Kensington Archives - Pidgeon Post

November 19, 2016November 17, 2016

Wep’s 1956 Romanian adventure: 19 Nov; London – catching up with an old friend

Mon 19-Nov-56: Picasso exhibition. Met with McNulty & Ronnie – went to cocktail party at Kensington. Bought [air] gun for Graham & coat for Dorothy.

1956 MM-DD WEP Romania_0125

Monday 19 Nov 56

Dear wonderful girl,

There is nothing worse than a wife who can’t handle a situation in front of a stranger-if there is, it is a husband. It seems to be my fate to always accompany someone who was about to be in the gun in any case. But why, (when the excuse is that you haven’t seen a friend for six years) you can’t get a little out of schedule is beyond me. Not that I caused it. It happened before I arrived on the scene. I would say it happened two days ago when McNulty [Head of Consolidated Press’s London Bureau] arrived back from New York. But why sour off on the innocent accomplice? Even I never did that (within limits!) If I ever bring someone home, dear sweet girl, please remain your charming self. This is the first night I have been slightly thinged since I have been in London. And I am enjoying telling you about.

But suddenly everything collapses about my ears, and there is little to write about and nothing at all to tell, with the love, and the deepest affection that I have for you-and you, really only. I love you. And sometimes I think there is something wrong with me, that I don’t get any real thing for another woman. Yet, when, I first met you I had a desire. Could it be that my being, knew better than my head? I have never experienced the same thing since. I don’t forget that I went back to the Journalists Club and told King Watson that I had met a nice girl and that I had kissed her good night even if she had sat on my hat. And I don’t forget that I wrote in the back of my cheque-book that Dorothy Lees (21 Beresford Road Strathfield XM 8822) was to be taken out for a meal and affection. And what is more I don’t forget that I asked you as we reached the top of Greenwich Road in the old Pontiac why a nice girl like you had not been married-and you had no real answer. And I didn’t know either. And later when you said to me one wonderful morning-I can remember you sitting, where you sit now, at the breakfast table, and it was Sunday morning and light and as crisp as a chip. And you said to me “don’t you go getting shy on me, Bill Pidgeon”. And to tell the truth I was so shy I could hardly look at you but you seemed somehow quite happy, which I couldn’t understand-yet knowing, very implicitly, that you were as innocent as I, about what we had done and sealed, without completely knowing it, in our hearts. Why did you so suddenly give yourself to me? I didn’t expect it! Did you know that by doing so you had marked me down for yours? Because you did. I knew was well as you, that your,-not generosity, not magnanimity, not anything but a certain psyche that you had, would come true-and that you gambled upon it and in its way, it has worked. I don’t mean gambled-I am sure that you knew then that I needed you, rather than any other type of dame. And I know that you still think that. And I assure you it is truer than you ever imagined. The trouble with me when I am a bit buoyant is that I can’t write fast enough, to say the things that should be said, with grace they deserve. Strange, but one of my life’s most vivid recollections, is that Sunday morning with your “don’t you get shy on me!” You looked (although I know now I was wrong) so sure of yourself I thought for a moment what a woman of the world, and yet I knew that was false because you gave yourself to me in an innocent way. And that was fatal-for me. Perhaps for you too. Although what I had to offer you at that time seemed less than nil. A comparison on a dead love-a half grown child-and a surly, egoistic, lazy, sensualist. Yet one who responded to the feeling of your heart, as strongly as Graham did. You know, my darling, from all this distance I can appreciate your love and stupid faith, which at times can be unsaid, but still remains, as mine does, for you. You know I loved Jess-and you also know that there is nothing to be done about that, and that my heart is yours now-even if it is quieter and not as gay as it could be for a honeymoon couple like ourselves. Every day I go two miles out of my way to collect a letter from you. Every day I get one-and my heart is warmed and my love for you become stronger. I love you very much indeed-dear sweetest Dorothy girl wife.

I don’t care if this is all thing on paper. I am in the mood to be extra urgent and tell you that you are the most necessary focus for 85 Northwood Road. What would Graham and I do without our crumby old sheet anchor? Can you tell me, or even see, one who could take your place? Your wonderful girl body under the shower with 1 foot slightly raised and the face towel down near your moustache, and the water glistening down your 34” bust and 35 ½” hips? Not to say anything of the 13 ¼” neck with a small kissable mole on the left-hand side nearest the oven, when you are unfortunately forced to be perpetually washing up. Or the flat little feet all covered (or rather soled) with planters? Did you ever see your wonderfully formed behind shake a cup? No! But I did. And can still! I am in the mood to forgive you almost anything until I get home. Then your last-minute rushes will provoke me to rolling you on the floor (i.e. in embrace not anger). One other thing I want to tell you, before I fold up is that you always look wonderful when you walk up the path towards the front door. That is, when we are waiting to you. Before we were married you looked grand and gay, and after two years, you still look grand and gay to me. I hope soon you will look grander-if not gayer, or more expectant. That is the key word expectant. You have such implicit trust-it is all wrong-and yet, who wouldn’t envy that look? – Oh Darling – dear girl.

