-set series.

I got hold of a book called Esalen, America and the Religion of Non Religion by Jeffrey J Kripal (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Once past the academic and theoretical introduction it's scholarly but readable and includes a varied and fascinating cast of characters who have appeared in posts on this blog (Wilhelm Reich, Fritz Perls) or in my books (Stanislav Grof in Gary Lachman's essay in Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore & Fact.

The gamut of New Age therapies is covered (although they disliked the term New Age at Esalen): encounter groups, massage, meditation, gestalt therapy, Rolfing etc together with such esoteric interests as remote viewing and telepathy. Hallucinogenic drugs played their part and there is a section on Terence McKenna and other experimenters with such mind-blowers as DMT.  The author is very keen on Tantra and makes his case for it being one of the principal influences on Esalen's healing strategy. There is also quite a lot about Esalen's visits behind the Iron Curtain and contribution towards cooling East/West tensions in the Cold War.

Kripal emphasises the importance of texts in the transmission of ideas and describes founder Michael Murphy's reading of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine as 'deeply hermeneutical':

'a model that recognises a truly profound engagement with a text can alter both the received meaning of the text and one's own meaning and being ... That is, we need to recognise that the act of reading, far from being a mechanical, disembodied exercise of vocabulary and grammar, is in fact an immeasurably complex psychophysical event in which two horizons of meaning and being (the reader and the read) are "fused" and transfigured in a mysterious process that we do not, and perhaps cannot ever, fully understand. Elsewhere I have referred to a hermeneutical mysticism in the life and work of twentieth century scholars of mysticism - a disciplined practise of reading, writing and interpreting, through which intellectuals actually come to experience the religious dimensions of the texts they study, dimensions that somehow crystallise or linguistically embody the forms of consciousness of their original authors. In effect, a kind of initiator transmission sometimes occurs between the subject and object of study to the point where terms like "subject" and "object" and "reader" and "read" cease to have much meaning. And this of course is a classically mystical structure - a twoness becoming one, or perhaps better, a not-two. Reading has become an altered state of consciousness.' (p.61)

Something else to bear in mind: ''The literary critic David Noel once observed that whether or not Carlos Castaneda's stories faithfully reflect his peyote rituals, whether or not his teacher Don Juan even existed, what we have, in the end, are not sacred plants or Indian sorcerers, but Castaneda's texts, which are themselves a kind of mind-altering substance. "Words," Noel observes, "are the only psychotropic agents Castaneda gives us."

It was, however, disconcerting to find that the author, 'Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University', thinks that the Feast of Epiphany occurs on 6 February!

More on Esalen here and here

That final episode of Mad Men

I also intend to read Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) see here

Also of relevance is a film I watched last week Altered States directed by Ken Russell. See here


Friday 5 June 2020

Bibliophilic Pleasures






I like books. I like looking at a well-designed and produced book, feeling the texture of the cloth cover, turning the pages, resting it in my hands. It's just not the same with an e-book.

I don't consider myself a serious book collector, but there are also the bibliophilic pleasures to be enjoyed by owning second-hand books, especially if they are inscribed or display bookplates or other signs of ownership.

Yesterday I took a book from the shelves to re-read a section for some research: British Antiquity by T D Kendrick (London: Methuen & Co, 1950); it has a very tactile cloth cover with a debossed golden image of the cross found by the coffin alleged to contain the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere uncovered at Glastonbury in 1190 (the book is a critique of Geoffrey of Monmouth's massive influence on early medieval British historiography). I bought it online a few years ago, but for the first time I noticed that there was a bookplate on the front pastedown and the owner's name written carefully on the flyleaf. There was also a small sticker on the pastedown for a bookshop in Oxford (Parker & Son) where the book was presumably purchased. Parker and Son was a famous Oxford bookshop, no longer in existence - see here.

