Adelaide Road

Here's another piece of writing from the workshop on Tuesday 15 February at Holborn Library:

A Letter to Great-Great Granduncle from Cork, Ireland
Vincent van Morrison, artist and scallywag.

Dear Uncle Vincent,

Thank you for the lovely prints of portraits of the Mayor of Brussels. I am sorry to say they ended up as lining of the birdcage again, but you know Sis and her love creating misfortune ironically and especially these days since her dismissal from the Ministry of Incontinence; also she has stopped taking her medication again and taken to wearing only the colour yellow.
How I wish it was like back in your day when the only treatment for dementia was an afternoon screaming at cats along with abundant drinking of absinthe purchased at Mr. Muggles’ Dispensary & Sundries at No 27 Adelaide Road.
Adelaide Road has indeed changed since your last visit in the autumn of 1887. They have managed to clear the bloodstains from several refurbished buildings and the street no longer has the fragrance of dog dung. That has been replaced by the scent of vomit but fortunately since our neighbour Mr Poole has decided to stop bathing we hardly notice it.
We are looking forward to your visit in spring as it is always great fun when you terrorise the tourists in the Belsize Park tube station by singing rude limericks and appearing in the form of a giant prawn.
Also Bertram Fitzhugh will be coming to visit about the same time and he is bringing his suitcase of hand buzzers, squirting buttoner and other novelty devices. Ah good times, indeed.
Please give my regards to the Duke and tell him not to worry, he can pay me the £4.80 when he has it.

A Handshake in Thought,
Chuquai

By Chuquai Billy

Here's some more writing from the second workshop at Camden archives and local studies centre on January 29th from Brigid McGann -

Dear Great Grandmother Agatha,

The world has changed a great deal since you were around.
Your daughter Catherine has passed away sadly, as have all
but one of her seven children. The only one remaining is called
Noel and he lives in Downpatrick. He is retired now and he lives
alone. He was a parish priest but I can't remember the name of
the diocese where he was.

Love

Your great grand-daughter Brigid

I can hear the sounds of birds singing in the hedges. I can hear the
gentle sound of cattle mooing and the plaintiff calls of sheep in the
distance. Now and again the farm collie barks as someone approaches
the farmhouse.

I can smell the sweet pungent smell of cow manure coming from the
cow sheds and the smell of fresh country air that's full of moisture of
rain in the offing.

I can see the grey stone walls of the farmhouse, the dark brown of the ploughed fields, the piebald splashes of color of the cows against the lush green of the fields surrounded by grey stone walls. The sky is grey too, dark with rain clouds rolling in from off the sea.

I can taste the creamy taste of butter-mild that’s left over after you
made butter in a small wooden churn, shaping it lovingly with small wooden paddles.

I can taste the strong taste of tea that has been left stewing over
the fire in the kitchen, bubbling away on the fire, ready to pour if a neighbour or friend should drop by.

I think my great grandmother Agatha is not very tall, as people in those days
were not as tall as they are now. I think she had very long white
hair rolled into a bun that she wore held in place with hairpins. I think she would have worn a neat white cotton blouse with a brooch at the collar, a black cardigan with a long black skirt, thick beige stockings and leather shoes with a strap fastening and low heels.

Dear Bill,

I am writing to you because I am at my wits end because you are hardly ever
home. I know that it is the lot of a sailor's wife to spend many weeks alone
without the man she loves but this life is becoming intolerable.

It was the last straw when you wrote me a letter telling me that you had
jumped overboard and nearly drowned trying to rescue someone's hat that
had fallen in the water. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing? If it
hadn't been for the man who risked his life to save you I would be a widow
now.

I love you dearly but I'm afraid I can't take any more so I am going to see a
lawyer about a separation. I'm so sorry.

Your loving wife

Agatha

by Brigid McGann

WRITING BY ANNE COELHO from the second archives workshop on Jan 29th

My Dear Frederick,

It grieves me – almost as much as I fear this letter will you – to pen these words which I have oft put off from writing. Alas, I can procrastinate no longer!

