I spent my childhood years in the Sussex seaside town of Brighton. My teenage years were just like those of any teenager today, give or take a few details: computers were room-size machines kept in science laboratories, mobile phones had not yet been invented, “coffee bars” were all the rage and the prevailing fashion among trendy young men was the velvet-lapelled “Edwardian” suit.

I attended the local grammar school, went cycling, rambling and sea-bathing with friends, dated girls and gradually but inexorably, grew up.

My childhood, on the other hand, was quite unlike that of British children today because it was lived during the Second World War.

As a child, I was spared most of the horrors that I was to learn about later. I was aware of shortages and the need to avoid waste. I was aware too of the cardboard box with its string for carrying it that contained my “Mickey Mouse” gas mask. I was used to seeing troops and military vehicles in the streets and seeing the skies full of aircraft, sometimes ours and sometimes those of the enemy.

I once watched from our back garden as two Spitfire fighters each tackled a V-1 “buzz-bomb”. These rockets looked like small aeroplanes with a large rocket engine on their backs. They were usually aimed at London where they would run out of fuel and crash, causing immense damage. The Spitfires used their own wings to tip the wings of the rockets and thus to turn them around and send them out to sea where they could be shot down.

A far as daily life was concerned, the major factor was air raids. Every so often, our activities would be interrupted by the rising and falling wail of the air raid sirens. Even today, if I hear a similar sound, a shudder runs through me.

Brighton and Hove suffered quite badly from bombing despite not being an industrial area. I have found two maps that give an impression of the damage.

This Google Map version, from The Brighton and Hove newspaper, The Argus, shows how thickly the bombs fell.

This printed map from the collection of Brighton Museum shows more clearly the positions of bombs up to 1944 in relation to the streets of the town.

At first, all we could do when the sirens sounded was to go and sit under the stairs, with a candle for lighting. I can remember my mother coming to take me from my bed at night during a raid and seeing our joint shadow bouncing up and down along the wall as she carried me to our not very secure refuge.

Later we were provided with a Morrison shelter. This occupied most of the kitchen, the room where we spent most of our time. It had iron girders at the corners and a smooth top that could serve as a table. Underneath, it had a base of interleaved strips of metal, like some cheap beds, on top of which was a mattress. There were wire panels that could be affixed to the sides to guard against an infall of debris. During the worst of the bombing we slept in the shelter every night.

Our house was never hit by a bomb but one of those opposite was. At the time it was occupied by Mrs Spicer and her infant son. She had put him in his pram in front of the house while she was busy in the kitchen. Later she brought him indoors because there was a threat of rain. That was just as well because when the bomb fell, it destroyed the whole house except for the kitchen. Both emerged unscathed.

The war ended with a street party which I was unfortunately unable to attend, being confined to the house by my anxious mother because I had a heavy cold. She brought me titbits and a balloon from the party as consolation.

I did however attend the street’s Guy Fawkes Night. They built a massive bonfire right in the middle of the road and perched on top of it a uniformed dummy in the guise of Adolf Hitler. That fire left a moon-crater in the tarmac that lasted until the road was eventually resurfaced.

Eventually too, our Morrison shelter was dismantled and carted away. Gradually, all the signs of war faded from the streets and houses though not from our minds.

I went on to pass my school examinations, neither badly nor very brilliantly, and found a place at university. At this point also, we left Brighton for a new home in Gloucestershire. As a result, memories of my formative years remain as though encapsulated, like a ship in a bottle, wrapped in a distant Brighton that is remembered with fondness but no longer exists.

…I have posted similar pictures before of …

… St Katharine Docks (look under the stern of the boat in the foreground) and…

… the coots who live here, but it always makes me smile to see a coot…

… standing on the rudder to groom himself. He looks happy and that makes me feel happy.

This building in Islington is variously known as the tram shed, the tram depot or, more mysteriously, the mall, as Historic England calls it in its Grade II listing text.

