Capital Ring 7: Richmond to Osterley Lock

Many architectural styles and a rural Grand union canal

3.8 miles

Aug 5 2017

 We went by Overground train from Highbury & Islington to Richmond.  We walked back down through the town to the river where we ended our last walk in Aug 2016.  Richmond theatre is a fine Victorian building. Beside the river we squinted through a meridian marker from the time Kew had the meridian. Richmond bridge, is a huge old cast iron bridge and we passed fine old buildings now in Brunel University. Isleworth has a collection of interesting old and new buildings, an old school, the blue school was being renovated by Polish builders. We walked along the riverside pub The Town Wharf pub, indicating older uses. A small Victorian street gave onto the Apprentices pub by the Thames, used for celebrating the end of apprenticeship. On the river people paddled standing on surf boards and scullers rowed upstream. The small Dukes river was named after the Duke of Northumberland in 1605. Syon park has a beautiful 18^th century house with a glass house where Helen and Robert had celebrated a huge Indian wedding. We had coffee and cake in the garden centre. Brentford lock basin is now 21st century with modern houses and a plaza. The modern GSK building is canalside with an interesting yellow and red metal arc shaped sculpture in the grounds.  The grand Union canal felt rural with overgrown summery plants, a pair of swans also coots and moorhens.  We left the canal at Boston Manor and walked through suburbia, sheltering from a torrential summer rain storm over a beer in a pub. We picked our way along the damp streets to Boston Manor station and took the Tube home.

This was a short walk but had a huge range of architecture from Elizabethan in Richmond to 21 st centruy at Brentford. In contrast the walk along the Grand Union canal felt very rural.  Once again London surprises with its range of styles and sights.

Good seeing rather old pubs in Isleworth and building in Richmond, modern sculpture at GSK building.

Bad rain at the end of the day

Surprising how rural the Grand Canal was close to Brentford,  seeing the Duke river, also Brent river.

Iain Reddish Obituary The Guardian Apr 16 2018

My friend Iain Reddish, who has died aged 72, had a varied career in which he was a parliamentary aide, teacher, public relations officer and sports executive before becoming an international environmental lobbyist with Greenpeace for more than a decade and, up to retirement, European lobbyist for Eurogroup for Animals.

 Born in Hampstead, north London, Iain was adopted by a Nottinghamshire couple, Enid and Mowbray Reddish, and grew up in Woodthorpe, Nottinghamshire, where his adoptive father worked as an engineer. He never shared his gay sexuality with his parents. He read political sciences at Durham University (1965-68) and attended the College of Europe in Bruges (1970-71), He had a placement at the European Commission in Brussels and visited the US on a Roosevelt scholarship. 

After his studies he worked in various jobs, including as a Liberal party parliamentary aide, teaching at a school in Notting Hill, west London, and as a public relations officer for the London borough of Richmond in the 1980s. We first met in the Islington Labour party, campaigning during the 1992 election. 

From 1986 to 1995 Iain was head of international affairs at the British Sports Council, during which time he went to the Olympics at Seoul (1988) and Barcelona (1992). He joined Greenpeace in 1995, moving to its Amsterdam headquarters, and worked on various projects, including the Save the Whale campaign. By the time he left in 2007, he had visited 149 cities in 38 countries. His final role was as European coordinator for Eurogroup for Animals, an organisation based in Brussels that seeks to improve the treatment of animals in the European Union, a job he held until retirement in 2012. 

 Passionate about politics, Europe and the arts, Iain was angered and saddened by the Brexit referendum result, and became a Dutch citizen in 2016. He loved France and the country life of markets, art and food, and shared a house in Provence with his friends Alesha and Fred for 20 years. He was tall, handsome and wore bespoke colourful matching clothes and shoes. Iain supported artists by buying their work and his flat was filled with interesting work. He was an excellent host, throwing memorable 50th and 60th birthday parties in Amsterdam. 

Iain found and met his birth mother in 1995 and enjoyed having new relatives. He is survived by his nephews, Jo-Jo and Rupert.

Amsterdam: Jewish history, my cousins, Iain, A’dam Tower.

