A Stroll though Highgate Cemetery

Posted in London, Places, Writing by carolcooper

My mate Gus was out one day;

Someone asked ‘Do you know the quickest way

To Highgate Cemetery?’

‘You bet I do’ said Gus

As he pushed the poor fellow under a bus.”

There are lots of reasons for visiting Highgate Cemetery in North London. Here are just a few of them.

It’s a final resting place for many literary folk, among them Douglas Adams, Alan Sillitoe, George Eliot, Pat Kavanagh and William Foyle (who founded Foyle’s with his brother Gilbert).

Douglas Adams, with pencil tribute

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’s writer

Literary agent Pat Kavanagh

One half of W & G Foyle Ltd

Then there’s this avid reader.

Jim Horn 1976-2010

Poor Harry Thornton didn’t survive the flu pandemic.

Pianist Harry Thornton 1883-1918

I expect you know who Malcolm McLaren was, unlike the couple nearby who thought he had something to do with double buggies.

Malcolm McLaren 1946-2010

Pop artist Patrick Caulfield plays a visual joke on the headstone.

DEAD or alive? Probably dead if you look closely.

But Jeremy Beadle goes all serious with books.

Jeremy Beadle 1948-2008

There are war graves, mainly from World War One, and a 1930s monument to the London Fire Brigade. There’s also one very bad boy.

Mastermind of the Great Train Robbery 1963

Bruce Reynolds, the brains behind the Great Train Robbery

You were expecting the big man? Oh, all right. Here you go.

Funny how the communist gets the most lavish tomb, dwarfing those around him. Souls of lefties gather round, among them historian Eric Hobsbawm and Iraqi Communist leader Saad Saadi Ali, while a little further away lies Philip Gould, architect of New Labour.

Eric Hobsbawm 1917-2012

Saad Saadi Ali

See? Ali is left-leaning even in death.

We were not alone, as we soon discovered.

These days you can still be buried in Highgate, though space is at a premium. The impressive statuary is packed close.

We’d only visited the East Cemetery, but, as the sun began to set, it seemed time to leave…

20Nov2014

The Hack’s Progress

Posted in London, Places, Writing by carolcooper

Harriet has been a journalist for 16 years. At first, she hoped to become a household name.

Now, as she sits in Starbucks, her goal is more mundane: to pay Simon back. Her boyfriend put a roof over her head and this new laptop in front of her. Still, it would be nice to be invited to speak at an Editorial Intelligence Breakfast Salon. Or just contribute to a trending topic on Twitter, ideally in the same week that it’s trending.

Simon does not approve of Starbucks, or, as he puts it, ‘all that it stands for’. Harriet’s view is less complex. It stands on the corner and it’s a place to work.

Whenever Harriet thinks her career’s going OK, she brings herself back down to earth. What kind of household name would pen features like “What your loo roll says about you”?

That was at least easier than some of the other features. The commissioning editor of RightHere! magazine, a terrifying Glaswegian woman, once wanted a really fun piece on women who’d traded their baby for a Hermes handbag. When Harriet’s jaw dropped, the editor assured her there were zillions of women out there that would feel unconditional love for a Birkin, hen. Especially since it wouldn’t poop and cry all night, and it certainly wouldn’t tell them it hated them in 12 years time.

Harriet knows all about ‘really fun’ pieces. After making a zillion phone calls and pestering everyone on Facebook, she still ends up without any case studies willing to give their real names and photos, let alone women young, slim and blonde enough. Editors always claim to know their readers, but Harriet doubts if any of them are smart sassy under-40s. RightHere! magazine could probably keep 99% of its readers happy with knitting patterns and offers on cod liver oil.

Instead Harriet asked “Could it be a Mulberry bag?”

The editor was withering. “Are ye daft? Nobody would do that.”

Christmas is coming up and Starbucks has gone all red and green. This time of year makes Harriet blue so she tries to keep busy. She is up to her eyes in her piece Great Gifts for Under £10. These are remarkably similar to Great Gifts Over £10, except for the quality.

She wonders about covering Fabulous Festive Gifts Over a Grand, but doesn’t think PR companies will send over the freebies she has in mind.

By now most titles have Christmas sewn up, but there’s always the chance of a last minute request.

The editor at RightHere! will probably ring her with a really fun festive feature idea. All Harriet would have to do is find three women who’ve had an immaculate conception. They’d have to give their real names and be photographed, of course. And it would a bonus if their partners are carpenters.

***

Harriet is a freelance journalist from my novel One Night at the Jacaranda. This weekend you can read more about her and other single Londoners for only 99p (UK Kindle edition). And let’s face it, what could you get at Starbucks for 99p?

