12 Going Places

BBC Four Collections -

archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this collection, Simon Jenkins has selected programmes

celebrating the people and places of London.

More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

Bedford Square.

This really is what Bloomsbury, in its heyday, was all about.

Lovely rows of Georgian houses surrounding a garden.

The garden itself, providing an oasis against all the hubbub

of urban life and aesthetically pleasing, as well.

These marvellously elegant Georgian houses

are a superb example of how the great families in England,

in this case notably the Russells, Dukes of Bedford,

laid out their estates.

It's seen some extraordinarily famous people.

The home of Forbes-Robertson is here.

The Lord Chancellor of England, Lord Eldon, lived here

and on that side, Lady Ottoline Morrell,

who threw those marvellously extravagant and opulent parties

for the cognoscenti of the day.

But my view of Bloomsbury begins somewhere else

and is a little less grand.

Cromer House is where I came to live when I was very young

and from that window where you can see the red geraniums,

I used to through flower pots

onto the heads of the unsuspecting passers-by

and one of them happened to be Florrie Plume,

who was a great friend of my mother's.

And she said afterwards, "It was only wearing that thick felt hat

"that saved me from a terrible injury from your boy."

My missile throwing was not the result of wickedness,

it was simply because I suffered from insomnia, and frankly I still do.

There you are, you see. An enclosed community.

And built like the squares of Bloomsbury were built,

on the principle of the interior quadrangle.

Here the walls, providing shelter from the wind,

and the open space in the centre.

I'm not trying to romanticise these living conditions, of course.

When they were built there were no bathrooms

and my mother had to make do with one tin bath

hanging up behind the kitchen door

and, of course, the rooms were cramped,

but they were not jerry-built.

They've stood the test of time marvellously

and on these balconies there was a great deal of good-neighbourliness

and probably a lot more friendliness

than you'd find in your present modern, high-rise blocks.

And we didn't have far to go to school.

It was on that roof that I rehearsed Princess Angelica

in Thackeray's Rose And The Ring.

Very good notices I got for it too, deservedly.

At the back here, of the playground,

was the old Regent Theatre, which has now gone.

And you'd think, wouldn't you,

that they were going to build places for the homeless

with the kind of housing problem they've got in this area?

Well, they're not. This is to be an extension for the town hall.

They've got three blocks in the same road already,

so instead of places for the homeless,

there'll be bureaucrats discussing the plight of the homeless.

The whole thing lies in the fairy-like turrets and splendours

of St Pancras station, designed by Gilbert Scott,

who did the Albert Memorial.

There were incredible scenes at the opening.

Cries and sobs of, "Oh, it's too beautiful!"

As, of course, for the London and North-Eastern Railway,

it certainly was.

One of the pleasures of growing up in Bloomsbury

was being surrounded by these lovely squares and their gardens.

Like the garden in Tavistock Square with its statue of Mahatma Gandhi.

When these estates were originally laid out, the great landlords,

like the Russells, leased the houses rather than sold them,

in the interest of preserving the symmetry of the squares

and the architectural harmony.

But, sadly, leases don't last for ever

and many of them have been ruined.

Look at Russell Square.

On that side, there's nothing now

except a vast sort of laboratory in concrete for London University.

Next door to that, a huge office block.

Here, nothing but office conversions,

and very dreary at that - how sad they all look.

And where there was once this wonderfully extravagant facade

of the old Imperial Hotel with architectural conceits all over it,

you've now got this bed and breakfast vulgarity

which would be more at home in the Costa del Sol.

I mean, Torremolinos is full of this kind of rubbish.

Thank goodness they've left the Russell Hotel alone,

which has four charming niches,

housing Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Queen Anne

and, of course, Queen Victoria.

Woburn Square has been hopelessly bashed about,

and by the London University,

because, not content with taking over houses

for departments of this and departments of that,

they've actually bashed the houses down. And to make way for what?

Well, for this sort of thing,

which doesn't even belong in an area like this.

And that appalling conglomerate mass of concrete behind there,

well, that has nothing to do with Bloomsbury at all.

And there used to be a lovely little church there.

