Iain Sinclair - Living with Buildings walking with ghosts

[@martinbond6682]

Hi the sculptured faces are called "the wall of the ancestors" I was the sculptor!

[@MeTheRob]

Good on you ! I used to cycle past those faces a lot. Such a shame that the plaque that puts names to them is now hidden.

[@bjwnashe5589]

Iain Sinclair should be more widely read. He should win all the prizes. His body of work is an incredible sustained engagement with urban life, history, literature... Mostly all London-based. And it's wonderful to see a writer really dig down deep into the place where he has lived for... what? Seven decades. But he is so knowledgeable about London it seems he's been there for five centuries. And he truly cares about the stuff that really matters.

[@rodjones117]

He gets a lot wrong in fact.

[@scottmcneil1150]

Wow. I lived in the outer Hebrides for 13 years. Iain’s description of the buildings there is fascinating. These films bring me to an understanding of myself where I’ve walked the land and spoken with myself in a narrative way and also communed with Spirit. Your films give me renewed hope and focus John, thank you.

[@heavy-lifting]

The clown who refused to leave the tower block was called Les Brooke aka Pockets. He played drums in a band with my dad. Sadly he passed away a few years ago.

[@bennozoid1]

Another sublime mini-masterpiece Sir. Thank you for your heartfelt, lucid images....

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Bennozoid - it was a real pleasure to make

[@redfordgrange3507]

Not the average promotional puff for a newly published book! Great stuff.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Redford - was a real pleasure to make this

[@jenniferlevine5406]

Certainly one of the very best you two have done together. I enjoy this video - each time I watch it - so much!

[@CitrusSimon]

Thank you John. Fascinating little walk.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Simon

[@rosswebster7877]

Amazing video as always John, and always glad to have Ian Sinclair as a guest tour guide. I can just imagine the ghosts of Evelyn, Pepys, Melville, Conrad, Kubrick and Ballard following Sinclair around trying to makes sense of the passage of time and cityscapes.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

That’s a wonderful image Ross

[@arthurscargill8010]

"All of these tall buildings, like a series of acupuncture needles going into an eyeball". Fantastic film John.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Arthur

[@ronnieadam66]

Great film John, Ian is an amazing person and I never get tired of listening to him, I also love the haunting music ☺️👍

[@JohnRogersWalks]

thanks Ronnie

[@dicemystics6538]

What a wonderful world with such people in it.

[@ralphwinter6421]

Brilliant film John,Thanks !

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Ralph

[@ArthurStone]

Sterling work. Thank you all. Kinda therapy for me. I worked at the paper plant in Canada Water....it was a long walk; nice to see it from my armchair!

[@JohnRogersWalks]

thanks Arthur - looks like the paper plant is about to become part of Kings College

[@classicartfoundation639]

Brilliant writer, and a knowledge of the deeper details of London....

[@rubbishrider3309]

Great film. I become familiar with this area while staying/visiting the Sanford Housing Co-op (Sanford Walk), another historically interesting place in Deptford.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks for the tip, I’ll have to drop by there some time

[@mheuman]

What a moving meditation on cities and change. My own city, Seattle, is undergoing its own seismic shifts and our landmarks and sense of place is getting lost. Thanks for the walk, I'll check the book out as well.

[@cosimocub]

thank you so much John and Iain

[@trevorbarre5616]

Only just caught up with this one. Thanks, John. I always feel energised by your videos.

[@stewartconacher6552]

Interesting film.Looking forward to reading the book.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

It’s a great book Stewart

[@michaelbrown984]

This man gets to the gutts of London... pieces together it workings and mysteries beautifully....

[@Theoobovril]

Another great video John, new it would be having Iain Sinclair narrating it.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Theo - always great to work with Iain

[@WyeExplorer]

Really enjoying your guest here John. Great stuff. Mark

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Mark, it’s always a real pleasure to walk with Iain

[@WyeExplorer]

He's an insightful chap - both of you are in fact...have a great weekend.

