piccadilly to tower hill

July 31, 2023July 31, 2023Leave a comment

I didn’t do a lot of London sketching on the first few days of our trip, just what I could get in quick moments. The one above was drawn while waiting for my wife, I was outside Waterstones in Piccadilly (in the building which used to be Simpson, Piccadilly, the old department store which was the inspiration for the TV show Are You Being Served). Looking towards Piccadilly Circus. It was the sky that interested me.

We walked into Mayfair and up towards Savile Row. It’s incredible, I’ve never actually been up Savile Row. I explored London for years but for some reason Mayfair a lot less so, though I would give open-top bus tours round a lot of the fancy squares and high-end streets, twenty-odd years ago. I had it in my head that Savile Row was further up, on the other side of Oxford Street somewhere, but of course it’s just a block off Regent Street. I do love that even in London I can be surprised and find places I’d not really been to before. The only place on Savile Row I was interested in seeing of course was #3, now an Abercrombie and Fitch, but that was once the HQ of the Beatles’ Apple Corps, and where they played that concert on the roof in January 1969. Watch ‘Get Back’, it’s my favourite thing ever (right up there with Star Wars and The Dark Crystal). There’s a blue plaque to commemorate the historic event, and so I put that in my sketchbook.

We were on our way to take a London Walk, over by St.Paul’s. It was the walk called “Old London”, and was a two-hour-plus stroll through ancient streets in the City, ending up at Tower Hill. It was a hot day, but our guide was excellent and she took us along streets I hadn’t explored in years, or didn’t even know about (and I have given walking tours in this part of London myself years ago). See https://www.walks.com/ for details on all their walks, given by accredited blue-badge guides, they are great and know a lot more than me. I was remembering some of the old stuff I used to know, but was fascinated by the stories. I did one sketch of St. Vedast-Alias-Foster, one of the many Christopher Wren churches, while we waited.

When it was over my wife got the tube back home while I stayed out a bit longer to do some sketching before dinner. I decided to draw the Tower, with that big sundial thing in the foreground. I was pretty tired though, my heart wasn’t really in it, so I left it as it was and got on the District Line. We were off to Scotland next day.

watling centre

July 30, 2023July 30, 2023Leave a comment

As with most of my trips back to the UK, there’s usually a sketch from Burnt Oak at the start of it. I wake up early and get out for morning walk with my sketchbook, eager to draw something that isn’t the UC Davis Bike Barn or something. I didn’t walk very far on this one morning, just up to the corner of Orange Hill and Deansbrook, a couple of minutes form my mum’s house. I’m getting very conscious that I won’t be doing this forever. There will be a day when I don’t come back to Burnt Oak much, like everyone else who left, and maybe I won’t even come back to London as much; I’m always torn with the idea of letting London go, but I just can’t, can I. It’s still my favourite city, annoy me though it does. It is definitely feeling too crowded, and while that may be just because I’m coming from less-crowded Davis in a state designed for bigger cars and wider roads (I don’t even drive, I ride a bike), there seems to be so many more cars parked along all these narrow roads, crammed three or four fold onto small driveways built for one or two. I’m not a fan of this new ‘ULEZ’ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) expansion that is happening – although London evidently needs to improve its air quality – it forces a lot of people who do need their car to buy a newer car they can’t really afford. Mostly though I just think it’s a rubbish name, they really could have come up with something better, I mean if it didn’t sound like a 2nd-person-plural French verb ending it might catch on more with the crowd who don’t like the sound of that sort of thing. But as I see all the cars squeezing themselves around the streets in these old neighbourhoods, I think to myself something needs to be done to reduce or discourage the number of cars. This street in particular, Orange Hill Road, it seems there is usually traffic backed all the way up from Watling Avenue almost to Deansbrook, but when there isn’t, cars will sometimes bomb down here like it’s 200cc MarioKart. I was up early, but even at this hour there was a lot of traffic. This is the Watling Centre. I stood next to the bus stop across the street to draw; as this is Britain, people started queuing up behind me in a polite line, I had to gesture for them to go ahead of me. I’m still disappointed that TFL removed the very useful 305 bus route that came up here, joining our part of Burnt Oak with Edgware. So, the Watling Centre, this is where my mum and dad had their wedding party back in 1991. They obviously met a long time before that, otherwise I’d be a lot younger. I remember that party, we had a lot of family and friends there, friends we loved, family we liked, and also family we didn’t like, that’s how it goes, but it was a good party. There was a lot of dancing to Irish songs, small kids running around. My schoolfriend Terry came, I still have a photo of him in his blue cardigan. I remember eating an entire chocolate mousse cake, because when I was 15 I could eat everything in London and still be like a gangly skinny rake with unbrushable red hair. My uncle Eddie wheeled a shopping trolley with all the remaining booze in it back to our house, and then told me stories all night about my dad in the old days. Fun times. It’s funny, I know I have been to many other events here but I don’t remember them all now. I think this is where I briefly went to karate class, which despite being taught by a family friend, I only went to twice, with my neighbour across the street. There was another kid from my form class at school who showed up, and he was the sort of kid to take the piss the entire time and then continue at school next day, so I stopped going. In earlier years, I would go to the field next to this building with other local kids and look for conkers, because we all knew this was the best place in Burnt Oak to get good conkers. Anyway that’s enough “I ‘member when…” mawkish memories and city-planning moans. I have a few more London sketches to post, then it’s Scotland all the way. We had a great time up there, but I may have drunk too much Irn Bru.