The bookplate was a certificate like I used to get at school when you won the school prize for a particular subject - this one was from Somerville College, Oxford for the Coombs Prize in History awarded to Antonia Morland.

A quick check online reveals that the Edith Coombs Prize for History was won by amongst others the writer and feminist Vera Brittain author of the popular autobiography Testament of Youth; there don't appear to be any recent references to the prize. Somerville College is of course a famous Oxford college established for women students founded in 1879; alumni include Dorothy L Sayers, Iris Murdoch and er, Margaret Thatcher.

Antonia Morland took the married name Antonia Gransden (written on the flyleaf), a name that rang no bells with me but, on checking, I discovered that she was an eminent scholar in medieval history and that, sadly, she had died in January this year at the age of 91. She specialised in historiography, her most notable work being the two-volume Historical Writing in England (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974 and 1982) and merited obituaries in amongst other publications The Times (which mentions that she was a friend of EM Forster) and The Guardian here. She also produced a study of Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England (here) that it would probably be worthwhile for me to read. She gained a first class degree in History in 1951, so the book was probably presented to her that year. She later went on to study for a PhD, unusual for a woman at that time.

Another intriguing item is a book I bought online by John Russell Taylor: The Art Nouveau Book in Britain (London: Methuen, 1966) with a beautifully spare gilded cover. The flyleaf bears the inscription: 'For Roman, Who has made all too good use of it already - I've never found a JMK drawing! John Russell Taylor 1967'. JMK is presumably Jessie M King, who features in the book, see here. John Russell Taylor, who is still with us, went on to become an eminent critic and writer on film with major biographies of Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh amongst others. Could Roman by any chance be Roman Polanski? I'd like to think so - The Tenant is one of my favourite films.

For films of serious book collectors see for example this film on Mark Valentine or R B Russell's film on collecting weird fiction master Robert Aickman.


Thursday 4 June 2020

A Virtual Whistler Talk





I shall be putting a tentative toe into the waters of virtual talks next month. I was originally supposed to be delivering a talk on Whistler at Chelsea Town Hall (a handsome historic venue in the heart of the area where he lived for most of his life) a few weeks ago, but coronavirus put a spanner in the works and it never happened.

Now I've agreed to deliver it instead through Teams on 14 July. The advantage is that anyone anywhere (with internet access) can tune in, the disadvantage that you lose the atmosphere of the venue and the opportunity to sell and sign books afterwards (the latter quite a big disadvantage as many of my book sales are at talks, where I sell them for less than you pay online).

It's not something I want to pursue in a big way, but I'm willing to see how it goes this once. I was also planning to do a guided walk around Chelsea to supplement the walk in the summer, but it looks unlikely that that will happen this year.

Register for FREE through Eventbrite here.

Monday 1 June 2020

The Ludham Dragon





While I ponder whether to republish Secret Tunnels of England, here's an extract about an unusual event in Norfolk (pp.68-69).


The Norfolk village of Ludham was said at one time to have been terrified by a fearsome winged dragon, twelve to fifteen feet in length, which appeared every night, forcing the residents to stay indoors between the hours of sunset and sunrise. For its lair, the dragon excavated a series of tunnels beneath the heart of the village: from the corner of St Catherine's churchyard they passed under the high street and local inn. At dawn, after the monster retired to its subterranean home, the villagers desperately tried to fill the entrance with rocks and rubble, only to see the creature burst forth once more each evening.

On a particularly sunny day the dragon unexpectedly emerged from the tunnels to bask in the warm sunshine in the centre of the village. Seizing the opportunity, one brave man laboriously rolled a huge boulder into the entrance to the dragon's tunnels, sealing them shut. Returning to its lair, the dragon found the obstruction impossible to dislodge. Furiously lashing its tail, the enraged beast flew towards the Bishop's Palace (now the site of Ludham Hall) and along the causeway to the ruined Abbey of St Benet, where it passed under the great archway and vanished in the vaults beneath, never to be seen again. The dragon's tunnels were later filled in.

