WEST HAMPSTEAD WINDOW ON THE EAST
In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.
Photo by EP |
Photo by EP |
It’s mild today but simply not the best
This usual walk around our mundane streets
Of Hampstead yes, but with the prefix West
Surprise! There is a breath blown from the East
Not Kilburn, no, nor Cricklewood – simoon
I’m walking in the Valley of the Kings
Hot wind, hot sand – I see Tutankhamun
That window, there’s his mummy, of all things.
In sympathy the window sports zigzag
Egyptian, from four thousand years BC
His mummy’s replica may be ragtag
But zigzag is symbolic, historically
Of water: so I end this aide-mémoire
The house is backed still by a reservoir.
Photo by EP |
Photo by EP |
Photo by EP |
‘Why is it that its [Egypt’s] name, its history, its natural peculiarities and its monuments, affect and interest us in quite a different manner from those of the other nations of antiquity?’ wrote the Egyptologist and novelist George Ebers in 1878. The Victorians were fascinated by Egypt and two of the period’s most prolific painters of Egyptian themes had connections with West Hampstead. Hampstead Cemetery is the final resting place of Edwin Longsden Long RA, whose visit to Egypt and Syria in 1874 had a profound influence on his subsequent work, e.g. ‘The Egyptian Feast’ (1877).
Detail of ‘The Egyptian Feast’. Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford |
Photo by EP |
‘Subsiding of the Nile’ (1872) |
I have remembered three Eastern connections closer to home, as it were. First there is the photograph I took of the Bedouin camel boy I met on my research pilgrimage to Syria in 2005, the year I wrote and performed my play about Simeon Stylites.
Photo by EP |
Then there is review I received in the Islington Tribune of my Old Actor in The Fantasticks in 2010, written I discovered by an Irish-Egyptian journalist named Roisin Gadelrab: ‘A genius turn from Edward Petherbridge as the crumpled, ageing Shakespearean luvvie whose every gesture, word or weary sigh was pure comedic gold.’
But closest of all is the little khaki-bound Bible my father took with him to Egypt in 1914 and which is now preserved in my West Hampstead home. There is no photograph of my father as a soldier. He avoided being captured by cameras, always saying, ‘I don’t take a good picture.’ The Ever-Ready safety razor he used all his life was issued to him when he joined up. He was sixteen and scarcely in need of it. Rehoboth Sunday School gave him the Bible, inscribed in purple ink:
Presented to Willie Petherbridge
On the occasion of him joining His Majesty’s Forces during the Great European War
1914 to
To what? – he must have wondered. I am sure his poor eyesight rendered the tiny print in the Bible illegible, but he could see to work at stabling and transporting cavalry horses in Egypt. That is all we ever knew about his war experience until his dying day at the age of sixty-four.
The Melting Pot
The watchmaker wore an Afghan Hat
‘Not for religion – tradition’
He sorted my clockwork quick off pat
And off I went, in addition
I needed stamps from the Indians
Who run HM’s Post Office
Earplugs I got (from China I suppose)
Though they fit my English orifices
The shop by the way, was Iraqi owned
For erudition I started to hanker
And bought the London Review of Books
From the man who comes from Sri Lanka
I popped into the Tube station
Overseen by that gloomy Pole
Beethoven wafted through the air
And I must say, on the whole
I like being an Englishman
Here in NW6 … to be finished at a later date
I’ve used up all my tricks.
Photo by EP |
Zangwill painted by fellow West Hampsteadite Walter Sickert (c. 1896-98). National Galleries of Scotland |
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