Afternoon at the Nags

July 19, 2023July 19, 20232 Comments

After spending the day in South Ken and Knightsbridge, I sought out another place I have not been to in over two decades. The Nags Head, in a quiet back road behind the busy Knightsbridge, was an old favourite place of mine in the late 90s, where I would go with my friends Rob (a mate from university), and Nick (an old schoolfriend of Rob, whose family lived in an apartment steps away from the pub). It’s an old place, stock full with interesting decoration, like a step into another world. And it had not changed in all this time. The landlord Kevin Moran was there; I remember him from all those years ago, and I had a nice chat with him while sat inside the pub, cooling off from the very hot weather outside. He was telling me of his various travels. When I first came by, I actually started to do a sketch outside, with the intention of finishing that and coming in to cool off, but I was already so warm that I did only the outline outside, stood in the narrow street in the sunshine. There was a group of South African lads outside (not pictured in the sketch); when I was waiting to order a pint I heard one say to Mr Moran, while pointing out a sketch of the pub that was hanging on the wall, that he saw another artist outside doing a drawing a bit like this. There were about two or three different sketches of the pub on the walls, inside and outside. I said, “Yeah that was me!” and showed them what I’d done already. The music was nice in there, very relaxing, and Mr. Moran chatted with his customers, and would ask how people were doing, sometimes popping out for a chat with the South African lads. I sketched the inside as I drank my cold beer, sat in a little corner I have a photo of me sitting in back in about 1999. I remember spending new year’s eve 2001-2002 in here, one of the last times I visited, and a Canadian friend Ben (who I lived with for a short while in France; I was back visiting from Aix at the time) was with me and entertaining people with card tricks, being a magician. No cellphones allowed in here still; back in those days only a few of us had them, and I never liked using them much anyway, but still funny to see the same sign. I chatted for a while with another old regular called David, a well-travelled man who loves London but was reassuring that I’d done the right thing by moving to California, because California is pretty great (and I agree). I showed Mr. Moran the sketch afterwards and he liked it, and later on I finished off the outside drawing as well. It was really nice to find this place again; without the modern GPS on my phone, I think I may have struggled to remember where it was.

This last sketch below was drawn very close by on Knightsbridge, the top of the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel. It’s a pretty glorious building, though I was getting tired of drawing and left it at the roof and the speckled May sky. I’m fairly sure I’ve been into the bar there before with Rob and his pals, back in those late 90s. Hyde Park Corner has some of the most expensive hotels in London. I did pop into Harrods nearby for a little bit, to take a look around the Food Court, but I didn’t stay long as I needed to get to my sister’s place by Grahame Park, Colindale, for dinner, and then back home for a late night Zoom meeting with California (that finished at 1am my time…). I was pretty tired after a day of sketching and stepping back in time, but it was well worth it.