This legend, recounted in a manuscript in the Norfolk Record Office, is undated, but may have been based on an actual event. The Norfolk Chronicle for 28 September 1782 contains the following brief report:

'On Monday the 16th inst. a snake of an enormous size was destroyed at Ludham, in this county, by Jasper Andrews, of that place. It measured five feet eight inches long and was almost three feet in circumference, and had a very long snout; what is remarkable, there were two excrescences on the fore part of the head which very much resembled horns. This creature seldom made its appearance in the daytime, but kept concealed in subterranean retreats several of which have been discovered in the town ... The skin of the above surprising reptile is now in the possession of Mr J Garrett, a wealthy farmer in the neighbourhood.'

A few years ago I was passing through the village and took some photographs see above. The King's Arms pub, St Catherine's church and a local information panel with the story of the dragon.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Decadent Lockdown



There has been a significant increase in viewings of various blog posts from the Antonine Itineraries recently. It's always interesting to see which ones attract the most interest, often not the ones that I would have thought would be popular - also posts I thought would gain attention have hardly been viewed - I imagine this is not unusual.

Book orders have returned to pre-lockdown levels. As some copies are running low, I am having to consider future publications and priorities. Post is understandably slower that usual, but everything has arrived at its destination so far.

One unfortunate consequence of the lockdown for me was that Tate Britain bought a large number of copies of Decadent London (with the expectation that they would order more) to coincide with the major Aubrey Beardsley show, which then closed after a couple of weeks, together with the rest of the UK's museums and galleries. Fortunately, I did have a chance to visit the exhibition in the first week and really enjoyed it - I've no idea whether it will be extended when the Tate reopens. You can visit remotely here.

Some recent decadent links:

A Dandy's Guide to Decadent Isolation here

Peter Wollen on Dandyism, Decadence and Death in Performance here

A repost of Saxon Henry's A Decadently Yellow London here


Wednesday 29 April 2020

Book Orders


Book orders through the Big Cartel are still being taken and all three books are available.  Secret Tunnels of England is now down to 12 copies and I shall have to take it off the site in the next few days. I am considering a reprint although, owing to the high price for printing the hardback edition (after five years it has only just covered production costs), it will have to be a paperback -probably the same style as Decadent London (with French flaps).

I've been thinking about offering them as e-books, but I still personally prefer physical paper books - the costs of typesetting, design and printing however make this an expensive business at a time when people's finances are increasingly uncertain. One good thing about e-books is I don't have to lug them across London in a suitcase to talks!

See here.

Understandably, there have been no orders for the last month or so, although they have resumed this week, which is a good sign. Readers in the USA are particularly keen.

I sincerely hope that, after the lockdown eases, the independent book shop network will have survived. Above photograph taken in early March of the front window at Gay's The Word in London.

Thursday 2 April 2020

Bricked Up Borley




Browsing through the Reader's Digest guide to British folklore I found the following story regarding  Chilbolton (near Stockbridge) Rectory in Hampshire:

'Chilbolton is said to be haunted by a nun. The window where her apparition most often appeared was bricked up to discourage her but, a few years ago, her ghost was again seen by two guests at the rectory. One said that he had seen a beautiful nurse gazing out of a window; the other awoke in the night and saw a nurse standing by his bed. The rector confirmed that there was no such person in the house on either occasion. In 1393 a nun named Katherine Faukener ran away from the nearby Benedictine Abbey of St Cross at Wherwell. On her return seven years later, she is believed to have been walled up alive on the site of the rectory which was then a nunnery.'
Reader's Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain (1973) p.174. See also Wendy Boase The Folklore of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (1976) p.78.

