Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

 We visit Highgate Cemetery, continued.

Highgate Cemetery

When I first moved to London, in 1976, I and some other students took a tube to South Woodford, where we would be living in the Halls of Residence. Outside the city, a lot of the tube lines are above ground, and on this one we passed a gigantic graveyard. I'd never seen anything like it. 

"There are a lot of people in London," Ralph mused, solemnly. 

"And they're all dead," Trevor quipped, though it wasn't very funny. 

There are many more graveyards in London, but none as famous as Highgate Cemetery.

Near the entrance, and a must-visit, was the grave of Douglas Adams, writer of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, a Doctor Who writer, and the originator of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Adams died young, at 49, and as with all creatives who leave us early, one can’t help wondering what he would have done next. You can see his marker a long way off, as a tradition has sprung up in the quarter century since his death. Visitors leave ballpoint and fountain pens in a receptacle placed there for them. Anyone who has, or has found, a piece of paper with the number "42" on it also leaves them at the grave. 

I left a ballpoint pen in his memory.

Douglas Adams' grave

Also resting there is Malcolm McLaren, the producer, Sex store owner and manager/entrepreneur of the Sex Pistols.  Another man who didn’t quite make old age. As I’ve gotten older myself, some of the things I thought of as Malcolm “cashing in” – like the South African beats, or the Sex Pistols themselves – now seem more like genius moves on his part. (I could have done without “Cosh the Driver” though.)  Visitors seem to leave him pound coins. Not sure why, and I didn’t have one, but in a move that was well and truly NOT PUNK I didn’t steal any of the ones that were already there.

Malcolm McLaren's grave. Better a spectacular failure,
than a benign success.

The big draw to Highgate Cemetery is Karl Marx.  Dr. Marx has two grave markers. One where he was initially interred, and one where he was reburied. I didn’t have a tour guide to ask, but I assume he was moved because so many people wanted to spend eternity next to him. Paul Foot and Eric Hobsbawm were nearby, along with a few international Marxists and probably others whose names weren’t familiar to me.  His older grave was decorated with a little hammer and sickle made of loose pebbles. It probably won’t last long, no doubt a gift from a visitor.

Karl Marx' grave. Looks a 
bit like Zardoz, but isn't.

Karl Marx' original, now empty, grave. Also shown, 
several feet and a pebble hammer and sickle.

Eric Hobsbawm's grave, near Uncle Karl

Paul Foot's grave, near Uncle Karl

We also visited William Kingdon Clifford, the mathematician, Michael Faraday, the Father of Electricity,  Alan Sillitoe the playwright and Patrick Caulfield’s inventive “DEAD” tombstone. There’s also a circular section called the Egyptian Mausoleum which is a true city of the dead. Walking around it is like visiting Petra or Babylon, except it’s wet and cold and the signage is in English.

Allan Sillitoe

Patrick Caulfield

William Kingdon Clifford

Michael Faraday

It is a very sobering place. I got the very definite message that people are dead for a lot longer than they are alive, and that time doesn’t stop for them even then. It marches on, with trees ripping apart the coffins and tumbling the gravestones, and the thick layers of moss constantly overturned by crows hunting for insects underneath. There weren’t even any conkers around for me to take as a souvenir, as I had at Pere-Lachaise and Golders Green.

This marker reads "Daniel St. John Smith, International Man of Mystery"
and he is. We couldn't find out who he was.

Part of the Egyptian Mausoleum

European Vacation series: 

M62 Memories: A Southern Californian’s Christmas in Yorkshire

After Christmas in England, peacocks in Tring

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

Californian's vacation: Stairs and sights in Paris

European vacation: We visit Père Lachaise cemetery

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

 European vacation continued...

We spent the rest of the time in Paris at the Pompidou Center,  touring the Surrealists exhibition. Paris is easy to get around – the Metro is wonderful – and the language presented no obstacle. (It helps that I can read French, full disclosure.) Most French people could tell we were English from about thirty yards away (especially amazing, since we haven’t lived in England for over a quarter of a century) and switched to speaking English. Evidently the era of French people pretending not to understand English is over. I wonder if leaving the Common Market/EU left them feeling more, rather than less, friendly?