A visit to the V&A

July 18, 2023July 18, 20233 Comments

I had another day of London sketching ahead of me. On this particular trip, I often worked remotely in the evenings, but got some much needed sketchbook exploring done in the daytime. I like South Kensington, so I headed in that direction. I didn’t have much of a plan, maybe I’d go to the Natural History Museum (add a dinosaur to the sketchbook) but I got out at the station and remembered I really wanted to draw that station. South Ken is a world away from Burnt Oak. Whenever I come back to London from California, one of the first things I notice is the litter on the streets. People really don’t just throw their garbage on the ground in Davis, but they definitely do in Burnt Oak, you see cans and broken glass and (the newest litter item) those thin vape packets, because the past few years has seen loads of people suddenly start vaping, way more than you would see here. So in addition to the cigarette butts thrown liberally on the ground, now people just throw their vape packets too, along with sweet wrappers, bottles, bits of old furniture, someone else’s problem. The top of my mum’s street especially has random trash just left there for weeks, broken glass all over the pavement. It’s very noticeable when you live somewhere where people generally don’t litter. That’s why I notice it when I go to South Kensington, because the streets there are usually well kept and clean, much more than in north London. Anyway, as I stood in this sparklingly clean utopia, worried that my dirty Burnt Oak feet would smudge the posh pavements, I whipped out the sketchbook and drew the tube station, using that gold pen again. I have this idea of drawing all the London Underground stations, but not just from photos as I did when I was drawing all the Leslie Greene stations (and as I have seen some other online sketchers do – drawing tube stations is very popular as a subject, I wholeheartedly endorse it!), but in person, which is a bit impractical, given that I live 5000 miles away and usually have better things to do when I come home. But it was good to notch another one off my list. I went to explore the area.

I remembered that I had wanted to draw the V&A building at some point. I always loved that massive museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, but I realized I had not been inside in about twenty years, maybe more, yes I think maybe twenty-five years, I think I went to an exhibition with my mum and my sister in the late 90s. Wow. I used to pass by it on my old bus tour, and tell tourists that it was one of the gems of London, free to go inside, packed full of visual decorative delights. We used to have to go there on school day trips with my art class, as they would encourage us to go around with our sketchbooks looking for patterns to inspire us, and take them back to make into some sort of graphic art. I used to sketch in those days too, out and about, though not quite as much as now. More often than not those school day-trips would be an excuse to mess about with my friends. I found a shaded spot opposite the building, on the very busy Thurloe Place (I always thought that was still Brompton Road but checking the map I guess that I was wrong). I had penciled an outline to draw a two page panorama, but I got a bit impatiend with that idea and kept it to just a page and a bit. It’s an amazing building. On a little green a minute or so away were about five or six burly police officers, standing just away from a group of young people all sat in a circle carrying “Just Stop Oil” banners. This might kick off I thought, so I stayed away, but not too far away that I wouldn’t see what would happen. Nothing did. When I was done with the drawing, I sat on a bench and thought about lunch, I was hungry. However, I really wanted to go inside and explore. Hunger be damned, I went in.

I am a bit annoyed with myself that I have not been going to the V&A on every trip back to London for the past two decades, because it really is amazing in there. I could have spent the entire rest of the day sketching and exploring. I found myself thinking, I should not look at too much, I should save that for when I come back next time with my wife, she’d love this. But I had to finish off this Fabriano sketchbook, I only had one page left. I filled that with a few items seen above (coloured in later). What I love about the V&A is seeing other lone people in there with their sketchbooks, just drawing random statues or sculptures. My people. I then got to finally open my new Moleskine watercolour sketchbook, and I sat in the Weston Cast room, which I remember coming into drawing when I was a schoolboy. It was a good Page 1 for the sketchbook, and (hidden away from the view of guards who probably wouldn’t allow it) I sneakily added in a little bit of watercolour paint. I had this small set of metallic paints I was eager to try out, and I’d been messing about with the gold pen enough on this trip, so I added in this bronze/gold paint to see what effect it would have. As you can see, in the scan it just shows up as bit dull, but in the real photo you can really see it shimmer, as the real objects did in real life. I stealthily snuck my little paints away, like a ninja, and explored the museum a bit more. I was really hungry though, so I walked up Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge, and had a pretty unsatisfying McDonalds.

