edgware and its ghosts

November 28, 20251 Comment

It’s time to post the sketches of What I Did On My Summer Holidays. I was away in Europe for the whole month of August, the longest break I’ve had since moving to California, to visit family in London and attend the Urban Sketching Symposium in Poland, as well as take a few days in Berlin. Davis is too hot in the summer. Anyway let’s get on with it. I was back home in Burnt Oak, but I had to go to Edgware, one stop up to the end of the Northern Line (or a ten minute walk up Deansbrook and a short cut through the alley behind the car park). Back in California I found a bunch of old undeveloped camera film in a box from before we had moved out here, so I brought a couple back to England with me to get developed at Snappy Snaps on Station Road (same or next day developing, you can’t get that these days over here, not in Davis; I developed a film at CVS and it took two months, and no negatives back; no positives either). Well Snappy Snaps in Edgware did not disappoint, but I had no idea what was on the film. It was like a time capsule. I stopped using film two decades ago (though my friend got me a film camera last year I don’t use it much). One of the films was photos from London in about 2003, a few pics of our old flat in Crouch End, but a lot from down in the City, before all those big skyscrapers went up. The Gherkin being built. Feels like a million years ago now. the other film was more of a surprise – photos from Las Vegas in 2004, in the day or two before my wife and I got married! Some really nice family pics, all looking so much younger, that I had never seen before, because I had never developed the film. Cupid’s Wedding Chapel, it’s not even there any more. The past came back to life. It was funny that I should see these while walking around Edgware, because it’s a place full of my own past.

Above is Edgware Station, the end of the line. I stood across Station Road to draw it, people walking by, buses turning in to the bus station behind. A lot of memories are in this station, not all of which I can even remember. Getting out here as a first year pupil at Edgware School having survived the often chaotic journey on a schoolkid-packed old tube train from only one stop away, those first days being allowed to travel on public transportation by myself (or with my friend) with my own travelcard, then having the long walk up Green Lane to school, very much a choose-your-own-adventure story. Sometimes instead of the tube I’d brave the bus, the dreaded 251, they saved the oldest and dirtiest buses for the school runs. If I was very brave I’d get the 142, going all the way to the school itself, but what courageous adventurer would choose such peril, not I. Many years later, Edgware was also the unintended last stop of many late nights (well, early mornings), the end of the line for the N5 Night Bus. The Night Bus Years, now that was a time of legends. Waiting for what felt like hours (but was in fact hours) down in Trafalgar Square or Charing Cross Road, fingers greasy from cheap fried chicken, ears still ringing with Rage Against The Machine, managing to stay awake on a bus filled with sweaty nightclubbers that one by one vanish into Belsize Park, Golders Green, Hendon, not knowing exactly where we are due to foggy windows, and gently nodding off to sleep somewhere around Grahame Park, completely missing Burnt Oak and ending up in Edgware. There are only three certainties in life: Death, Taxes and Waking Up at 4am in Edgware Bus Station in the 90s. I imagine that Death when it comes will feel very much like that. I got very used to the walk back to Burnt Oak in the wee hours, passing like a ghost through the alley behind the car park, up Deansbrook Road, down Littlefield and up Orange Hill, and right into bed.

While I drew the station a bearded man started filming my page without asking or acknowledging me, as if I were a real ghost. What you doing, I said. He said he was just showing someone who he was video-chatting with; bit intrusive. Be nice to ask before shoving a phone over my shoulder, I said, before he went off still having his conversation, oblivious. I was told while I was back that there are plans to completely redevelop Edgware, to knock down the Boardwalk Shopping centre next to the bus station, and build something like ten massive tower blocks on top of the car park, completely changing the face of the area. I suppose the alley will go, no more short cut back to Burnt Oak. Who knows, but change keeps coming, and so in a few years this view of Edgware station will look very different. I remember before the Boardwalk opened, there was a junk yard where the car park is. Edgware Station opened on August 14, 1924, 101 years to the month before I drew this sketch. The extension of the Underground into what used to be open country but was becoming known as ‘Metroland’ was responsible for Edgware’s development into the town and then suburb it is today, right at London’s edge. Edgware has existed for centuries though, since Anglo-Saxon times, recorded in the tenth century as ‘Aegces Wer’. I think this was about the time my old Maths teacher started teaching at Edgware School, my school from 1987 to 1994. The school changed its name to ‘London Academy’ a few years later, and then ‘The London Academy’ (as opposed to ‘That Edgware School’ as it was known before). The old school buildings I went to were knocked down years ago, and replaced with something more modern, as were the entire surrounding estates. I have dreams about those old buildings, but they are now just ghosts. Everything changes, and only the ghosts remain.