This story once more brought to mind Borley Rectory, with it's bricked up ground floor window and peeping nun. The window can be seen in the photograph at the top of this post. Here is Harry Price's rather repetitive description from The Most Haunted House in England (1940 pp.17-18):

'speaking of windows, the first thing a visitor notices when he enters the carriage drive from the road is a large bricked-up window to the left of the entrance porch ... The disfigurement quite spoils the appearance of this side of the house and one immediately wonders why it should have been done ... I began to make enquiries and from three different sources learned that the window was bricked up because the spectral 'nun' ... habitually peered into the room from the drive thus annoying the Rev Henry Bull, who had the window removed and the aperture bricked in.

Pursuing my enquiries I then heard that the window was not blocked up because of the too inquisitive 'nun', but because people passing along the road could see the Bull family having their meals. Candidly, I do not believe that this was the reason at all, because (a) very few people use the road past the rectory, and fewer must have used it at the time when the window was removed; (b) the carriage drive is so wide ... that it must have been a sheer impossibility to see through the window from the road, as I have proved to myself by trying to peer through the other windows on the side of the house; (c) the hedge and belt of trees separating the drive from the road form an impenetrable screen that would discourage anyone trying to peer in at the window, even if the drive were not so wide. In any case a light curtain or blind would have prevented any person from seeing what was going on in the room. That is, any normal person. But it might have been thought that such a screen would not prevent an entity such as the 'nun' from peering into the room. Whatever the reason, a drastic remedy was decided upon, and the window was strongly and permanently bricked up, as it remains today, completely spoiling this side of the house. The illumination of the room by day is obtained only from the bay window overlooking the lawn.'

The Haunting of Borley Rectory, A Critical Survey of the Evidence by Dingwall, Goldney & Hall (1956) pp.25-26 is characteristically more critical:

'In The Most Haunted House in England Price discusses the mystery of the bricked-up dining room window at the rectory which, it is suggested, was blocked by the Rev. Henry Bull (and therefore prior to 1892) to prevent the nun peering through the window from the drive. No testimony is available other than the mute evidence of the window itself, or if it is, none is offered by Price. The rectory was built rather close to the road and was separated from it by the narrow drive only and there would probably have been some lack of privacy if this window had not been bricked up.

The room was adequately lighted by another large window facing the lawn and had indeed the same amount of natural light from this one window as the drawing room, which was identically illuminated. The other principal rooms on the ground floor, the drawing room and the library, had complete privacy from passers-by (facing on to the lawn as they did) and the bricking-up of the small dining-room window merely made this room uniform with the other two in this respect.

Indeed Price admitted in MHH (p.18) that when pursuing his enquiries in Borley he was told that the window was bricked up "because people passing along the road could see the Bull family having their meals"; but adds that he does "not believe that this was the reason at all." It is curious that he does not disclose that this explanation was made by Mr Walter Bull who, as a son of Henry Bull, was presumably entitled to speak with some authority.'

So, was the window bricked up because a ghostly nun persisted in peering through it, or because it was close to a road where curious passers-by might spy the inhabitants eating and relaxing?

As with many ghost stories, no dates are provided for the Chilbolton haunting, but the resemblance to  Borley is noteworthy - does it predate Borley or does it originate from the popularity and influence of Price's book? Are there a number of similar tales of ghostly bricked-up windows around Britain that post-date the Window Tax (1696-1851)?

Another coincidental aspect of bricking-up concerns the unfortunate nun. Legend at Borley tells of a novice from the nunnery at Bures - 7 miles south of Borley on the River Stour (there is no evidence for the nunnery) - attempting to elope with a lay brother from the monastery on the site of the Rectory (no archaeological or written evidence has ever been discovered for this claim). Their escape in an anachronistic coach was thwarted and she was captured and returned to her nunnery to be bricked up alive as her cruel punishment - the monk was hanged. It may be her ghost that haunted Borley and was seen on the 'Nun's Walk' - see The Borley Rectory Companion (2009) 'The Phantom Nun' pp.230-233.

