The Ampstead Way

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 439, 21 November 1947, Page 10

The Ampstead Way

S Pisa is to the Leaning Tower, or the island of St. Helena to Napoleon, so Hampstead is, not to one particular fact or feature, but to a whole host of them. ~ Just how many and varied these connections are I had not realised until I heard them assembled in a programme on Hampstead-‘"The Inner Suburb"-in the BBC series This is

Y erengs notes are not written by the staff of "The Listener" or by any member of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. They are independent comments for "The "Listener" pays outside contributors.

-_> Londen. One can make one’s choice of associations according to taste or temperament; and I wouldn’t mind betting there is something to suit all kinds, Some, for instance, when they hear the name of Hampstead, may like to recollect that Marx took time off from more important business to go for donkeyrides with his family on the heath. Others may be more impressed by the fact that Fanny Brawne-alas, such a homely name for such a romance-here lived and was loved by the ardent young Keats. Others again may prefer to associate it with Dr. Johnson and his famous saying that "The man who is tired of London is tired of life.’ But this programme did not make the mistake of showing Harhpstead simply in the light of its historical associations; as a rendezvous for artists and literary men of all sorts it is as much alive to-day as it ever was. But perhaps, as the emphasis of the programme almost seemed to suggest, the most memorable thing about Hampstead is something much more mundane, and more valuable to its inhabitants at least-the famous old "Bull and Bush" of song fame.