I will tell you a ghost story now though, so if you are of a nervous disposition, look away now. Above is a row of buildings at the end of Station Road, at the corner of Penshurst Gardens, where it meets steep Hale Lane and curving Edgwarebury Lane (which stretches right up to Edgwarebury Cemetery, final resting place of Amy Winehouse. I stood outside what used to be Loppylugs Records, now an unappealing lounge bar. I wanted to draw this corner because back in the 80s my older sister used to work in the Lunn Poly travel agents, now a Polish food store. She lived in a flat on the top floor above, it was her first place after leaving home, it was the first home of my first nephew, and it also happened to be haunted, by an actual ghost. Now look, let’s be fair, I don’t really believe in ghosts, except maybe the ones that exist. Some ghost stories still give me a shiver, and my big sister used to tell me ghost stories at bedtime, like the one our grandad used to tell about the ghostly music playing where the Titanic sank, though I was never sure why that one scared us so much. It’s the way you tell ’em. Anyway I liked this flat but it was big and old and at the top of a long winding staircase, and the hallway felt like one that would get longer as you went down it. I never saw a ghost, but my sister definitely knew one was there, cold feelings in certain places, unusual things happening like the clocks setting their hands into the same place, noises in the next room. Our dog was too terrified go into the flat, but our dog was also terrified of tortoises. My sister saw the ghost at least once, a pale woman in the bedroom, but it was not scary. A family friend passing by Station Road one day did say they had seen a woman with long hair at the window, when my sister wasn’t home. Since I was a kid scared of everything (except tortoises), my sister didn’t tell me about the ghost at first and I never saw it or had any sense of it at all, but every single time I pass by this part of Station Road I think about that ghost and wonder if she is still up there. I still dream about ghosts a lot, but I think we all do. The window was open as I sketched; there wasn’t a figure there but I drew one in, looking out of the spare bedroom where I used to sleep when I stayed over. I have a few more sketches of Edgware to post but this one is already long enough with the ghost stories; there might be a few more ghosts, or at least highwaymen.

a saturday down portobello

January 7, 2025January 7, 20255 Comments

On the last day of November, exactly a year since Shane MacGowan died, I found myself in Ladbroke Grove, heading to Portobello Market. I was going to a book signing by an old friend of mine from university at a little bookstore. I was up early; my Mum and I were playing the Pogues music in honour of Shane, and having a morning singalong with a bit of the Wolfe Tones on my ukulele, and then I headed out for my day of sketching and literature. I decided not to take the tube, but caught the 302 bus from the end of my street like I would do in the long-ago old days. I hadn’t been this way to Notting Hill in over 25 years, I think, changing bus in Willesden for the 52 towards Victoria. The 52 used to run all the way from Victoria to Mill Hill before they split the route in two. I sat at the top looking out of the window, trying to remember and recognize all the places along the way, seeing some of them in a new way as an urban sketcher. I must explore Kensal Green and its big old cemetery some day. I got out at Ladbroke Grove, which was already quite busy with foot traffic for the market, and sketched the tube station from across the road. It’s not the most visually exciting tube station, but worth sketching. I am really into sketching tube stations, and old pubs, and bookshops. I like sketching markets too, but they get so busy that I often shy away from it. I stood outside an estate agents; as I sketched, tourists stopped by to look at all the places that were listed, massively overpriced tiny flats in a massively overpriced massive city. Tour groups gathered outside the station. Portobello has always been popular with tourists; growing up Ladbroke Grove was always seen as a little bit rough, but definitely a big area of music and culture. I’ve only been to the Notting Hill Carnival once, on a baking hot day in 1996, and spending a day squashed in a slowly moving crowd that moved like a thick sauce through these wide streets before ending up watching Jamiroquai in his massive hat, that was once enough for me. I thought about that as I sketched. I am better in a crowd when I’m by myself. I headed into the crowded market looking for some food, and smelled out what looked like a delicious paella. It really wasn’t, and I ended up throwing it away. “More like a paella shite” I said to myself, making a mental note to remember that if I ever came back. I went to my friend’s book signing at the nearby Jam Bookstore (more of that in a different post).