A charming little Gothic church

with a tower that almost dominated the Square,

and now, apart from the portico, there's nothing left.

The tentacles of London University seem to have spread even to here,

Gordon Square.

And though no-one seems to actually reside here any more,

I can never walk these pavements without thinking

of those incredible and eccentric and brilliant people

who once did live here.

I think of Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf

who ran the Hogarth Press and printed, incidentally,

the first edition of TS Eliot's The Waste Land.

And the Strachey family

who were so intimately connected with The Spectator,

whose offices in Gower Street are just over the way even to this day.

I once knew a lady who had to read to old Lady Strachey

who was rather deaf, and she said, "I called out to her,

" 'I won't bother with the chapter headings, Lady Strachey.' "

And the reply was, "Well, they're the only bits I enjoy."

And here we are at the house in which Lytton Strachey lived.

Lytton, that loveable eccentric.

I think of Lytton at the conscientious objectors' tribunal,

with his inflatable rubber ring, saying,

"It's the piles! The dreadful piles!"

And, when his Rolls Royce failed to start, saying,

"We'll have to turn it into a greenhouse."

The Lytton Stracheys and their friends

Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry, EM Forster,

all of them seem to epitomise Bloomsbury, intellectually.

And within a few yards of here,

the architectural apotheosis of Bloomsbury itself,

the British Museum.

It has a fine Greek facade, as you can see.

It was designed by the Smirke brothers.

The whole thing's really a crib from the Parthenon

and it's ironic that this museum should house the Elgin Marbles,

those curious pieces of statuary

which were in the frieze, originally, of the Parthenon itself.

In the Assyrian section here, there's a fine head of Hadrian,

who ruled over us as proconsul and built that incredible wall

from Solway to Tyne against the barbarians.

That's a Greek word that was coined by the dwellers of the city-state

in derision of those outside who looked after the sheep

and, they said, could only make noises like sheep

and went, "Baa-baa!" Thus, barbarian,

to indicate all the uncivilised values.

As opposed to Hadrian who was eminently civilised

and dead right for Bloomsbury.

MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY

I wanted to build a museum up round the nucleus of reproducing pianos,

which, of course, are the most important item,

so to speak, in the museum.

We've added to the museum since, all of these other instruments

which of course are not reproducing ones

but which, nevertheless, are very attractive.

Now, we have husbands and wives who come along here.

The husband might come along to have a look at the works in a piano

whereas the wife likes the music.

PIANO AND VIOLIN MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY

In about 1890, Henry Conrad Sandell emigrated from Sweden to America.

In four...three years, between 1904 and 1907,

he contrived the whole of this instrument,

with the Mills Novelty Company in Chicago, here, where he worked.

Out on the left here, are the weights

which keep the strings of the violin at constant tension,

regardless of atmospheric conditions.

This is the after-play mute.

Here, in the centre, are the fingers

which stop off the strings from underneath, like that,

instead of on top, as usual.

Here is the automatic resin device,

which comes down in between the tunes.

And a very clever violin it is, too.

It can play both outside strings at once, if it wants to.

You try that with a bow.

JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY

PERCUSSION IS ADDED TO THE MUSIC

MUSIC CONTINUES TO PLAY

Before I found this church,

they were stored in vicarages and garages all over the country.

Then one day, I noticed a piece in the paper

about there being 800 redundant churches,

so I started looking around.

In the end, I was successful in getting this one, down in Brentford.

It was in a shocking condition when I first came into it.

The roof was leaking, the pews were awash,

the hymn books were thrown all over the place by vandals,

the organ pipes were out, some of the windows were out,

the floor blocks were all up.

I think the vandals were coming back to set fire to them,

but luckily they didn't.

Anyhow, after going up on the roof and repairing the leaks myself,

I eventually got an old pensioner

who came along and helped for a year or two.

And then, now, we're quite... we're very well set up

with a fine band of voluntary helpers who come along

and just love doing the work

and establishing the museum on even a firmer basis still.

PIANO MUSIC PLAYS

Village cricket is the best form of cricket there is.

A classless game, played by sturdy yeomen and country vicars,

by men on the dole and well-to-do commuters.