Trams ran in London from 1860, when horse trams were introduced, and continued, with electrification until 1952. The tram shed, having become surplus to requirements went on to serve various new purposes.

I first became acquainted with it in the early years of this century or the latter years of last – I don’t remember exactly when. I do remember the circumstances, though. I had gone out to explore parts of London and had taken the tube from Hendon, where I then lived, to Islington, a destination chosen at random.

Quite by chance, I wandered towards the tram shed and along the narrow road to its right (part of Islington High Street). Here, I suddenly found myself among antiques shops, side by side, all the way along the continuation of the High Street, called Camden Passage. I later discovered that the tram shed was full of small shops and stalls, also selling antiques.

There was every kind of antiques that you can imagine: jewellery, silver, fine art and shops specialising in a sinle product: I remember one that dealt only in boxes of inlaid wood.

Several days a week there was a market when antiques dealers would set up their stalls in Camden Passage, creating a very lively scene.

This happy picture was to change when, despite considerable protest, the owners of the tram shed evicted the antiques stallholders and turned it into a single retail unit. Since then, several well known names have tried their luck here but none has lasted very long.

Closing the tram shed to the antiques stallholders affected the whole Camden Passage antiques trade. There are still antiques shops in the Passage and the market still takes place but it is no longer as it was. Many of the antiques shops, particularly the larger ones, have disappeared and been replaced by restaurants and other kinds of shops.

Today, I went for a stroll along Camden Passage and took a few photos.

This is the end of the High Street. The tram shed is behind me, over my left shoulder.

The High Street starts at the crossroads where the old Angel Inn once stood. There, it is a broad 4-lane highway. Within a short distance, however, the High Street disappears and the road continues as Upper Street. It took me a long time to discover that the High Street continues as a relatively insignificant street that branches off to the right and passes behind the tram shed.

This is the end of the High Street where it runs into Camden Passage. Camden Passage is L-shaped, branching off Upper Street and then turning sharp left as a pedestrian-only lane. The premises on the corner marked by the pink sign once accommodated small antiques shops and stalls but today, like the tram shed has been given over to a sole retailer.

This are two open areas in the Passage and on market days stalls are set out here. There is a canopy to protect the stalls and their browsing customers from the weather.

The open stall area shown in the previous photo stands at the mouth of a U-shaped passage full of small antiques shops. On market days some put out trestle tables with a selection of items for sale.

This is a second corner site where stalls can be set up under cover. Many a time I have wandered among the stalls, looking at items and even handling them under the watchful eye of the stall holder.

This is one of the few larger antiques shops to have survived. I suspect that these increasingly do their business online, seeing potential customers by appointment.

Towards the end of Camden Passage there are still stalls beside the shops on market days. However, these now tend to sell secondhand rather than antique goods or to specialise in costume jewellery, garments or decorative objects.

Camden Passage continues to exist but I think its glory days are past.

On my way home I passed through another market. Chapel Market is the name of the street and also of the market that takes place there. The market operates every day except Monday.

Chapel Market, the street, is lined with shops and there is no doubt that shops and stalls enjoy a symbiotic relationship, each bringing trade to the other. It is this symbiosis which, it seems to me, has broken down in Camden Passage, leaving the antiques trade there with an uncertain future.

We are having another heat wave. The heat is most unaccustomed for mid-September when, traditionally, we would have been topping up the anti-freeze in the car and thinking about turning on the heating at home. Anyone dismissing the present conditions as “just a blip on the chart” is living in cloud cuckoo land.

The temperature in London this afternoon stands at 25-26 deg C (78 deg F). That is the temperature expected in Perth, Australia, today.

This morning, while it was still relatively cool, we breakfasted at Pret and then did our weekly shop in Sainsbury’s.

Having whiled away the rest of the morning restfully at home, we went out around 1 pm to look for lunch and pick up a couple of things that Tigger needed.