After I left the book signing at Jam I went back into the busy world, and stood in between two parked vans to sketch this book stall. I had books on the brain, and also on my arm, carrying a bag with five new books in it. I didn’t have space to buy any from this stall, but they were getting a fair bit of foot traffic. As I sketched, there was a fellow behind me taking photos, photos of me sketching as it turned out. I didn’t much mind. He introduced himself to me and offered to message me the photos. His name was Trevor Flynn, and he’s an artist himself who has sketched around Portobello for years, and runs a company called Drawing At Work (http://drawingatwork.co.uk/), he has got people out sketching for years. He also knew about Urban Sketchers London and has worked with sketchers I know. Always nice to meet other sketchers. In fact he told me he did all the sketching and storyboarding for the film Notting Hill, back in the 90s. I loved that film, I remember I had a really long and stressful day at university, I studied drama and they were usually long hours, and I would often stop at the cinema on the way home (either in Stepney or in Camden) to catch a film and relax, and this one night I watched Notting Hill and it cheered me right up.

I kept strolling further down the market; I had sketched down here last year so wasn’t necessarily going to do too much today, as I was heading towards Notting Hill Gate with the idea of walking down Kensington Church Street, but this colourful art market area on Tavistock Road caught my eye, especially the bits of orange on the trees in the background. Well I had to sketch the scene. As soon as I did, a lady in a pink high-vis vest came to talk to me, she told me this was something called Open Art Spaces (see openartspaces.co.uk), and these were all independent artists selling and showing their work, and she gave me their card (a Moo card; I had forgotten mine). As I sketched, I was joined by one of those artists, Chen Xi, who is also an urban sketcher. He is from Singapore but is in London doing a Masters, and he knew several of the Singapore sketchers that I have known over the years, even been taught by them. I chatted with him for a while sketching the scene, and when I was done I bought some of his cards and walked around the market talking to other artists and buying more cards, coasters, bookmarks. It was fun getting out and talking to people in my favourite city, I should do it more often.

I walked down Portobello with that Al Green song from the movie stuck in my head, though the seasons didn’t change, and I don’t look like late 90s Hugh Grant, well not much anyway. I saw the Electric Cinema and decided I really needed to draw that, with the Christmas trees for sale outside. I never saw a movie here, but I have a vague memory that they had a small bar here back in the 90s and I came in for a drink with an ex, though it might have been somewhere else, or maybe I imagined it. I’ve been dreaming about London for so many years now, I mean actual dreams when I’m asleep, that whole areas have grown that my sleeping self is convinced are real but actually don’t exist at all, built as if from broken Lego sets of real places and experiences; I wish I could draw them. There is a lot of London that I’ve not been to in over 25 years that I have almost entirely forgotten; later that week I walked around parts of Mayfair that I had honestly set outside my mind completely, not since I was an open-top tour bus guide, but when I walked through certain squares and down certain roads, memory and story came flooding back. In some cases, they trickle back, and it’s like that around here. Sometimes the mystery of memory is more exciting. I was standing next to a stall that sold quite posh looking ham, if memory serves (and we know it doesn’t), and the market was getting busy but I wanted to press on.

