Preface – "Manchester Square".
In my dream, I'm running through Hyde Park. The grass beneath me is like pristine velvet, the beds and borders are immaculate, and the brass-tipped railings gleam as I leave, and run down Regent Street, down Oxford Street, past Selfridges, new and pure, white marble, gilt and Corinthian columns aglitter in the Edwardian sun. I run down Manchester Street, and home.
As it happens, I visited Manchester Square, not so long ago. I found it much changed. I walked through Hyde Park, where the rolling expanses of grass – rough now, short and sharp, and utilitarian – was punctuated by sharp rows of trench shelters. The women in Oxford Street wear trousers now, and skirts – they smoke openly, they catch buses, and vanish into the Underground.
Even now, thirty years later, I still want to go there, and ride the tube.
Selfridges is in a sorry state. It looks grimy, its windows are sandbagged, taped, its upper floors redundant.
In Manchester Square, the central garden has been given over to vegetable plots. It's been twenty years since Aunt Edith lived here, and a decade since the last gentlefolk moved out. Now, people of quality are strangers here. Most houses are flats, dirt-cheap; their stucco fronts a grimy ivory.
I left only twenty-eight years ago, but it seems to me, trapped in my decaying body, more like a century.
I recall, vividly, leaving. My mind plays tricks on me, and romanticises the scene – I remember it as being warm and dry, sunny - though I doubt it. I left by car, without a second glance backwards at the house – my future was everything, my future was here, my future was onboard the Titanic.
In my dream, I'm running through Hyde Park. The grass beneath me is like pristine velvet, the beds and borders are immaculate, and the brass-tipped railings gleam as I leave, and run down Regent Street, down Oxford Street, past Selfridges, new and pure, white marble, gilt and Corinthian columns aglitter in the Edwardian sun. I run down Manchester Street, and home.
As it happens, I visited Manchester Square, not so long ago. I found it much changed. I walked through Hyde Park, where the rolling expanses of grass – rough now, short and sharp, and utilitarian – was punctuated by sharp rows of trench shelters. The women in Oxford Street wear trousers now, and skirts – they smoke openly, they catch buses, and vanish into the Underground.
Even now, thirty years later, I still want to go there, and ride the tube.
Selfridges is in a sorry state. It looks grimy, its windows are sandbagged, taped, its upper floors redundant.
In Manchester Square, the central garden has been given over to vegetable plots. It's been twenty years since Aunt Edith lived here, and a decade since the last gentlefolk moved out. Now, people of quality are strangers here. Most houses are flats, dirt-cheap; their stucco fronts a grimy ivory.
I left only twenty-eight years ago, but it seems to me, trapped in my decaying body, more like a century.
I recall, vividly, leaving. My mind plays tricks on me, and romanticises the scene – I remember it as being warm and dry, sunny - though I doubt it. I left by car, without a second glance backwards at the house – my future was everything, my future was here, my future was onboard the Titanic.