Journey of Words

To Farringdon by Circle Line tube.  Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Barbican, Farringdon. Rattle, rattle, clunk, squeak, screech. Vibrant edge of the venerable city, no longer dusty, empty, cheap.

With half an hour on my hands, I return to Clerkenwell Green EC1, where I worked in my twenties. The Greenhouse is up for rent again. The Crown on the corner still operates across the street, Scotti's Sandwich Bar extant.

"Sorry sir, we're closed." the woman advises as she tidies. The male proprietor steps into view when I am explaining that I used to work next door, forty years ago.  He is one of the original owner's sons.

We bound into lively reminiscences, names and characters dragged from exchanged shards of memory, who together we reform into recognisable faces and personalities. Wonderful uplifting spontaneous conversation. Warm handshake and fond farewell, with a happily posed picture on my departure.

The old magistrates court, previously the Assizes where the psychopathic Judge Jeffreys set down transportation to Australia as a penal sentence, looks magnificent today. No more a place to fear, it is said to have been bought and developed by the Freemasons into something altogether more welcoming and reassuring. To its left is the Karl Marx Library.

The Marx Library building, arguably more important than ever, has also been tended to and looks in great shape. I have yet to visit, but I have made a note to do so, again.

From Clerkenwell Green, I head across the railway bridge and turn down toward The Thames, past the site of John Harrison's clock shop, past the spot where a Zeppelin airship first dropped bombs on London, toward a meeting with former colleagues, now working in more austere, but well resourced offices. Luckily the offices are opposite a pub. Unluckily the pub charges City of London prices.

From the still light evening, we go separate ways. One to a Passover supper, two of us just to supper.  

The air is soft. The temperature mild. Spring is finding its way to the foreground.

CLP 01/04/2026