Walking with Iain Sinclair - Battersea to Wandsworth Road
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- čas přidán 11. 04. 2020
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This was one of the walks I filmed with writer Iain Sinclair for our documentary London Overground based on Iain's book of the same name. Only a small portion of this footage made it into the final film which premiered at the Rio Cinema in the East End Film Festival in July 2016.
You can watch the film here: • London Overground - Ia...
And also the post-screening Q&A • Iain Sinclair London O...
The walk starts at St. Mary's Church Battersea then progesses to Clapham Junction Station and along Lavendar Hill to Wandsworth Road Station passing the home of novelist Angela Carter.
The painting in the video: The view from Lavender Hill, painted in 1848 by Robert Westall, showing wide open fields, the then-new Battersea pumping station (built in 1840), and distant views of Westminster Abbey and the Royal Hospital Chelsea. This view encouraged the early construction of several villas among the Lavender fields en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavende...
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Music used in this video:
I Found DB Cooper by Craig MacArthur
Ambiment - The Ambient by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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Hallowed Days by Chasms
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Oxygen Garden by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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Backpack: Berghaus TwentyFourSeven 30 litre rucksack
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Waterproof jacket: The North Face Men's Sangro Jacket
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Tripod: Manfrotto PIXI Mini Tripod
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Anyone who enjoyed this would love John's film of Iain on the Van Gogh walks, and the full London Overground film is superb and watching it a journey in itself. Highly recommended them.
thanks PB
Iain is so incredibly charismatic and you videos present him so well.
I like the way the narration and the footage combine to demonstrate how getting lost and finding your way can be one and the same thing.
I love the way in which you manage to capture the increasingly encroaching melancholy of Iain Sinclair as he gets older, by allowing to him to rant, rave, ramble (albeit, in a softly-spoken and erudite manner!) at you and the camera, and then hold off and film him as he walks off into the distance... Reminds me of the famous photograph of the elderly Samuel Beckett taken from behind as he walks off - again, into the distance - down a long Parisian boulevard. Quietly epic and understatedly cinematic. Quality stuff, John. Much appreciated! UP THE JUNCTION!!!
cheers Peter - it's such a pleasure to capture these experiences with Iain, and I think the longer versions of these walks work better somehow
Oooh I could have watched though moreover listened to Lain for hours . He's a man made of a thousand books, and blessed with a flowing articulate recall. It's a shame he never ventured up the rise of Matrimony Place, I was willing him on, but sadly my willing was not strong enough. Great stuff John. Always high quality and informative filming.
I was a bit late watching this time as I had a cold tap that simply wouldn't turn off!! All fixed now.
great to hear about the tap Michael. Yes Iain is an endless font of knowledge, I highly recommend his books if you haven't already. I often think about going back to walk up Matrimony Place - one for the list
I have no idea what he's talking about... And I suspect neither has he. But immensely entertaining and how articulate... Really enjoyed this. Thank you
The poetic thing I've experienced since these days of confinement began. Thanks so much.
cheers Barry
@@JohnRogersWalks I've been reading A LOT over the last few weeks and was thinking my literary comfort blanket, HG Wells's The War of the Worlds would make for an interesting basis for a walk, tracing the Martian route from Surrey to Central London. Shame I live in Sunderland really!
Interesting to see Wandsworth Rd again after some 35+ years. Adjacent to where Ian pauses to look up Matrimony Lane, was a house where key members of the radical 70's bands The Art Bears and Henry Cow lived in the mid to late 70's.
iain's just great - and so is nick, who seems to be absent, so i'll have to look for him later - iain is just a font that never ceases to flow, happily enough. i always look forward to seeing him in your videos, cheers, john
So much information in your videos..!! Brilliant
Thanks Ross
Wonderful, thank you for publishing this video.
my pleasure John
Thanks John, greatly enjoyed this; it's where I live.
The corner shop, the building that Iain praises in the final scene, has been demolished and replaced by flats in the last twelve months.