We were soon back at Gare Du Nord for another round of sheep-dip-style passport lines and within hours back in London. So what did we do once we were back?

Why, go to Highgate Cemetery, of course.

Highgate Cemetery. An angel with a broken wing

In all the years I lived in London, I never visited it. I’m rather sad about that now, as apparently it used to be a complete mess, a sort of Goth playground, after a bankruptcy in the 1960s which led to it being completely overgrown (and, I’ve heard, partially desecrated) by the 1980s, when the Friends of Highgate Cemetery took over the administration.

We paid said Friends a few quid each and went for a walk among the inhabitants.

Where Pere Lachaise was neat, well-tended and respected, Highgate is still higgledy-piggledy, cattywumpus and dripping with nonchalance. The guide pamphlet mentions that the Victorians thought nothing of trampling over graves to get to their loved one’s burial pitch and it seems the modern visitors do likewise. After a few attempts at following the paths, we did the same, navigating by headstones, walking over graves and tripping over tree roots from full-grown trees that have as little respect for the dead as any of the visitors.  Where Pere Lachaise had rows of neat mausoleums engraved with “concession à perpétuité” (a plot granted to a family in perpetuity) on the back, Highgate has hillsides with tumbled, worn rocks that were once graves.

Don’t get me wrong – the Friends have done a great job clearing up much of the forest and putting things back together but there are sections that look much like a clint limestone pavement (and the grykes are just as treacherous). 

We had a list of people that we wanted to visit, but for this post, here are a few general views showing the packing density of the resting places and the full-grown regrowth forest that lives among them.

Highgate Cemetery 

Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery's "grykes"

Highgate Cemetery - one of the more tidy parts

Next: More Highgate. Karl Marx and his pals and some of our heroes are buried there.

European Vacation series:

M62 Memories: A Southern Californian’s Christmas in Yorkshire

After Christmas in England, peacocks in Tring

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

Californian's vacation: Stairs and sights in Paris

European vacation: We visit Père Lachaise cemetery

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

 Vacation continued, still in Soho:

We toured Carnaby Street, marveling that it’s still able to trade on its name 56 years after London’s swinging creaked to a standstill. All the modern big names are there, even though Lady Jane and Biba are long gone. We didn’t buy anything. But at least it wasn’t closed.

The Coffee Store

My old not-very-happy hunting ground, Patisserie Valerie, is gone now, but the tea and coffee store a few doors down is still there. I couldn’t see any of the thick, embossed tea bricks that so excited my imagination in those days, but  you can get them on Amazon now. No need to visit the inscrutable orient, or for that matter Soho. 

We did eat pastries from Soho – I had a Mont Blanc, which is not, as I thought, a type of pen – from a patisserie nearby. Or it may have been a boulangerie. In standard Soho fashion, all three square meters of the patisserie were packed so we were sent upstairs where twenty to thirty people shrank to fit themselves around five small tables in an area no larger than my bedroom. At intervals, waiters and waitresses would appear at the top of the stairs and attempt to give random pastries to punters, who would point fingers at each other and shout out who needed what. (Each newcomer learned who had ordered which pastry from the previous round of groans and finger pointing.) It was like an Alice in Wonderland tea party, but the cakes were heavenly.

Third Man Records, London

Fender Triplecaster on Third Man stage

Pedal Board on Third Man Stage

Third Man Stage in basement

Edit to add (03/01/25): You can watch a video of Jack White demonstrating this equipment on

Instagram here.

Literarium, Third Man Records, London

Also on the menu, so to speak, were Third Man Records, Jack White’s record store, and the Sir John Soane’s Museum, a must-see. It’s been expanded since I was last there. Like the zoological-taxidermy addiction of Walter Rothschild, previous post, the architectural-stone jones of John Soane was quite insatiable and the museum, which is really just a London townhouse, holds so much carved and worked stone that it must be constructed of Tardis-material with steel foundations reaching below the Tube layer.

Talking of giant stone monuments, we also (after a couple of false starts) figured out how to queue for the British Museum. This *is* a place I visited many times while I lived in London, but seeing it again was wonderful. We spent a lot of time on the Elgin Marbles. (I’d never paid any attention to them before as my parents took one of their dislikes to them.) I then spent 90% of the remainder of the time in the Egyptian Rooms, a type of pilgrimage for me.

