K2 and K6 phone boxes – conservation or dereliction?

Happy new year people ... here's to a marvellous 2019!
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Tourists love 'em but the powers that be don't seem to give a wotsit!
K2 phone boxes are still a common sight on out high streets. But these and their successor, the slightly smaller K6, are falling into disrepair.
Most of us have mobiles/cellphones these days so there is scant need to utilise theses bright red icons anymore* but if they are to remain on our streets (and they should) then why are they in such poor condition? I mean, who is supposed to be managing and maintaining them**?

This thought popped into my head yesterday as I was passing Islington Central Library on Holloway Road. Contractors have recently been working behind scaffold and plastic sheeting giving the lovely 1906 building a clean but now the work has been completed I can see that the phone box on the corner is filthy! It already had some broken or missing window panes but just look at the state of it now...

As you can see it's covered in plaster splashes, muck and dirt, as is the pavement around it which forms part of the library's curtilage.
But it's not the only one that looks so bad. For instance, in Islington, there is another one in poor condition outside St Paul's church at the top end of Essex Road, and the pair outside Tesco on Islington Green are horribly neglected.
Yet in nearby Canonbury there are some glossy red well-painted examples such as this one outside The Canonbury Tavern. Why? Because this is a 'conservation area'.
So, this begs the question: "whose responsibility is it regarding the upkeep of these phone kiosks?". And who painted or gave authority to paint, the ones in Canonbury?  And if that is the body that owns them, why haven't all others been similarly maintained too? Why only conservation areas and tourist meccas?

* apart from advertising space for 'services' or as 'conveniences'

**(8thJan) I am now in the middle of an on-going email conversation with someone at BT about this – she as good as tells me they rely on the goodwill of the public to let them know when these kiosks need attention. i.e. they expect us to act as unpaid quality controllers or maintenance managers on their behalf.  This means they only fix the kiosks when it's pointed out that there is something wrong with them thusfurther enhancing BT's irresponsibility.
I will report back when I have more. Meanwhile, go paint your local kiosk any colour you would like, as I doubt BT will notice let alone care!

London Tramways – posters and artworks at the London Metropolitan Archives

Another day, another archive, another subject.
And equally as marvellous, but for different reasons.
The London Metropolitan Archives recently held an open day event where posters and artworks from the tram age were be on display.
How could I resist?
I was there the minute the place opened. On a table in the middle there were piles of lovely printed posters from the 1920s and the 1930s. But better still were the actual artworks or designs for those posters on the side tables and these showed a bygone world of hand-lettering, retouching, cut and paste, and pencilled annotations – all devices we no longer, or very rarely, implement these days now that most things are computer generated.

The poster on the left is hand panted in thick block colours – see how some of the place names have been cut out and stuck on top to indicate where they should be placed in the final version. The second poster, which is also artfully hand painted, has a wealth of information and amendments written down the right-hand edge including about deletions and additions. The third poster here shows places linked to Dickens' London. The placenames were, for some reason masked out, but by holding it up to the  light I could see them, The last poster shows a glimpse of a fabulously colourful image for Hampstead Ponds and some beautifully rendered hand lettering  – note how accurately the gold outline has been applied – this is all done with a brush!!

All of this reminded me of when I first started working in the advertising world back in 1980. A designer would produce a colourful, hand-rendered design for the client, using Magic Markers, Pentel Pens and gouache with perhaps, a few images glued onto that. And he'd point to the client's supplied image, probably in slide format, and say "this part of this image will be here".  Clients seemed to have more imagination back then and they trusted the design agencies to produce what they required.
Once the design was approved it was then passed on to the artworker (that was me) and/or the typographer (also me) to pull together an accurate 'artwork for print'. This was a black and white rendition of the design made with the help of Rotring pens, a PMT machine, Cow Gum and Rubylith which was then sent to the reprographic department to be made ready for the printer. It was a marvellous creative process.
Today we have AppleMacs and digital cameras and various photo editing programs and everyone thinks they are an armchair designer. Apparently, we just wave a magic wand at the computer and it does all the work. I think clients think it's some kind of mind-melding process. A download of sorts. The daft thing is that it takes longer to produce something from concept to printed product than it did 50 years ago because today people are amending almost hourly. Yawn.
Anyway enough reminiscing... back to the tram posters...

