Leaves illuminat-ed
By late summer sunlight:
Autumn is nearing
Photo taken in Kensington Gardens, London, UK
September sunlight
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What is art?
A few days ago, I visited the Camden Arts Centre on the corner of Arkwright and Finchley Roads in north west London. This converted Victorian building has been enlarged with later additions and has a lovely café as well as a fine garden. Several galleries on the first floor are used to display artworks in temporary exhibitions.
We entered one gallery in which a video by the Hong Kong artist Wong Ping was being projected onto a large screen. At its base, there was a big pile of toy dentures with gold painted teeth.
Just after we sat down to watch the video, a group of young teenage school children were led into the gallery by an aducation officer employed by the art centre. After she had explained that the screen was the same kind as those used to display advertisements at Piccadilly Circus, she told the students:
“This is art.”
Then, she added:
“Anything in a gallery is art“
My wife and I were sitting in the gallery. Does that mean that we were to be considered as art?
Riding the bus without paying
There are some advantages to growing older. When our daughter turned 18 and was no longer eligible for reduced price tickets, we reached an age above which our cinema tickets were subject to discount. Our daughter was not amused.
If you are a London resident, you are eligible to receive a Freedom Pass after you pass a certain age over 60 years. This pass allows the holder to travel free of charge on London’s buses, trams, Underground trains, and national railway lines within certain limits. A London Freedom Pass holder can also use most local bus services anywhere within England (but not in Scotland). So, if you have the time and patience, it is possible to travel long distances in England free of charge by using a Freedom pass on local bus services.
‘K’, an old friend of mine, enjoyed exploring England with her Freedom Pass. On one of her earliest explorations, she set off from London to somewhere deep in the heart of Kent. She reached her destination eventually, having used a series of local buses without having to pay. The return journey was less successful.
K began her homeward trip and arrived at Tunbridge Wells at about five pm. When she made enquiries about local buses heading towards London, she received a diappointing answer. The last bus of the day that would taken her in her desired direction had already departed. The next would run on the following day. So, K was forced to return to London by train. Instead of paying nothing, she had to spend money on a costly one-way railway ticket. Her anticipated day of free travel ended up quite expensive. Since then, she has been more careful with her trip planning and not had a repeat of her unexpected travel expenses.
We make great use of the Freedom Pass when we are out of London. One of the best ‘bargains’ we have so far encountered was at Exeter in Devon. We parked our hired car at an Exeter ‘Park and Ride’ and boarded the bus which was to take us into the city. We were fully expecting to have to pay for a day’s parking and also the bus ride. When we showed our passes to the bus driver, he told us that there was nothing to pay.
Mahatma Gandhi ate in Notting Hill
Today, 36 Ledbury Road (illustrated) in London’s trendy Notting Hill district (made famous by the 1999 film Notting Hill starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts) gives nothing away about its colourful past. It was once the home of the Indian Catering Company, a restaurant run by Nizam-ud-Din, who also owned the Eastern Café near Chancery Lane.
The Indian Catering Company, which was serving customers during the reign of Edward VII (1901-10) was not the first Indian restaurant to have been opened in London. The first curry house in London was opened by Sake Dean Mahomet (born in India in the 18th century). An employee of the East India Company, which he joined in 1769, he arrived in London in 1807. Two years later, he opened his Hindostanee Coffee House at 34 George Street near Portman Square. Although it was called a ‘coffee house’, it was actually a restaurant serving curries and other examples of Indian cuisine. The restaurant thrived until 1833, when it was closed. There is much more information about this establishment in Star of India, a book by Jo Monroe.
By the time that the restaurant at 36 Ledbury Road was serving customers, the Indian Catering Company was one of many Indian restaurants in early twentieth century London. The reason for my interest in this former eatery is that it was a meeting place for extremist Indian independence fighters in Edwardian London. I discovered this while researching my recently published book IDEAS, BOMBS, and BULLETS.
Although he cannot be considered an ‘extremist’, the famous Mahatma Gandhi partook of a meal at the Indian Catering Company in Ledbury Road in October 1909. Here is an excerpt from my book:
“In October, the festival of Dussehra was celebrated at Nizam-ud-Din’s restaurant, The Indian Catering Company, at 36 Ledbury Road in Bayswater. Gandhi had been invited to chair the proceedings. He had accepted the invitation on condition that the food would be pure vegetarian and that discussion of controversial politics was avoided. The food was served by Savarkar’s followers: VVS Aiyar, Tirimul Acharya, and TSS Rajan, all sometime members of India House.”