Below: Pictures of items from the British Museum Egyptian Collection

The British Museum, unlike most I’ve visited in recent years, has not dumbed down for schoolchildren and I’m pretty sure the schoolchildren don’t mind that. (There were a lot of them around, all engrossed.) There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of items on display, with cards giving basic details and there was a complete lack of “activities,” broken machines that show videos, broken machines that show how things were made or used, or crayons, coloring books, sandboxes or play bricks.

It would take days to properly explore the museum, but we didn't have days. We did have fun.

Vacation to be continued...

European Vacation series:

M62 Memories: A Southern Californian’s Christmas in Yorkshire

After Christmas in England, peacocks in Tring

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

Californian's vacation: Stairs and sights in Paris

European vacation: We visit Père Lachaise cemetery

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Vacation, continued...

St. Anne's Church, Limehouse

Although I didn’t go back to the Isle of Dogs, where I once lived, we did visit Limehouse, because I wanted to visit St. Anne’s, the Hawksmoor church that is a companion to Christ Church Spitalfields. We took the legendary 277 bus, proudly tapping our Oystercards to the ticket reader as if to the manor born.

When I lived on the Island, I used to catch the 277 at Mile End. There were two kinds: one that went all the way around the Isle of Dogs and one that used to terminate half-way there, at Limehouse. I was sitting on a wall minding my own business one day when a bus came along. I got up to get on and the woman in front of me said, with extreme disdain, "Fack! Loim Arse!"

I was so taken with this inscrutable outburst that I rolled it around in my mind for a while and it wasn't until the bus terminated at Limehouse and threw us all off that I realized she had said, in East London-ese, "Oh, dear! This one only goes to Limehouse!"

St. Anne's Church, Limehouse

The bus we took this day was going around the Island, but we only went as far as Limehouse. 

I hadn’t realized St. Anne’s Church had been derelict for so long. There’s a movement to repair the roof and otherwise patch it up but it looks like it needs much more money than the few visitors a day it might get. The organ has been restored, along with the stained glass of the east window. An enthusiastic volunteer told us that there are more repairs in the works. I find it hard to believe that a country would let Hawksmoor churches melt away for lack of upkeep, but it does. (Today I heard that the government is reducing the money it spends on church upkeep, which sounds like it makes sense – the Church of England has plenty of money – but in the case of these architectural treasures, it seems churlish to let them decay.)

Restored Stained Glass

Damp and water damage inside St. Anne's

St. Anne’s, Limehouse is famous – at least to me – for a mysterious monument in the churchyard. For no adequately explained reason, there’s a stone pyramid sitting in the graveyard. It’s tall and thin, the sides at the wrong angle for an Egyptian pyramid. It bears a carving, now eaten away, and the words “The Wisdom of Solomon.”  Theories abound – was it built by the Freemasons? Placed here by the Illuminati? Is there treasure underneath it? The enthusiastic guide told us it was probably part of the roof decoration that just never got hauled up there and was left dumped in the yard. He sounded like he’d had to fend off quite a few “Is it Satanist? Occult paraphernalia?” questions over the years.  I told him I remembered hearing the peacocks calling in the churchyard when I lived nearby and he looked startled, which made me doubt my own memory.

Three views of St. Anne's Pyramid

Charing Cross Road - the grate

We paid special attention to Soho. I’d always wanted to visit a particular grate in the middle of Charing Cross Road, where you can lie down and peer at a road sign several feet below ground. Little Compton Street. And so you can. I attempted to photograph it, but unlike an old-fashioned phone lens, a cellphone doesn’t fit between the bars of the grate, so the snaps are not impressive. Still, I’ve seen it now – it does exist.

Little Compton Street sign visible below street level, Charing Cross Road

 We were delighted to see that one place we remembered well was neither closed nor demolished. The Wong Kei.  It was the same as we remembered, though the waiters were at least 79% less rude than they used to be. And it didn’t take credit cards, the only place in England that didn’t. There was a cashpoint nearby, but Soho seems to have only one and this meant there was at least three hundred people in line, none of whom read English, or had brought the correct card, or remembered their password. I got fifty pounds out, realized it would not be enough and queued up again. Eventually we started our first Wong Kei meal in thirty five years. Mmm proper British (Chinese) duck! However, I’d forgotten that tax is included in the UK and tips are optional so it actually came to forty eight pounds, so hello bank I’d like my $7 in transaction fees for the second withdrawal returned, please and thank you.