As you know, your proposal last month was quite unanticipated and, whilst a most flattering surprise, placed me in a dilemma, the like of which I have heretofore never experienced.

Being the only child of an elderly parent whose health is failing carries a most singular responsibility. I have, as you well know, been confidante, companion and nursemaid as well as doted-upon daughter to my dear father, in whose eyes I can do no wrong. Our souls seem to be made of the same stuff as, indeed, are our minds and hearts.

I have tried on many an occasion to picture myself living with you, in our own home, away from Papa, whilst he languishes in the care of a live-in nursemaid. Not to see my father daily or share with him all those minutiae that comprise life, not to cheer him with an anecdote when his mood is low or comfort him when he is troubled or unwell – in short, all the very things that have filled my life these last nine years since Mama passed away – seems unimaginable. These myriad actions form the very fabric of my life. In truth, their pattern is traced on my heart. Thus am I unable to accept your proposal.

I implore you to believe that in different circumstances I would have been able to give you a different answer and hope you can understand the reasons behind my reluctant decision, which has not been taken lightly.

Please know that I continue to hold our friendship in esteem and rest assured you will always be a welcome visitor to Adelaide Road.

I hope to remain, dear Frederick,

Your friend

Emily Foxharte

WRITING by MICHAEL ANDREW from 2nd archives workshop on January 29th

Great Uncle Obidiah

Dear Obidiah,

There are so many changes in this world, it is hard to know where to begin. The speed of the trains (remember where you stood to watch that steam belching monster pass through Primrose Hill Tunnel in Adelaide Rd.). You could not dream then of voer 90 m.p.h. It is so built up her now with high rise buildings rising high in the sky.

The street vendors are so noisy.
The clip-clop of the horses hooves.
The carts, the shouting, the dogs and the whistles.
The moo of the cows.

The smell of the fields and the hay all around.
The stench of the dung heap I’ll be bound.
The choking smell of the steam from the engine.
The scent of the candle flame, the horse chestnuts on the fire!

The embankment is dun brown
And the engine jet black
And in amongst the carriages gaily colour scarves
And bonnets of every hue.
The grey of the steam and the silver of the rails.
And the magnificent pure white brick and stone at the entrance portal.
The black hats, the brown rats.

The awful taste of the steam, thickening the tongue.
The succulent smell of the beef from the basket we bought.
The eggs, the salt, the butter & bread.
The taste of the coal dust and the taste of the lead.

Obidiah is of an average height. Small, very oval eyes with a little twinkle and a slight hook nose. Black mutton chop sideboards that fall below the extensive jaw line. Thin, whispy hair that is slowly receding.

My dear, dear boy,

I hope this letter finds you well and in fine spirits. I cannot say of late that my own feelings are of happiness or indeed contentment. I have been, as you well know, with my adored wife Isabella these past 15 years. I have never sought the delights and company of another woman, such is my deep felt love.

By Michael Andrew

Writing from Anna Cookson

Adelaide Road Workshop – 29th Jan 2011 – Camden Library


Dear Rebecca,

I really don’t know if it’s better or if it’s worse. Marriage isn’t necessarily the castle and the keep any more. I mean, as a woman, there are so many choices. What did you think? A man, a family? A vocation? Is that simplifying things too much? Today we’re blessed with education and opportunities – but they spiral out in front of us – a great billowing spider’s web of choices. Each path glitters in the baby soft sun – but the threads are fragile and they might break if you step on them. To work, to have a job. To put your body under the boot-laced pressures of the workplace and all the time – tick tock, tick tock – they tell you your time is running out for a family. And, that you should want a family and you should keep your career. Oh, and while you’re at it you should be sexy and thin and fritter your money away on dying your hair because – ironically ‘you’re worth it.’ Is it worth it? Did you feel ‘worth it’? Did you worry about becoming all the time or did you just take every day as an opportunity just to live? The wall papered walls press us in different ways I think – we live in different boxes – but it’s still a box.


