London Overground by Iain Sinclair

Author:Iain Sinclair
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241971505
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Millennium People

You wonder why Princess Di, in Oxford-blue FLY ATLANTIC sweatshirt, long bare legs, white socks, morning-after diva glasses (anticipating funerals), at the wheel of her dark green Audi Cabriolet, schlepped all the way from Kensington Palace to borderline Fulham, out of Barbara Cart-land into J. G. Ballard-ville, to work up a becoming flush in a leisure centre open to all manner of indecently wealthy riverside casuals with time on their hands, as well as the occasional over-entitled rugby professional from the other side, from middle-class Barnes, or Putney, where resting actors play at domesticity? Was she slumming for romance? For a trademark toss of the floppy mane and stutter of tribute from fellow member Hugh Grant – who is busy sipping ethical coffee and skimming the tabloids for actionable sleights? Anyone for tennis?

Chelsea Harbour was a late-Thatcher dragnet for new money, commissioned with a champagne party, in April 1987, held on two pontoons floating rather precariously on the newly flooded ‘marina’. Invitations went out to representatives of sport, celebrity, business; all the opportunists prepared to decamp to a triangular island between the Thames, Counter’s Creek and an active railway embankment – which featured, at that time, no stopping point to let off proles until you reached West Brompton. Therefore: excellent parking facilities for gym members. And no bicycles, not then. Ranks of Audi Cabriolets, sleek BMWs, Chelsea tractors. Diana could have availed herself of the private gymnasia reserved for royalty, but she was drawn, without much resistance, to the pre-breakfast, body-image narcissism of the coming millennium people: semi-retired thesps, televisual travel promoters, cosmetic surgeons, fashionable dentists, Olympic oarsmen waiting on a sufficiently visible role with one of the better charities. As much as anything, Di’s commute was to do with the enactment of that eyes-down scuttle between open-top German motor and the secure entrance to Chelsea Harbour Club.

For brief periods, boats called in at that harbour. A river service connecting outreach Fulham with choice bits of the heritage city – Charing Cross, Tower of London, Greenwich – was in operation when I passed through at the period when I was researching Lights Out for the Territory in the mid-1990s. This was a voyage that never failed to lift the spirits, as powerful craft surged, low to the water, offering unrivalled vistas of historic real estate. Without commentary. The river trip was a boost to the senses, not a feat of endurance. Now, dragging myself to the deserted pier with a mute Andrew Kötting, on a necessary fact-finding mission, I learn that the padlocks won’t be coming off the gates until the Harbour-dwellers are ready to return from City and Docklands. River transport is exclusive to the rush hour. Chelsea Harbour, in the afternoon, is funereal. It has outlived its time. Novelty, when it goes just off the boil, is oppressive and slightly embarrassing: like yesterday’s fashions before they achieve retro cool.

Princess Diana, handsome, burnished, high-bred, but amputated of those boring ‘Royal Highness’ trappings, was a star without a confirmed project.

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