Vacation to be continued...

European Vacation series:

M62 Memories: A Southern Californian’s Christmas in Yorkshire

After Christmas in England, peacocks in Tring

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

Californian's vacation: Stairs and sights in Paris

European vacation: We visit Père Lachaise cemetery

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

 Holiday part 3:

We went into London proper to recap the true London tourist experience. Both of us lived there for a decade or so in the seventies and eighties and got into that rut where you -could- go to the theater or a club or a museum every day, but since you live there you just -don’t-. We had about 24 hours over three days to rectify this situation. Luckily, they’ve invented the Oystercard, which is a credit-card sized ticket that you fill with skrilla at a machine and then rub it against ticket turnstiles on just about any form of transport. I bought fifty pounds worth of Oysters and by the end of the trip had just about spent it all. (The remainder stays in the card for the next visit, however long that may be.)

Speaking of moolah, I was very keen to find a bank or Cambio to get my hands on British money, but I was told I didn’t need it, because everyone takes credit cards from everywhere, even if you’re buying a newspaper or a bar of chocolate. This last part turned out to be true. (In the US, there’s often a ≥$5 limit on credit transactions, as no one wants to pay the fees if you’re just buying a pack of gum. Not the case in England, with only one exception on this trip.)

Our first trip took us to Central London, which was exactly the same as when we lived there thirty years ago. Oxford Street, Regent Street, Lions in Trafalgar Square, all the business. Christmas lights, conmen, fake Rolexes and people drawing huge crowds by doing “magic tricks” which had ten-minute build ups and unimpressive finales. It was absolutely rammed with people, all of whom trod on the back of my heel at one point or another. I'm short but in this crowd I was completely invisible. 

Oddly, Trafalgar Square was the least packed part of London.

We went to Foyle’s, the giant bookstore. Stephen predicted that they’d still have the same Edwardian payment system they had in our college years. In the olden days, you would find a book somewhere in the acres of dim, unmarked aisles, and take it to a counter where a young man in a three-piece suit wrote you an invoice. You then went up several floors in an elephant-powered brass birdcage elevator to a musty room in the attic where a Gringott’s Goblin behind three-inch thick bullet-proof glass read your invoice disapprovingly through tiny pince-nez, took your money in Gold Doubloons, sent the coins through pneumatic tubes to a Safe Place Elsewhere and issued a hand-written pink and yellow two-part receipt. You would then walk around for a few hours attempting to find your selected book again. On locating it, you would swap the pink receipt for the physical book. You could then take the book outside the store along with the goldenrod part of the receipt. At least, I think that’s how it went.

But Stephen was wrong. Nowadays they take credit cards at several cash registers, and you can pick up a book from a shelf that is not in semi-darkness and actually buy it. Oddly, we didn’t buy any books on our visit.  Business probably dropped off precipitously when they dismantled the old Diagon Alley system.

We visited our old university, now known as Queen Mary University of London. It is a great deal bigger than it was in our day, but since it was closed, there was no way to know if there was anything inside the new buildings. I assume there is. The People’s Palace, an entertainment venue built in Victorian Times, remains unchanged. I saw a number of terrific bands there when I was a student and I hope that tradition is continuing.

On emerging from the complex, we were startled to see that the City of London, at least the gigantic towers thereof, were far closer to Mile End than they used to be. Looming in the winter mist, they looked like a mirage of some Gernsback Continuum future, just out of reach. Mile End itself was the same – doss houses and pubs.

View of City from Mile End sidewalk

As the city has crept closer, it brought with it a little variety in the eateries, so we had handmade noodles at Biang Biang one lunchtime. Just a few yards from once-derelict Christ Church, Spitalfields and the garment sweatshops of the olden times (both still here) the eatery is in the shadow of the Gherkin.  We also climbed the Monument (to the Great Fire of London), another thing I hadn’t done while I lived there, and spent an afternoon in the Tate Modern. The Millenium footbridge was new to me, as was its startling view of St. Paul’s Cathedral (closed).