Thanks Tim - shame the shop has been demolished, a building of real character
wonderful video almost as good as going for a long London walk,
Great stuff in here, especially about Mr. Norton, I've got a signed copy of Slow Chocolate Autopsy and League Century: 1910!
I've been looking for an opportunity to release the Norton clip for a while, this was the perfect time.
I just want to thank you for your work, John. I only recently found your videos and they are amongst the most mesmerising of any I have found on this platform, and I spend too much time on CZcams. I moved to London when I was 18; I have found the city to be an almost mythical constant. I am sure that one day explorers of the future will stop by the remnants of now modern installations and see them with the same romance we today look at the old crumbling stone monaliths of this city, which your circle has so aptly referred to as reservoirs of cultural memory. Time gives meaning to all, and even the newest of things will absorb this meaning, until they too crumble away into dust. Regrettably, I have had to move out of London three times over the past 9 years due to the high cost of living. I am a writer, but my time is not yet. I hope I get the opportunity to spend my days meandering the streets and forests as you do. Thank you for bringing me inspiration to make it back to this, London, our great city.
thanks for your wonderful comment Benjamin - best of luck with your writing and hope you get back to London before too long
These little films are wonderful. They’ve become my evening ritual whilst making models for my model railway. Such richness unearthed and shared. I’ve realised I’m not the only person who has struggled with the change of London, the lost London. So much reference to Burroughs, literature, art, history. Boundaries dissolving, time and control being challenged through place, history and spirit. I’m so heartened by these films, I could immerse myself in them forever. Thank you so much, John. I’ve purchased a copy of Austerlitz by Sebald after last night’s viewing, now I’ll pursue Iain Sinclair.
Another fantastic video John. Could’ve watched for hours. Interestingly the church in Battersea is used as a location in the film Alfie with Michael Caine.
Ah, thanks for that, actually a bit I seem to have left out was Iain mentioning that Michael Caine lived on the opposite side of the river apparently, perhaps in Imperial Wharf
And the burial place of Benedict Arnold.
Visited St Marys today after watching this film recently, cycling there from Bethnal Green where I live. A delightful and very serene spot. Thankyou for bringing it to my attention. Beautiful thought that William Blake and Catherine were married here.
Excellent work John. Get as much on here of the great man as you can. Posterity etc.
I've got a great conversation between Iain and Andrew Kötting that I filmed in a cafe that I'll upload at some point
thanks for cheering up the day guys, love these lesser known facts off the beaten path
my pleasure milkman - there's plenty more to come as well
Oh, love good to see you again with the wise professor of vintage London studies!! Hope all is well at your end?
cheers Syed, hope you're doing well
@@JohnRogersWalks I am alright. Thank you!
Just smoking my pipe.
Thanks as always for your wonderful videos John, especially now! The way I'm dealing with social distancing and walking is just to go out as early as I can possibly manage. There's almost no one about between 5 & 6 and you can have an almost carefree walk. It's still a little dark at 5 but in a week or so that won't be a problem either.
This video started out in a slightly darker vein for me when Iain mentioned skateboarders dropping their old boards off Hungerford Bridge. I know that bridge as the bridge where my mother's friend's son, Timo was murdered over 20 years ago now. He and his friend were mugged, beaten unconscious and then thrown over the bridge into the river. His friend survived but he didn't. They were both avid skateboarders so I wondered whether there was a connection and sure enough an internet search revealed that the skateboards are thrown over as a tribute.
If you walk a few miles further upriver from where you were filming you'll find a bench there in his name on the towpath near Barnes. I came across the bench by accident when I first started walking London in earnest a decade or so ago. It was a strange feeling to be out on a carefree riverside walk, enjoying a quick sandwich and the glorious view only to suddenly be faced with a very personal memory and the darker side of the river and the city.
so sorry to hear about this tragedy Mallard, thigs like that break the heart. I worked on the South Bank for a few years. I'll look at those skateboards differently now.
