Walking Man

I did a couple of walks last week along the route of the Mildmay Line, the train line that runs across London from Richmond in the west to Hackney Wick in the east. I covered the stretch between Willesden Junction and Kentish Town West station. From the visible wealth of Harlesden and Kilburn to the sink estates of Hampstead Village and Kensal Rise, all sides of London were on display 

My route took me past three modernist masterpieces/ monstrous carbuncles (delete for taste): the former Gaumont State cinema in Kilburn, in its day the largest cinema in the UK; 2 Willow Road in Hampstead, built and lived in by the architect Erno Goldfinger; and the Isokon Flats in Belsize Park. In the 1930s and 1940s residents included: Agatha Christie; Walter Gropius, one of the founders of the Bauhaus movement; and several Soviet spies, including Arnold Deutsch who recruited the Cambridge 5.

There was plenty of public art en route, the highlight of which was 'The Workers' by Kevin Harrison. It was plonked down at the end of a row of terraced houses in Harlesden in 1995 and is still there. The workers in question are struggling to erect a flagpole. Make of that what you will. 

And then there is Billy Fury Way, which runs alongside the railway lines between West Hampstead and Finchley Road & Frognal stations. Billy used to live and record nearby. I have no idea why the council felt the best way to honour his memory was with "a footpath lined with used condoms, drug needles and human excrement that has been branded a no-go zone by residents" (to quote the local paper). I braved the zone and encountered one surly youth and lots of rats but nothing untoward.

Here is a selection of tunes inspired by these cultural landmarks. It's yer actual musical psychogeography innit?

"Workers Song (Handful Of Earth)" - Steve Young

"Gaumont State Cinema" - Pocketbooks

"Spy Traitor" - Prince Ras Murray

"Agatha Christie" - Jalla

"Das Mechanische Kind" - Bastard Sons Of Walter Gropius