Down Notting Hill Gate I went, and there’s a lot to sketch around there, but I just wandered about, thinking about stories. I was near Campden Hill Road; back in the mid-90s I actually took an evening course in screenwriting here, not a very long one, but it was enjoyable. I remember quite liking the people in the class, and the teacher was nice, and I had to write a short screenplay; I think I wrote one about a priest meeting a woman, it wasn’t very original, and in fact the instructor complained it was too derivative of a TV show called ‘Priest’, which I had never seen, and didn’t sound like the sort of thing I’d watch. Then I wrote another about a woman who was in love with the grim reaper and would murder people to see him again; not very sophisticated, and my heart wasn’t in it. I’ve never written a love story since. I remember there was an Irish guy on the course who was writing a screenplay about the Battle of Brunanburh, but this was before I studied Old English poetry so I wasn’t really familiar with it, but I remember he did a good job. I should do more evening courses, though there’s not as much choice in Davis as there was in London, and I don’t know what I’d want to do. Not screenwriting again. I walked down to Kensington Church Street as I wanted to visit the Churchill Arms, or at least watch their Christmas lights come on. This is a famous pub, often winning pub of the year awards for its unusually over the top floral arrangements outside, though for the festive season they deck out in thousands of lights, and as you can see from the sketch lots of people gather to watch them come on. I stood across the busy street and drew fast. My waterbrush ran out so I had to add the paint in afterwards. As I sketched, a woman with a thick Texas accent asked me without prompting or introduction if I had visited the Tim Burton exhibition. I said I had not, and she proceeded to tell me I should go, because they had just been there and it was wonderful. She said my drawing reminded her of his sketchbooks, which was a surprise to hear. she then asked if I knew who Tim Burton was; now the thing is, whenever anyone I don’t know randomly asks me if I have heard of someone, my natural instinct is to say I haven’t, so I said “no; is he the guy who invented trousers?” It just came out; I was thinking of the clothes shop Burtons. So she listed all the films he had directed, and by this point I had to keep pretending I didn’t know who he was, in case she thought I was taking the mick, so I ended up making the “no, don’t know that one” face to films like Batman and Edward Scissorhands. I did like the sound of this exhibition though, and said I would try to go and see it; “Tom…Barton?” “Tim Burton, you’d enjoy it.” “Thanks, I’ll check it out.” “You should. Have a great vacation!” and off she went. It’s nice to meet people, I’m getting good at it.

I did want to rest my legs and have a festive pint before heading back to Burnt Oak though, as it was now dark and my legs were feeling weary. I stand when I sketch because I don’t like being hunched over on a stool, and getting some rest is good. The Churchill was packed, there was no room at the inn, even though the interior of that pub is on my list of must-sketch places. I used to go in there sometimes years ago and marvel at all the stuff on the walls and ceiling, the landlord was from Tipperary I think because I remember lots of Tipperary hurling memorabilia, had some good nights out in there years ago. They also did a lovely Thai curry, but no chance today. I walked about to some other little pubs I was surprised were still there, but didn’t look much like they did in the 90s, but I ended up in the Prince Albert, where a load of people were watching the football, Arsenal against a really bad West Ham. I sat down for a while with my back to the screen, nursed a pint and sketched them watching it, lads with no faces. The food smelled expensive and not very enticing, so I didn’t eat, and then I got the tube back home. It was a year since Shane MacGowan died, and I went back to Burnt Oak to spend the evening out with my Mum and some longtime family friends, and several pints of Guinness. That was a busy day.

