London is much on my mind today, as it so often is. Like Dracula, I take strength from the soil (concrete) of my homeland. Being Irish, Not In Ireland, I will never truly belong in the Motherland no matter how I love it, no matter how much I yearn for it... but my people have been in this pocket of London since before the Industrial Revolution, it seems... and I love my Finsbury St Lukes and Barbican, and whatever you want to label it...
So during the Snapshot project I wrote a few short stories... and this. The title is taken from a brilliant and brilliantly depressing documentary presented by James Mason in 1967, The London That Nobody Knows.
The London That Nobody Knows
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| Bravery Remembered at Postman's Park |
There is a London where no one else goes.
Hidden away like the Walbrook and Fleet
Secretly lurking under everyone's feet.
This London is ancient, this London is new
Home to nine million, give-n-taking a few
Built by the Romans, Rogers and Wren,
She's been battered and blasted time and again
London's a Phoenix who never says die
Her permanent glow always lighting the sky
Most people come to her seeking their dreams
But in London, nothing’s ever quite as it seems.
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| Barbican's Brutalist Beauty |
Brutal, demanding, wearying place
With too little time and too little grace
Still here there’s beauty and wonder to find
As long as you cling to what’s left of your mind.
This London knows anger, fury, and hate
The Wealthy hide behind tall iron gates
The Have-Nots seek other ways to survive
The aim of the game is just staying alive.
Bill walked these streets and now they are mine
I follow his footsteps, just later in time
I’m building my London on what he left to me
My heart swells with love for this city and he.
There is a London that nobody knows
There is a London where no one else goes
It's your London of your own creation
And there's nine million more without limitation.
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| Me and the Roman Wall. Pic by Will Strange Photography |
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