The trouble about Hampstead is that it is so very much further from
Kensington than Kensington is from it. Every day, I believe, there
pass between Kensington and Hampstead telephone conversations
something like this:--
_Kensington._ When are you coming to see us?
_Hampstead._ Why don't _you_ come _here_ instead?
_Ken._ It's such a fearfully long way.
_Hamp._ I like that. Do you know that a bus runs the whole way from
here to Kensington?
_Ken._ I don't blame it. But I'm jolly sure it doesn't go back again.
Then Hampstead rings off in a rage and nothing is done about it.
Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING must surely have known of this regrettable
estrangement or he would never have sung--
"North is North and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Except in the Tube at Leicester Square or the corner of Oxford
Street."
Anyhow you will find that people living in Hampstead tend more and
more to regard themselves as dwellers in the mountains, and take
defiantly to wearing plaid shawls and big hobnail brogues, and carry
alpenstocks in the Underground with them. They acquire, moreover,
the keen steady gaze of those who live in constant communion with the
silent hills, so different from the Oriental fatalism in the eyes of
the Kensingtonite, which comes from the eternal contemplation of the
posters of _Chu Chin Chow_.
It is possible, however, to visit Hampstead, if you are sufficiently
venturous, by bus, tube, tram or train. If you are very rich the best
way is to take a taxi-cab as far as Chalk Farm, where London's milk
supply is manufactured. You cannot go further than Chalk Farm by
taxi-cab, because the driver will explain that he is afraid of turning
giddy, having no head for heights. You have then the choice of two
courses, either to purchase the cab outright and drive it yourself, or
to finish your journey by the funicular railway.
Let us suppose that you have done the latter and emerged on the final
peak which surmounts the Hampstead range. On your way upwards you will
have been charmed by the number of picturesque houses which seem to
have been thrown at the side of the hill and to have stuck there, and
also by the luxuriant groves of cocoanut palms and orange and banana
trees which the L.C.C. has thoughtfully planted to provide sustenance
for London on its Whitsuntide Bank Holiday. It is indeed a pleasant
thought that so many hard-working people are able on this day to
snatch a little leisure in the good old English fashion on the swings
and roundabouts and forsake the weary routine of watching American
films. These great crowds picnic also on the greensward, bringing
their food in paper wrappers, so that a student of such matters can
easily gauge the proportionate circulation of our principal morning
dailies by taking a walk round Hampstead Heath early on Whit-Tuesday
morning.
When you have reached the last summit you will find yourself
confronted by a frowning Gothic pile known as Jack Straw's Castle, and
a large flagstaff on which the flag is only flown when the castellan
is in residence. There is also a pond where the inhabitants of
Hampstead, both old and young, swim their dogs after sticks and float
a great variety of boats. On fine mornings there is such a confusion
of boats and sticks and barking dogs that, if you are lucky, you can
come up with an Irish terrier and an ash plant and go down rather
proudly with a Newfoundland and the latest model of _Shamrock XIV_.
Looking downwards from the top you will discern on the open slopes and
twinkling amongst the vegetation a vast multitude of white poles.
On Saturday afternoons, I believe, there are more poles on Hampstead
Heath than in the whole of Kieff. Each pole is attached to a boy
scout, and it has been calculated that, if all the boy scouts in
Hampstead were to set their poles end to end in a perfectly straight
line from the flagstaff, pointing in a south-easterly direction, they
would be properly told off by their scout-masters for behaving in such
an idiotic manner.
Next perhaps in interest to the boy scouts, both because of their
quaint mediaeval costume and the long lances which they carry in their
hands, are the rangers of Hampstead Heath. Feudal retainers of the
L.C.C., they sally ever and anon from their lairs with lances couched
to spear up the pieces of paper which the people of London have left
behind; and this paper-sticking is really the best sport to be enjoyed
now on Hampstead Heath, unless one counts fishing for dace in the
ponds, which I take to be the most contemplative recreation, except
coal-mining, in the British Isles.
Amongst the very many famous people who either live or have lived
at Hampstead may be mentioned Mr. GERALD DU MAURIER, CONSTABLE, Lord
BYRON, Lord LEVERHULME, JOHN MASEFIELD, JOE BECKETT, the younger PITT,
Miss MARIE LLOYD, KEATS, Madame PAVLOVA, ROMNEY, CLAUDE DUVAL and
RICHARD TURPIN, the last of whom, I believe, bequeathed his spurs to
the borough in grateful memory of all that it had done for him. There
are no highwaymen to be met at Hampstead Heath now, but the
solicitor and house-agent of the man from whom I am trying to lease
Number----but there, perhaps I had better not go into that just now.
I cannot however omit to say a few more words about KEATS, because
the nation is trying to buy his house, although it has not yet been
decided which of them is to live in it if they get it. In the garden
of this house the poet is said to have written his celebrated "Ode to
a Nightingale," and the nightingale may still be heard on Hampstead
Heath in June. Presumably it is the same bird, and the lines,
"Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird;
No hungry generations tread thee down,"
must be taken as a remarkable instance of literary foresight, for
crowds of people have for years been trying in vain to trample the
brave bird down and have evidently been hungry, or they would never
have left so much sandwich-paper about.
Oh, and there is yet one more notable resident of Hampstead, as you
have doubtless just gathered, and that is myself, or will be if those
accursed----but another time, perhaps.