Views, Variety, and Traffic Jams: An Interview with Judith Herrin
Self described ‘war baby’ Judith Herrin was born in 1942 and lost her father, who was serving in the Air Force, a year later. Her mother, a general practitioner, never remarried. Regardless, Judith remembers a happy childhood and had a very close relationship with her mother, who took her on many holidays to places like…
Read MoreScene In Lincoln’s Inn Fields Park 2010
Ink and wash sketch drawn from life in Lincoln’s Inn Fields park in 2010. The scene reflects two people enjoying and using this open green space only a few minutes away from the busy Kingsway and Strand.
Read MoreAn interview with Savoy archivist Susan Scott
By Hadeel Mohamed There is a turning point in my interview with Susan Scott, the in-house archivist at The Savoy, in the moment following my faux-pas of detailing an fact I’d heard about the lamps outside the hotel. It turns out to be wholly untrue. But she is good-natured about my error and laughs me…
Read More‘This area is a magnet for things to happen’: a conversation with PCSO Anthony Skidmore
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing PCSO Anthony Skidmore for the Strandlines Oral History project. Anthony is a native East Londoner (and proud: it’s ‘the best city in the world’ he says) who has been working as a PCSO (police community support officer) for the last ten years, covering the…
Read MoreJim Fox, King’s Electrician 1953-98
On 11th May 2012 I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Fox for Strandlines. Jim first started working at King’s on 19th January 1953 as an apprentice electrician, and retired in 1998 having been promoted to Site Engineer. Jim’s first experience of the Strand came at the age of fifteen, when he came to King’s…
Read MoreMrs Holt’s Italian Warehouse
In the 1720s, Mrs Holt’s Italian Warehouse (a warehouse was a sort of 18th-century department store) in the Strand opposite Exeter Change. According to the trade card that William Hogarth engraved for her, she stocked ‘all sort of Italian silks as Lustrings, Sattins, Padesois, Velvets, Damasks, &c, Fans, Leghorne Hats, Flowers, Lute and Violin Strings,…
Read MoreDickensfest
On Saturday, Dickens came to the Strand – in the ambitious form of Dickensfest! ~ an event co-organised by The Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s (where Strandlines lives) and Westminster Archives. Many thanks to Ruth Richardson and Judith Bottomley for inspiration and organisation. Dickensfest lined up all sorts of scholars and writers to talk…
Read MoreCatching up
Much has been happening with Strandlines! Except keeping up with the blog. I take it up now in part because I’m giving a talk about blogs next month, at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing; whoops, how embarrassing to have let Strandlines blog slip. In part too the blog has taken a back seat because…
Read MoreThe Vaudeville Theatre
A few doors down from the Adelphi is the pretty building which houses the Vaudeville Theatre.Built in 1870, Henry Irving acted on this stage for a while, as Ronald Bergan’s book The Great Theatres of London tells us.
Read MoreCoutts Bank
If we carry on walking down the Strand away from Charing Cross station, we soon see, on the north side of the street, the imposing sight of Coutts bank: Dickens would probably be pleased to see that his old bank is still on the Strand, although it used to be on the other side of…
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