[@adamlacey81]

Enjoyed this John, thanks for sharing.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Adam

[@markwilliamson6884]

I've done a slightly longer version of that walk (Tower bridge - Greenwich) - I really enjoyed it and plan to do more walking down there when the opportunity arises. I'd loved to have done with you or Iain as guide though - so much information that wasn't apparent from signs or googling as I went

[@JohnRogersWalks]

it's great territry Mark and I highly recommend carrying on through Charlton, Woolwich to Erith and beyond - have a look at my recent video on Swanscombe Marshes which is just the other side of Dartford Creek

[@Listermintsluesh]

If it's ancestors I think about I've gotta think of parts of North London...as time has moved on I guess you create your own space to enjoy and feel comfortable with. All other timeframes and the associated spaces are etched into memories. So many changes and evolution, but the old days you take with you. Peace 😀...

[@LouiseHaRrIs76]

Wow, really enjoyed that vid John, thanks. Thanks to Iain too, will definately be buying the book. Cheers 👍👍👍👍👍

[@iano5957]

Another brilliantly made film, John. I'm really hoping to catch you and Iain talking about this at the Wanstead Tap soon.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Ian - hope to see you at the Tap

[@muvvafunkster]

A few years ago I followed the sound of squeaking trolley wheels from Deptford Market wondering where the treasures from the 2nd hand market ended up. I found myself at the Pepys Estate and was greeted with the sound of police sirens and bumped into (literally) a drug dealer. My initial thought was to make my escape. Instead I sat down and ate my lunch staring at the flats into which the trolleys disappeared happy that little bits of London were being rescued and kept safe. Soon the sound of sirens were replaced with the sounds of laughter and children playing football. Feeling sated I made my way to the Thames to see a new Land Rover Discovery sitting proud in the Thames with no visible means of how it got there. I kept to the Thames path (where possible) and made my way to Greenwich and being a windy day a temporary beach had formed on the Thames foreshore from the sand hills of the aggregate works. This was soon claimed by a group of children who arrived at speed on bicycles knowing that a little bit of London on sea had formed. Living in London, I am often reminded of the Motorhead lyrics ' everything changes, it all stays the same'

[@rodjones117]

The beach is not temporary.

[@haroldhazell4342]

Great film. Hearing Betjeman's name reminds me of the irony of Southend's pier. One of the trains is still named after him, but should think he'd be rolling in his grave if he could see what the council has done with it in recent years.

[@leophillips5723]

Love all your videos bro

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks Leo

[@4thEyeVision]

Wonderful video

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Thanks

[@whollyspokes3645]

Thought provoking Thanks....

[@J_PhD]

For those interested, I believe this is the film Iain Sinclair is talking about at 17:57, by Andrea Luka Zimmermann: vimeo.com/112103377

[@petitemonsoon1238]

heavyweight deep thinker heavy weight GOLD

[@dougmorris2134]

Hello Ian, I found this video via one from John Rogers, very interesting and thought provoking.

[@howardgibson]

What a beautiful film

[@SuperTombel]

Hi John. My name is Tom, long time watcher, first time commenter . Where in London is the mound that Iain Sinclair is walking up? It starts at around the 5min 40sec mark. Sorry for causing any trouble. Cheers Tom.

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Hi Tom - that’s Stave Hill Park, very interesting spot

[@rupertferguson9673]

