Hampstead worthies

The area of London in which I stay from time to time boasts a rash of name plaques commemorating famous residents. Today as I did my errands for the Old Man I took shots of some that can be found within half a mile or so of his home.

I've omitted a couple I've blipped previously: the ornithologist Julian Huxley and the birth control campaigner Marie Stopes.

John Keats' lovely house (he rented half of it) is open to the public and well worth visiting.
David Devant who was a brilliant magician who entertained royalty and made a kettle pour any sort of alcohol on request.

It's the three names in the bottom row that most interest me. David Herbert Lawrence, already under the cloud of obscenity accusations concerning his novel The Rainbow , spent a few years living in the Vale of Health, during the onset and early part of World War 1. He became friendly with Mark Gertler, a talented young Jewish painter from the East End whose masterpiece The Merry-go-round, a biting satire on war, was inspired by the traditional summer funfair nearby on Hampstead Heath - and which I saw setting up today in preparation for the next weekend. Gertler never got over his passion for fellow artist Dora Carrington who rejected him and he eventually killed himself.

Saddest sight for me now is the marker for George Orwell beside the bookshop (now a bakery) in South End Green where he once worked. Until a couple of years ago the plaque included his sculpted face and I was shocked when I first found it missing.
( Fortunately I had previously captured an image of it here.)

It's recorded in his biography by Michel Sheldon that
Orwell's lodgings above Booklovers' Corner were plain and dark, but he could not have asked for a better landlady than Mrs Westrope, who was uncommonly considerate. When her new lodger arrived, she showed him to his room and kindly enquired whether there was anything he 'particularly wanted'. He replied, 'The thing I most want is freedom'. Interpreting this to mean a particular kind of freedom, she asked, 'Do you want to have women up here all night?' He quickly tried to reassure her on that point, giving her a firm, 'No'.

List of London blue plaques