In my irregular themed look at old posts (previous posts here), this time I’ve picked books where the action takes place in or just outside the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the postcodes of SW7 and W8, my old uni stomping ground. See the numbered map below.
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré – The revelations in this classic spy novel revolve around a safe house in Lexham Gardens – a road in which I shared a villa made into about 12 bedsits for students.
- Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton – Subtitled ‘A story of darkest Earls Court’ this is the story of George Bone’s obsession with Netta. George is an undiagnosed schizophrenic who suffers from ‘dead moods’, and you can sense that things with Netta are not going to work out in a rather bad way. Absolutely wonderful writing.
- Gorsky by Vesna Goldsworthy – relocates The Great Gatsby to Chelski, populated by Russian oligarchs.
- Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor – A widow moves into a retirement home on the Brompton Road. She befriends a young man who helps her when she falls, and asks him to pretend to be her grandson – who will eventually turn up to complicate things.
- The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark – The model for the ‘May of Teck Club’ where the girls of this novella reside was based on a hostel Spark once resided at in Lancaster Gate – just off the northern edge of Kensington Gardens (and just into Westminster).
- Some Hope by Patrick St Aubyn – The third in the sequence of Melrose novels is set in 1990, and Patrick is living in Ennismore Gardens which is essentially just behind and east of the V&A (and just into Westminster again). The Ennismore Arms was a nice pub I went to occasionally.