That was a breathless bit-wasn’t it? Almost all of it without one cigarette. All because I got 4 letters from you this morning and I have been out with Clarrie McNulty to a cocktail party at a well (or fairly well) heeled gent’s place. He had two beaut Buddha heads, for which he paid only £3 each 25 years ago. And a magnificent Chinese Sing horse and all sorts of other things. I love you for sending me a daily note. The only thing against it is the fact that I am too lousy to go away for the day for fear of missing it. I have been thinking it over and I would be much happier if you all could meet me at Mascot. I didn’t mean to be discouraging about it. I get mixed up when I’m tired and can’t get a proper thing on what should be done. I would really love it. You could ring Mascot or Qantas to find out how the schedule is going. I definitely expect the three of you at Mascot even if you have to take a picnic lunch and a grilled knuckle for the chopped down ankle dog.

I flatly refuse to go to bed. I am not fat, and on the looks of things and not likely to be any more cuddlesome when I arrived in Sydney. However I hope you will accept me in spirit, if not in flesh. I can tell you now that the dressing gown is off. Much as I love your suggestion-I can’t see how I can do anything about it. I am so glad you liked, and received, the mad black cat. I don’t know whether I told you it was baked enamel from some bloody place or other in France.

Really, sweetheart, I don’t feel like writing any more about the aspects of the western world. Whether it is in Gothic or Classic, or this side up, or Antipodean, I have got to the stage where I couldn’t care less. I have seen all I want to see of London (apart from the Tower). From now on I will stick to the three galleries and have done with it.

I loved very much your lipstick. It is such a pity that I can’t request anymore because you cannot answer this letter.

I could see the imprint of the fabric of your lips. A little open and very kissable-I tried to get it-but all I tasted was writing ink. I do wish you could use a unguent that was expensive and lasting. I would have slept with it.

It never dawned on me in our haste on that memorable Saturday (although I didn’t forget anything-and as a matter of fact, took too much) to take a well soaked handkerchief of yours. Just like a knight of old-off to the jousting. I would have worn it as a cockade. I am getting to look more and more like a colonial as my clothes get tireder and tireder.

I love you and this is, in some way, a means of being close to you. I wish I could write you with the fluency you write me. I have so much more to say but somehow it gets left unsaid. In the near summer nights when we are both together and alone I shall wander off into a dream sequence, out of which you will get something of what I felt and saw in these long two months of Europe. I probably won’t recollect what I have seen consciously, but in your arms, images may come back and against your love, and your warmth, the realities may come to life in a dream tale for you. I’d like to be semiconscious letting a flow of visions, people and ideas, flows smoothly over your warmth, and your sweet and tiny breasts.

I have folded up stop I love you, I love you, I love you! Much binding about the marsh to you from an absent admirer-your husband-Mr W. E. PIDGEON.

[Paragraph inked out]

P. S. Don’t waste your time trying to read through that-it’s impossible-it wasn’t anything crude or nasty-I somehow just lost the grip on my affection and the words were forced came from the head and not from the heart. I can’t see much possibility of me writing you another such letter before I get home. I should be there about a week after you get this note. You had not mention that I said anything about being delayed. I suppose that is in order-for what I can gather you had only received one letter from am sure I mentioned it later but in any case I will be home on Dec 2 at 7 a.m. Mascot.

By way of being repetitious-I love you-and still love you,

Yours singularly,

Your husband.

A pretty letter-many things said twice-bed as I meant them, I hope you accept them.

XXXX Bill.

P. S. You can’t answer this letter. Save your thing up.

[Additional page]

You wonderful, wonderful girl!!

What are you trying to do? Make me die of love for you? If you were here I kiss you right in the middle of Fleet Street. Might utterly adorable little woman. I love you even more than I did last night. I’m pining away fee you.

Must say though, I beat it down to Fleet Street to get that cable, in fear and trepidation. Almost had the flaming shakes all that money-so unexpected-I don’t need that sort of money. Can’t very well not get a dressing down now, can I?

My sweet, Darling, most loving, scrumptious, inestimable, fantastic, kissable, /-able, dearest, most unbelievable, adoring, delirious, unpredictable, delicious, and utterly unique, darling girl wife-I love you.

I have half a mind to seal this avowal with my life’s blood.