man city v madrid at the mixer

July 15, 2023July 13, 2023Leave a comment

While in London I was doing a fair bit of remote work, which was usually done in the late afternoon and into the evening (and occasionally into the wee hours after midnight, since California time is eight hour behind London time). On one day I worked throughout the afternoon and had an early evening meeting which happened to finish around the same time as the Champions League semi-final was beginning. Back in California I might have (a) cycled home to watch it over some lunch, (b) sneekily put it on my iPad and watched in the meeting, or (c) not really cared that much since it’s not Tottenham playing. On this evening I fell more into the third category, since the meeting ran into the game time and I couldn’t bring it up on my mum’s TV anyway, but I had a feeling it might be an interesting game – Real Madrid vs Manchester City – so after the Zoom meeting ended I decided to go out and watch at least the second half at a pub if I could. I wasn’t sure where; I don’t know which pubs show football any more, and I didn’t really want to go to any pubs in Burnt Oak. I jumped on the tube, thought about Hendon, I remembered watching a football match in a big pub there (wait that was in 1996), considered Golders Green, again wasn’t sure, so I just headed to Camden. I knew the Earl of Camden showed football, so I headed there. Thing is, I don’t really like that pub much, it’s always a bit uncomfortable and packed. And it was too – nowhere to sit, screens in awkward places, there was a guy in a 1998 Real Madrid away shirt which was cool but other than that, I didn’t fancy it. The first half was just ending so I thought, look for somewhere else. I didn’t expect the Good Mixer would be showing it, but I passed by on my way to the High Street and sure enough, they had it on in there, and it wasn’t full of big football lads. I like the Mixer, it was always one of my favourite places to hang out in the 90s and early 2000s, me and Terry used to go an play pool there (well, he would play pool, I would lose once and then sit there watching him beat everyone for a couple of hours). I found a seat with a good view and watched City completely demolish Madrid in a “please make them stop!” sort of way. It was a bit like watching Terry play people at pool. (I remember one night, I think it was at the King’s Head in Crouch End, this cocky guy challenged him to a game of pool, the guy had a special expensive pool cue in a hard case, he got it out and was polishing it and chalking it, and gestured to Terry as a joke if he wanted to borrow his cue; Terry declined and picked up probably the shittest pub cue from the rack, and proceeded to wipe the floor with him, the guy didn’t pot a single ball. He then beat him a few more times in clinical fashion, I just remember the guy standing there furiously chalking his cue waiting for a go.) Real Madrid were taken apart, although in this case City have the most expensive cues and the hard cases. I sketched the pub in my little Stillman and Birn Alpha mini book, just a quick one in Pigma Graphic pen and what waetrcolours I brought with me (a small set of about five colours in a tiny stormtrooper-helmet tin, fits into my pocket easily). It’s one of my favourite bar sketches though, it captures the mood well. The game ended, some people celebrated (it’s an English team getting to a major European final, albeit one funded by a rich nation state), I remembered my old friend Rob who supported Man City back in the 90s when they were pretty crap (though they had amazing Kappa kits), and how this is for those fans who put up with all that back then. I went to the little chip shop next to the tube station where I’d always get my chips on the way home, and headed back to bed.

the railway tavern

July 14, 2023July 13, 20232 Comments

Here is another sketch from my home area of north London. This is the Railway Tavern, which is up Hale Lane, which is in Edgware, or is it Mill Hill, or can we even say Burnt Oak? It’s kind of all three, and none of them. We used to call this area ‘Green Man’, people probably still do, because of the large old pub on the corner of Hale Lane and Dean’s Lane, which was the Green Man. On maps I think this area gets called ‘Hale’ or ‘The Hale’ though people rarely say that out loud (the name goes back to the 13th century). I think of it as Edgware, really. It’s near enough to the main part of Edgware, and technically Burnt Oak is Edgware too, though we all know different. My address growing up was ‘Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex’, yet we were in London (Greater London, the big urbanized county, Zone 4 on the Underground) because Middlesex no longer actually existed. Our postcodes for Edgware and Burnt Oak are holdovers from the pre-Greater London era, being HA8 (confusingly the HA is for Harrow, we are in the Borough of Barnet), while nearby Colindale and the more countrified Mill Hill got London postcodes (NW9 and NW7 respectively). Never try to make sense of London postcodes by the way. You get ‘NW’ (north-west, easy), N (north), W (west), E (east) SW (south-west), SE (south-east), BUT no ‘S’ for South, and no ‘NE’ for north-east. You do get EC and WC for the cities of London and Westminster but don’t think they all correspond exactly. I remember the jingle from the old 1980s adverts, “Pass On Your Postcode, You’re Not Properly Addressed Without It!” Then there was the phone code – 01 for London, that’s what made sense, we were all in that. Then they decided no wait, let’s change that up a bit, you people on the inside can be 071, you lot around the edges can be 081. Then they phoned back a few years ago, wait wait, I’m not done yet, make that 0171 and 0181, yes that makes more sense. Then they phone back a few years later, wait wait wait, let’s make that 0207 and 0208, ok we are definitely done now. Then they said no wait, we have some more changes to make. By then everyone was like, sorry, they have invented mobile phones now, we don’t care. London eh. But this is the Railway Tavern, and where exactly is it? Well the postcode says NW7, so it’s officially in Mill Hill, that settles it. Their website however says they are in ‘the heart of Edgware town’ which is quite interesting. ‘Up Hale Lane’, that’s all that matters. Besides, there was another tavern called The Railway in Edgware near the station, which closed many years ago (the historic building is still there, being allowed to fall to pieces; I drew it eight years ago: https://petescully.com/2016/01/14/the-end-of-the-railway/). This pub however is still open, which is good to see. I actually have never been in here as an adult, but came in several times as a kid with my family. It was a good pub to bring the kids to, because there was a good garden out the back which had swings, and there were always other local kids to play with. I remember kicking one of those plastic footballs around here when I was about 11, and it kept going into a neighbouring garden, while parents drank in the pub inside. Those days always remind me of the taste of Coca-Cola in a glass bottle, not very cold, and salt and vinegar crisps. I thought about coming up to this pub in the evening while I was back to draw the inside, but didn’t get around to it. I have wanted to draw the outside for years though, I really like the shape of this building. I love a triangle.

