Camley Street Natural 🏞 Park is not so much a secret garden but more of a miracle of survival. The area around King’s Cross, St. Pancras has long been cleaned of crack-heads and kerb-crawlers only to become a shrine to concrete monstrosities and shiny faceless office blocks.

The park is a wonderful two-acre wildlife sanctuary wedged between the railway tracks of St. Pancras and the Regents Canal.  Originally zoned as a lorry park this tiny gem has been stoutly defended from those slippery properly developers by the locals with the assistance of the London Wildlife Trust for more than thirty years.

There are kingfishers, dragonflies, frogs and an abundance of creepy-crawlies but to mention a few of the delightful inhabitants to be encountered.  Although you are never far from the thumps, rumbles and wailing of the city, this is a garden of serenity in the heaving megalopolis that is London.  It is well worth a visit and very well worth preserving.

Buried away in a cobbled mews off Russell Square, is the Horse Hospital.  In its Victorian heyday, this really was a sanctuary for sick horses, as the cobbled floors and the slated ramps instead of stairs will attest.

However, today this is a self-styled Chamber of Pop Culture, where an audience of eccentrics enjoys the most eclectic line-up of art events in London, from cult films to performance poets and clairvoyant workshops. In fact, anything goes – as long as it is defiantly anti-establishment.

The Horse Hospital, as it is today, was founded in 1993 by stylist and costume designer Richard Burton, one of the pioneers of punk fashion, together with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.

The current exhibition is a retrospective by the polish artist Ariela Widzer.  Her work concerns figurative manifestations of the occult and mysticism and is very apt for this atmospheric but more than slightly spooky space – only in London.

Today, we went to see a mural in Cable Street, Whitechapel, which records the ‘Battle of Cable Street’.

In 1936 Oswald Mosley led the British Union of Fascists on a march into the East End, at that time the centre of London Jewish life. Large numbers of anti-fascists, including

Jewish, Irish, socialist and communist groups came out to protest. The fascists were escorted by 10,000 police but nevertheless, battle ensued and they were forced to abandon the march.

The mural, very much in a Diego Rivera style, records the event in colourful detail. Even though the surrounding houses are fairly  dilapidated the work is very well maintained as an icon of East End history.

Lion or pussycat?

Here’s the skinny on the lions in Trafalgar Square and what artists have to do to make do. After much hullabaloo the commission for the four bronze beasts was given to Sir Edwin Landseer, Queen Victoria’s favourite 🎨 painter.

Landseer had an unrivalled reputation as an animal painter but had never sculpted anything in his life. He spent hours in London zoo studying the lions there but under time pressure and struggling with poor health,  he had to resort to using an ordinary domestic moggie 🙀 as a model.

The end result, the four bronze lions,  are both majestic and magnificent. But it’s nice to know that there is a bit of pussycat in there as well.

The Viaduct Tavern, 126 Newgate Street,  is a beautiful old Victorian tavern.  It has a wrought copper ceiling and a triptych of oil paintings representing Commerce, Agriculture, Science and the Fine Arts.  There was an opium den upstairs in the 19th century, but alas now closed.  However, the food and drink, the victuals served in the bar are excellent.

But what lies beneath?  Little remains of the infamous Newgate Prison.  It was London’s main prison for five centuries and built in a style known as ‘architecture terrible’ in an effort to discourage law-breaking.  The prison closed in 1902 but below the Viaduct Tavern cells have survived and they are genuinely horrible: cold, damp and

dark and in sharp contrast to the comfortable lounge upstairs.  Up to twenty criminals – usually debtors – were crammed into each one in what must have been total misery. Prisoners had to pay for the privilege of being locked up – or starve to death.

This is not only a regular haunt of ghost hunters and tales of bumps in the night and apparitions abound.  But it is also a genuine opportunity to visit the underbelly of a great city’s less salubrious past.

I am spending a week in London with my friend Gary.  We are staying just behind Tate Modern, a great location. However, rather than visit the big tourist attractions yet again, on this trip we are determined to find the odd, the obscure, the kitsch and the lesser-visited places of interest.

I have always been a Holmes and Watson devotee but standing outside the Abbey National Building Society at 221b Baker Street, their fictional address, has always been nothing short of a deflating experience.  However, I have recently discovered that in 1951, as part of the Festival of

Britain, the building society staged an exhibition at its offices, recreating the sitting room at 221b according to the theatre design of Michael Weight.  This can be found today, intact, in the former Northumberland Arms pub, now known as the Sherlock Holmes.  It is delightfully kitsch but the attention to detail makes it worth it.

