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Twigs and paintings
Honestly, I am working on a proper post, but this little idea came up when I was transferring pictures from my phone to my laptop. Our flat overlooks a communal garden. Before the latest batch of...
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Our Covid story
I don’t want to go on ann on about Covid as I last mentioned it a couple of posts ago. Nearly a year ago. But for me, this is an anniversary story , a tale from the pre-vaccine, pre-omicron era, when...
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Blog extra: more Ghosts
In the end I was in a bit of a hurry when I posted Ghosts of 1923 (Isabel lit a fire under me to get me moving), and a bit rusty when it came to using WordPress so I missed the best “ghost” picture’....
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Ghosts of 1923
A little bit more than a short pause I suppose. But I had to get back on the horse eventually, and now I have a bit of a breathing space, This post is one I started last year, with every intention...
View ArticleAfter a short pause
So I’m in this room, which has a prefabricated wall and door. It used to be a cubicle I suppose. I’ve had a number of injections, they’ve taken blood I think, and I’m on oxygen. People come and go. I...
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Pictures of the lockdown – South Kensington
You know those moments that come from time to time when you realise that the narrative has changed and that we’re not in a post war realistic novelist’s universe any more? That science fiction is...
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Quiet days: reading and sleeping
Quiet days on your own, or with close family. If you’re like me you’ve turned to books you’ve loved in the past. Sit quietly in a garden in a sheltered spot. After breakfast, or in the late...
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Pictures of the lockdown: Chelsea
Now that some of the restrictions of lockdown are being relaxed, is it over? Near where I live there seem to be more people on the street, so has the empty city passed into history? Probably not quite...
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Wartime paintings
This post is a kind of loose follow-up to the last one and also ties up with Westminster City Archives’ recent posts about wartime paintings. I’ve collected pictures by Josephine “Jo” Oakman, and...
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Kathleen’s war
This week’s guest blogger is my mother Kathleen Walker who passed away in December 2016. One of the things she left for me was a school exercise book containing a short memoir in 22 pages covering her...
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Whose mews?
First, I’d like to thank all those who identified the mystery mews at the end of the last post, Ennismore Gardens Mews. As that was so successful, I have another group of unknown (to me) mewses which...
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More mews views
After Isabel’s tour de force I feel a bit diffident about taking you back to mere architectural details but the show must go on. This post is another one resulting from a find in the archives...
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The Electric Cinema: Portobello’s Fleapit and Picture House
I’ve spent the last few days working on a new post. But as I worked I knew that in another room far away from me my friend and colleague Isabel Hernandez was working on the final (?) post in her series...
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River Man – William Ascroft
William Ascroft (don’t call him Ashcroft) is another of the great Chelsea artists in our collection. (The others, for the record are Greaves, Burgess, Griffen and Marianne Rush, although those are...
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Walter Greaves: postcards and photographs
Monochrome photographs of paintings are unsatisfactory in most cases. In my travels through archives and reference stores I have come across many old art books full of black and white images which have...
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Walter Greaves: a friend of Whistler
Anyone interested in the history of Chelsea has probably heard of Walter Greaves. But you won’t have seen much of his work on the blog. This is largely for technical reasons. We have quite a few works...
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The same gates
According to the authors of the Survey of London volume four (1913) a building called Cheyne House, in Upper Cheyne Row was at the time of writing “in a derelict condition” having been “untenanted for...
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Christmas Days: Realia: the god in the archive
Our third object is another long standing inhabitant of the archive rooms, and to be honest I don’t know much about it. I used to imagine it had been pulled from the river, but really I have no...
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Christmas Days: realia: the girl in the fountain
Our second item of realia is something far easier to identify. Or is she? You don’t normally see her this size though. And she can be found not in our archive rooms but Sloane Square. Go back in...
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Christmas days: realia – the head in the gable
My new year’s resolution will be to get the blog back on track with regular posts. As a start, I’m returning to short posts for Christmas. The theme this year is realia. Realia is a word which was used...
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