Why is it called The Railway Tavern though? There is no rail line nearby (the closest being way down at Mill Hill Broadway), and it’s not by a tube station, which is a good mile away down at Edgware. Well, actually there used to be a rail line near here, passing through Dean’s Lane down the hill, going between Edgware and Mill Hill East. When we were kids it was long closed down, and the area was known as the Old Bomb, I presumed it had been bombed in the war and never rebuilt. In fact they did originally plan to have a line that ran between Mill Hill East, passing through this way and not only up to Edgware but well beyond, but it was never built. Ever wondered why there’s that bit of the Northern Line that squiggles out to Mill Hill East for some reason? Jay Foreman’s excellent Unfinished London video explains this whole thing much better than I can: https://youtu.be/jjuD288JlCs. The pub does apparently date back to the 1890s, but I think the building is later than that. This page on the London Borough of Barnet website gives a little history of the are called The Hale, and it mentions the ‘Railway Inn’. Next time I’m back, I should pop in for a pint.

Monumental

July 13, 2023July 13, 20233 Comments

I went up The Monument. “The Monument? Which Monument? I hear you ask. Aha, The Monument. That’s all Londoners call it, and it has its own tube station called simply ‘Monument’ so that’s that (it joins up with the station called ‘Bank’ which is named after The Bank of England which we never call “The Bank”). I could write a whole book on tube station names, but it’s probably been done, I would only be using it as an excuse to draw pictures. Anyway, the full name of The Monument is actually The Monument To the Great Fire of London, and yes, it is exactly that. And I went up it, for the first time since I was in my teens. I’ve not had much of a reason to go back up there in all these years, and I do muddle up my old your guide stories about it occasionally (no it is not 365 feet high and no it does not grow a foot in leap years, that is St.Paul’s as everyone knows). It was created by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke as a huge column topped with a shiny golden ball of flames and an observation deck, so people can climb up the narrow spiral stair case (all 311 steps) and look out over the rebuilt city that Wren had created. Well I wanted to go up there and draw. The City keeps on changing, and since the last time I saw that view from that angle was in the early 1990s, it was bound to have changed a bit. The first time I went up I was about 15 or 16, and I remember getting to the top, and finding myself still looking up at buildings, while also being at the top of a very narrow stone column with just some bars stopping me from plummeting. They do say that if The Monument ever fell on its side (presumably at the exactly correct angle) it would hit the spot where the Great Fire began, in Pudding Lane. Since it had never happened, there was no chance of it toppling over, but as I reached the very tight confines of the top, my knees went all “Ossie Ardiles 1981”, and I nearly bottled it. I forced myself to the top platform, and hugged the wall with my back, edging slowly around. There was a German couple up there taking loads of photos oblivious to the height, and I thought, well Pete you better get to work on this sketch. So I whipped out my Fabriano sketchbook and my HB pencil and drew the view as well as I could. The idea was that I’d add in the pen up there, and maybe colour it in later.

Another man joined us on the platform and he like me was just edging around the column slowly in a state of terror. “Me too, mate” I said reassuringly. Despite the very sturdy looking barriers, I was convinced that I would drop my pen, and it would plummet down to the streets below, probably taking out someone’s eye and impaling them in the neck, and I would have to get a different pen. So as far as I got with the penwork was drawing Tower Bridge and a couple of other details. It started getting windy, and hello, that was it for me mate. I said Auf Wiedersehen to my brave German friends still taking photos (actually they had left long before so I was basically saying goodbye in German to a pair of American tourists) and went back down that long spiral staircase, hoping that nobody passed me coming back up.

