John Buchan was born on this day, August 26th, in 1875.
His birthplace was Perth, Scotland. The house where he
was born fell into disrepair, but together with the house next door is being extensively
refurbished and set to be turned into offices. Other than a small plaque, there
will be no evidence remaining that John Buchan ever lived there.
John Buchan House, 20 York Place, Perth
The new Buchan Story Heritage Museum in Peebles explores
his life and works. They are acquiring, preserving and displaying many
interesting exhibits. Buchan was the Conservative candidate for Peebles, which
is to the south of Edinburgh, and his family had many associations with the
area.
The new Buchan Story Museum in Peebles
The John Buchan Way is a commemorative walking route from
Peebles to the Borders.
I am not in a position to make pilgrimages to these
far-away places to mark the occasion; London, where Buchan came to live early
in 1900, is another matter. I am very familiar with many of the central London
locations that he visited, lived and worked in and wrote about. I often go
through and past them on the bus.
John Buchan and London, his ‘magical city’
This is a very evocative description:
“The spell of London wove itself around me. Fleet Street and the City had still a Dickens flavour, and Holywell Street had not been destroyed. In the daytime, with my fellow solicitor's-clerk, I penetrated into queer alleys and offices which in appearance were unchanged since Mr. Pickwick's day. On foggy evenings I would dine beside a tavern fire on the kind of fare which Mr. Weller affected. Behind all the dirt and gloom there was a wonderful cosiness, and every street corner was peopled by ghosts from literature and history. I acquired a passion for snugness, which I fancy is commoner in youth than is generally supposed. A young man, a little awed by the novelty of everything, is eager to find his own secure niche…
London at the turn of the century had not yet lost her Georgian air. Her ruling society was aristocratic till Queen Victoria's death and preserved the modes and rites of an aristocracy. Her great houses had not disappeared or become blocks of flats. In the summer she was a true city of pleasure, every window-box gay with flowers, her streets full of splendid equipages, the Park a showground for fine horses and handsome men and women. The ritual went far down, for frock-coats and top-hats were the common wear not only for the West End, but about the Law Courts and in the City. On Sunday afternoons we dutifully paid a round of calls. Conversation was not the casual thing it has now become, but was something of an art, in which competence conferred prestige.
Also clubs were still in their hey-day, their waiting lists were lengthy, and membership of the right ones was a stage in a career. I could belong, of course, to none of the famous institutions; my clubs were young men's clubs, where I met my university friends. One was the Cocoa Tree in St. James's Street, a place with a long and dubious history, of which the bronze cocoa-tree in the smoking-room, stuffed with ancient packs of cards, was a reminder. At that time its membership was almost confined to young men from Oxford and Cambridge. I belonged also to the Bachelors', then situated at the foot of Hamilton Place, a pleasant resort for idle youth, from whose bay- windows one could watch the tide of fashion flowing between Hyde Park and Piccadilly.”
From John Buchan’s autobiographical memoir Memory Hold-the-Door
Although some aspects are unchanged, much
of what John Buchan describes has gone for ever - including the foggy Victorian
atmosphere. The streets he mentions still exist, but many of the shops and
buildings have gone and the people in these streets are of very different
demographics with very different lifestyles from those of Victorian and
Edwardian gentlemen. I wish I could go back in time and visit John Buchan’s
London!
John Buchan may have felt snug and secure in London, but
some of his investigative and hunted heroes saw it as a dangerous and sinister
place where they were watched, threatened, pursued and attacked. It is possible
to retrace the routes that Richard Hannay and Sir Edward Leithen took and visit
some of the featured central London locations, but the traffic and the masses
of tourists and shoppers make it impossible to recreate the paranoia-inducing
atmosphere that the fictional action took place in. The poor air quality is the most
dangerous aspect now.
John Buchan and Portland Place
I have mentioned Portland Place in the Marylebone
district of central London in connection with Masonic associations and street
patterns that look like Olympic torches.
There are also some connections with John Buchan: he
lived at no. 76 from 1912 to 1919; he wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps while he was
ill in bed there. Richard Hannay resided in a flat in Portland Place; he was
known to the public and the police as the Portland Place murderer.
The Georgian terraced house where John Buchan lived was
later demolished together with its neighbour and replaced with a bland,
contemporary office building. No. 76 recently became the new home of the Royal
Institute of British Architects.
As I was visiting the area this week, I decided to take a
look at some buildings of interest in Portland Place, no. 76 in particular.
The notorious no. 33 appears unoccupied. There is nothing
to show that John Buchan ever lived in a house on the site of no. 76; there
really should be a blue plaque on the outside. There was once a plaque in the
foyer, but it went missing during some recent renovations. All we have now is
the photographic record.
John Buchan deserves a much better London memorial than
this:
