Sam Redlark

Image generated using craiyon Crossposted from r/ImaginaryLondon In 1983, the screenplay writer, Charles Hayhurst, who was riding high on the success of his 4-part drama - Whispering Upwind - approached the BBC with an idea for a new show. “It was a high concept drama,” recalls former commissioning editor, Scot Kingsbury. “Statues in London come to life and have to find a place in contemporary society, which they achieve with varying degrees of success.” “I had this concept that was provisionally titled Dawn of a New Day ,” says Hayhurst . “ I wanted to explore the idea of London as being one of those points of convergence, where people from all over the world will come and build lives for themselves, “No matter who you are, or where you are from, there will be somewhere in the capital where you will fit in. That kind of thing. “The show was also about the organic process of integration. Linger in the big city long enough and you will become a Londoner by default. That's is a hard...

Adam and Eve play Cricket in the Garden of Eden - Image generated by Craiyon I spent the first two months of 2006 in Brazil, where I oversaw the initial stages of a river calming project. Thanks largely to some first-rate number crunching, courtesy of my colleague Joseph Stonebank, who had remained in London, my part of the job was completed almost three weeks ahead of schedule. With nothing else to occupy my remaining time in the country, I made the rather impulsive decision to veer dramatically off the beaten the track and pay a visit to my old friend, Raymond Truscott, who had put down temporary roots in Boa Vista – a small and remote settlement, situated on the outside of a hairpin meander along the banks of the river Tefé, deep within the State of Amazonas. It is one of those out of the way places that no doubt serve some purpose, but appear to an outsider to be almost superfluous. What passes for civilization there exerts such a tentative hold upon the encroaching jungle that, if...

  Cross-posted to r/ImaginaryLondon East of Tower Bridge, as the meandering Thames widens its course, the river crossings diminish to tunnels, segregated for foot, rail and road traffic, while, on the surface, a few scattered ferries ply the waters back and forth between the north and south banks. From 1973 to 1987, a precarious third option existed for anyone brave enough to take to the air: The Tramblecar ruled, if not the entirety of the skies over London, then a narrow diagonal cross-section, stretching between Silverton and Woolwich. It was, as the name suggests, a cable car, albeit one that transported vehicles. Initially this entailed paying a sum of £47 for a linking apparatus to be permanently mounted onto the roof of your car, that would allow it to be hooked up to the cable. Connecting to the line was a three stage process: Cars would first roll onto a pivoting weigh bridge that was used to determine not only the tonnage of the vehicle but also the distribution of the w...