Loved it, thank you. Great IS quotes, e.g. : "... downloading poems that we've never read" and the one one about a building hankering after the status of a ruin. I'm going to have to read more Iain Sinclair.
You’ll love the books Mariana - one of my favourite quotes from this video was ‘Ruins become Runes’
"I'm just wondering at what point you dissolve into the street..." I loved that.
Fascinating video, had me reaching mentally for fragments of quoted books/authors/bios left right and centre. Ill have to check out the Will Self/Patrick Kieller view on the “new” Battersea.
Thanks Ashley - I believe Will Self wrote something in the LRB about Nine Elms that will be worth seeking out
Fascinating as always, Ian is the encyclopedia of forgotten London history.
he is indeed Tim - glad you enjoyed the video
Really enjoyable watch
Another sublime gift, many THANKS good sir
Way hey. I was there at St Mary's Battersea a year ago and my wife and I just walked in but they were not too welcoming. This is the church where my grandad and gran got married in 1916.He was a Battersea man but the area was not that pleasant in his day when he talked about it! Small world lol
Yet another interesting walk. Iain is a wealth of knowledge 😊
Thanks Kat - he is indeed
Hi John thanks for sharing this. I've read the Ginger Line and watched your doco of the walk great stuff. And I had the pleasure of meeting Iain Sinclair and Will Self at an event at the V&A a few years back and amazing stuff. And thanks too for sharing the London museum map of historical finds in London - it determined my daily walk today
My pleasure - I was at that same event with Nick Papadimitriou (if it was the one in 2007) - a great evening. Glad you enjoyed the MOLA map - somebody recommended Layers of London as well
Very interesting... Best to you gentlemen...
Thanks Patrick
And of course that house at the very end, that Iain reads about, has recently been torn down.
Wonderful film as usual, John Rogers.
Thanks friendlier - sorry to hear about the house
An incredible video, I find Ian to be an endless source of amazing facts and connections about my wonderful home city, shows it to be a multi layered fantastic phantasm of veiled reality, just like Moorcock writings of other worlds and realities impinging on each other, hidden in plain sight , if you know the code, which Ian obviously does, thank you for chronicling this important walk, Stay Safe and Well, Be seeing you !!!
John, I am loving your videos. They are better than ASMR, in the sense that they are so gentle and pleasant to watch. You edit and speak so well about the subjects, you clearly are passionate and put a lot of time into their presentation. I came about them by just typing in 'A walk around Neasden' and one of your videos came up. I was born in Colindale and it was good to see you walking around Wembley.
Thanks so much Sefton, I've had a good number of great walks round Wembley, wonderful terrain to explore
Sinclair......Blake......Dr Dee........AND THE FREAKING SHED???
Woooaaahhh.....you really are spoiling us.
ha, glad you enjoyed it
I've always wanted a shed. My grandad had a shed. My dad had a workshop, (which was really a shed). I think every bloke should have a shed.
Think I was channelling your legendary navigation skills on Thursday, John. I misinterpreted the route of a public footpath on Google Maps and added about a mile to my permitted daily exercise walk... [Oops] The mystical undulating topography within the local woods was worth it though.
that sounds like a great experience to spice up the daily walk Paul
Indeed. A place of (improbable) ancient, dark doings. I need to continue to photograph it throughout the year.
The icon of the pilgrim's boot at Battersea. Fantastic.
Thanks for posting, i really enjoyed this. I love the ref to Bruce Chatwin, he's one of my favourite writers :-)
Hi John my wife used to live in the Lavender Hill area and I know this area very well, I have recently read 'The Ginger line' so to get Iain's feelings and knowledge or take on this area was very interesting thank you both for your fascinating work.
It's a fascinating area John - I'll have to return when circumstances permit - glad you enjoyed the video
Fantastic John, more power to the shed!.
ha, thanks Mark, it's having a renaissance
I just love the way Iain excavates magic from the shitty streets of London, north and south. He is a genuine innovator, who has made me think differently about the city that I have lived in for nearly 40 years (and that has been good to me). And full respect to you, of course, John!!