A poster for London Zoo had a contemporary sketch (known as a 'scamp') beside showing another layout. The second poster shows amendments made by masking out with paper and with white paint. The third pic shows two posters – the one on the left has been part filled in with colour. Note the panel at the bottom of that poster which looks to have been originally painted as white lettering on a black panel but a section of it is rendered in yellow on green. It was the latter option that was chosen for the printed poster as can be just seen in the pic at the very top of this post.  The other poster in that image has very vibrant colours of bright blues, yellow and orange with handwritten annotation in lovely red inked script. The final pic shows a beautiful painting of a tram with almost type-quality hand-lettering applied in white brush strokes underneath.

More adeptly applied paint in the first pic of this section – note the quality of the lettering here, especially the squiggly inline on the black letters.
The last three pics are of printed examples. The Pullman Tramcar poster just amused me because it seemed a bit odd to show a pic of a sedan chair – what are they saying; that the trains are as slow as two men carrying a heavy weight?!
I was intrigued by the designs and the illustrators/artists whose signatures appeared on most of the finished posters. I made a note of most of them and it seems that rarely did a artist get employed twice. As for the printers who were employed by London County Council Tramways to produce these colourful posters, it appears the main two were Waterlow & Sons, Dunstable, and Vincent Brooks Day & Son, WC2. I also spotted two posters showing a printer from just around the corner from my home; Hill, Siffken & Co, Grafton works, N7. Sadly, I can't find anything find anything about the company except in reference to the things they printed. Any info welcome. 

I was like a pig in a colourful pit of loveliness, cooing and oohing about the artistic details of this and that and asking Simon the curator the occasional question.
It was amusing (to me), that apart from a brief visit by one other woman, the room mostly contained older men, many of whom were, I think, a little bit disappointed that there wasn't more about the actual trams and the tramlines. A lot of them looked through the posters disdainfully as if they had to do that and occasionally one would say something like, "that's the ABC1237 that used to run via Elephant and Castle but they changed the route to go past London Bridge and renumbered it in September 1931; ".
Well, I enjoyed myself and I am really glad I went there!
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/london-metropolitan-archives/Pages/default.aspx is a major resource for historical information for anyone doing any research be it family history, old maps and photos etc. They also have an online search facility and a marvellous photo library.
It looks like I will need to use the archive to find out more about Siffken & Co.

Tram access covers feature in one of my posts from last year.

A visit to the Parliamentary Archives

Last week I was lucky enough to be able go on one of the last tours* of The Parliamentary Archives within the Palace of Westminster.
Accessing the building involves a security bag check which is just like at an airport including a bit of frisking if you are lucky. Sadly I missed out on that pleasure having worn a bra that didn't set the machine off.
The tour group went in small batches up to the research floor because the lift can only take a max of six people. We then navigated some small utilitarian passages which really don't look like they ought to be part of a tour to reach another equally tiny lift. But it was ages arriving so our sub-group agreed to walk up the spiral staircase.

I am pretty sure most of the others also hadn't heard that it was an 8-floor climb! Oof! Though stopping to take photos helped!
We finally reached a room near the top of Victoria Tower. When the tower was constructed it was the tallest secular building in the world and the 'show and tell' room affords some marvellous views through the leaded glass windows and the tracery to the north and west of London.

On the table there was a marvellous selection of well-presented historic documents and large heavy tomes. These included notes from Lloyd George, directories of noble families and petitions showing wonderful signatures or symbols indicating how some people could not at that time write.

And then back out to the spiral stairs to look down through the well. This is the view we sometimes see on TV when the Queen arrives here:

The well is not always open like this – a horizontal sliding 'door' is usually in place at the bottom edge. The third image shows part of a framed pic on the wall at that level – a section a 12th century stained glass window from Chartres Cathedral by Simon De Montfort – I love the colours.

And then to the the famous archive room with all the document rolls – I practically hyper-ventillated with excitement as I entered the room. Wow!
Each roll is date tagged by sovereign age (that's what all those little pink, yellow and green squares are in the pics below) and some of them are HUGE. I mean long. Very long. One is half a mile long! I wonder how much it weighs?

A few special documents and books were chosen to show us, and these included some famous historical names:

Henry VIII to the left and his daughter Elizabeth I to the right. The middle image shows how beautiful some of the books in the archive are – just look at the lovely handwriting – the page on the top is an addendum – they just didn't scribble or annotate onto the  original – they wrote it all out again as an attachment

What a delightful way to spend a couple of hours.