The faint hum of a motor vehicle outside the window sounds cloggy and unhealthy – more like a lawn mower. Birds chirrup in between the spluttering, guttering rhythm. A clock beats a gentle heartbeat on the window-sill. Time – it would seem – keeps to the same seconds here. A woman hums a tune I don’t know in the rasping strains of an elderly throat. I listen harder. I notice there isn’t so much to listen to – there are gaps where the traffic and building sites should be. And there – a shrill whistle – like you’d expect to hear in the ‘olden day’ movies and I bet myself the owner is wearing a dirty, floppy flat cap and has a spade flung over his shoulder. There’s a peace here – but the silence is scary – like I’m waiting for London to become what I know – and the transition will be rough and, well, loud.


The burning burnished petrol smell hurls insults against my nostrils. A fire? I head to the window where I see it belongs to a rattley, jolty motor car knocking out the sounds of a lawnmower and beating out the fumes of a small factory. I shut the window. Inhale. The slow roasting lamb wafts up from the bowels of the house – flecked with rosemary – it’s earthy and homely but somehow, in this room, it doesn’t quite fit. As I wonder over to the bed; a twang of lavender. I source it back to a small, soft embroidered pouch. I pick it up and hold it against my nose with my eyes shut and breathe in the smell of those days - it paints my mind with pictures, in the shades of purple and blue.


The silky daffodil sunlight glances in through the sweaty pane. It’s distracted. It can’t concentrate on illuminating the greys and greens of the flocking wallpaper because there’s a whole street to light in grasshopper greens and crinkly muddy browns. But in that diaphanous light your world is drawn in sulky swirls. Were you trapped here? Did you trace the pastel petals of this paper and look for the answer in the feint and fading florals? They seem to sigh and, as they do, a little more of their colour fades out of them. And a little bit more of the answer breathes out with them – soaked out by the sun. My hand is grey too as it reaches out and traces the anxious ochre of the dressing table – wipes off the silvery dust and sneezes a spectrum of memories.


The more I stare at it, the more I can taste your wallpaper. I can taste the sweat of meat and two veg. The steam, heavy with cheap cuts, laden with fat, imprints itself into the walls – pushes its bilious palms against them. I swallow. Your faintly rose-hued perfume rushes at me then – the alcohol picks my throat, pungent, raw. But beyond that, as I blink back the reek of that eau-de-generic, I can taste your closure, your distress. It shrieks into my mouth carrying your screams with it. I feel trapped and I open my mouth to pant it out – but the sensation stays clinging to my tongue, sucks out the air and I wonder if this is what it tasted like for you too.



Rebecca:

Your mahogany curl creeps out from your bonnet - ever unruly, ever out of fashion. But your broad-brimmed beam is right on trend. Your cheeks – pinched and pink from the outside – change colour with your emotions. They indicate. But the real barometer is in your eyes. Deep, deep whirlpools of feeling flecked irises. You can’t hide there – like the top of the water reflects the sky above – there lies your soul – animated and active and kicking to get out. Your hands wring with the knowledge of it. Cracked skin from the laundry – you can’t afford help with that. And the folds in your long skirts are elegant and simple. They’re beautiful – like you are - if you only knew it.


Rebecca wakes up the night after Albert has told her he doesn’t believe in love. They’re married – she had hopes and dreams and the perfect life mapped out. He’s pragmatic – in it for the convenience and an easy life.



When I open my mind to the morning – the pallid baby light playing with the curtains – the first thing I sense is your breath. The rise and fall. Flowing. Unconcerned. How can you sleep so deeply? How can you just lie there all relaxed when you’ve shattered me? Last night you opened a door into a room I thought I’d never enter. I was in love. I was in love with the idea of love. I still am. But you sit outside my ideal on a cold hard chair in that cold square room that you’ve dragged me into and you tell me it was a ‘pragmatic’ decision. Convenience marriage. I’m some kind of laundry machine, some kind of penis receptacle. My body is yours but you don’t want the rest of it. Why don’t you? You said “I do” like I did at the altar but you just “don’t” and I do. I still do.