Thanks John, great stuff. Keep safe.
thanks Simon - same to you
Very enjoyable and interesting.
thanks Peter
Great content as always, John! It would be great to see a tour of different used- book, little bookshops. Talking about different authors and seen what you can found in them. Thats what I thought watching minute 19, this businesses would also need a lot of help after the pandemic.
All the best!
that's a great idea Fiona - thankyou
We need to support youtubers like John🥺❤️
IAN AND JOHN I HAVE 4 CONNECTIONS WITH NORTH GREENWICH, FIRST IN EARLY 2008 ON DUTY ON BUS STSAIION HELPING THE PUBLIC ON AN UPGRADE CLOSURE WHEN MY BOSS TOLD TOURISTS TO ASK THE EXPERT, IE ME, FOR TRAVEL HELP, I WAS ALSO CALLED A LEGEND BY THE BOSSES BROTHER AND GOT MANY OTHER GOOD COMMENTS AND PRAISE AND COMMENDATIONS OVER THE YEARS I DID THIS WORK WEHILST STILL MOBILE. THEN IN NOV 2008 I WAS CONDUCTOR ON RM 545 HE ONLY ONE WITH DAF ENGINE GOING TO THE DOME ON ITS OPENING NIGHT AS A PUBLIC EVENTS VENUE AND WAS PAID TO SEE THE FIREWORKS WITNESED BY FEW PEOPLE.THEN IN LATE 2010 I WAS AT EAST INDIA QUAY TO SHOW PEOPLE FROM THE DLR TO FERRY BOATS ACCROSS THE THAMES TO NORTH GREENWICH. THEN ON 27 NOV 2012 I AND MY ADOPTED NEPHEW WERE IN THE FIRST 6 MEMBERS OF PUBLIC WAITING FIRST PUBLIC CABLE CARS TO ROYAL VICTORIA & THE BC NEWS FILM OF US CHATTING TO OTHERS OF THE FIRST 6 IS ON YOU TUBE. I LOST BOTH LOWER LEGS IN LAST 4 YEARS AS AN INDIRECT WND WAR CASUALTY AND HAVING HAD POLIO AT AGE 7.
what great memories and achievements Peter - so sorry to hear about your legs. Hope you're doing ok in the current situation
It think John looks up to Iain. I've read some of Iain Sinclair's books. I found him via London Orbital. Iain is amazing and both of you so humble. Iain has a huge respect for JG Ballard who was also humble, but magnificent. I really enjoyed this and Iain is such a wonderful narrator.
Hi John, that was a wonderful walk, Iain is so easy to listen to, and so very interesting, as you are. Have you ever been back to Matrimony Place? Looking forward to your shed story. 😊 Thank you, I really appreciate all your hard work, so interesting and well put together. Stay safe and take really good care of yourself!
Thanks K. No I've never been back to Matrimony Place, must add it to the list. Hope you're doing well
I thought that was a wonderful short film, your editing skills are impressive
thanks Morgan
Very interesting John Dee and William Blake are both larger than life characters. Shame about Matrimony Place it reminded me of the approaches to Montmartre except the French would not have allowed a brick to be touched by developers.
Thanks John, interesting film, wonder how Iain and Alan are handling the lockdown.
I think Iain is still taking his local exercise walks - he seems to be doing ok
It's again really strange to see my old area on my TV. I'm loving all the knowledge. I don't know if you and Iain knew this. But you were walking right above another one of London lost river! The Falconbrook. Which flows through Northcote rd (Nappy Valley) and pasts Clapham Junction.
Ah thanks for that - I’ve walked over the Falcon Brook a few times further upstream, didn’t know it flowed through here
@@JohnRogersWalks My pleasure. I'm grateful for your knowledge. I'm glad to give some back. 😊
Bravura John!