July 2017. I enjoyed 4 days in Amsterdam, I learnt about the Jewish deportation, met my cousins, spent time with Iain and enjoyed the IJ cinema complex.

My highlight In Amsterdam was doing a walk with local historian, Peter Schaapman (http://www.historywalks.eu ) around the Second World War history of the city. He brings the period alive with photos and discussions. The Dutch and Germans collaborated in the early stages of the invasion, there was a Dutch Nazi party supported by 10% of the population. He showed photos of Jews being persecuted. The Jewish area had its own barriers. The Amstel monument commemorates the Jews who disappeared, and in the pavements are plaques for the deported, 5 or 6 people from many houses. He had made a leaflet recording the Jews who disappeared from just one street which was very moving.  We recharged ourselves with coffee in the stylish, modern Droog café.  We ended our walk at Jewish memorial in Weinstein park.

I continued exploring the Second World War in “The resistance museum” with compelling explorations of life in Holland then and more about Jewish deportations. The nature of collaboration was explored. The resistance started only after a few years of German occupation. The Dutch expected to stay neutral as in the First World War. Surprisingly the main Dutch casualties were Jews who were deported (107 000 died and 8000 were sterilized), only a few thousand soldiers lost their lives. More Dutch citizens lost their lives in the Japanese camps. This interested me because my four closest Dutch relatives (mother, aunt, Grandparents) were all in Japanese camps. Denmark had a much stronger record of protecting Jews and none died there during the Second World War

This was my first visit to the Amsterdam museum and I enjoyed the interactive history of the city.  It explained how the French invasion of Holland in the early 19^th century lead to the fall of the Dutch East Indies company (VOC).  I meet cousin Isabelle. Our grandfathers were brothers so we are cousins. We had Dutch lunch of broodjes in a canal side cafe. One of her sons is publishing a book on being a millennial. I walked in the warm evening to the jazz area Bourbon street music cafe and I heard an excellent blues and funk band. “Do no work”.

On Sunday I walked down to Centraal station and took the free ferry across the river to ijisland; it was packed with cyclists and foot passengers.  I meet my cousin Willemien and her family in the A’dam tower.  The tower is newly built and rises above the land with a huge viewing platform on the top. The top was windy and I enjoyed the views of Amsterdam. We lunched en famille in very trendy brasserie.  Noor knew about Alma Jacobs, the first woman doctor in Holland whose plaque I had seen earlier on my history walk.

I enjoyed the beautiful white IJ cinema museum complex next to the river. There was an excellent exhibition on Martin Scorsese which explored the aspects of his work such the depiction of family relationships between brothers and sons and mothers and the Catholic Church.  There were many film clips; his editing is meticulous and in films like “Raging Bull” he depicts a serious fight in a short sequence of edited films. I had tea and enjoyed the river view. The fantastic clouds and rain over the city made for good photos.  I walked back to Iain’s flat enjoying the last summer light on the houses and canals.

On my last morning I saw 3 exhibitions at the FOAM photo museum. A young photographer Robert Glass explored the harsh immigration service in Holland; asylum seekers have a hard time and subvert the fingerprinting surveillance by mutilating their fingers. He photographed mutilated fingers, moving and tragic. There was a retrospective of work of the black photographer Gordon Parks, a staff photographer for Life magazine who documented the segregation in the south, poverty in Haarlem and the march for rights in 1963. Sadly the poverty amongst blacks in the US still remains. The Dane Asger Carlsen crossed the Antarctic and photographed glaciers there.  Three very contrasting exhibitions.

I chopped down a huge nettle outside Iain’s flat, so that he could sit on his bench.  We had lunch in his local cafe and he looked better. When I arrived he had just broken his wrist.  He receives excellent home support.  I did my Dutch food shopping in Albert Heijn and went home by Eurostar via Brussels.

In this visit I enjoyed meeting my cousins, and walking around the city.  I saw a new sober aspect of Dutch history. This was the last time that I saw Iain because he died very rapidly of bladder cancer in February 2018. He was a close friend and I miss him and have visited Amsterdam often to see him.

http://www.historywalks.eu