The World, the World: Memoirs of a Legendary Traveler by Norman Lewis

Author:Norman Lewis [Lewis, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781480433571
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

I BECAME TIRED OF London, although by no means tired of life, and although Dr Johnson’s celebrated views on this subject might have been reasonable when the milkmaids were still milking their cows in Drury Lane, I cannot believe his enthusiasm would have been rekindled by a revisit to his old haunts in the immediate post-war. For several years I lived in Orchard Street overlooking Selfridges where windows opened on traffic noise obliterating all other sounds. It must have been in 1959 when Selfridges began the expansion of their food department just across the road. A substantial area of their premises was to be rebuilt, in preparation for which equipment that can hardly have changed in design since the Middle Ages went into action and existing walls were knocked down by a huge metal ball swung at the end of a chain. This was done rapidly but many weeks were required to drive piles deep into the London clay to support the weight of the huge new building that followed. Once placed in position, the pile was struck a tremendous blow by a steel driver, which had been hoisted aloft by a chain for some fifty feet before its release. The shock-waves of the concussions occurring at intervals roughly five minutes apart caught up the flimsy building I inhabited in such a way that it regularly gave an upwards jerk of possibly a twentieth of an inch. Work went on for twelve hours a day, starting usually at 7 am, and after a month I decided to move.

It was about this time that I learned through my solicitor that I had long since been divorced according to Mexican law and that my ex-wife had forthwith taken a husband. I therefore married Lesley, an old friend who had been helping me to organise my books. We decided to look for a house in a calm area of the countryside with reasonable access to the capital. I have always believed that, despite evident disadvantages, the attractive lifestyles of the past were frequently protected by abusive governments, the malarial mosquito and bad communications. It was this last factor that drew my attention to East Anglia where the London and North Eastern Railway held would-be commuters at its mercy with the slowest, dirtiest and least reliable trains—not only in this country but, short of the Balkans, probably in any other part of Europe. A prime example of this brake on the loss of the charm of the past was the London-Colchester line. No urban dwellers in their right mind ever considered migrating to Essex, in consequence of which house prices were about half those south of the Thames. By way of compensation, also, I found main roads quiet enough to drive on, and lanes along which I could stroll for hours on end without being passed by a car. Fish still swam in unpolluted streams, and the woods and glades were full of the songs of birds. Among the more unusual animals were

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