‘The Unknown Trail’
‘Border, By-ways and Lothian Lore’
‘In Quest of Peril’
Some of the enticing titles embossed on old cloth spines on the South Bank book market outside the BFI. Browsing these tables brings back great memories of my NFT days – book collecting chats back in the box office, trawling for treasure and knowledge. The excitement of the hunt. My hasty steps ground to a halt and I’m drawn into another dimension of time.
This was the view west from Blackfriars Bridge at around 7.30pm this evening
We walked via St Andew’s Hill and looked in at Wardrobe Place where the plane trees reach over the Georgian buildings in defiance of their life-spans, soon to expire.
Paternoster Square felt like the living civic centre that the architects probably hoped for – the Italinate piazza where families take an evening passeggiata
So today one of London’s most venerable institutions disappears from the cultural map of the capital.
What was the National Film Theatre opens its doors as BFI South Bank, after 50-odd years the concrete bunker under Waterloo Bridge that has been the world’s leading cinematheque morphs into this new entity.
Should we be sad? Maybe a little. The new name is a meaningless, bland Blairite re-brand, designed to pander to the whims of the grey-suits at the DCMS and the London Destruction Agency.
On the other hand, for cineastes the new centre could well prove to be a Mecca and for lovers of London on film the Mediatheque’s London Calling collection will become a second home (John Krish’s film of the last day of the London trams, the Thames circa 1935 in colour, Sparrows Can’t Sing, the Ealing Tram Panorama circa 1901, John Smith’s ‘Blight’ etc. etc.) – book your spot now you’ll love it I’m sure (call 020 7928 3535).
None of this required the ditching of this much-loved name and it’s an interesting example of how a slightly obscure geographical location has taken on the symbolic weight of meaning ‘culture’. Another entry in the catalogue of disappearance (and emergence).