There is a reference to many of the stories, for example, The Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Dancing Men.   The is a wax dummy of the famous detective with a bullet hole in his forehead, a reference to The Adventure of the Empty House.  To top it all the food and craft beers are excellent.  I think Holmes and Watson would have been very much at home here.  

I have always thought of drawing as a form of meditation or mindfulness.  It is a process which not only involves hand, mind, and heart but also it is essential to stop thinking and to and live in the moment, in fact, to go beyond thinking.

That sounds very arty-farty, I know, but everyone knows how to get into their own particular, special zone.  The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “You never exist quite so much as when you are not thinking.” and that guy knew a thing or two.  So why not grab a pencil or better still a big piece of charcoal, slip the brain into neutral and get down and dirty with a bit of sketching.  But, don’t expect perfection because it ain’t out there.

Above are of two of my recent drawings, pencil on paper.  Whilst the act of drawing involves a non-thinking mode, there is a certain thought process behind the images.

They represent the journey of life and how we should live our lives, in other words, my favourite hobby horse.   Is the journey of life just a case of getting through, going along with the crowd and joining the club or should we commit to our lives?  Should we take hold of our own life, manifest our talents and become the person that we really are?  The first drawing shows a moment in time and a moment in life on the Antrim Road, Belfast near the Waterworks Park, a very familiar location to me.  The second shows an endless stream of people walking through the centre of Belfast, passing Tesco Metro and the Reform Club.  There is a musician who, daily, scratches out a tune near this location.  He plays an unusual instrument called a Stroh violin or phonofiddle.  Here, in this drawing, he is providing the background music to this march of humanity through their lives.

Joe and I were going to find it difficult to top our experience on Skellig Michael but Great Blasket came very close.  Great Blasket has been occupied from pre-history and it overlooks the location where a number of the Spanish Armada ships were wrecked. A small farming and fishing community exceeded a population of 150 in the early 20th century but then dwindled to a small number when the island was vacated in 1953. The old village above the Trá Bán (White Strand) is situated on the north-eastern side of the island, facing the mainland and Slea Head.

We organized the boat trip and a two-day stay on the island through Billy and Alice on https://www.greatblasketisland.net and I couldn’t fault the experience.  We left from Dingle Harbour in Billy’s boat the Peig Sayers.  Billy is not only a very friendly guy and an expert boatman but also a fund of local knowledge.  On the trip to the island, he introduced us to Fungi the dolphin and he was able to bring the boat close to the cliffs to explain many local and geological features.

When we reached the island we were delighted to find that we were to stay in Peig Sayers house.  Now, Great Blasket isn’t all about Peig Sayers, in fact, the island has produced many renowned writers; Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig Sayers, Muiris Ó Súilleabháin, Eibhlis Ní Shúilleabháin, Seán Ó Criomhthain, Máire Ní Ghuithín.  This embarrassment of creativity and literary wealth has to be a testament to the inspirational environment to be found on this tiny piece of earth.  However, since you are staying in her house it’s worth doing a bit of research on Peig as a way of getting in touch with local history and culture.

Peig Sayers (1873-1958)

Peig, although not a native, lived on the island from 1892 to 1942.  She was a legendary story teller and recorded her biography as well as hundreds of ancient legends, ghost stories, and folk tales.  As many a student of the Irish language will attest, she comes across as a gloomy old gal but maybe she had just cause, life was tough back in the day.  You also get the impression that she lived in black and white as we are used to her staring out at us from old photographs. However, as Joe and I sat outside her house we realized that she lived in glorious Technicolor under massive skies. The view must have given her much joy and many uplifting moments, although not altogether obvious in her work.  It’s like looking at a map of another world with the smaller Blaskets in the foreground, the mainland of Ireland off to the right and the majestic and mysterious Skelligs on the horizon.

The accommodation is hostel style with no electricity or hot water.  If you are expecting fresh fluffy towels and a mint or your pillow every night, then this is not for you. However, if you enjoy that thrill of excitement at the chance to tap into another world and, maybe, find out something about yourself then this is a must.

Walking on the island is a great pleasure.  I am sure there are many dark days during the winter but while Joe and I were there the light was not only shimmering but constantly changing making every walk a fresh adventure and Great Blasket a very special place.

Source: Dan and Joe’s Tour of the Wild, Wild West-Skellig Michael