Sam Redlark

image generated by Craiyon Crossposted to r/ImaginaryLondon Near to where I grew up, in Bermondsey, there used to be a bronze statue of a woman named Bridget Hænning. As her surname might suggest, she was not a native of the British Isles. She had been born in Silkeborg, in central Denmark, In 1936, she emigrated to East London, with the intention of marrying a seaman named David Lyme. After the engagement fell through, she remained in the Capital. On the 5th November, 1940, she was making her way to a cellar dance when the air-raid sirens sounded. A squadron of German bombers had slipped into London airspace unnoticed. Seconds later. the first bombs found their indiscriminate targets. In the ensuing chaos Hænning successfully guided a large group of children to an air-raid shelter, but was killed by flying masonry before she could also get to safety. She was 25 years old when she died. If her sculptor is to be believed, she was a very beautiful young woman. It is said that, when her b...

image generated by Craiyon Below is a response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 10th July, 2022 The comment has since been deleted from the website. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented under the terms of fair use.   ~ Why is listening to music pleasant? I find that, as I get older, certain pieces of music merge with my internal biography and are thereafter inseparable from these points in space and time. The great unseen labour of my life has been a constellation of brief, yet potent, memories that can be rekindled by the right configuration of notes and vocal melodies. A neurologist in possession of the wherewithal to observe this process as it unfolds, might observe the crude foundational outline of a human soul staked out in architecture of a living brain. The memories evoked are bittersweet: The knowledge that I was ther...

image generated by Craiyon This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 2nd October, 2022 The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site. I am replying here instead because it is too good a writing exercise to give up: How quickly can you go from a prompt, a blank mind, and a blank page to a finished piece? And how good can you make it? This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ When I die which religion will offer the best deal? A few weeks after Liz Kearle died, I went round to her house in Kensington to assist her son with the clearance. When I arrived, the door was ajar. Michael was just inside, speaking on the wall phone. He was resting one leg against the door. It took him a few seconds to realise that there was somebody on the opposite side attempting to gain acc...

Below is a response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 17th July 2022. The comment has since been deleted from the website. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented under the terms of fair use. ~ Which species exhibits the most diverse physical characteristics? image generated by Craiyon In the summer of 1976, Victor Wijngaarden, on holiday with his family in Cawdale, North Yorkshire, ran from the back door of the house that his parents rented for two weeks every June or July, to a nearby stretch of river. In his hands he clutched a bamboo pole, holding it across his chest as if it were a rifle, and he a solider charging across no-man's land, with the red fishing net at one end substituting for a bayonet. His heart was set on the tiny black fish that he had observed, during previous years, moving in procession upstream, each migratory c...

I made a short film about the fall of the Ceylon Match Company and the Two Elephants brand of matches. The video should hopefully be embedded below. For anyone who is unable to suffer through my voice and questionable editing, I have also included the script. Highly Synchronised – A Tale of Two Elephants image generated by Craiyon [OPENING SEQUENCE] [A landscaped video montage of me sliding open a box of Two Elephants matches, striking a match, and using it to light a candle] ~ [INTRODUCTION] These are the books of matches that my grandfather, Owen Heald, accumulated from hotels, bars and restaurants, both at home and abroad, mostly while on business trips on behalf of the Shell Oil Company. In each of these short films, I will select a matchbook at random and then scour the Internet for information regarding its place of origin. [This is accompanied by a montage of three or four landscaped images of the big plastic tub containing my grandfather's matchbook collection, with each im...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 25th September 2022 The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site. I am replying here instead because it is too good a writing exercise to give up: How quickly can you go from a prompt, a blank mind, and a blank page to a finished piece? And how good can you make it? This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ How might things have turned out if the Romans had stayed in Britain? image generated by Craiyon There is a story regarding the village of Perdwell, which is situated on the Combe Down, south of the city of Bath; how it came to acquire its name: In the 14th century, a girl named Lonore noticed water bubbling up from the corner of the meadow, where she had been tending livestock. Further investigation yielded a cluster o...

[Spoilers lie ahead] image generated by Craiyon It is difficult, these days, to read a review of Morrissey's recorded output that isn't also a review of the man and his opinions on hot-button political and social issues, from which his art, we are told, is inseparable. Among these commentators, you will find a coterie of middle-aged journalists and bloggers whose callow teenage years are immutably anchored in the mid-late 1980s and the early 90s; men and women who are now putting down roots in middle age, whose personalities, social conscience, sense of aesthetics, and even their vegetarianism were informed by the charismatic Smiths frontman. When speaking of Morrissey, these writers will often convey a wounded sense of betrayal that is either tacitly admitted, or that simmers just below the surface – a resentment that someone who exerted such a profound influence over their formative years now no longer feels as they do, if indeed he ever did. Morrissey's devotees are fewe...