I've become slightly obsessed with the view from my bathroom window. It's a glimpse of a tower block that sits behind a tree and is beyond the roofline of Norlington School for Boys that dominates the vista. The window itself is not a grand affair, it's the small one at the top of the frame, but it's head high and everytime I go into the bathroom my eyes become drawn to this horizon then lock onto the tower. It started off as merely an intriguing sight, but has since gained a greater hold over me. Now I feel that it is trying to communicate with me, calling out, transmitting a signal that so far I can't unscramble. When I had to get up in the middle of the night to comfort one of the children it appeared there as a strip of light, the illuminated stairwell, suddenly I didn't mind so much being woken at 3am.I have so far resisted the temptation to visit it up close for fear of disappointment. I would like it to remain as a slightly unfixed, unreal location, a floating tower, a bit like the ships that I used to watch sail across the horizon at night from my bedroom in Collaroy, Sydney. There is every chance, that up close, I wouldn't recognise it that it would continue to appear as a point in the distance.
It is only recently that I realised that this tower could be a
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manifestation of the one in John Smith's classic film 'The Black Tower'. That film had infiltrated my consciousness years before I moved out here, half a mile from Smith's house and the location of the film. Maybe it drew me east from Islington. Called me over from the high ground of Penton Mound to a similarly elevated part of London. Maybe I should make a film as Smith did in order to understand my relationship with this mystical object. Although I think I'll just keep gazing at it from the bathroom window for now.
3 comments:
I used to live in Murchison Road, on the E10 side of Norlington school. I believe I know what this tower is, but respecting your desire for mystery, I won't let on. It and its kindred sentinels had a similar magnetic effect on me, also at its most powerful when experienced at mid- or long-distance (esp. monolithically in grey London drizzle). Is it still there? LBWF have pulled down practically every structure exceeding 3 stories in height in the borough over the last decade (I have some Super 8 film of a few of them being dismantled). If you have ever seen Ken Loach's "Riff Raff", there is a scene filmed on the rooftop of the Hackney school being converted, looking east, where you can get a glimpse of what the Waltham Forest skyline looked like before demolition fever struck.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling on.
I enjoy perusing your blog from my foreign vantage point and, memory-led with an A-Z close at hand, mentally retracing some of my old London rambles. Keep up the good work.
John, Thanks so much for that comment. Please ramble on as much as your heart desires. Are they St. Catherine's and St.Paul's Towers? I think I blew their cover when taking my kids to Brooks Farm. You're prediction seems correct and they are indeed coming down and now that urban decay is a spectator sport the process will be live streamed on a webcam www.lqgroup.org.uk
I'd love to see that Super 8 of yours, do you have it on a digital format, could I possibly pay of the conversion if not?
I shall check out Riff Raff, Loach is a favourite of mine. Where are you? Somewhere foreign,ummm....Spain, New Zealand..or, no one of those two.
St. Catherine's and St.Paul's Towers - I believe so - Beaumont Estate. I wonder if they are keeping the remaining tower (there used to be three) to refurbish, like they did at Holly Street in Hackney? I’ll have to sign up as a spectator of urban decay myself and take a look at the webcam. In fact, I’d like to make a return trip to Leyton and get some footage of the death throes myself, but now that Super 8 is almost as moribund as the tower blocks themselves… I don’t have a digical version of the Super 8 I have (this is mostly of the sentinels at Chingford Hall Estate, Boundary Road E17, Hollydown Way E11 and the ones that used to be next to Leyton Orient football ground). In fact, I’ve never seen the footage I shot, my projector kicked the bucket before I got a chance. I’ll try to dig them out and digitalise them at some point – I’ll let you know when they are ready and stick them up on my website (www.u-river.org – not much there at the mo, though there is a song of mine you can download that namechecks Leyton – perhaps a rock n roll first?!). There is some footage of the Hollydown Way explosion on http://www.gorge.org/images/towers The other blocks I mentioned were dismantled; far less dramatic. I find it poignant how the towers were furnished with huge black mourning armbands, explosive charges packed inside. Ditto with the blocks blown up at Clapton Park and Trowbridge Estates in Hackney in the mid 90s.
I have a half-baked theory that the spellbinding effect tower blocks have on me is due to some residual/genetic memory of stone circle worship. Single (office) tower blocks, fancy designs, etc, don’t really do the trick. It’s those slab-like local authority blocks, usually in formations of 3s, 4s, 6s, etc, that do it for me, especially in silhouette when you can’t see the details. Not doubt the histories of lives lived in and around them, pirate radio stations operating from upper stories, utopian dreams becoming pavement-plunging suicides, underworld associations, police no-go areas, etc, all add to the mythological aspect too. Though cooling towers are pretty good too. The urban cooling tower is a thing of the past, but when I was a kid, growing up in Neasden, I used to have a view from my bedroom of the Harlesden skyline, which boasted three cooling towers at Acton Lane Power Station and a substation at Taylor’s Lane; the tower blocks of the notorious Stonebridge estate were omnipresent too. Further round on the skyline was the equally notorious Chalkhill Estate, Wembley Stadium, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Kingsbury. Again, the demolition ball has wreaked havoc with this mystical skyline, but there you go, that’s London for you.
Currently in Brussels (no, nothing to do with the Euro-institutions), where psychogeographic memories of WW2 are very strong.
Salut!
PS Hope you enjoy your time in Leytonstone – as well as the Hitchcock, The North Star on Browning Rd and The Birkbeck on Langthorne Rd used to be good for a pint when I was there 4+ yrs ago.
PPS the e-mail via my website is currently out of action, you can reach me at u dot river at gmail dot com if you want.
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