a hundred years of burnt oak tube station

December 28, 20242 Comments

A few weeks ago I was back in London for a quick visit to see my Mum and my Dad, but of course managed to get a fair bit of sketching and exploring in as well. I also had to draw Burnt Oak Station, which I didn’t sketch last time I was back, even though I had that little walk around Burnt Oak that was on the radio, starting out at the tube station. What I had forgotten was that 2024 is the actual centenary of the station being built. Back in 1924 there was an extension of the Northern Line into what they were calling ‘Metroland’, according to all the old posters, and these areas that were previously fields and small settlements, your Edgwares and Hendons and Stanmores, all became part of this large suburbia of an ever expanding London, full of nice terraced houses, or orange brick council housing estates such as the Watling Estate where I grew up (as did my Mum). Burnt Oak Station is a good starting point because you could say that the Burnt Oak we know started here. Well, we were all told at school that it started with the Romans, who used to burn an oak tree to mark boundaries of areas, and yes, it kind of did. The long Roman Road, Watling Street, arguably the most important of roads in Britannia, runs right through it up on a ridgeway and gave birth to the settlements around here (Red Hill was the village up there; I’m from neighbouring Orange Hill), now known as the Edgware Road, or Burnt Oak Broadway as it comes through this area. Burnt Oak Station is down from that on the street which was named Watling Avenue, and so some of the signs inside the station still read ‘Burnt Oak (Watling)’. Locals call that street ‘the Watling’. It’s changed a lot over the years. I was back in the iconic library at the corner of Orange Hill and the Watling, and was shocked to hear that it would be knocked down and replaced with a modern building full of luxury flats. I mean, FFS. Oh, but they will build another library around the corner in Barnfield, so oh that’s ok then. (Why can’t the flats go in Barnfield and keep the historic pyramid shaped library there?) Behind the station is a dingy car park and an old market area, I don’t know if the market is still on but it we used to go there when I was a kid. It was always full of rats when the market was closed. Anyway, that is going to be developed into loads more private flats, another whole development. I’m not sure the are can handle so many more residents, and these aren’t going to be cheap. Having seen Colindale become an endless sea of new tall buildings full of expensive flats, especially over the old Police training centre you could see from the tube, with very little making it feel like an area with community, I worry the same could end up happening to Burnt Oak. All the old pubs are gone. I had a dream that they knocked down Burnt Oak station and replaced it with something big and modern (like they are doing with Colindale now, to handle all its new volume of users), and that will probably end up happening. But I’ll enjoy it while it still looks like itself. One thing I remember from years ago, when coming up the Northern Line you could usually tell which station you were at if you couldn’t see the sign, each station along this way was painted a different colour – Hendon Central was light blue, Colindale was yellow, Burnt Oak was red. They changed that years ago, and mode those three paint in a cream and dark green paint job. Now they announce the stations anyway, and the big roundel signs are pretty visible. Lot of memories here, good and bad, but growing up this was the exit point to a more interesting world, as well as the familiar entryway back home. There’s nothing like that moment when, having travelled five thousand miles across the world, my train pulls in and I go up those little stairs again, knowing I’m just minutes away from getting to my Mum’s house for a nice cup of tea. Happy 100th birthday, Burnt Oak tube!

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.

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.

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.

gardening leave

April 12, 2021April 12, 20213 Comments

For this year’s Pence Gallery Garden Tour show, they couldn’t actually have the in-person garden visits like they have done in years past, with the artist painting or drawing in the garden (and sneezing, in my case) while visitors looked about at the pretty plants and flowers and then we exhibited our finished artwork at the Pence later. I’ve done it a few times and it’s fun (apart from the sneezing). But as I say, they can’t do that this year so instead they are having a garden-themed show, and asked us to submit our garden-themed artwork. I don’t have a garden (just a small back yard with not much in it) and haven’t been sketching much foliage this year yet, but…well I have been drawing old Leslie Green tube stations from London, and I hadn’t yet got around to drawing Covent Garden…that is garden themed, right? It’s one of my favourite gardens after all, and I really love drawing these old Leslie Green stations. I drew a whole load of them last summer, using only three colours (QOR watercolor paints Nickel Azo Yellow, Ultramarine, and Quinacridone Magenta – I don’t often use a limited palette but these very strong paints were a winning combination). I just realized while searching for those old posts to link to that I never actually posted them here, so I guess I’ll need to write a new post about those old stations…soon. Maybe I will draw a few more first.