Hi John, as I told you yesterday via a response to your message, expect a diary entry by way of a comment on this one, for reasons that I shouldn't have to explain..... Tuesday 2 October 2018. Another excellent day after a night of which I remember little. I had been up until about eleven thirty after listening to another stimulating episode of the new ‘Book at Bedtime’ series on Radio 4. A few days previously I had asked my friends and followers on social media if any of them thought that 2027 would be a rerun of 1177 BC all over again. And, if so, who would be the Peoples of the Sea? The relevance of these questions to the latest offering from the pen of Booker Prize-winning author of 'Regeneration’, Pat Barker, is that the principal subject matter with which her novel 'The Silence of the Girls’ is itself primarily concerned is the fate of the Women of Troy . A theme of major literary interest since the time of the Greek playwright Euripides. The Siege of Troy appears to have been among the last great historical events that took place prior to the great societal collapse of the twelfth century BC, after which the civilization of Ancient Egypt appears to have been the only real survivor. A chain of events that would form part of the narrative of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 'History of the Kings of Britain’, of which the supposed foundation of Ancient London, or 'New Troy’, is itself a key element within the overall historical chronology. So, are we headed for a major societal collapse? Some think we are. The common denominator, between events in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1177 BC and now, is that great controversy of all controversies, Climate Change. Interesting then that the day’s events would draw me back to the location of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 'New Troy’ and many of the related social and environmental issues dredged up by some of the historical theories associated with the events of 1177 BC. After getting up slightly later than planned, due to the fact that I had woken during the middle of the night and had been unable to get back to sleep again, thanks largely to a rather generous helping of cheese, spinach and basil omelette; made with the final remnant of this year’s third crop of spinach from the garden, I set about the day’s tasks as usual. After performing all of my customary ablutions, and getting most of my obligatory chores out of the way, I had been greeted, around lunchtime, with a link to the latest offering from John Rogers, which arrived via direct message on social media. It was his 'Living with Buildings, Walking with Ghosts’; another of his video profiles of the writer and perambulator Iain Sinclair. As is so often the case with Sinclair, the perambulation started within a veritable maze of contradictions. After the subject had put in a plug for the new ’Living with Buildings’ exhibition, which is being hosted at the Wellcome Collection Museum and Library in Euston, it moved into a hasty quickstep in the general direction of Andrew Kötting’s old flat on the nearby Pepys Estate; with interjected references to ancestral waterfalls, illustrative of the disconnection between contemporary urban societies and the subconscious pull so many of their members feel towards their own ancient tribal Mesolithic roots. An appropriate stopping off point at Harmsworth Quays, for a man more at home in the authoritarian world of industrially printed books and newspapers than the democratized electronic media of the post industrial Internet Age, soon followed. Next, a conversational move to Scotland and a misleading diatribe on the subject of abandoned homes on the Outer Hebrides, which, since a 2016 photographic exhibition by former 'Buzzcocks’ drummer John Maher, stand a very good chance, in at least once instance at any rate, of becoming family homes once again. Although by no means personally affronted by this, I was at least able to view Sinclair’s statements as the nephew of one who has recently passed away near Portree on the Isle of Skye. The death of a Maiden Aunt whose house, far from suffering the same fate as those referred to in Sinclair’s mercurial exposition, was lived in almost until her passing; and was itself perhaps illustrative of the fact, in a bricks and mortar sort of a way as it were, that the complexities of land ownership, land use and Crofters’ Rights in Scotland are considerably more complex than what is usually referred to by Urban Planners, and others in the contemporary fleshpots of London, as 'Sick Building Syndrome’. The next location, a pub called ’The Moby Dick’, was perhaps more representative of the problems of many of the Macleods of Skye in the first instance, and the plight of Indigenous Peoples generally in the second. At least of those who lived contemporaneously with Herman Melville, whose novel provided the original inspiration for the naming of this less than traditional ale house. In Melville’s time, the era which was to become known to social historians as 'The Highland Clearances’, which had begun with the so called 'Pacification of the Highlands’ after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, was at its height. Melville’s novel, appropriately enough, concerns itself in part with the fate of Indigenous Peoples, not least the tattooed Polynesian Queequeg , who is himself a key player in the high seas drama that unfolds aboard ’The Pequod’, the ship at the centre of this nautical tale. Interestingly enough, this albeit fictional boat was likewise named after the first tribe of American Indians to be exterminated by the seventeenth century New England colonists. Thus, aquatic mammal and indigenous North American tribe are compared one with the other as the victims of nineteenth century industrial development. Again there is a personal angle too, in that like many Highland Scots caught up in the great social upheavals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, my own Grandfather’s Grandfather’s Grandfather, Captain Robert Ferguson (1719-1797), the older brother of the great Scottish Philosopher Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), took ship to New England, like so many others. In his case it was to Newport, Rhode Island, a location just a few short miles West of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where the opening chapters of this novel are set. Interestingly enough, in view of the venue for Sinclair’s Wellcome Collection exhibition, the Captain’s Grandson, Robert Ferguson MD (1799-1865), himself a physician of note who contributed to the scientific publications of John Murray of Albany Street, would eventually return to London via India; where his Father had been Keeper of the French Salt at Ishera on behalf of the British East India Company. The latter Ferguson, also a Robert, referred to in various biographical records of his illustrious son and heir as 'of the Indian Civil Service’, was later to reside at what was formerly Judd Place. This long vanished street, which once stood just a stone’s throw from where the Wellcome Collection and Library are presently housed, was just a little bit further along the Euston Road from where October’s exhibition is due to take place; and stood on the site of what is now the British Library, but which at that time was mostly open fields on the very edge of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia. Although Robert Ferguson was no diarist on a level with either myself or John Evelyn, the primary subject of Sinclair’s at times convoluted perambulatory testimonial, some of his writings still survive in the published Records of the Clan Fergusson Society alongside a forgotten picture of his Father. Meanwhile, as I am momentarily distracted by news from the BBC that no fewer than seventy five deep-water whales were washed up on Scottish and Irish coasts during August and September. Sinclair lights out for the territory with a reference to Elhanan Bicknell, the great nineteenth century Whale Oil magnate. A fitting point in the narrative for an artistic perambulation through some of the more obscure works of J.M.W. Turner. Upon his arrival on the Pepys Estate the author makes another of his characteristic references to London Gangland, reminiscent of his fascination with David Litvinoff. Once again, the filmmaker Andrew Kötting is in the frame. Next on the itinerary is a visit to John Evelyn’s monument, and an attempt to invoke the drawing forth of a modern literary 'Excalibur’. In view of the encounter with an alleged member of the gang that masterminded the Brinks Mat Bullion Robbery earlier on, are we talking just King Arthur here, or is it Arthur Daley we should be looking for? As we traverse the fine line between fact and fiction that Sinclair so often treads, is it really possible to tell? At the very centre of the narrative is John Evelyn’s Mulberry Tree, which, if the anecdotes relating to the traditional song 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’ are in any way to be believed, may have a subliminal link to the very prison environment which the real life Arthur Daleys of this world so often find themselves incarcerated in. In many ways the ambience of social housing projects like the Pepys Estate is akin to that of the very prison system with which so many past and present residents appear to have had a more than passing familiarity with. Was this intentional? And if so, what has society to gain? As the film drew to a close I took advantage of the Autumn sunshine for a quick perambulation of my own. A walk along the old Roman Road from Vinovium to Pons Aelius. A lost forgotten byway which, quite unlike Watling Street, still preserves sections of its original Roman paving within easy striking distance of my own present domestic abode…….The trackway beckoned…….. There'll be an illustrated version of this post with links on my tumblr blog here in due course! rupert-ferguson.tumblr.com/