10Nov2014

Remembrance Sunday in Suffolk

Posted in Family life, Places by carolcooper

Did they know, 100 years ago, how many would come?

While I didn’t count heads at Aldeburgh cenotaph, I noticed the variety of individuals come to pay respect.

Elderly veterans, chests heaving with medals and emotion.

Britten buffs (it’s next door to Snape).

Local dignitaries, the vicar and the obligatory Laurence Binyon.

Children. Dogs (pride of place to Aldeburgh’s First Pooch Snooks).

Hell’s Angels too.

3 Regiment Army Air Corps, based at Wattisham. They weren’t all on parade that day.

An Apache flew past, doing the length of coastal Suffolk.

The crowd finally shuffled away, to warm houses and hot dinners.

We owe.

******

PS If ever you’re in Aldeburgh, see Moot Hall. It’s been here since 1520 and is set to be around a few more years.

30Sep2014

10 Things I Learned at Cambridge

Posted in Places by carolcooper

Last weekend was the Alumni Festival, when Cambridge was invaded by hordes of people who look ancient (and probably think the same about the other alumni). Three days of talks, tours, and socialising helped fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge. One thing I do remember: the beds in my own college are less than hospitable, so DH and I stayed in Churchill College instead. It’s where the Churchill Archives live, though they can’t be seen at weekends.

So here are 10 things I learned.

1 Founded in 1583, Cambridge University Press is the oldest publisher in the world (though Oxford, it pains me to say, is larger). Here are its headquarters.

The Pitt Building

2 Newnham College’s gardens are no longer a hidden beauty now that scores of alumni toured them at the weekend. They were even allowed – shock, horror – to walk on the grass.

Part of Newnham College gardens

3 You can be a leading light in immunology, pioneer a vaccine for HPV, and still score zero out of 10 for tact. Here’s what the Vice Chancellor Prof Sir Leszek Borysiewicz said to a gathering of alumni on Friday evening:

The quality of students has never been better.

4 There are too many sundials in Cambridge for me to count. If you happen to know the total number, please leave a comment! Meanwhile this is one of my favourites. Or rather two of them.

Sundials on St Botolph’s Church

5 There are now parking charges on Sunday, so bicycles are needed more than ever.

Bikes against a wall in Trinity Lane

6 It’s possible for a plant to have no leaves. An ephedra stem just has scales. If you’re wondering, the drug ephedrine comes from ephedra. This is one of the plants in the Botanic Gardens.

Ephedra major subsp procera

7 Thanks to the Whipple Museum, I can now tell the difference between a reflecting telescope and a refracting telescope. But I’m damned if I’d know how to use one.

8 Esquire Bedells can be female too. The role goes back to the 13^th century but these days you don’t need a Y chromosome to carry a mace, perform ceremonial duties, or give a cracking tour of the Senate House. Here is an Esquire Bedell with one of her colleagues.

Senior Esquire Bedell Nicola Hardy & Pro-Proctor Tim Milner

9 Because I couldn’t attend every event, I still don’t know:

Standing beneath the Tree of Knowledge aka Atlantic cedar

How to strip and rebuild a single-cylinder engine.

Why cats make you sneeze.

Why we can walk, but robots can’t (yet).

What black holes are for.

Whether science can make a cyclist go faster.

What makes your brain efficient.

Why life is so complicated.

But maybe I’ll find out next year.

10 No matter how long it’s been since student days, you never forget how to drop curry on your lap like an undergraduate on a Saturday night. I’ll spare you that photo.

28Aug2013

The March on Washington

Posted in Places by carolcooper

About 250,000 people were there that day in 1963, and I was one of them.

I didn’t actually march. I skipped because I was a child at the time, excited to see what was happening just a few hundred yards from where we lived in Washington, DC. So, holding my mother’s hand, my blonde pigtails flying, we went down 23rd Street.

As we neared the Lincoln Memorial, we heard Mahalia Jackson sing. She was very big in those days. I may have whispered to my mother just how big I thought she was.

August is invariably muggy and close in DC. But the atmosphere was terrific. Though inter-racial tensions may have been high, not for a moment did we feel out of place, let alone intimidated, and I’m sure other white people there didn’t either. Even my mother, who’s known for being chicken, never thought to turn back.

Curiosity took us there. Respect and awe kept us there. Yes, I heard Reverend Martin Luther King Jr make that speech. It is with me still.

My memories of the day are neither profound nor erudite. How could they be, when I was so young? Yet even now I remember it. That’s why MLK has a place on my wall and most of all in my heart.

Pills & Pillow-Talk

Carol Cooper – trained to observe, born to write.

Category Archives: Places