Bricking up of nuns was a motif (often anti-Catholic) in popular literature such as Sir Walter Scott's poem Marmion (1808) and one also recalls Poe's tale The Cask of Amontillado (1846) in which the Italian nobleman Fortunato is immured in the wine cellar of the narrator Montresor for some unspecified insult (for more see here).

A well-researched online essay by Rene Collar that deals with immurement, especially in the work of H Rider Haggard (author of King Solomon's Mines and She - who incidentally lived in St Leonards; the house - North Lodge - is still there, with a plaque) 'They Walled Up Nuns, Didn't They?' can be found here. It references a book called Walled Up Nuns & Nuns Walled In by W Lancelot Holland, see here.

This would appear to be another example of Harry Price's entertaining but speculative use of local legend and folklore to bolster his arguments for the haunting of Borley Rectory.


Tuesday 31 March 2020

'Traces of Mithraism in Kent'




The rescheduled Underground Folklore talk did go ahead, but in the present isolation situation all other talks will have to be postponed until later in the year.

In the meantime, I'll endeavour to write up some of the stuff for this blog that's been sitting on my desktop for ages without action.

A while ago we did a circular walk from Appledore in Kent that included a stretch of the Royal Military Canal and a visit to St Mary's church in Stone-in-Oxney. The church was rebuilt following a fire in the fifteenth century and has a number of interesting features, the most unusual of which can be found in the rear of the building under the tower. It is a large almost square piece of carved Kentish ragstone, 2 feet by 1 foot 10 inches and 3 feet 4 inches tall with a distinct carving of a bull on the side facing the viewer - the other three sides are too badly damaged and eroded to make out the images, but it is assumed that they also include carvings of bulls (see Notes and Queries below). It is commonly identified as an altar from a temple dedicated to Mithras that was either on the site of the church, or in the near vicinity.

I've visited a number of Mithraea over the years: San Clemente in Rome, Martigny in Switzerland, and Carrawburgh Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall amongst others. Of course, one of the most famous is the Mithraeum uncovered along the Walbrook in the City of London after the Second World War that has in recent years been relocated and reconstructed as part of an atmospheric and numinous visitor experience that is highly recommended. See here.

Sculptures from the temple were also preserved and are now on display in the Museum of London. The most interesting shows the culmination of Mithraic rites, the slaughter of a bull, or tauroctony. We saw a very impressive example at the Louvre in Lens a few years ago. See here.

The church at Stone-in-Oxney provides a laminated copy of an article from the journal Bygone Kent (c.2000): 'Traces of Mithraism in Kent' by R.B. Parish (I haven't been able to find the text of this article online for a link, but I quote from it below) which is very informative.

A basin has been carved into the top of the stone and the article quotes Rev. Grevile Mairis Livett (misspelled as Levit) Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (his obituary can be found here): 'The most significant feature is the focus hollowed out of the top for the reception of libations made to the god, or of the exta (internal organs) of the slaughtered animals to be burnt, while the flesh was consumed at the sacrificial feast.' It is also noted that the basin once had an iron lining.

Livett's description of the stone continues: 'It has certain peculiar features: there is no inscription such as is usually found on Roman altars on the front face, while the sides are usually blank or may have symbolic carving on them, the back being plain. In this case, the bull, repeated on all four sides, must be regarded as the symbol of the god, and I imagine it must indicate the devoting of the altar to the soldier's god Mithras, though his altars are generally sculpted with a representation of the taurobolium ie. Mithras slaying the bull.'

'Set into the foot of the structure is an iron ring which rather erroneously has been suggested was where victims were secured to be sacrificed. This would, however, appear to be unlikely and it would be more feasible that it was set into the stone when it was used as a horse mounting block and thus was to tether the horses to.'