Your abjectly devoted husband.

Willie

I can’t get home quick enough!!

Granville Place London W1H, UK

London W8, UK

November 18, 2016November 17, 2016

Wep’s 1956 Romanian adventure: 17-18 Nov; London – Cockneys and Kings

Sat 17-Nov-56: Went Portobello Market with Rex & Thea Reinits. Later looked unsuccessfully for Arthur Horner. Went to Victoria & Albert Museum, early night.

Sun 18-Nov-56: Went to Petticoat Lane in morning & to Hampton Court Palace in afternoon. Early night.

Sat 17 Nov 56

London

My darling small one,

I got a nice warm letter from you this morning while I was in my jolly mood. You very wisely told me to pull my head in-a fine and dandy precept which I hope to adhere to, if possible. For my head hangs out a heck of a long way in the evening-when I’m usually just about “thinged” so perhaps I shall go to bed earlier and get my letter writing done before the birds get up. It’s only a quarter to seven now and it’s been dark for hours not that there has been any light to speak of all flaming day. At 10 a.m. all the fantastic neon advertisements in Piccadilly Circus were going full blast. I went from there down to get your letter and travel by tube up to Notting Hill Gate station where I met the Reinits and we groped our way down to Portobello Road. At noon all the stalls in the streets had lamps and electricity lights going in some small endeavour to brighten up the filmy fog which darkly leaks into every nook and cranny of the town. If the city had been flooded to a depth of 50 feet of dirty soapy water, one could see through it all is well, and would find this fog scarcely less palpable to the touch. Beer is a fascinating diversity of stuff for sale, in the shops lining the road, and on the barrows which are to be found all along the footpaths. There are a great number of fruit barrows, flower stalls and a few cloth offerings. But what everybody seems to go down to pick over is the antique stalls.

Rex (hidden) and Thea Reinits at Portobello Market, Potobello Road, London; 17 Nov 1956

Rex and Thea Reinits at Portobello Market, Potobello Road, London; 17 Nov 1956

9 p.m. Have been up to Lyons to have two cups of tea and a walk in the fresh (sic) air.

Old English and Bohemian glassware, Georgian solid silver, all kinds of brass and copper ware, rings, medallions, cameos, necklaces, lockets, gramophone records, revolvers, turkey sandwiches and Nescafe, in different Indian brasses, punch ladles, carriage lamps, old prints and pictures-fine stuff the dealers know the value of-and real junk, all flowing out of a seemingly endless cornucopia-where it all comes from-God only knows. Saw a fine set of brass poker, tongs and shovel for only 35/-. Rex Reinits snooping round for old English glasses, which he makes a thing of buying. All the activity taking place behind unreal filmy gauze of missed-a pale grey photograph pierced with holes of electric light. Fifty yards away the silhouetted moving shadows. Strange, as I recollect it, sound has disappeared-perhaps there wasn’t any-swallowed up by the fog. All very odd and engaging for a while-tending to become wearing as it continues. From there I caught a bus to Kensington and looked up an address Hotty [Lahm] had given me of an old artist cobber of the boys. Hotty’s book is sadly out of date-the Arthur Horners had been gone the last two years-as Roley’s [Pullen] address in Hotty’s collection was about 4 years old. However, I walked from there to the Victoria and Albert Museum-which has the most superb collection of fine and applied art. As usual, the quantity of exhibits is too great for short-term inspection. These items are all specialists pieces gathered and looted, from all over the world. Beautiful alters, religious carvings-church ornamentation, stained glass, wonderful furniture-the opulence of some of the exhibits is breathtaking. In the Chinese section was a Kuan-yin [Guanyin] very much like that housed in the Melbourne Gallery [National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)] but not so well displayed in the same attitude of Royal ease. A very beautiful and serene work. Many of the Gothic things had too, something of this serenity. A great deal of it spoilt by bloody noisy people and young louts. Weekend gallery sightseeing is not to be recommended for the tired and edgy.

This city is vast beyond our Australian conception. The shops and streets are never ending-you can go round and round in circles and still be always amazed at the new things you have missed. Their galleries are the same-corridors and halls without number. You seem to go on endlessly seeing something fresh. I walked from here across Oxford Street through Mayfair i.e. Grosvenor Square, where the American Embassy is surrounded by dignified 18^th century houses-on the way to Berkeley Square was vastly intrigued by the sight of a bell topered commissionaire in ankle length fawn double-breasted 18^th-century coat, stolidly sweeping the beastly dirt away from the front steps of the Connaught Hotel. What a place this is for traditional uniforms!

“Good night, sweet Prince and Princess, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”.

