first century

Well, fancy that. This is my 100th post in just under two years. When Phoebe set up this newsletter for me in September 2022 and told me to “get writing”, I said that I’d give it a go and if twenty or thirty people read it, I’d be happy. And here we are, almost 4,000 readers and a century of newsletters later, having covered a slew, a plethora, a profusion, a miscellany of subjects.

I always remember reading Nigel Slater explaining his ability to write a good amount of words on the slightest of subjects, saying that he could write a whole article about golden syrup on the back of a spoon. I may not get that forensic, but I do like an esoteric, recondite, abstruse starting point for a piece. (I also like synonyms.) Nevertheless, due to time and space constraints, I can’t always go as far as I’d like to when stretching a point, so I feel there could be plenty of scope for a series of ‘100 xx’ books along the lines of the C20 Society’s ‘100’ books.

So, on the occasion of my first century, and looking back at the newsletter themes I feel are particularly worth revisiting, here’s a list of books I’d like to compile (it goes without saying that the other titles would include Tulips, Quilts, Breads & Buns, Markets, Swimming Pools & Places, Allotments):

[Mary Medd (née Crowley,1936)]

100 Women in Architecture

Given last week’s newsletter, this would have to be top of the list. So much to cover, say, include, celebrate.

[‘September’ (1915) by Edmund Blair Leighton]

100 Washing Lines

Imagine it, a book filled with lovely, simple, ordinary, amazing washing lines with a digression into public lavoirs and wash houses. I’d also include Helga Stenzel and her wonderfully surreal clothes lines animals - the ultimate in washing line artistry.

[‘Bedworth Almshouses from the Back, Warwickshire’ (1982) by Michael T Shepperson]

100 Almshouses

We went to Bedworth a couple of weekends ago to look at the spectacular almshouses (rebuilt 1840) which are a cross between an Elizabethan manor house and a Victorian grammar school. I am ‘collecting’ almshouses and although there are a few decent books on the subject, their authors really do like going into every last detail of the histories, benefactors, local big-wigs, and charities, whereas I am far more interested in the vast variety of architectural styles of almshouses (‘more is more’ seems to have been a common motto for the architects), and the immense value and importance of these ultimately domestic buildings. There’s so much to consider that’s not usually covered: the residents (sad, but true), the gardens, the rules, everyday life eg where are the washing lines?

[Østre Gasværk (1883), Copenhagen]

100 Gasholders

This is an urgent one, what with so many phenomenal gasholders being dismantled at the moment. I’d also include conversions such as the Østre Gasværk Teater in Copenhagen housed in a former gasholder, and get a clever designer person to create images of my fantasy plans - swimming pools, greenhouses for tomatoes, panorama galleries - for these beautiful, industrial, urban structures.

[‘View from a Railway Carriage; Blaenau Ffestiniog Station’ by Anna Todd (b1964)]

100 Train journeys and stations

One of my all-time favourite subjects. Could possibly run to more than one volume. Real, fictional, poetic, old, new, existing, demolished, converted to bookshops and cafes. Oh, the joy of bringing together Maigret and viaducts and ‘Adlestrop’. (An aside: I was reading reviews of a self-catering holiday place at a working railway station - yes, I like to dream - and it still makes me laugh that someone had written “convenient for the trains” with no trace of irony.)

[View of Houses in Delft, known as ‘The Little Street’ (c1658) by Johannes Vermeer]

100 Doorsteps and Thresholds

This was one of the most popular newsletters I’ve written, with many people telling me of the memories it evoked. It also gave rise to an illuminating conversation with a Cambridge architect/tutor friend. He put me on to the marvellous work and writings of Hermann Hertzberger who has designed shared buildings (eg for old people) on a very human scale with attention paid to small but immensely important details such as doorsteps. I was also quite surprised to discover that the arch-Brutalists, Alison and Peter Smithson, developed what they called a ‘doorstep philosophy’. You’d have to read the book to find out more.

[les Beatles, Paris, 1964]

100 Beatles Books, Songs, Here, There and Everywhere

There are hundred of books on the Beatles - you only have to look at the pages and pages of reading references at the back of Craig Brown’s One, Two, Three, Four to get an idea of how many. But what the heck, there’s still room for a little one. This may be a vanity project (perhaps an understatement) for a readership of one, but it would be extremely enjoyable to make a mix of favourite songs, books, outfits, and photos come together, right now.

[Bottle kilns, Wedgwood, Etruria (c1952)]

100 UK Provincial Destinations; or, The Rehabilitation of the Neglected and Overlooked

There’s not one place, not even Stoke-on-Trent, which does not have at least a single redeeming feature, as the brilliant Phoebe Taplin says of Derby. In fact, Stoke would make a good starting point for this collection with its pottery and Josiah Wedgwood history, its remaining forty-seven bottle kilns, its old chapels and Arnold Bennett novels, its beautiful railway station, and great Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.

Plenty to be going with, then. Maybe I could aim to equal Sachin Tendulkar’s century of international centuries?

Here’s to the second century of newsletters. Thank you for reading.

Happy Sunday!