This deserves to be published somewhere with a broad mainstream audience... just to remind today's discouraged Londoners what they have to be proud of, and what is worth preserving.
I couldn't agree more - about this wonderful essay, but also about the need for such a reminder. London is an incredible city and we must treasure and defend it.
Beautiful! Expresses what the Welsh call ‘hiraeth.’ But, though you can take the boy out of London, you can’t take London out of the boy. All the very best for the US, and thanks for everything!
This is fabulous, Henry; you should write a literary guide book for visitors to the city. I do feel bound to say that crime in London is decreasing - certainly since the 90s. The city is as safe as it has ever been in my lifetime.
I've never been to London but this makes me want to go so badly! Having conceptualized these places only through the great tradition of English literature, I'm so curious to see what they're actually like in real life.
Breathtaking. I feel privileged to have been able to read this masterpiece. Today marks 44 years since the death of Alan Lascelles so fitting to read his part in your London landscape.
I wish you all the best of luck on your next chapter.
This is so lovely. To mark the appreciations when so many see only the dark and distressing is a breath of fresh air. The Great City will still be there when you come back - waiting.
Thank you for reminding me how much I love London. Although not a residence I’ve been visiting London since I was 10 and I feel more at home there than I do almost anywhere else in the world. It changes, but it lives and goes on. DC, where I lived off and on for a long time, is…. different.
Oh my goodness. This takes my breath away. It is surely destined to be a classic, if such things continue! A rhapsody, a paean, to London, but constructed not with rhetoric or bombast, but with overflowing and wonderful detail.
"London is made of many villages, many moods, many times." This sums it up for me, amongst so many wonderful details in your essay. Thank you from a fellow London lover.
This deserves to be published somewhere with a broad mainstream audience... just to remind today's discouraged Londoners what they have to be proud of, and what is worth preserving.
Oh thank you :)
Totally agree with marianne! You could submit it to letters live, I think it's perfect for this!! https://letterslive.com/dear-london/
Dear London sounds like a great initiative - thank you for bringing it to attention.
I couldn't agree more - about this wonderful essay, but also about the need for such a reminder. London is an incredible city and we must treasure and defend it.
Cockney feet
Mark the beat of history
Every street pins a memory down
Nothing ever can quite replace
The grace of London Town
Noel Coward, London Pride
Beautiful! Expresses what the Welsh call ‘hiraeth.’ But, though you can take the boy out of London, you can’t take London out of the boy. All the very best for the US, and thanks for everything!
Thank you :) (I am a little Welsh in fact)
This is fabulous, Henry; you should write a literary guide book for visitors to the city. I do feel bound to say that crime in London is decreasing - certainly since the 90s. The city is as safe as it has ever been in my lifetime.
oh I agree about crime yes, but the hotspots are a concern. A London guidebook is one of my secret ambitions!
Crime isn't decreasing - organised crime is back and the police have an air of resignation. These are worrying times internationally.
I've never been to London but this makes me want to go so badly! Having conceptualized these places only through the great tradition of English literature, I'm so curious to see what they're actually like in real life.
Breathtaking. I feel privileged to have been able to read this masterpiece. Today marks 44 years since the death of Alan Lascelles so fitting to read his part in your London landscape.
I wish you all the best of luck on your next chapter.
This is so lovely. To mark the appreciations when so many see only the dark and distressing is a breath of fresh air. The Great City will still be there when you come back - waiting.
yes it will :)
Agreed - there is so much that is wonderful and we must appreciate it.
You'd better come back!
Plenty of Ben Franklin where you are going, for what it's worth. Enjoy!
Oh yeah can’t wait
Thank you for reminding me how much I love London. Although not a residence I’ve been visiting London since I was 10 and I feel more at home there than I do almost anywhere else in the world. It changes, but it lives and goes on. DC, where I lived off and on for a long time, is…. different.
So I hear…
I love London, and this is such a lovely piece about the city!
:) same
As a DC resident, I fear you’re going to be…disappointed after your move.
I’ll find plenty to like :)
Oh my goodness. This takes my breath away. It is surely destined to be a classic, if such things continue! A rhapsody, a paean, to London, but constructed not with rhetoric or bombast, but with overflowing and wonderful detail.
:)
What a loveletter.
Nice to see you mentioned El Vino's, which I think was the inspiration for Jack Pommeroy's wine bar in the Rumpole series.
I can see that being true what a classic London spot
"London is made of many villages, many moods, many times." This sums it up for me, amongst so many wonderful details in your essay. Thank you from a fellow London lover.