Campervan Therapy

We double back on ourselves today so we’re whisked into Whitechapel again from Abbey Wood to hunt down Hanbury Street, which crosses Brick Lane, to trace the street art.

Huge outdoor murals have us darting from one to the other. The most gripping for me being the close-up of a man’s sad face, lines like train tracks between his eyes, long, wind-blown hair.  The cracks in the abandoned shop’s plaster almost look like a crown of thorns on his head. The title of the piece, ‘Homesick’ by Claudio Picasso emphasises a sense of loneliness.

I can never resist an independent bookshop and Hanbury Street’s Libreria is a treasure trove of unusual books. Soon I’ve armfuls of poetry anthologies, mini books of ghost stories and a most unusual non-fiction book by Italian Philosopher Emanuele Coccia on the Philosophy of the Home. This book shop offers up surprises on every shelf.

Spending far too much on books is hungry work, but Upmarket on the corner of Hanbury Street and Brick Lane has the answer. The old Truman Brewery now houses pop up stalls of street food from all over the globe. Soon the delicious smells are leading us from Mexico, to Vietnam, Eritrea, Greece, Turkey, Korea etc.

This isn’t the only street food we come across: from Brick Lane to Whitecross Street in EC1 there are roads upon roads of street food vendors – each stall’s flavours making our mouths water. Himself, of course, hoovers up every free sample and doesn’t come across one disappointing bite.

City Road’s Bunhill Fields Burial Ground houses an ancient Quaker meeting house and is across the road from Methodist, John Wesley’s house, the area strong on its non-conformist roots, but we’re after poet and artist William Blake’s very simple grave. Novelist John Bunyan of Pilgrim’s Progress fame is also buried here.

After all our running around, we take a little time out in Exchange Square, in Broadgate, just beside Liverpool Street Station, the birch trees with their silver trunks and golden leaves all around. There’s something mysterious about these hidden London gardens, surrounded by high-rise glass and steel buildings.

The Broadgate Venus by Fernando Botero though has me wondering what he was trying to convey by the huge woman lying on her side – I can’t decide whether he’s making a valid point about not being discriminatory about size, or whether he’s making fun of her size. As far as I’m concerned the jury is out on this one.

Himself is super keen to visit the post office museum in Phoenix Place, Mount Pleasant, excited as a boy because we can take a trip on the underground, driverless train that ran across London from Whitechapel to Paddington during the early 20^th Century until the 1980s.  

It’s eerie in the carriages which swing through claustrophobic tunnels, which stop at the ghostly deserted platforms, films playing on the walls showing us the past workers loading and unloading the post; the formal tone of the real letters which were written; and the importance of the underground post-rail in WWII. There’s masses more to see and as the entry covers us for a year’s pass, we’ll be back.