I miss London, and I especially miss wandering about the little shops of Covent Garden. I don’t miss the tube station itself (I never get off there; coming down on the Northern Line I always get out at Leicester Square and walk up, it’s quicker) (the distance between the tube stations of Leicester Square and Covent Garden, which is on the Piccadilly Line, is one of the shortest in London – the tube actually takes twice as long as walking, especially as you have to get into a crowded lift at Covent garden tube, ugh). (Plus I use all the short cuts to beat the crowds). After living away from London for sixteen years now though, many of those short cuts through the centre of the city are becoming lost to me, not just through memory but through construction. The CrossRail project demolished many buildings around Oxford Street and changed a lot of the geography. There was a really useful unsignposted short cut between the central and Northern lines inside Tottenham Court Road station that meant avoiding the escalators, but that is now blocked off.) Thankfully Covent Garden isn’t too changed, it’s a labyrinth as it is, but some landmarks are gone or moved, such as Stanfords map shop, which is now smaller and around the corner from the old Long Acre site. I used to run through Covent Garden’s narrow streets on the way from the 134 bus-stop at New Oxford Street to my classes at King’s College London on the Strand when I was doing my master’s degree, that was a long time ago now. I miss London. I miss the pubs, and the people from all over the world, and the stories, and the sounds, and the smells, and the memories it makes me think of every time I dash round a corner. I love living in California, but blimey I miss London.

(1) Burnt Oak and (2) Kilburn

July 26, 2020July 27, 20204 Comments

So off we go, on our journey around Great Britain in 66 Sketches. Not the UK, I hasten to add, but specifically Great Britain the island. I’m starting this journey in Burnt Oak, a north London suburb near the end of the Northern Line, the place where I was born and grew up. That is Burnt Oak tube station, on Watling Avenue. So many stories and memories associated there, but I won’t go into any interesting ones now (because none of them are that interesting). Except that this station is not just the start of this virtual journey, but it was also the start of all my journeys across the world, they all came from here and led back to here. I also used to catch the bus from outside the station. It’s a small little station. When coming home on the Northern Line years and years ago I could always tell when I was getting close, before they had the actual announcements on the train or the little digital display, because of the colour scheme of the stations leading up to Edgware. Hendon Central was painted light blue, then Colindale was yellow, then Burnt Oak was red. Of course I’d be asleep and miss my stop and end up in Edgware and there’d be no more tubes home so I’d have to walk. Same with the Night Bus, the good old N5, those were the days. Always glad I lived only one stop from the end of the line, walking home after falling asleep never took very long. The Northern Line, for those who aren’t aware, is the black line on the London Underground map, the one that snakes up from Morden in the distant south, splitting into two shortly before reaching the Thames and sending two branches through central London, “Charing Cross” and “Bank” (that is, the one through the West End and the one through the City), before high-fiving at Euston and then meeting up again at Camden Town, only to say fare-thee-well once more and race north, one side to Edgware and the other to High Barnet. Not to forget the little branch that ends in Mill Hill East, which happened when people going up to Barnet decided in Finchley that they wanted to go to Edgware after all, but only made it as far as Mill Hill East before giving up. They were supposed to keep going all the way to Edgware and beyond up to Bushey, but then the War happened and they said ah leave it, this’ll do.

So, that is #1 in the journey. To get to #2, you would not take the tube, but you’d walk up Watling Avenue (we just call it “The Watling”) to Burnt Oak Broadway and catch the 32 bus down Edgware Road, past Staples Corner, until you reach Kilburn. This is the Cock Tavern on Kilburn High Road. Now I just named four roads in that past sentence, but one is the odd one out. Can you guess it? That’s right, Watling Avenue. The other three are actually the same road, different names for the road called “Edgware Road” in London, which ironically is part of a much longer Roman road called, yep, “Watling Street”. So when I talk about Watling Avenue as “The Watling”, it’s actually not even the Watling most people know. Watling Street, also called the A5, is one of the great historic Roman roads, straight as an arrow for long stretches, going from Dover to Wroxeter, although the A5 was extended beyond through Wales up to Anglesey. The Romans loved long straight roads, though this virtual journey will be anything but straight. Incidentally, Burnt Oak is historically supposed to have gotten its name from the Roman custom of burning an oak tree to mark mile boundaries along the road, at least that’s what they told us at school.