Though it is Sunday, most of the shops are open and the streets are busy, perhaps more than they are during the week. The atmosphere is different from the week: there is an air of fun and enjoyment.

For lunch we went to Gallipoli, a Turkish restaurant in Upper Street that I mentioned in a post of that name on July 27th. Being Turkish, they had a good range of cool dishes suitable for hot weather.

For drinks, Tigger had ayran, a Turkish yogurt drink, and I had my favourite, Turkish tea! (Photo by Tigger.)

People in Britain tend to choose cold drinks in hot weather as this seems the obvious choice though there is some evidence that hot drinks cool you down more effectively, however counterintuitive that may seem. Such thoughts were not in my mind, though: I just happen to love Turkish tea!

From the restaurant, we called in at one more shop and then made our way home. As I write this, we are reclining in the cooling breeze of the electric fan and I rather think that that is where we shall stay!

We started with breakfast at Pret A Manger (no accents, please, we’re British).

Then we caught a number 38 bus into town.

The bus journey was very long and slow because of road works. By the time we reached Soho, we were feeling in need of something to restore our spirits!

The temptation offered by Zédel was too strong to resist. This is my favourite French-style cafe.

With its early-20th-century decor and waiters dressed in black waistcoats and aprons, it recalls that France of yesteryear that has now virtually disappeared, much to my regret.

We unashamedly ordered a second breakfast which we consumed with conspicuous leisureliness.

The bill came in this colourful folder which I shall keep as a souvenir.

Moving on, we found ourselves in Golden Square Gardens, where this pair of sculptures was on display. They are Big Bra and Corset, respectively by Kalliopi Lemos.

I preferred this statue of George II with a pigeon on his head.

We passed through Carnaby Street, still one of the more popular and visited streets of London, though its reputation has dimmed somewhat since the heyday of the Beatles (who?).

We next entered Liberty’s, the famous department store.

Tigger was looking for wool for her crochet projects.

Photo by Tigger

Photo by Tigger

The interior (and, for that matter, the exterior) of the store is as interesting, if not more so, than the goods on display.

This is Regent’s Street, another popular shopping area but catering for a rather different clientele from that of Carnaby Street. Here we caught a bus to our next destination.

Seeing this statue of the artist Millais, art lovers will know where we are because it stands on the corner of the Tate Britain art gallery.

In the Tate, we attended one of the tours that they organize. It was on the gallery’s archives, a subject that didn’t particularly interest me especially as the rooms we toured made echoes and I had difficulty understanding what the guide was saying.

After the tour, I had a quick look at the art and took a few photos. This sculpture, unlike his usual human heads decomposed into brick-like components, is by Eduardo Paolozzi and is entitled Forms on a bow (1949).

This figure is by Ronald Moody and is entitled Johanaan (1936).

We next visited a rather large exhibition, large because of the space needed for the huge “artworks”. I put that word in quotation marks because I am not at all sure they were really artworks at all. Anyway, see what you think from the following examples.

This is a general view on entering the exhibition. Unusually, entry is by a large, heavy wooden door on a spring. This gives you the idea that you are entering a factory or industrial site.

The exhibits are all large pieces of industrial machinery, some arranged in an “artistic” way, others not or, at least not obviously so. There were no labels that I could see.

So what’s it all about? The exhibition is entitled The Asset Strippers and is by Mike Nelson. Rather than try to condense into a few words the screed at the entrance to the exhibition, I prefer to give you this link to the Tate’s description page.

Here we are on a bus travelling along another famous London street. Any guesses as to which one it is? The Cenotaph that you can see on the left is a clue: it is of course Whitehall.

We had intended to go to Camden Town to have a late lunch in a Chinese vegetarian buffet that we know but when we arrived we found that it had closed down.

So we took to the bus once more and returned to the Angel to have lunch at Sizzle, a cafe I have mentioned before. (For example, see A ramble in Hoxton.)

And here we are in Sizzle. Lunch over, I was happy to drag myself home for a nice long rest.