Wandsworth Common
Angela Carter (1940-1992)
A writer generally associated with Clapham (where there is now a Blue Plaque), but she grew up in Ravenslea Road, and went to Hearnville School and Streatham High School.
Angela Carter (1940-1992)
A writer generally associated with Clapham (where there is now a Blue Plaque), but she grew up in Ravenslea Road, and went to Hearnville School and Streatham High School.
(Click on image to enlarge)
By[Edmund Gordon: The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography.]
I have made a pdf of pp14-4?, which is an important source on her life in Balham/Wandsworth Common.
[Wikipedia: Link.]
[Source: Link.]
This reviewer is a South Londoner, herself. When I cross the river, the sword that divides me from pleasure and money, I go North. That is, I take the Northern Line 'up West', as we say: that is, to the West End. My London consists of all the stations on the Northern Line, but don't think I scare easily: I have known the free and easy slap-and-tickle of Soho since toddlerhood, and shouldered aside throngs of harlots in order to buy my trousseau casseroles from Mme Cadec's long-defunct emporium, undeterred by rumoured crucifixions in nearby garages. Nothing between Morden and Camden Town holds terror for me.
But I never went to Whitechapel until I was 30, when I needed to go to the Freedom Bookshop (it was closed). The moment I came up out of the tube at Aldgate East, everything was different to what I was accustomed to. Sharp, hard-nosed, far more urban than what I was used to. I felt quite the country bumpkin, slow-moving, slow-witted, come in from the pastoral world of Clapham Common, Brockwell Park, Tooting Bec. People spoke differently, an accent with clatter and spikes to it. They focused their sharp, bright eyes directly on you: none of that colonialised, transpontine, slithering regard. The streets were different - wide, handsome boulevards, juxtaposed against bleak, mean, treacherous lanes and alleys. Cobblestones. It was an older London, by far, than I was used to. I smelled danger. I bristled like one of Iain Sinclair's inimitable dogs. Born in Wandsworth, raised in Lambeth - Lambeth, 'the Bride, the Lamb's Wife', according to William Blake - nevertheless, I was scared shitless the first time I went to the East End.
[Angela Carter on Iain Sinclair: Adventures at the End of Time, London Review of Books, 7 March 1991 - partly about being a South Londoner..]
[Source: Link.]
[Source: Link.]
[Source: Link.]
[Source: Link.]