Whereas Gandhi both preached and practised non-violence, the same cannot be said of VVS Aiyar, Tirimul Acharya, and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar ( a ‘father’ of Hindu Nationalism and Hindutva), who also attended the meal.
Although there is no plaque recording the interesting history of 36 Ledbury Road so near to Portobello Road, whenever I pass this house I feel a tingle when I remember the famous Indian freedom fighters who once entered it and ate there.
“IDEAS, BOMBS, and BULLETS” is by Adam YAMEY
ISBN: 9780244203870
The book is available from on-line stores including:
Amazon, Bookdepository.com, and lulu.com
It may also be ordered from bookshops
There is an e-book edition on Kindle
Blogging daily
A blog every day
Keeps my brain at work
And the reader happy
A definition of a blog (merriam-webster.com):
“a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer”
Healing hand
In the UK, dentists cannot refuse to treat patients who admit to having serious illnesses such as AIDS (HIV). Dentists are supposed to have taken precautions to protect their patients, their nursing staff, and themselves against the risks of spreading disease by cross-infection. However, human nature being as it is, some dentists fear catching diseaes from their patients despite adhering to the appropriate requisites to prevent cross-infection. Irrationally, they try to ‘palm off ‘ patients whose medical conditions they fear by referring them to dental hospitals and specialist clinics. This is unfair to the patients who are forced to wait for long periods to be seen at these referral places for ‘specialist’ treatment that they do not actually need. I was not one of these over cautious fear-filled dentists. I treated everyone whatever their medical status.
I have treated many patients who have been infected with AIDS and other worrying illnesses such as Hepatitis B and C. I followed cross-infection guidelines and treated them no differently than I did for other patients.
Many, but by no means all, of my patients were grateful for whatever I had done to deal with thier dental problems. Some of them, but not all of them, used to shake my hand and the end of an appointment or of a course of treatment. I appreciated that. What I noticed over the years was that the patients most likely to shake my hand were those who had been diagnosed with AIDS. I had the feeling that they were really grateful that I was prepared to touch their mouths without making a fuss about, or showing any fear of about their undoubtedly serious medical condition. The AIDS patients seemed to appreciate that I did not treat them as pariahs.
In the post
As a young boy in the early 1960s, I loved receiving mail. My parents were sent far more letters and packages than me and I was envious of them. With the experience of age, I guess I should not have been jealous of them because many of their mail items must have contained undesirable material such as bills, tax demands, and official notices. As I received only a very few things from the post man, I took action to increase the amount of mail I received.
I used to scour newspapers and magazines for forms that when filled in and sent off, led to holiday brochures being sent to me free of charge. I received booklets extolling the virtues of holiday resorts like the Norfolk Broads and seaside towns all over the UK. Also, I wrote to the town halls of every London Borough to ask them to send me their official handbooks, which they did.
Once, my parents received a colourful package from the Readers Digest. They gave it to me to enjoy. It contained beautiful pictures extracted from a world atlas they were trying to sell. There was also a piece of paper with two stickers on it. One said ‘no thanks’ and the other ‘yes please’. I stuck the latter onto a pre-paid reply form and posted it. Some weeks later, a beautiful world atlas was delivered to our home. My parents were not too thrilled by its arrival, but saw its value and sent a cheque to pay for it.
Some months later, more publicity material arrived from the Readers Digest. This time it advertised a three volume encyclopaedia of gardening. It looked irresistibly wonderful, even to a non-gardening youngster like me. Without consulting my parents, I sent off the ‘yes please’ sticker. After some delay, a huge parcel was delivered to our home. I unwrapped it. It contained the three beautifully illustrated hardback volumes of the gardening encyclopaedia and a fine wooden case to contain it. My parents were not at all pleased. They re-wrapped the lovely encyclopaedia and at great expense posted it back to the Readers Digest. From then on, they made certain that no more post from the Readers Digest reached me before first having been torn up.
The best coupon I ever filled in was to a Roman Catholic organisation. The coupon promised to send me twenty one booklets about Roman Catholicism. They arrived at weekly intervals, providing me with at least one package a week for 21 weeks. I never read any of them because for me it was the thrill of receiving post that I enjoyed rather than what was in the post.
Even though a lot of the mail I receive from the post man/woman is unexciting, I still get a thrilling sense of expectation when letters and packages addressed to me arrive in our letter box.
- Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com
If you think you have seen the light, think again…
My earliest memories of Hoop Lane (in Golders Green, northwest London) date back to when I was three or four years old, and therefore are rather vague. At that age, I attended a kindergarten in Hoop Lane. This was in the hall attached to Golders Green’s Unitarian Church (see photograph above), which was designed in the ‘Byzantine revival’ style by the architect Reginald Farrow (opened in 1925). It contains interesting artworks including a mural by Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979), which I have not yet seen.
The kindergarten was under the direction of Miss Schreuer, who lived a few doors away in Hoop Lane. My only lasting memory from my time there was when my father appeared at the school with a white beard and a red outfit, dressed as Father Christmas. A few years later, my sister and my cousins attended Miss Schreuer’s. One day while my sister was attending, I was allowed to return to the school to act as an older helper. One of my fellow pupils was the late Micaela Comberti (1952-2003), who was later to become an accomplished violinist. Her German mother and Italian father were friends of my parents.
I am not sure what became of Miss Schreuer, but I heard rumours that the end of her life was unhappy. Today, the hall, where her school flourished, is now a Montessori kindergarten. When I lived in the area (I left finally when I was aged thirty), I often walked past the school and the Unitarian Church. The latter had a panel facing the road, upon which posters with pious messages were posted. One that I will always remember said:
“If you think you have seen the light, think again”.
This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote a couple of years ago. If you wish to read the whole article, please visit:
Foolish on foot
Years ago, I had friends who lived south of Hampstead Heath in South End Green, near where the writer George Orwell lived during the 1930s. I often visited my friends there and usually stayed with them until long after public transport ceased working late at night – those were the days long before 24 hour bus services. In those days, I was a student with limited means. Taxi and minicab rides to my home in Hampstead Garden Suburb to the north of Hampstead Heath were costly and if used too often would eat too deeply into my meagre funds.
So, often I used to walk through the darkness to my home, a distance of well over 2 miles. Most of this walk was across the wooded stretches of Hampstead Heath. Even back in the 1970s, this vast expanse of urban woodland was far from safe. Murders and attacks were not unknown. My parents and others would have been horrified to learn that I was risking my life to save paying a cab fare. Was I scared? The answer was both yes and no. I was concerned because of the news stories I had read. Yet, on the other hand I was not so afraid.
I felt that anyone encountering me on my nocturnal wandering deep in the secluded heart of Hampstead Heath might have had one of two reactions. Either he or she might have imagined that I was up to no good and possibly on the prowl for victims and would therefore steer clear of me, or that the person whom I encountered was up to no good. If he or she was ill-intentioned, the person would have still had to be a little bit cautious because I might have turned out to be more than a match for him or her. This reasoning would have done me no good had the person I met been severely evil.
Fortunately, luck was on my side. I never encountered anyone, innocent or evil, on my nocturnal strolls. However, I would never even dream of making this kind of journey across Hampstead Heath again, and would not advise anyone else to attempt it because London has become more dangerous than it was in the 1970s and before.
Fear of flames
” I have always been filled with fear at the prospect of any physical intervention on my body. This may come as a surprise to anyone who knows that I am a dentist, who makes a livelihood from trying to assist people who fear my interventions, but this is the case.
For example, from an early age, I have feared going to the barber, an experience that most people enjoy. I am not certain whether this fear of having my hair cut originated from hearing the tale of the barber of Fleet Street, who used to deliver his unsuspecting customers to the basement of the butcher next door, in order for them to be turned into sausage meat. I still cling onto the armrests of the barber’s chair, just in case… Or, did my fear arise from the worry that I might be injured or infected by the scissors or the cut-throat razors, which are still used today?
There is yet another possible source of my ‘pre-barber angst’. This dates back to the 1950s, when I was less than ten years old. In those days, I used to be taken to a large hairdressing salon in Golders Green Road, where Mr Pearce attended to my coiffure. The salon was filled with a nauseous odour, that of people having the split ends of their hair singed with the flame of a lighted taper. What, I wondered, would have happened had Mr Pearce begun to singe my hair? Would my head have erupted into a fiery ball? Well, this never happened. My beloved, but neurotic, mother would never have allowed anyone to approach my hair with a flaming taper. Indeed, as a child, I was never allowed to hold a box of matches, even safety matches, because, my mother was concerned that it might have spontaneously burst into flames. She should have known better. Her grandfather manufactured matches in South Africa. “
This is a short extract from my book “Going without the Flow“, which is about the fear of surgery. It is available on Amazon, Bookdepository.com, Lulu.com, and Kindle
yamey 