When I reached the bottom, to my surprise they gave me a certificate that certified that I had climbed all 311 steps of The Monument. That was nice. I then went to buy some new pants. Only joking. It did remind me though of that first time I climbed up here (no certificate in those days, at least not for me) and I said something about Wren being “a nutter” to the attendant, who grumbled a possible agreement, and I had this idea about doing a project where I drew and wrote about all of Wren’s buildings in the city, and it was not until the 2010s that I did something along those lines, when I organized two big Wren-themed sketchcrawls, the first one in 2014 starting at The Monument and ending at St.Paul’s, and the second one in 2016 doing the reverse, culminating in a big group photo outside The Monument after we as a group had drawn every single Wren building in the City, all in one day, an achievement so big I’ve never got around to organizing another London sketchcrawl. Read about that sketchcrawl here. I’m still into Wren though, and I’m glad I went up The Monument. I decided to finish the inking of that drawing over the top of the pencil sketch, using what photos I dared to take as reference, and that’s the complicated panorama sketch at the top of the post. I’m very pleased with that one, click on it for a closer view.

mile end afternoon

July 10, 2023July 9, 2023Leave a comment

I was done pretty early with exploring Queen Mary University of London on my first day back in Mile End in over 20 years. I walked round the corner to Burdett Road, and decided to draw this old building that was mostly boarded up, I do remember using the post office back in the late 90s. I didn’t live in Mile End while I was at university, I stayed back home in Burnt Oak, so I would commute in on the tube. I knew quite a few people who did decide to live locally, or a bit further out, and there would always be parties in those days. I took a lot of Night Buses as well, the old N25. Fall asleep on that, it bounces you back from Trafalgar Square right out into like Essex or somewhere. I stood by Mile End Park to draw this, but only got as far as the outline, because I was getting hot, so I drew most of it later on. I had another part of Mile End to look for.

A couple of years ago my wife (who is American) and I were looking at this impressive family tree document that her great aunt had put together many years before, and I noticed that there was a ‘Sir’ on there, Sir William Morgan, Earl of Tredegar. It was exciting to discover, and it turns out the Morgans are a pretty storied family, both from their Welsh aristocracy days, through the British Civil Wars and subsequently those that emigrated to the US and became big names in the fledgling country (founding the city of Springfield MA for one thing). In short, it turned out my wife had some pretty interesting ancestors, the Earls of Tredegar, and then all of a sudden I started seeing that name everywhere (we even chanced upon William Morgan of Tredegar’s memorial in Westminster Abbey last month). Pretty much the same day we were looking all of this up, my friend Simon (an actor and and former QMUL alumnus) told me about a film he’d just appeared in, Once Upon A Time in London, so I watched that, looking out for him. One of big scenes involved being beaten up in a pub, anyway right afterwards the gangsters involved walked out of the pub and it was called “The Lord Tredegar”, of course. I had to look up the pub – and it was in Mile End, very close to “Tredegar Square” and “Morgan Street”. Presumably the family had owned land round here. Well I found the pub – it’s in quite a nice part of Mile End, some impressive old houses around here – though it was closed, so I drew the outside, although I didn’t bother finishing all the colour later. A block away, there was a lovely post-box dating from Queen Victoria’s reign, which I drew with the Morgan Street sign in the background. This was right by Tredegar Square.

I was done with exploring Mile End, and decided to head back into central London, but I saved one last very quick sketch for Mile End tube station. This is where I’d come in and out every day while at university, after an hour-long packed tube ride from Burnt Oak. Another tube station sketch for the collection, I think I expected more stories to come flooding out of this one, but not really. I do remember one thing, it’s opposite the Territorial Army (TA) centre. Back when I was doing Richard III in early 1998, I was charged with arranging for props for the production, and asked for a bunch of army materials, including an army table. How I thought I could do that given that I had no car or means of transporting it, I do not know, but I was resourceful enough. There’s a big TA centre in Burnt Oak near where I lived, so I went there and kindly asked to borrow some equipment. To my surprise they said yeah sure, just bring it back. I got lots of army cups and hats and things like that, and a table, a big heavy green wooden table. Like, really heavy, like impossible to actually carry heavy. Carry it I did, halfway down Deansbrook Road, like an idiot. I would have called my dad, if we lived in the era of the mobile phone, but we did not just yet. I think I ended up leaving it, coming home, and then having one of my parents come and help me get it in the car. And I was going to bring this to Mile End to use in a play? What, on the tube? That wasn’t happening. I felt a bit stupid, but I had the other props, Richard III was just going to have to make do with a regular table to plan his battle with Richmond. Anyway the next day I came to Mile End station, walked out and immediately saw the TA Centre across the street, which I had hitherto never noticed. I didn’t bother going to ask them if I could use a table, I’d give myself a bad back carrying that, I’d end up looking more like Richard III myself. So, I do think of that when I think of Mile End station.

