After the Festival Finished

It is the 30^th September 2015, and 64 years ago to the day, the Festival of Britain closed.  Everything was destined to be broken up and dispersed. It seems so melancholy that the party had to end, but I suppose that if it had continued on indefinitely then it would have lost its charm.  Perhaps it is better that the Festival remains a fading memory, and that those of us who find relics feel that we possess a piece of lost magic.

Just a few weeks ago, I took my children on a visit to the London Eye.  There was a method in my madness…I wanted to set foot on the Festival site.  I have walked from Waterloo to Charing Cross before, and have seen the Festival Hall and glimpsed the site from Hungerford Bridge.  But this was before I got really interested in this bit of history, and I never made the detour to stand where the Skylon hovered.  Until now.   I stood on the circle marking the spot and looked up.  Then from the Eye, I looked down on the site that I have seen so many times depicted in black and white.

It seems so small!  In my imagination, the Festival stretched on forever.  But using the markers of Waterloo, the bridge and the Hall, I could see a site that was more compact then I would have ever thought.  When you see a list of what was packed into the main site, I have admiration for the planners for getting it all in!

I feel glad that the South Bank is still given over to pleasure.  The London Eye is superbly situated and whoever decided to put it there deserves some praise. The gardens were packed full and entertainers on the river side helped to bring a carnival atmosphere…I could almost close my eyes and be back there.

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Come into the Parlour...

The Homes and Gardens section of the Festival guidebook gives a little insight into how we wanted to live in 1951.  Of course the first consideration at that time was simply having enough houses to fit everybody into. It compares what a crowded island we were (are) with the considerably less populated New Zealand – and it went without saying that the blitz had destroyed some of our most densely populated districts.   The guidebook firmly acknowledges that British housing had a journey to travel at that time.  In retrospect, we know that town planners and architects tried several experiments over the coming decades – some successful, some famously not so popular.  The high rise experiment that was soon to follow has now been pretty much consigned to history’s dustbin. That high rise living didn’t work has in part been put down to the British people wishing to cling to a more traditional way of life – one of chats over the back fence and a living space on two levels. 

Going back to the festival guidebook, there is a clue in there that we wouldn’t take to architects messing about with the layouts of our houses. There is some discussion on The Parlour. It seems an old fashioned notion to us now, we have eventually weaned ourselves off the parlour or front room.  Decades of cramming ourselves into some of the smallest housing units in the developed world have taught us to leave no room unused. But back then, we clung to it.  The guidebook tells how newer housing built without a parlour tended to have a corner of the modern living room given over to the same function where an “altar to the household gods” was set up.  People missed the function of the best room, where all their treasures could be displayed. This shows how reluctant we were to give up our traditional house layouts (or the middle classes at any rate – no mention is made of those families crowded into the run down houses in Notting Hill and such like).  I wonder why town planners were so slow to pick up on what was written here in black and white?  A fine example of the establishment thinking it knows best, and the British people stubbornly rejecting it until they were forced to.

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