Thanks Ashley
I miss battersea..live in co kerry now😢🇮🇪🇬🇧
👍👍👍
Another great film. You watch one and then drift into another! I was brought up not far from Battersea and had relatives there but never knew about the church of St. Mary's. Must visit there sometime later this year (I live a couple of hundred miles away now). I'd like to make some similar films on walks that I do locally and was wondering what kit you use when making them, especially when talking to camera. Are your films made with one camera man (you) and were the shots where you walk past the camera (e.g. the Dunwich and Tring films) made by putting the camera on a tripod and you just walk by it? I've a small budget so what is the cheapest kit I could start with. Sorry if this question has been asked before. Thanks for making these wonderful and inspiring films.
Brasher boot ! I thought I recognised it.
They aren't made any more. I must have had four pairs. So comfortable
shame to hear they aren't made any more, I nearly bought a pair a couple of years ago
Iain looks like he could keep walking all day!
👍👍👍stay safe johnny boy👍
Thanks H man - and the same to you
I've also share this video in my facebook page
Hi John! Loving all your videos and Iain's books. Quite obsessed! Can i ask: have you done any films around Highgate/North London?
Many thanks. Here are a couple North London videos you might enjoy:
- Walk from St.Paul's through Islington to Highgate czcams.com/video/fC5JonPnfvE/video.html
- Parkland Walk Haringey - Finsbury Park, Highgate Woods, Muswell Hill czcams.com/video/S53FWofSUCQ/video.html
- London's Northern Heights - Highbury to Hornsey via Finsbury Park czcams.com/video/rBP7A-Bzhx0/video.html
@@JohnRogersWalks Thanks so much John! Can I ask one last question: apart from Mr Sinclair’s enthralling books, which i’m reading now, what is your favorite book about London?
I always wondered what happened to skateboards after they could no longer be used. Now I know!
It’s quite a sight
Good morning John. I'm wating for the today's video. I was wondering: have you ever had any problem with a thief or a dog or any problem while you were filiming videos? Have a great sunday.
John, are you familiar with The Morpeth Place, and Brompton Cemetary on Old Brompton Road?
Hi Tom - we did actually film in Brompton Cemetery and I cut a video somewhere to upload, sections are in the film but there's an additional bit of interview with Iain talking about William Burroughs making recordings in the cemetery.
Iain Sinclair video.
WHY WAS THERE WAS NO PUBLICITY ABOUT THIS LONDON OVERGROUND FILM AT THE RIO EX MAJESTIC > CINEMA KINGSLAND LONDON E 8, AS USUAL THERE IS A VERY BIG LACK OF GOOD PUBLICITY OF MOST PUBLIC EVENTS DUE TO INCOMPETENCE AND LAZINESS IN THE NOW USELESS UK !!!!. WHEN WILL THIS WHOLE LONDON OVEEGROUND FILM BE PUT ON YOU TUBE ??? PLEASE JOHN.
there was quite a lot of publicity at the time Peter - the East End Film Festival produced a great brochure. I was even on London Live TV talking about the film
You’re supposed to have a bookshelf behind you John!
Ah, for sure although I have neglected the shed a bit in recent years, there are some old copies of the Countryman and some 2000Ads that have gone a bit musty
Sad when he see's the demolition notice at 28 minutes.
truly so
Another great video John. Thanks for posting. Music wonderful as always too. My friend Kevin Lyons makes music which you might enjoy. Lovely chap too.
Listen to All Our Yesterdays by Kevin Lyons on #SoundCloud
soundcloud.com/kevin-lyons-4/all-our-yesterdays
Thanks for that Ian - great music
Just listen to the traffic susurration in the background!! No wonder it's difficult to sell London to people.
St Mary's Battersea is the burial place of Benedict Arnold.
How i loved growing up on winstanley estate, but that was then, would not dream of bringing my children up there now. Shame.
St Mary's church is also the resting place of Benedict Arnold , lil fact for ya all.