Unconfirmed location, London; 17 Nov 1956

Portobello Road [Incorrectly identified as Portobello Road, yet to be confirmed]

Unidentified location, London; 17 Nov 1956 – After Portobello Rd, Wep headed to visit his old artist friend Arthur Horner who had moved threre in 1947 and had married Victoria (a fellow Aussie) in 1948. He had an old address in Kensington for them. but they were no longer there. In 1954, Arthur and Victoria lived at 2 Straford Avenue (Rd) Kensington according to the London, England Eloctoral Registers 1832-1965 on Ancestry.com. The garage shot looks like it could be taken outside 10 Jay Mews where a Pawson and Collins Ltd garage was located in a 1939 Kensington directory

Sunday 7 p.m. [18 Nov 1956]

Believed to be Petticoat Lane Market, London; 18 Nov 1956

Am settled down again for the night, to a well regulated evening of sinful cigarette smoking, letter writing, and waiting for tomorrow. Today was almost a repetition of yesterday’s behaviour pattern. Got myself down to Petticoat Lane, which is not very far from the Bank of England. The financial centre leads directly into the pretty squalid area of Aldgate-(you could compare it a bit with Newtown). This Petticoat Lane may be quite world-famous-mostly I should imagine, because of the wonderful cockney spiel that accompanies all the ardent sales advances that assaults you from every direction. I found it lacking the charm and line of the Portobello Road market. Everything in this area this morning seemed unspeakably tawdry and commonplace. I doubt whether there really was anything worthwhile on display all the dozens upon dozens of stalls. That years, if you except the “jellied eel and winkles,” emporiums of canvas and wood. And the shocking shyster who was selling a three card trick at 2/6 the packet. But such was his act-he had the crowd with him one dumbfounded and slightly aggressive type in the crowd kept questioning him and demanding to know what had happened to the King in the cards he’d bought. One more mix with the cards and the King appears again. It’d take too long to detail this-it’s not very interesting anyway-what was amusing though was that when I passed them again about an hour later-the same turn was being put on between these two. The bunny part of the act of salesmanship I suppose he was. And this circuitous way many of these Jew cockneys organise a sort of competitive sale for the most awful collection of junk. It was quite beyond me but apparently most popular with the sightseeing mob. Thousands clutter up the two or three streets which really comprise this area and you literally can’t move at times. It’s the machine gun like patter-bawdy-course (bloody this, bloody that) and at times really funny-that, I think is what stacks them in. You have some idea of how these boys can talk, when you conceive a community of stall holders, every second one of whom is like (only bawdy) [Joe (Joseph Sandow)] the gadget man from Nock and Kirbys.

After a crumby lunch (one can’t afford at this stage in the game a decent meal), I took myself off on a long series of 3 buses, way out along the Thames to Hampton Court Palace, which was originally built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and later taken over by Henry the Eighth in 1529.

Henry VIII greeting visitors at Hampton Court Palace; 28 Feb 2013

The old wretch had here as Queens, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. (Pardon me if I seem to be having considerable penned trouble.) Later the Tudor half of this Palace was added to by a whacking great design by Sir Christopher Wren to the order of William and Mary. This was in 1688. This section does not follow the Tudor pattern and is more classical in-line. This part houses the State Apartments which are now open for inspection. No royalty has lived there since 1760 when George II died. The London transport handbook quotes it as “England’s most beautiful and most interesting Royal Palace”. And I believe that may well be. Each section has its own particular grace and the two are harmonised by the use of warm and homely red brickwork will stop it looked very lovely with the blue net of fog softening the contrasts and giving a slight touch of unreality to the whole. Surrounded by beautiful gardens-French and Italian sunken pools-the bare trees disappearing in rows into the final all-embracing curtain of mist. A few great black trunks, still with gold and russet leaves, punctuated artistically with sombre cypresses, and a few avenues of dark and weighty evergreens. Birds too, which seemed to be a change. It was an interesting run out there. Contrasting completely with the mornings crushing monotony of industrial habitations. After leaving a place named Roehampton, which is like a village on the end of the string from London, one goes through the edge of a natural parkland through an area of well-to-do large homes with beautiful gardens-like Pacific Highway, Gordon, Killara, etc. Only more park like.

All of which is very dully told-has effervescent as is room I sit in. If I could find someone to join me I’d get half sprung and talk to you with abandonment and roguery. You will just have to put up with my abiding but unspectacular passion for the next week-and even perhaps until I get home and lift the lid right off the pot. Don’t tell me now that old the arriving at the wrong time. I won’t have it-or will I? Anyway, lots of sweet thoughts, and very very real love for you, my darling darling girl. Another bloody fortnight to go. Although I won’t notice it after Monday when I shall be on the move. I love you Dorothy.

Really yours,

Bill.