Campervan Therapy

As we walk from Spitalfields to Farringdon we stumble across a reggae band playing at Bishopsgate, then as if that’s not fun enough there’s the Illumino – City’s installation with its magical flowers. Children run between them to press buttons which play a tune reminiscent of an experimental jazz band.

As we pass Liverpool Street Station, there’s a bronze Kindertransport sculpture. The circle of children is a haunting memorial to the WWII refugees.

The Elizabeth Line entrance sports an overarching stainless steel polka dot structure, called Infinite Accumulation by Vayol Kusama.  Its atoms and bonds remind me of how inter-connected everything is.

I’ve downloaded The Clerkenwell Self-Guided Walk by Richard Jones ( www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/free-tours/clerkenwell-walk.htm.) It’s Sunday night and the streets are eerily empty, the perfect time to take a trip to the past. We walk by Charterhouse, once home to the famous public school with its mullioned windows and Gothic atmosphere.

Smithfield Market’s old ironwork has been painted into vivid green and pinks, but the place is still haunting – huge refrigerated lorries humming and not a sinner in sight.  A row of old telephone boxes stands there, forgotten and forlorn. We can almost hear Oliver Twist’s footsteps as he crosses the market with Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist.

Then there’s Pip from Great Expectations who declares the meat market to be “all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam.” But on a more cheerful Dickensian note, a sign tells us you can buy your Christmas turkey any time between midnight and 7 a.m.

We then stroll past St. John’s Gate with its honey stone arch and yet more mullioned windows, where Dickens hung out when it was The Old Jerusalem Tavern.

When we reach Turnmill Street we’re stopped in our tracks by the night-time sky line – The Shard’s multicoloured lights flicker on disco setting, St. Paul’s dome is lit up. In Dickens’ time this area, known as the ‘rookeries,’ was full of shadows, thieves and murderers, which earned it the name, “Little Hell”.

We follow the walk along deserted back lanes fully enjoying the ghostly atmosphere. At Saffron Hill our guide says that the name came from the saffron fields that once covered the land here. Closing my eyes to block out the buildings, I can almost imagine the yellow and purple rows of crocus flowers that once grew here.

The One Tun Pub is towards the end of the dark narrow road that is Saffron Hill today, which “claims to be the original of the Three Cripples,” Fagin and Bill Sykes’ drinking hole in Oliver Twist. To our great disappointment it’s closed Sunday evenings so all we can do is stand outside looking through the dark windows.

However, it’s not the only closed pub in Farringdon. Needless to say Himself is distraught, so much so that he even allows me to drag him into The Art Bar on High Holborn.

The poor man has to content himself with a bottle of lager rather than his beloved real ale, but I love the kitsch Monet and Van Gogh murals. Even better, they do guided painting sessions for beginners and I’ll be back, glass of wine in one hand, wielding a paintbrush in the other.