Reading the Signs

While staying for a few days in a well-heeled suburb of Hampstead I was visited by an old friend who is here on holiday from Australia. As we walked she pointed out the proliferation of blue plaques on the houses in the vicinity – something I had not noticed but which she, with her tourist’s eye (or perhaps because they don’t feature in Australia), took a particular interest in. They commemorate famous people who once lived here and who, with the notable exception of Professor Freud, are known mostly for their contributions to the arts - actors, writers, poets, painters et al. Whereas, if someone were to collate a cluster-map of the distribution of blue plaques-by-celebrity-type around the country, the centre of Salford/Manchester would reveal the former presence of a plethora of innovative scientists and industrialists.

Hampstead remains so popular with art celebrities (those who can afford the postcode) that a walk on the Heath may often be rewarded with sightings of future blue-plaquers. But you must be careful of gawping in case you get entangled in the leashes of dogs being led en masse by professional dog-walkers. (The irony of employing someone to perform a task which should be quintessential to the process of bonding between pet and owner is, presumably, lost on those who are cash-rich but time-poor).

Meanwhile, down by the Thames, the Tate Britain has a major exhibition of L.S. Lowry’s paintings. His inspiration was the industrial landscape of Salford/Manchester which he painted during four decades from around 1925. His work was considered to be unfashionable – and ugly – by most of the British art establishment of his time, although its popularity has never been in question and as early as 1928 the critic Jessica Stephens saw a kind of beauty in Lowry’s landscape, although she was aware that most people would have to stretch their conception of beauty to encompass it.

 I was pleased to see so many of Lowry’s canvasses displayed in the magnificent classical galleries of The Tate where they demand serious consideration and challenge the definition of ‘beautiful’ art. In Lancashire’s industrial towns many people still live in the kind of street-scapes depicted by Lowry. Whether they consider their surroundings to be ugly is a moot point: I suppose the inhabitants of any place will choose, if they are able, either to stay or leave. But how many would choose on aesthetic grounds? And how many simply grow comfortably accustomed to their surroundings and stay put?

But, beauty aside, Lowry’s paintings elegantly depict the landscape and, perhaps more importantly, tell its real, social history as summed up by John Berger in his 1966 critique of the work: “The paintings are about what has been happening to the British economy since 1918”. And their presence, hung for all to see, at the heart of the splendour of London’s imperial wealth, dramatically illustrates his analysis of the effect that the “shift of power from industrial capital to international finance capital” had upon the nation. They serve as a reminder that millions of our fellow citizens still suffer from the effects of that shift: nor do they necessarily benefit from the present national economic model.

Before making our way back to Blue Plaquesville we sought and found one of those quirky little pubs that Londoners cherish. It’s a place of old world charm and character, hidden in a mews behind the grand houses of Kensington. It was once the haunt of lowly people – servants, ostlers and the like - but now serves as the after-work watering hole for be-suited men and the few remaining indigenous inhabitants. But soon the latter will all be priced out of the neighbourhood by billionaire foreigners seeking a safe investment for their dodgy cash. Perhaps then we can expect the appearance of a blue plaque in honour, not of an individual, but of a whole social class who once drank there?