well it happened years ago

July 9, 2023July 9, 2023Leave a comment

One of the ideas I had for my short May visit to London was that I would try to go back to places I had not been in a long long time, especially places that mean something to me. I couldn’t quite believe that I have not been back to Mile End since I graduated from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) back in 2001, but sure enough, it’s been that long. On Tuesday morning (after sketching down at Embankment) I took the District Line up to Stepney Green, and walked up the Mile End Road towards my old uni. I went to QMUL – actually it was QMW, that’s ‘Queen Mary Westfield’, when I first started, though it was already part of the University of London, they had a slight name change during my tenure there – between 1997 and 2001, including a year abroad in Belgium. I studied French and Drama. In those days I did not get the tube to Stepney Green, rather I would go to Mile End tube station, which was on the Central Line and a quicker change from the Northern, and closer to the Arts Building. I went the reverse way today. I walked through the Student Union area, many an evening spent there, past some of the on-site dorms, not much had changed, but there were a few impressive newer buildings such as the Mathematical Science building (swankier than our one, though not really any bigger). I reached the People’s Palace and the Great Hall, which is where I spent a lot of time in my drama days, and even made my way inside to use the toilets by our old drama studio – still in the same place – and ate a sandwich in the lobby, trying to remember all the performances we did there back then. I often took care of the lighting in those days, getting to know the tech rigs and all that, but occasionally performed myself. In the Great Hall of the People’s Palace, which is a storied old east London venue, I remember doing Richard III back in early ’98 (I certainly wasn’t playing Richard, I was just part of the production team, I handled some of the artwork and helped with stage management, the latter being just quietly barked at when to open doors). Most of my memories have faded; I can’t remember most people’s names any more. When coming to old places like this to draw, I always do it with the intention of telling stories, but sometimes the stories are all a bit too jumbled up. I wanted to draw one particular building, the Queen’s Building (above). I stood outside the old pub across the street, chatting a little with the landlord who was sweeping the pavement, to draw the iconic clock tower with the magnificent white Queen’s Building behind it. I do still have memories of this building, spending many evenings in here using their computer labs, taking exams in the Octagon. Mostly this reminds me of my graduation day, taking photos outside here with my family and some of my other graduating friends. As I did French and Drama, most of my main friends (some of whom I am still close friends with) were in Drama, but they had largely graduated the year before in 2000. As a French student I got to spend a year in a francophone country – in my case Charleroi in Belgium – so I graduated in 2001. I still had friends in that year though, and many of them I’ve not seen since, but I have some warm memories from that day. I remember in my photos I wanted to turn my head more sideways, because I had recently gained a large scar on my face and didn’t want it showing up as much. Afterwards, my mum and dad and younger sister and I all went for a nice dinner. At the end of that summer I moved out to France, along with one other of my cohort from the French degree (Emma) to spend a year teaching in Aix, arranged by the university as a post-degree work placement. I do remember coming by Mile End a couple of weeks after graduation to those dorms down the road, because I was asked to lead a walking tour of London for visiting international students, but since then I have never actually been back to QMUL at all. It was bizarre to think about. I finished my sketch and explored the campus.

Right, so that took about ten minutes. I remember the Mile End campus as being this large sprawling place, stretching across East London from Mile End to Stepney Green and having to run between classes and always being late for my Performance class because I would be in French Literature just before. It’s actually not that big at all. Having spent the best part of two decades on the UC Davis campus which is an actually huge campus (we have an airport), QMUL felt like going back to my old primary school. I was a little disappointed by the lack of branded merchandise, hardly anything compared to a US university. I found the big library in the middle where I spent so many late nights (often watching old German films in their video labs for my German film course), the cafes where I’d eat my snacks, lots was new, a lot was still the same. I sketched the building above, which was I believe a chapel, I seem to remember it forming part of a logo for QMW but I’m certain that’s a mistaken memory. I do remember knowing some people that lived here though. Very close by is this phone box. I am sure I used that back then – I went in the days before most of us had mobile phones, they were only starting to become a thing. By the time I left, most people had one, usually a great chunky old Nokia thing, but when I was there, the payphone was still the way to go. I did have a Pager which I would use up until about 1999 but I didn’t really like it much. It was liberating, looking back, not having a phone always on you. You made plans and pretty much had to stick to them (I was always late anyway). But there were phone boxes, if you happened to have some change on you. I spent a lot of time broke back then. I ate chips a lot, and Super Noodles (no change there then).