Your breath now sucks the life out of me and it’s clammy in the half light and I want to hold you but your words are an invisible force field repelling me. This was not how it was supposed to be. It’s black and white and I wanted colour. Even the wallpaper seems to fade when it stares at me now. The colour leaks out of it like the love is being drained out of me. Very soon we will both be sepia and then we will fade to ashen grey – that’s if I make it till then. After that, this fated flocking will have to carry my story on for me – it will take these greys and my grief in to the future. I don’t want that future any more.

By Anna Cookson

WRITING BY PAULINE SEWARDS from Jan 29th archives workshop

Letter to my Great to the power of n Grandchild. This is written on the last day of my life - the 29th of January 1611.
‘Weak beer is less dangerous than water’, they say.
Today I will drink water, reckless in the face of my impending death. Clear silver water from the stream by Adelaide Road, the stream at the end of my garden, the rushing water that sounds like the laughter of a child. Wild water, not stale like the Holy Water they will sprinkle to protect themselves from my corpse.
I have already eaten my last meal; bread, meat so hot that the fat spitted back at me, and pungent mustard. The bread was heavy and dense but no bread could be heavy enough to assuage my hunger. I face an eternity of hunger.
Now I wait for my last journey, on the cart. To be dragged down Adelaide Road over Primrose Hill to Tyburn. I anoint myself now with herbal infusions to inure my body against the pain to come. Tansy, ergot, pennyroyal and sage will daze and sooth my senses.
Yesterday I spat a curse into the stream that runs at the end of my garden. The stream runs between my house and my neighbour's. This curse will travel through the water and take shape as a frog, or a newt and then a bird. A sharp beaked bird which will hop and fly into my neighbour’s house and cast a small but dark and definite shadow on the windowsill of the room where she sits. My neighbour is not alone. She is not sad. She is not frightened. Her face is flushed pink and plump as she sits cooing and spooning soup into the mouth of a gurgling baby. My child. My own child.
If you, my great to the nth grandchild, could see this baby’s face you would know my face. My features in miniature as raw as an unfeathered bird. And you would also recognise yourself. My features are my inheritance to you. Eyes like cloudy skies, russet hair and a nose that is too large and slightly crooked. I have given you another inheritance too. A dangerous attribute. Best kept a secret.
When my neighbour offered to deliver my baby I thanked her. I thought she was my generous good friend. Although she refused to rub my back, or give potions for the pain, or even water I thought she was being a helper to me. Even when she drew you out of my body with wrenching tongs of iron I thought all was for the best. But as you gave your first cry she wrapped you in a sacking blanket and took you away. She claimed she’d seen the devil in my bedchamber, which was nonsense. She also claimed she’d seen the third flowering on my bosom, the extra nipple, the mark of the witch. I have to admit this was perfectly true. But there was no need to betray me.
There was every need to betray me.
She wanted my child.
I hope the cursed bird will cause my neighbour some personal problems. Sour milk and dead roses is probably all my magick can conjure. I always used my powers for healing and goodness you see, although they didn’t believe that at my trial. My neighbour was the true maleficium but I am the one who will burn.
I have seen the future, the stone trees with jewelled eyes that will grow around Adelaide Road, the demonic animals that will rattle down the streets day and night. The smoke that consumes nothing.
I see you in a glass walled castle drinking slipping a spell from a paper packet into a cup of potion. You are reading this letter my great to power of n granddaughter – you have inherited my cloudy eyes and my russet hair. What else have I passed on?
With love
Eloise, the Witch of Adelaide Road

WRITING FROM TERENCE JAMES EELES at archives workshop

If you were still here, Jeremy – that hand of yours would not write letters, your suits would not be suitable, and the phone calls you ignored would not be corded to a lump of shiny plastic; sitting stupid on the smooth, varnished wood of your father’s legal desk. You’d have to hide on the streets instead, Jeremy - whispering down hand heavy receivers inside the bright red of London call boxes. The bright red of watered-down, diluted blood - the blood-red that somewhere down the line technically bonds us.
And the same red that would not bring us any closer.
But you’d still be dead to me, Jeremy - and walking the Adelaide Road alone. Past the sound of strangers and the sound of their steps, their quality-made shoes. Their heel’s click and their clack and the squeak of Italian leather. Of flesh, muscle and skin breaking and grafting the leather down into submission, obedience. Not like today’s cheap tat.
Where some phone calls last longer.
But sounds of these passing strangers last a life time.
Your steps, walking away from George when he needed you most, are still lasting now.