[@JohnRogersWalks]

That’s for the post Rupert

[@rupertferguson9673]

Looks like you've been autocorrected John. Shouldn't that read 'Thanks for the post? lol :)

[@leeradford76]

Iain Sinclair I like the videos about London with you

[@mariana4059]

Found this very interesting, and am looking forward to reading Sinclair's book which I have ordered. I am wondering who approved the placing of the Russian-connection rock at the mulberry tree? I would suppose that local historical societies and/or council bodies are involved in decisions such as these, and that such claims should be backed up with evidence?

[@JohnRogersWalks]

It’d be interesting to investigate that Mariana - and not as uncommon as you’d think

[@mariana4059]

I guess history gets written and continually rewritten - sadly, usually by those with the power and/or money.

[@museumoflosttime9718]

It's difficult to write this, but listening to this, all I could think was the Kings New Clothing. I.S. can be so inspirational but when given the camera in this way, ego does appear to overshadow the ideas and the winge factor's too much.

[@dianastevenson131]

The people in Grenfell Tower knew each other - it was a great community. Not at all like Ballard.

[@MrJoncando]

mmm..hasn't one been living with buildings ever since Gog & Magog walked the old str8 track..??

[@JohnRogersWalks]

Wonderful Jonny - probably even longer

[@rodjones117]

"those arches are the Naval Dockyards" - no, they're not, they're Borthwicks. Sinclair looks through the locked gates at the dockyards and doesn't even realise. At first he thinks he's looking at Sayes Court. There are considerable errors like this in all these videos that John Rogers has done with Sinclair (not Rogers' fault) - Sinclair is a charlatan, and I don't know why Rogers is so mesmerised by him.

[@trevorbarre5616]

Great Satie-esque soundtrack once more. Unobtrusive and non-invasive.

[@mackan-kf4tg]

My God can this guy waffle some nonsensical mumbo-jumbo!!😳👎🏻👎🏻Gave up after 10 minutes....far to pretentious👎🏻