The Monument to the Great Fire of London

The Shard as seen from the Millennium Bridge

St. Paul's seen from the Millennium Bridge

The front of Hawksmoor's Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Those blasted coin-operated bicycles are everywhere.

View of Christ Church's side from the gardens,
showing the window arrangement

Two grave markers in Christ Church gardens,
now moved against a new building

I wrote a story recently that included a lot of Spitalfields' history, and has some details about Christ Church's garden and the removed graves. I was very privileged to get a chance to verify the details 'on the ground' so to speak. I did get 'creative' about the trees in the yard, but was pleased to see that they more or less correspond with what I wrote.  I used Google Street View when writing the story, an incredible resource but no match for being able to check sight lines yourself. 

More vacation to come...

European Vacation series:

M62 Memories: A Southern Californian’s Christmas in Yorkshire

After Christmas in England, peacocks in Tring

Moving on: Southern Californians brave London's Mean Streets

England Vacation - St. Anne's and sub-street shenanigans

Southern Californians abroad: Central London State of Mind

Californian's vacation: Stairs and sights in Paris

European vacation: We visit Père Lachaise cemetery

Californians abroad: Highgate Cemetery Part 1

Californians in Highgate Cemetery - Part 2

Should of stuck to bananas

 

There used to be a café on Old Compton Street in Soho, London, called Patisserie Valerie. Its location, opposite the 2is coffee bar, where British rock and roll first materialized and a few streets away from the row of studios where the music for the British Invasion was recorded, made it a place of pilgrimage for me. I arrived in London in 1976, and as soon as I'd mastered the Tube, I visited Soho and went to bask in the remaining vibes.

Everyone in Patisserie Valerie appeared almost magically hip. Everyone inside radiated cool. On my third or maybe fourth visit, I ordered a coffee and a millefeuille, chose a table, and sat down. 

The tables were communal. In England, at least back then, no one ushered you to a private table. You selected your own. The cafe was empty, and I sat alone with my thoughts and thousand layered, flaky pastry filled with crème anglaise. 

As I looked out of the window, someone must have decided to share my table. I don’t remember seeing him sit down. The first he impinged upon me was when he stood up abruptly and declared in a high, feminine voice, “Really! Some people do NOT know how to eat!” 

I watched him go, chewing my mouthful of flakes. After some time it dawned on me that he’d been watching me eat the difficult confection and I had somehow failed to live up to his standard of decorum.  He must have been disappointed at my lack of contrition. 

Somewhat later I read of a millionaires/movers-and-shakers party where the men sat down to a meal but the women hired to decorate the party were only allowed to eat a banana, “The only food that can be eaten delicately.” 

I should have stuck to bananas.

Bouncing Down Tiller Road: A Tale of Bins and Bras

Apropos of nothing much, I remembered the time I was running down the sidewalk of Tiller Road, London, and woman shouted out of an upper window, "You should wear a bra. Den you woudn go bouncin' down de road!"

I remember it because I was wearing a bra at the time but couldn't work out how to get that information across while running for whatever I was late for.  It's less memorable than the time I walked towards the stairwell, saw a woman holding a baby, and said, not unreasonably I thought, "Hello, baby." The woman replied, "F*ck off, you lesbian c*nt." Ah, memories of the East End.

The property was Hammond House, where students from Queen Mary, University of London were housed. It's on my mind because I'm writing a story about a garbage chute. A lot of the properties in London had them. They have access hatches in the stairwell on each floor, which you open and chuck your rubbish into. In theory, it goes down a kind of chimney and lands in a dumpster. In practice, it often looked like the photo below. 

Hammond House garbage chute 1979. Model is Tina. Photo by Rosie (I think.)

The thin shafts are easily blocked, and the overall amount of crap residents can throw away has increased massively since these flats were built. 

Hammond House was leveled in 2012. The new block appears to have the same arrangement. Due to the magic of Google Street View (1), you can examine the lack of progress. 

Hammond Rubbish Chute, 2009

Hammond House Gone, 2012

New block Garbage Chutes, 2022

As you can see, the method for ridding yourself of household garbage has yet to be updated significantly.

(1) An exciting story by me combining magic and Google Street View is available in Blood Fiction v2, ed. Mark Sevi.