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Margaret Drabble |
Camden’s literary goldmine, but look who
they left out
LISTS can be a mania. Yet they are created for our edification – and for fun. And what they don’t say can be fascinating, as in the current one compiled by The Times literary critics of their “50 greatest British writers since 1945.”
Indeed, who would have suspected that no fewer than 16 of those chosen, a gold mine percentage, have lived in or been directly associated with that little patch of the country called Camden, from Hampstead and Highgate in the north to Primrose Hill and Camden Town in the south.
But that is the case. And there are a further five locals who were on the “long list” but not chosen, while I have produced at least another six who might well have been considered.
How remarkable it is that the creative air of the northern heights has produced such a dazzling display of literature, the more so when you consider that Elias Canetti, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature who lived in Thurlow Road, Hampstead, is omitted, along with Michael Foot, now 94, probably the finest essayist of the last century, who lives in Pilgrims Lane, Hampstead.
To those two you can add the late Bernice Reubens, the first woman to win the Booker Prize, the Kentish Town-born poet Sir John Betjeman, biographer and novelist Margaret Forster and poet Sylvia Plath, though she was an American.
Certainly poet laureate Ted Hughes, the other half of the Sylvia saga before she committed suicide in Primrose Hill, is on The Times list at number four. Doris Lessing, last year’s winner of the Nobel accolade, comes in at number five, Kingsley Amis at number nine, and Salman Rushdie at 13.
What interests me too is that some of the writers have used the Hampstead Heath patch as background for their novels, in particular John le Carré (no 22), a spy murder on the Heath being one example in Smiley’s People, Kingsley and his son Martin Amis (no 19) too delving into the locale for inspiration, along with Ian McEwan (no 35) in his latest, On Chesil Beach.
Few people know that James Bond creator Ian Fleming (no 14) was born in Hampstead or that John Fowles (no 30), was an English master at St Godric’s College, in Arkwright Road, Hampstead, or that Penelope Fitzgerald (no 23) was daughter of a famous editor of Punch magazine.
To their names you can add late historian AJP Taylor (no 40), Julian Barnes (no 44), both residents, past and present, of Kentish Town.
Then, of course, there is the formidable Dame Beryl Bainbridge, from Albert Street, Camden Town, who was a painter before turning to prose, and others with local associations such as Iris Murdoch (no 12) and Isaiah Berlin (no 41).
And those on the “long list” not chosen for the top 50, included David Storey, Margaret Drabble, John Braine, Fay Weldon and the Booker prize winner Alan Hollinghurst, all Hampstead residents at one stage, (Hollinghurst still there in Tanza Road).
So who was Number One? The surprising answer is Philip Larkin, poet and jazz buff friend of Kingsley Amis, with the truly great George Orwell knocked off his customary perch into second place.
Orwell, who wrote Keep the Aspidistra Flying long before his prophetic 1984, did so while living in Warwick Mansions, Pond Street, Hampstead, and working at Booksellers’ Corner, at the bottom of the road where it meets South End Green.
There are commemorative plaques to Orwell at No 77 Parliament Hill and No 50 Lawford Road, Kentish Town, but the finest one, which shows his sculptured face, is undoubtedly on the wall at the foot of Pond Street.
I know – because I helped to put there after the GLC refused to recognise his worth, and invited Orwell’s widow, Sonia, to unveil it!
GERALD ISAAMAN |
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