That is enough Road talk. Let’s talk about the pub, the Cock Tavern. Pubs are an endangered species in England, even before COVID-19, with so many historic drinking spots stumbling and falling over on the pavement before being jumped and given a good kick-in by greedy property developers. For example the Carlton Tavern, which stood nearby on Carlton Vale, was the only building on its street to survive the Blitz, but it did not survive being illegally demolished by an Israeli property developer with no notice nor permission a few years back (they were ordered by Westminster Council to rebuild; have they? Yes, eventually, but not reopened it). So I’m glad the Cock Tavern is still there, a historic pub that dates from 1900. I haven’t been there in about twenty years though. Last time I was there was when I was seeing a woman who lived in Kilburn, which is a traditionally Irish area (as was Burnt Oak, but Kilburn and Cricklewood much more so), and I remember seeing this fight between two quite drunk old men in their 70s all over the outcome of a hurling match between Galway and Tipperary. Very heated it was, they were knocking each other into the fruit machine and eventually outside where I didn’t bother going to watch, but I imagine it was like High Noon, I just got another pint and some dry-roasted peanuts and put The Jam on the jukebox, probably. I don’t know, it was a very long time ago now. There were some good old pubs in Kilburn back then, some day I will get back to London and go and draw them in person. I want to go and draw the whole are in fact; you’ll see that I feel like this about a lot of the places I virtually visit.

The next part of the virtual journey will take us to Camden Town, and you don’t get the tube there from Kilburn, you have to take the Overground from Kilburn High Road to Camden Road, or take a bus, or just walk it (but that takes ages, don’t bother). We’ll cover that next time though. See you down Camden…

Hampstead on a Sunday Morning

February 28, 2019February 28, 20193 Comments

It was Sunday morning, and my restless nature meant I had to get out of the house and onto the tube. I decided to get off at Hampstead, one of my favourite hill-based places for a little bit of sketching and shop-going. I love Hampstead in the morning. People going out for breakfast, a tour guide bellowing history to a group of Americans outside the tube station, the little lanes off the High Street filled with cute houses. One of my life’s ambitions was that if I ever got rich I’d live in Hampstead, but you have to be really quite rich to do that nowadays I think. The other ambitions are still a place in Highgate and a place in the South of France, along with California of course, and I have at least lived in those places at some point along the way. I stood across the street from the station, putting my uphill perspective games to good use, not quite believing my good weather luck. Another of my ambitions, which I think would make a good book, is to location-draw every single station on the Northern Line, from Edgware to Morden and back up to High Barnet. Hampstead tube station, the deep red glossy ox-blood tiled building on the corner above, is London’s deepest station, regularly publishing philosophy, attending jazz poetry nights, and having meaningfully long walks along the beach. There are no long escalators here, no, you must use the elevators, or ‘lifts’ as we prefer to call them. After all this time away from England my mind’s vocabulary is slowly starting to flip Stateside – only now do I see the ‘Way Out’ signs on the Underground and think, Hahaha, it’s ‘Exit’, you Hippies. After sketching I went to the EE phone store to try and figure out why my unlimited texts plan was given me so far zero texts, only to find that the EE Store was closed on Sundays, because the Dark Ages. (I ended up finding an open EE store in Edgware, but they couldn’t figure out my texting issue, which is another story I won’t go into here, because it’s not interesting). I did get to go to Waterstones and spend money on books, because I can’t help it, and also go the Cass Arts and spend money on Seawhite of Brighton sketchbooks, because I can’t help myself.

