'Psycho'-babble and a bit of yestrday

Started out as a fine day so after a late brekky we decided to go out. Retracing yesterday’s steps we went as far as Leytonstone Station, which is only a few stops before the one we got off to go to Wanstead.  During refurbishment at the beginning of WWII it was struck by a bomb, so it is now a very plain little station that you would hardly give a second glance to. That is if the famous film director Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t been born in the area. What’s that got to do with the station? Well to celebrate the centenary of his birth a series of murals were commissioned.

 The seventeen that adorn the walls of the subway and outside the station were chosen by public vote. Most are from his well-known movies, but a couple celebrate the man himself. One, a portrait of the man himself with Marlene Dietrich and the other has a celebratory theme. A few entries back I wrote about The Man’s reaction to one of Hitch’s famous movies The Birds. How coincidental that that is the subject of one of the murals.

At one station exit we came across a quirky statue of old London buses, all made from bricks. Looked a bit like a kids construction, but clever nonetheless. Talking of things like that at Stratford, which is where the Olympic stadium is, the weirdest Olympic statue. It looks for all the world like a giant helter-skelter gone wrong. The artist, if you can call the person that, must be laughing all the way to the bank.

We had a bit of a wander around Leytonstone, which mostly is unremarkable, even the church with its lovely old exterior has had a refurb so has little character. It was bombed during WWII and a lot of the graveyard badly damaged.  

Now as promised back to yesterday for a re visit to Wanstead Park 

 We wandered around the park, past the man-made lakes and imagined the fine gardens that would have been laid out there I couldn’t help but think of the absolute greed of the aristocracy having so much land set out in ornamental gardens when the ordinary people had so little. Oh well I guess it is the way of the world even today.

There were many very old trees in the park some more than a hundred years old and we spotted a few old ones on the walk there from the station. The man tut-tutted about one that’s centre had been burned out. Kids, he said look at the damage they caused. Well it turned out that the tree had actually been struck by lightening killing a man who was sheltering from the storm, and knocking out his dog. 

 

 I  forgot to say that the church we visited yesterday, St Mary-The-Virgin, was often visited by Elizabeth I, and also James I.

Elizabeth the so called virgin queen you may or may not know had the hots for Robert Dudley. Said Robert bought the park, all 140 acres of it, in 1577. Here Robert entertained his lady love. He remained in royal favour even though he was implicated in the suspicious death of his first wife, Amy Robsart Dudley was found dead from a broken neck at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Though he may have  aspired to be Elizabeth’s husband it never happened. So his marriage to Lettice Knollys may well have been because he was fed up waiting. Elizabeth was furious. She got over it though and Dudley once more became her favorite.  So there you are we were walking in the footsteps of famous royalty.