The stone is mentioned in Notes & Queries Oct 23 1869 (p.347): Stone Altar. This object is not noticed in the Archaeologica Cantiana. The only account I have seen of it ... is the following from Murray's admirable Handbook: "In the garden of the vicarage of Stone is preserved an ancient altar (Brito-Roman?) which before its removal there had, time out of mind, been kept in the church. It had figures of oxen on four sides, only one of which is now perfect. At the foot is an iron ring for securing victims (?) and vestiges of the iron lining to the basin existed until very recently. This altar seems to illustrate the name of the district, 'Oxney', the cattle island."'

The village website informs us: 'At that time the temple and its military outpost would have been on the coastline, overlooking an extensive marshy delta. The higher ground of the Isle of Oxen formed the edge of the great Wealden forest of Anderida.'

Tradition had it that the stone had been discovered at an unknown date under the north chapel floor where it remained until the eighteenth century when it was moved to the vicarage garden and used as a mounting block for horses. Historian Edward Hasted noted that during this period 'it suffered considerable damage, becoming cracked and mutilated.' Hasted's History of Kent has an illustration, as does Camden's Britannica, according to Parish's article.

It's worth reading 'Historical Notes on the church of Stone in Oxney, Kent' by W.H. Yeadle (1935) which can be read as a pdf here.

In the early 1920s antiquarians wanted the stone to go to Maidstone Museum or be protected by a shelter, but in 1926 it was moved from the vicarage garden to its present location inside the church, a feat achieved by public subscription and support of the Kent Archaeological Society.

It has been suggested that the altar may have come from the Saxon Shore Fort called Stutfall Castle at Lympne. See here.

Interestingly and I suppose inevitably local folklore also includes tales of secret tunnels in the vicinity, to quote from the Bygone Kent article once more, with the author's highly speculative interpretations:

'It may also be significant that Kenardington, not far away [about 5 km to the north east] on Romney Marsh, is associated with three interesting pieces of folklore which may have relevance here. One is that the church is built upon a mound, beneath which are said to be "tunnels", for which one could read a Mithraeum. These are bizarrely said to be haunted by a coach, perhaps a folk memory of Roman chariots. The third is that somewhere in the land around it is said to be hidden a golden calf, which is of course the sacred symbol of Mithraism. Sadly no Roman remains have been unearthed to support the theory and the mound on which the church sits is generally believed to be Danish. Yet, these possible folk memories are highly suggestive, and the stratum, sandstone, would be easy to tunnel into. Perhaps then this was another Christianised site, or the altar came from Kenardington.'

In my Secret Tunnels of England I mention the widespread folklore of buried golden calves - possibly a memory of pre-Reformation statues of saints and other Catholic treasures, rather than Mithraic origins. I hope to visit Kenardington soon, as it does not appear in my book, but sounds worth including if there is ever a second edition.

Tuesday 25 February 2020

Underground Folklore Talk Rescheduled



It is with great regret that, following medical advice, I have had to reschedule the talk on Underground Folklore of England due to take place this Thursday 27 February at Kensington Central Library. It will now take place the following Thursday 5 March. See here. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this will cause to those who were booked.

One good thing about this is that 5 March is St Piran's day. St Piran is the patron saint of tin miners and the legend of St Piran and some of the beliefs and superstitions of the Cornish tin miners will be covered in the talk.

Sunday 16 February 2020

Decadent London News




News about the revised and expanded edition of Decadent London.

It's now stocked by the following bookshops:

Treadwells

Watkins

Gay's The Word

The Brick Lane Bookshop

Tate Britain will be stocking Decadent London in their bookshop. As there is a major Aubrey Beardsley exhibition about to open this is wonderful news and I would hope that sales will be good if the book is prominently displayed.

It's the largest exhibition of Aubrey Beardsley drawings for 50 years and runs from 4 March to 25 May.  As well as his own distinctive works the exhibition includes artworks that were important inspirations for him including those by Edward Burne-Jones and Gustave Moreau.

More about the Beardsley show here.

