London Place 24: Serpentine

Like, I presume, many people, there are significant moments in my life at every corner of the Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens green space.

My life and related lives.

The first Hyde Park memory I'll share is so trivial. I can't remember what the exact point in my life was, but it was definitely a point where I was free of something and time was my own again. I bought a pack of 10, entered at Hyde Park Corner, walked towards the Serpentine, sat on a bench, opened the pack, took one out, lit it, determined to luxuriate in it, probably taking exaggeratedly satisfied puffs. An old lady, who had, I suppose, watched some or all of the scene, walked past and gave me the biggest, most approving smile. I loved that.

I know Hyde Park is meant to be rubbish for concerts, but the Dylan concert I saw there was the best Dylan I've seen and the Blur concert in 2009 was quite likely my very favourite show ever.

I broke my leg in Kensington Gardens. I think I've mentioned that.

I worked those months at the Mount Royal, by Marble Arch, often walking up through the park from Hyde Park Corner tube to get there. Then a taxi back at 2.30 (or 7) am, usually going to the north of the park, down Bayswater, back to West London, but sometimes going south via Knightsbridge.

I walked through the park with my sister, after visiting St Mary's, in a bright spring day in 2010, with such a sense of clarity about the next few months. That's an oddly happy memory.

We were there a lot as children. Maybe just walking off a lunch, watching horses, boating, all sorts. We were always there. I think it was my father's favourite place.

So, here's the funny thing. I was reading, a year or so, I think via one of Tim Burgess' Listening Parties, about a guy called Finbarr Donnelly, a post-punk frontman from Cork, who led a band called Five Go Down to the Sea?, a bit of a force of nature, so I read. I was stopped in my tracks to realise that he drowned in the Serpentine on 18th June, 1989, a lovely summer's day, just going for a swim with a mate. Those summer's weekend days in the late 80s were very much the days we were there. I can practically feel the horror of the moment.

Also, it was part of my family folklore that my Cork father was hauled out of the Serpentine by the coppers on the day in September 1972 he was out gallivanting with his chums and was informed, to his delight, that his first daughter had been born, prompting his midnight dip.

So, sorry, I wrote a little poem about it a few months ago.

Summers 1972 and 1989: Hyde Park/Cork

And he was oh just messing around;

the newborn girl was crying

and he was high on life itself

 

the ambulance comes flying

through currents to the undergrowth

a swirling, bombing hunger

 

the summer of a second love

when we were so much younger,

and roll and spin,

you’re free from sin

 

you’ve found your own great harbour.

you’ve sung your air to blazing June

And danced your danse macabre

 

the serpent’s tongue will clean her young

and sting them out of sorrow

you jumped for joy, you foolish boy,

for now, to no tomorrow.