*The archive is a valuable resource for anyone delving into the past. The physical archive (the books and scrolls etc) will be moving soon whilst the facility is overhauled, however the database and research facilities will still be available – I think I've got that right – click here to find out more.

The London Library – a lovely literary labyrinth

The London Library sits in the North West corner of St James's Square.
It's an absolute delight; a labyrinth of rooms jam-packed with books, level upon level of lovely old books. I could live happily in there.

The books are filed in categories A-Z and you'll Chemistry next to Cheese. The open metal floors are both sturdy and space-saving. Editions of The Times are stored in red binders.

Some of the books are over 400 years old have been previously owned by historical figures and bear their annotations and/or signatures – it amazes me that members can freely flick through these treasures, let alone take home.
I was lost for words when I was there, which is odd for me, but I was the right place for that to happen.
Membership comes at a price; it's not expensive, but it's not cheap either.
However a guided tour is free.

Reformation – an exhibition at Senate House Library

If you are in Bloomsbury between now and 15th December do make a detour into the 1937 Art Deco magnificence of Senate House on Malet street to see this small but marvellous exhibition about The Reformation hosted by Senate House Library.

The two pics at the centre show a marvellous book about the library and a tote bag, both available there. The middle two pics on the bottom row show library rooms and the the one bottom left is of the stairwell (see more below).

The exhibition is not advertised outside but is well signposted once you enter the main building by following the motifs designed to resemble smashed stained glass and cracked stone which lead up to the 4th floor.
I was lucky when I visited for a preview of this exhibition to gain access to the roof of the tallest part and the pic at bottom right (above) shows a view from the top of the stairwell looking down approx 60metres and would have been quite dangerous for the maintenance men changing the lightbulbs etc – a potentially deadly drop. Luckily the stairs are caged on all sides now. I will post some views from the roof next week.
Anyway... where was I?
Yes, the exhibition – it's free!

A wonderful choice of exhibits are on view – fascinating old books, drawings and manuscripts, plus a very good interactive touch screen

Charles Holden's Art Deco Senate House was London's first skyscraper and is worth a visit in itself. This is where George Orwell found his inspiration for Nineteen Eighty-Four and Room 101.
I'd also recommend Yannick's Bloomsbury Art Deco walk which includes Senate House

The pavement signs of Borough

Here are two examples of what were originally intended to be informative signs embedded into manhole covers on and around Borough High street.

But alas, as you can see, some of the letters have magically lifted off or just flown away.
I have yet to find one that doesn't have some letters missing so I will make a fairly educated guess that some mischievous folk are having a whale of a time prising off individual letters to hilarious effect.
Ooh my sides have split.

Islington Faces celebrates 100 interviews

Nicola Baird recently celebrated her 100th post by putting on a staged version at the King's Head Theatre last Saturday. In this one-off chat show called Islington Faces Live our inspirational host chatted to different Islington residents.
We met Theresa Debono, Islington's lovely diminutive Maltese lady mayor, Ethiopian singer Hanisha Soloman and John Walters the Pearly King of Finsbury (now part of the borough of Islington). We also heard from others about the theatre itself, star gazing on Highbury Fields, finding unusual artefacts in the road, learning languages in cafes, and how a 1960s immigrant discovered that the streets of London were not paved with gold after all. But he stayed anyway!

Top row: all in Upper Street

Middle row: Liverpool Road; Nicola with some of her guests outside the Kings Head*

Bottom row: Islington Central Library, Holloway Rd which sports the only sign I have seen using the word 'curtilage' (lovely!); a collection of signs in Essex Rd; one of Nicola's blog intervewees outside Islington Town Hall in Upper Street.

*Back row L-R: Bernita Matondo, stargazer Ernie Jegorovas, poet mechanic Stanley Smart, John Walters, Hanisha Solomon, Nicola Baird and King’s Head Theatre executive director Dominic Haddock. Foreground: Islington’s Mayor, Theresa Debono, with her husband, Tony. Photo by Vicky Ryzhykh. 

A very pleasant way to spent a Saturday afternoon.

All ticket money raised went towards The King's Head Theatre fund. 

Well done Nicola – here's to the next 100 interviews.