I'm doing some talks about Decadent London:

Thursday 20 February   Treadwells Bookshop here

Thursday 9 April City of Westminster Archives Centre (details to follow)

Also a non-decadent talk about underground folklore of England

Thursday 27 February Kensington Central Library here (part of Fantasy February)

Thursday 13 February 2020

Netherwood and Night Tide








Finally managed to get round to buying a copy of Netherwood by Stephen Volk - it's the last part of  The Dark Masters Trilogy of novels. It's a strange experience reading it, as I can see how much background material has been used from Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley. The author remains very faithful to much of the detail about the house and characters such as Vernon Symons, while introducing a sinister villain of his own invention. It should also be said that Dennis Wheatley had met Crowley, but never visited him at Netherwood. Very flattering really and I have to thank the person who alerted me to it at my Treadwells talk last year.

In the acknowledgements in the back Stephen Volk thanks me and my co authors for the book, which he bought from a 'dingy' bookshop (I know the one) in Hastings Old Town on a research trip. It's great to know that some of one's work is inspiring or being used by other writers, artists and musicians. I know that a play has been written about Netherwood (not sure if it has ever been performed) and it has been used in the work of Gareth E Rees. Subterranean city has been an inspiration for a number of artists including Stephen Walter (see here), fiction writers and a dancer.

Also this week I watched a newly reissued film called Night Tide (1961) starring a young and handsome Dennis Hopper. See here. Once more a Crowley connection that I hadn't been aware of when I bought it. Director Curtis Harrington was a friend of Kenneth Anger and appeared in his film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), together with Marjorie Cameron about whom he later made a film called Wormwood Star (1956). See here. She also appears in Night Tide. Harrington was obviously mixing in the LA occult circles chronicled in The Unknown God; apparently he financed his final short film Usher by selling a signed Crowley book he owned. He was obsessed with the work of Edgar Allen Poe and it's interesting that a version of The Fall of the House of Usher was made at Netherwood by George Ivan Barnett during the time that Crowley was living there (see previous posts).

Cameron (she was often known just by her surname) had been the lover of Jack Parsons  and the sex magic partner for his infamous Moonchild operation, about which Crowley wrote to Karl Germer: 'Apparently Parsons, or [L Ron] Hubbard, or somebody is producing a Moonchild ... I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these goats.' To Parsons Crowley wrote 'I cannot form the slightest idea of what you can possibly mean.'

I haven't seen the American television series about Parsons called Strange Angel (some episodes were directed by Ben Wheatley). As it was cancelled after season 2, maybe it will emerge on DVD.

Incidentally, Crowley still manages to generate shock horror headlines over 70 years after his death - see this Daily Mail article from this week.

Thursday 6 February 2020

Publishing Projects








One day I'm going to write a long post about the pros and cons of setting yourself up as a publisher and being a modestly successful writer who has to have a 'proper' job to survive.

But, for now, briefly, what I wanted to say was that if any (larger) publisher out there is interested in bringing out the third revised edition of Subterranean City then please get in touch or leave a comment.

Last year I tried two mainstream publishers - one commissioning editor was very keen until the bean counters got involved and that was that. The whole process of dealing with just two publishers served to remind me of the benefits of being one's own publisher - it does save a massive amount of waiting around, frustration and disappointment. It's not something I intend to do for months at a time this year, so if anyone is interested they can contact me. I've already been engaged on the updating and revision process since Christmas.

I'm perfectly prepared to publish it through Accumulator Press, but it has to be said that the distribution and publicity (the biggest problems for a small press) available to a large established publisher would hugely benefit sales of a book of this type - as it did in the past, when it was selling thousands of copies each year. The subject is still of great interest and since Subterranean City was first published a small industry of books on underground London has flourished.

The rights to all my early books have reverted to me, so I am free to do what I like with them - I've already published a new edition of Decadent London for example (about which I may soon have some exciting - for me - news). I would also like, when funds allow, to publish the work of other non-fiction writers.

I shall update on any developments ...