I did go to the Arts Building, which is where my undergrad programs were based. I walked about the building – a lot had changed, but a fair bit was the same. It was an unusual feeling, like sliding back in time, I felt like an interloper. I recognized pretty much none of the names on faculty doors – well I did recognize a couple, who were not there to recognize me back, thankfully – and I didn’t stick around too long, as I was starting to worry that I had homework overdue. I enjoyed my years at Queen Mary, studying French and studying Drama, but I didn’t fancy sticking round to draw anything else, so I explored Mile End a bit more. It was a hot day, I considered going into the New Globe pub for a pint, our favourite watering hole next to the Arts Building, by the canal, but that’s called something else now, so I thought never mind. I walked underneath the huge ‘Green Bridge’ (which opened while I was there, in fact I took part in a special performance piece to mark its opening, along with the Art Park gallery nearby) (I had to pretend to be a room in a house, and then I had to pretend to be a tree, my arms hurt) (Drama student, yeah). I did some more Mile End sketches, but I’ll post those next time.

monday evening in covent garden

July 7, 2023July 7, 2023Leave a comment

Later that day – sorry, I realize several weeks passed by in between writing the posts for my London sketches from Monday May 15th, but I had another trip back to London in June, which included an eight-day trip to Scotland, and now suddenly we are a week into July and my ears are still ringing from the plane – anyway, later that day, I walked over to Covent Garden to do some more sketching. The previous Saturday night I had spent a very fun evening out around here with my old friends Roshan and Frenchie, which involved many laughs during dinner, ending up at the Nag’s Head pub which features in the background of both of my sketches here. Incidentally this is not the only Nag’s Head pub that I would sketch on that trip in May, but the other one will be posted later. I decided to take up position opposite Covent Garden tube station (one of the beautiful oxblood-tiled Leslie Green tube stations), to draw a two-page panorama, which I like to do. There were a lot of people around, being about 5pm on a Monday. In the place where I sketched there happened to be a group of Hare Krishnas who were out chasing people up and down Long Acre asking “have you thought about meditation?” One of them was very enthusiastic, following people like an eager salesman. Nearby, those pedal-cab things were congregating as they do. People were out shopping, this is one of the best shopping areas of the city. One of my favourite shops, Stanfords (they sell maps and travel books) is very close by. Posters advertised musicals like Frozen and Mrs Doubtfire: the musical. I swear, going by all the posters I saw in London, there is nothing that city will not turn into a musical. I’m waiting for “Urban Sketching: The Musical”. Taxis pulled up, letting people in and out, on their way to see a musical probably. People hurried by me on the pavement to get to wherever they were going. I used to be one of those people; I would pass by this corner on my run (I would literally be running) from the 134 bus stop down to the King’s College campus, when I was doing my Master’s in medieval English almost two decades ago. Now, I just focused on my sketch, on all that perspective. I think I had intended to make this full colour, and I had the time and the daylight, although after a while not so much of the energy, so I left it as is. Getting the sky in was important. It was a really lovely mid-May day, the sort where standing out on a London street is pretty much the right thing to do. I was in no hurry, I did not need to be back anywhere, I had no plans. But I was getting hungry, so I went to a nearby Pho place and had a delicious big bowl of pho. I’m going to put a picture of it here just to make you hungry.

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And then I went to Floral Street, and did one last sketch of the day, a block over from where I did the first. I stood outside the White Lion pub, looking towards the Nag’s Head again (in the top sketch the Nag’s Head is in the far bottom left of the scene). There were many drinkers outside the pubs; again I had intended to colour this in, going as far as adding in some yellow blotches for the flowers, but in the end I didn’t have time and didn’t fancy adding it in at home, as I was a bit tired. I didn’t stop into either pub though; instead I went over to the Lamb and Flag for a quick pint before grabbing some food from Tesco Metro and getting the tube home to bed. A very productive day of London urban sketching.