Despite the champagne-tinged sepia of your time’s photography, spoiling your fashion’s greys, beiges and browns, the sky hangs blue behind white clouds free of dirt, but the city’s smog still lingering in the periphery, trying to smother the senses. Not enough to numb the sting of flowers, of pollen ticking my nose, summer rushing through the parks and streets and mingling with the tacky and unrefined scent of perfumes and colognes on wandering strangers. It cheapens to pass them in the streets, and I expect you bought into these fragranced nuances. In your three-piece suit, the waves in your sandy hair swept across your brow and wiley blue eyes. Your stern gaze calibrated down the bridge of your nose looking down on me fractionally as I would shake your tough, tough hand. Shaking the apparent thick four-fingers, thumb and palm of a workman.
But you’ve never truly grafted in your life, Jeremy. You haven’t earned or served those hands like George did. The inky-black proof he wore--the nude women draped over anchors and insignia--tattooed on his forearms for all to see.
Four fingers, thumb and palm - your father handed your life to you, and you hid your life from George.

Drink and smoke, the stale and bitter kiss of yeast in stagnant drip trays, the car-exhaust suck of cigarette tar, where you’d go for fun sickens me. Spilt booze and ash crushed into carpet, a down-trodden fabric collecting a regretted life-time of drunk, bad decisions.
And I wonder Jeremy, if it was in a place just like this, tanked-up on a sewer of drink, where your sneaky old man met her.
George’s mother.
And the rest I suppose is history.

***

George:

Despite our father’s exquisite mess, what he wallowed in with that tart so shallowly, and in such a spectacular fashion, you’d do best not writing or calling again. Not your brother, not your kin. In this family, your blood’s not welcome.

Jeremy.

By Terence James Eeles

This is the first chance I've had to read this excellent work from a workshop I'd loved to have been part of. All of the above makes brilliant and engaging reading. In the workshops we catch just snippets as we go around and here are the complete stories. Threads out from the same ball of wool that is the idea but burnished with the individual imagination - whether simplicity or complexity marks the style. This work, a stunning read.Thanks.

WRITING FROM ANNA COLLOMS

Back in the day

My grandfather Jim has blue eyes behind round gold-rimmed glasses, is 5ft11, well-built with gardener’s muscles and strong back. His hair is light brown, slightly tousled. He has a determined nature and a quiet listeners’ approach. He is a librarian.

Letter to my grandfather

The library is still there grandpa, but you probably would have been made redundant if you were still alive. There are ‘self serve’ machines where people try and borrow and return their books, though they often end up queuing to see the few staff remaining, the machines aren’t quite what they’re cracked up to be. You’d be surprised at other changes in the area – Hampstead Theatre, that intimate temporary shack that was there for so many years was pulled down and a new theatre built. It’s bigger of course, but it’s still special. I would have liked to have gone there with you.

Sounds
Catalogue drawers being opened, cards searched through and the drawer shut again. Squeaky soles and clicky heels on hardwood floors. Pages turning, books being taken from shelves and the clunk of others being shelved. Moments of concentrated silence. Whispered conversations.

Smells
The sweat and scent of visitors, collected cards tightly stored in wooden drawers and the dust of untouched books and undusted shelves.

Colours
Blonde wood and white railings of spiral stairs, dark brown grained desktops, honey brown shelves lined with blue, red, black, brown, orange and green spines, sunlight beaming dust motes into twinkling gyrating sparks, blue sky visible through tall windows.

Tastes
Morning tea after a long period of not eating or drinking, dry mouth as if I’ve swallowed hundreds of years of dust and chewed all the books on the shelves into pulp.


Letter from Jim to his sister

Dear Sis,

I’m feeling very sorry for myself, life has lost its interest since I found out that Rose has been seeing another man. There’s no pleasure any more in going to work, in the sounds and sights I used to enjoy.