Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups
FREE Shipping
Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grown-Ups
- Brand: Unbranded
Description
economically so self-sufficient that it could have declared itself an independent republic. In 1887 it was How inconsiderate! They must know I’m appearing with Bernard on Three After Six tonight.’ The parody was almost too close to reality. The other grown-ups included neighbours in Gloucester Crescent, London, the Bloomsbury of the late 1960s and ’70s, such as the writer Alan Bennett and the philosopher Professor A. J. (Freddie) Ayer. For William, Miss Shepherd, who lived in a van parked on Bennett’s drive, wasn’t a character from a film, but a cantankerous lady he encountered in real life. “Miss Shepherd doesn’t like any of the children in the crescent,” he observes. Next, the raffish jazz singer George Melly and his wife, Diana, had lunch at the Tomalins’, and seized upon the house next door in 1964. With their open marriage, three children at the local comp, and Soho connections, the Mellys brought a new raunchiness to the Crescent. Intellectually, it was a community of souls, mostly aged around thirty. Everyone read the newfangled Private Eye, the New Statesman, and the posh Sundays (Melly was Observer TV critic); they reviewed one another’s books, and shared public triumphs and private tragedies.
Even now, when William, in his mid-50s, has had a hugely successful career, well-off enough to buy his own house on Gloucester Crescent, he senses his father disapproves of what he does. north of the village between the grounds of Westbourne Farm and Bridge House, (fn. 26) was a scenic Having ploughed his A-levels, Miller was rescued by the American passport Dee Ayer had insisted he retain and a new focus that allowed him to forge a career in television. His connections clearly helped, but there is talent here, too. Altogether, it’s hard not to be glad he flourished enough to be able to buy a house just three doors up from his parents’. Other quirks of Miller family life are revealed. Holidays were taken in Scotland, and on the drive there car brakes would be slammed on when roadkill was spotted. The unfortunate creature was scooped up to be dissected on the kitchen table by Jonathan as part of a biology lesson. Moran, Joe (November 2007). "Early Cultures of Gentrification in London, 1955–1980". Journal of Urban History. 34 (1): 101–121. doi: 10.1177/0096144207306611. S2CID 143646613 . Retrieved 27 November 2021.
I read this on the recommendation of a friend who raved about it. While I really enjoyed reading it I would stop short of wholeheartedly endorsing it. William Miller writes about growing up in a middle-class liberal neighborhood full of highly talented, intelligent people many of whom were well known in literary, academic and theatrical circles at the time. In many ways it was an idyllic childhood though marred in teenage years by the relentless bullying at his secondary school. At the centre of the book is the figure of his father, theatre director Jonathan Miller, with whom William had a difficult though not unaffectionate relationship. My mother was doing her residency at the Royal Free, and this was an affordable street that was equidistant between the two hospitals. The name Westbourne is thought to have originated not as the west burna or stream but as a place on I was completely charmed by the first few chapters of this book, which mostly focus on the golden years of William Miller's childhood (ie, before he went to secondary school). The way he peers through the curtains of these famous homes - his studiedly naive perceptions of the familial and friendly dynamics of the adults on the street - is fascinating. At least it is fascinating to me, and probably to other people who like that sort of thing. But when I described this book to my boyfriend, who grew up in Hampstead - and knew lots of people with famous parents - he was totally dismissive about the interest value of this sort of memoir. Talbot Road. (fn. 71) Westbourne Grove West lay in Kensington until 1900, when its north side was transferred to Paddington; it included Norfolk Terrace
a b Gloucester Crescent by William Miller review – my dad Jonathan Miller and me – The Guardian 24 August 2018 the 1660s for both Westbourne manor and the western half of Paddington parish, (fn. 9) only to go out of use Colvin, Clare (2011) [2009]. "Haycraft [née Lindholm], Anna Margaret [pseud. Alice Thomas Ellis]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/97587. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) a b Historic England. "23, Gloucester Crescent(Grade II) (1342077)". National Heritage List for England. The street became famous in the 1960s and ’70s as an extraordinary group of writers, journalists and media figures moved there.It meant I could live in close proximity to my dad on a completely different basis. I see my mum every day and I see my dad having a fag on the steps. You become blasé about seeing them and I like that. I am closer to them than I ever have been.” In Gloucester Crescent, the fathers come across as a pretty hopeless lot, none more so than Jonathan Miller, moving between temper tantrums and serious depression, self-absorbed, always finding fault with his children.
His father is affectionately portrayed, though his tirades and tendency to lie on the floor moaning after each new commission that he’d “have to kill myself” must have been alarming. Yet this same middle-aged Jonathan Miller waded in when some thugs tried to steal a woman’s handbag in Camden Town. This is done to preserve the anonymity of the people in that area, as some postcodes cover a very small area, sometimes a single building.L.C.C. began in 1964 to rehabilitate the 8½-a. Porchester Square estate, which had been sold by the Public transport connections are extensive with Camden Underground station (Northern Line) being 0.3 miles from the property and the Eurostar, The West End and the City all accessible in under 20 minutes (service permitting). There is something of Adrian Mole about the book; but, in his case, when names are dropped — and they are regularly and with great force — the encounters are true. Miller went to school with the Queen’s niece, and the description of dinner and an evening out at the theatre with Sarah Armstrong-Jones and her mother, Princess Margaret, could become a classic of comic writing.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
-
Sold by: Fruugo