It's a game in which accent and income count for nothing

and the only men worth knowing are those who score a few runs,

take a few wickets and manage, somehow, to hold their catches.

In recent years, this most satisfying form

of the most beautiful of all games

has been given particular significance

by the Haig Village Cricket Championship, a knock-out competition

which culminates on August 30th with the final at Lords,

the Mecca of all cricketers, everywhere.

This year, 808 teams took part.

Teams with glorious names, like Nettlebed and Old Botley,

Burnt Yates and Thorpe Hesley,

Chaddesley Corbett and Coalpit Heath,

Tolleshunt D'Arcy and Helions Bumpstead.

You could write poems about names like that

and John Betjeman probably has.

Well, this Sunday, eight of those teams will be

fighting out the quarterfinals and if one of the games

is in your district, rush to the ground

and shout for your local side.

If the match is anything like the one we saw in the area finals

between Langleybury of Hertfordshire and Isleham of Cambridgeshire,

you'll see a contest of fluctuating fortunes

between men of steely determination and rugged skill,

fought to an exciting and, I fear, slightly bitter conclusion.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

CHURCH BELLS RING

Howzat!

Dangerous this, dangerous.

BELLS CONTINUE TO RING

Howzat!

APPLAUSE

HE MOUTHS

Nobody's got any sleep here, this afternoon,

because of the excitement of the game,

but I gather you don't get any sleep the night before the game, either.

No, I don't get a lot.

You know, you usually try and think how the game's going to go

and toss and turn for most of the night.

In fact, this morning, I finished up in the bath with cramp,

- believe it or not. Yeah, yeah. - What time was this?

About twenty past six, I suppose.

I come straight back, went to bed

and damn me if I didn't dream about the game in between that time.

I was having a row with my brother and Geoff Riddick.

I most probably will after this game tonight, now.

Why do you get so worked up?

People will say, "Well, it's only a game."

Well, I think the thing is, they rely on me being the main bowler,

you know, and...the pressure's on me,

and yet I feel for the other lads, you know,

because they get so keyed up and nervous in the game.

I mean, I've seen positions where we've handed the ball to a fella

and his hand's gone like that when he's got to bowl.

It's unbelievable how it gets you sometimes, you know?

Gordon, do you feel the same way? Do you get that kind of tension?

Yeah, much the same, really.

I think it's an effect that you've just got one chance of...

of getting to Lords.

This is what everybody dreams about, isn't it, if you play cricket?

And, you know, at this level, it's a wonderful dream, isn't it?

And you feel, if you lose out on this particular game, that's it.

There was a year when one of the sides that reached the Haig final

included about nine men who'd played Minor Counties cricket.

We true village cricketers disapprove of that.

The true village cricketer dreams of playing for his minor county

the way a first-class cricketer dreams of playing for England,

and with even less chance of fulfilment.

But Langleybury and Isleham, they're real village sides.

And what a game they put on and what a finish they provided.

Each side, according to the rules, bowl 40 overs

and around about seven o'clock

we came to the 80th and last over of the match.

Six balls to go and Langleybury needing three to win.

Well, two would be enough if they could level the scores

and still have a wicket in hand.

But, alas, it was not to be.

Off the last ball, the 480th ball, they still needed two.

They ran one, they tried for a second but the throw was quick and accurate.

The wicket was down, the last man was run out

and Isleham had won by one run.

Well, nothing could be more exciting than that.

But, as I said, there was bitterness, too.

The turning point of the game had come a few overs earlier

with another run out.

Langleybury's skipper, all fierce concentration

and bristling moustache, had looked to be winning the game,

when the rival captain and wicketkeeper hurled the wicket down

and he was given out.

To no avail did Langleybury protest

that their captain had merely strayed from his crease to pat the pitch.

Whatever the moral rights or wrongs of the situation, he had to go.

We Hertfordshire men didn't think much of that.

"Not on," we said. "Not cricket," we muttered into our beer.

But there you are, there was nothing we could do about it.

Nothing, that is, except congratulate Isleham and dream about next year.

I should like to thank Langleybury for a great game.

I'm sorry we play it hard, but that's our way.

CHEERING

Well done, Billy.