I did have to get back home though (via an unproductive pitstop at the EE store in Edgware – so I have an unlocked iPhone 8, and I could call and use data, and text other iPhones through iMessage, but for some reason could not send any texts to other non-iPhone phones, even with EE’s unlimited texts plan. I was unable to solve this the entire time I was back. I tried all sorts of settings on the phone, and the EE man in the store also could not figure it out. I didn’t have this problem with my older Nokia last time I was back.) I had to get back to meet my newest family member, my baby great-niece Frances, for the first time. However I did have some time to do a very quick sketch of the Flask pub in Flask Walk. Last time I came here I was ghost-hunting with my son a few years ago. Didn’t find any ghosts (what with the laws of thermodynamics pretty much disproving their existence – thanks a lot, thermodynamic party-poopers). I didn’t sketch much as you can see, and decided to leave it in the completely unfinished state rather than go back and do more, or finish off from a photo – this was too unfinished to do that. Besides, you get just enough with a sketch like this. That easel at the end of the lane, that was an oil-painting artist who I presume didn’t have to go and sort out his EE unlimited texting plan nor meet a new baby. He is unseen though, like a ghost. Also unseen, the ghosts of late morning brunchers, brunching away, many of them lined up outside the cafe to my right, a popular choice for the Hampstead brunching set, which if my ambitions are ever realized I will be one of them, brunching with a little dog at my heels, still sweaty from my jog across the Heath. Can you still afford brunch if you live in Hampstead? Is the existence of brunchers disproved by the laws of thermodynamics? Well they don’t appear in the sketch so you’ll have to make your own mind up. Brunching makes you feel good.

I drew a little map in my sketchbook. The colour scheme implies this is all fields, but of course it isn’t. To the north-west is Holly Hill. Up there somewhere among the ghosts and brunchers is the Holly Bush pub, which I have never been to, though I’ve always wanted to, both to have a drink and also to sketch. I’ll save that ambition for some future trip.

a farewell to dippy

January 2, 20179 Comments

Well the New Year is here and I am still posting sketches from November. I know you just can’t get enough of 2016. These are the sketches I did on our brief sojourn back to London over Thanksgiving. It was a week of family fun more than sketching outings (I did most of my UK sketching in the summer) but I managed a few. Above is a sketch from the Natural History Museum. My son really wanted to go there to see the geology exhibits (he loves rocks and minerals) and we wanted to see our beloved Dippy one last time before he is removed from the main hall and replaced with a whale skeleton. Dippy, for those who don’t know, is the giant Diplodocus skeleton in the Hintze Hall. Dippy’s been in the NHM for over a century and has been in that hall since I was a little kid, when I would go there all the time with school or my big sister; I do love the Natural History Museum. Well Dippy is leaving! This very week in fact. They are replacing Dippy with a large blue whale skeleton that will hang from the ceiling. Dippy will go on a tour of the UK (see here for details). My son and I found a seat in an alcove to sketch, but we couldn’t see the whole Dippy so sketched what we could see.

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We also visited the Harry Potter tour at the Warner Bros Studios, at Leavesden, just outside London. We are big Harry Potter fans, and my son read the books and saw the movies this year for the first time so it was an exciting visit to go and see the real sets where they were filmed. We only had time for one sketch (so much to see! We could have been there all day) so I sketched the entrance to Dumbledore’s office while he drew the big pendulum thing. I got a Gryffindor scarf. According to the Pottermore website, my son and I would both be in Gryffindor (my wife got sorted into Slytherin!). We went there with my mum, sister and nephew, and it was a really fun family day, I do recommend it.

One other place I was eager to visit was the new Switch House at the Tate Modern, the new tall extension to the gallery on the South Bank. It only opened last summer. My son kinda enjoyed the gallery (we saw both my books in the shop! But he was more excited about the tiny Slinky he bought) but was nervous about going to the tenth floor observation deck. When we were up there though he loved it, and again we sat and sketched the view. This is now my favourite spot in London and I will definitely come back with a few hours on hand to do a big detailed panorama. It was amazing there. Here is what I did sketch, of the view across the Thames to St. Paul’s Cathedral:

The scene below is of drinkers at the very intimate pub off Trafalgar Square, The Harp. I came here with my friend Roshan, as they do good beer; one day I’d like to sketch the whole bar. As it was, I sketched these happydrikers while Roshan popped to the loo. Less-than-five-minute people sketching!

And here is Burnt Oak tube station, in the area my family live (and I am from. Looking as it has ever done. I was going to finish this, but I wanted to get back and have a cup of tea, and never finished it at home.

One last sketch, which is of course the in-flight drawing on the Virgin flight coming home. It was one of the newer planes, and unlike in the summer, this time I didn’t get completely squashed up and have a bad back for several weeks afterwards. Which was handy. Farewell again then my London, until next time!

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