Eric Gill, who died 80 years ago today, was a highly successful English artist. Famous for carving stone sculptures and designing typefaces.
He was a socialist, a pacifist, a devout Roman Catholic and a prolific artist.
Station of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral
In 1914 he carved the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. These are depictions of the 14 stops that Jesus made on the way to his crucifixion. Westminster Cathedral is the main Roman Catholic Church in England.
On the wall of the building 55 Broadway, near St. James’s Park Station. Until recently this was the head office of London Transport. Carved in 1929 it depicts the North Wind.
North Wind on 55 Broadway.
In 1932 he produced a number of carvings for Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the BBC, close to Oxford Circus Station. Above the entrance a sculpture depicts the sorcerer Prospero and the spirit Ariel from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Prospero holds on to the free spirit Ariel.
In 1928 Gill designed this typeface, known as Gill Sans which is still used today.
After Eric Gill’s death, his diaries revealed some shocking information about his private life. He confessed that he had sex with his sisters, his two teenage daughters and his dog.
Looking at these images, we see that in spite of all this he carved like an angel.
My dad used to have a trunk in the shed where he hid his collection of risqué books. Naturally, aged 12, my best friend and I spent hours in that shed, seeking out ‘the dirty bits’ of each book to read aloud to each other.
The orange and white cover of Lady Chatterley’s Lover wasn’t promising but the title seduced us. It told the story of an affair between Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper. Romantic and passionate it was brimming with dirty bits. The f-word arose 30 times; the c-word cropped up 14 times and a glorious selection of other filthy words and sexual suggestions danced before our eyes.
D.H Lawrence (1885-1930)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover was written by D. H. Lawrence in 1928. Immediately declared obscene, it was published abroad, in small private editions, and often with the lewdest sections cut out.
In 1935, London publisher Allen Lane had a revolutionary idea. He wanted to sell serious and affordable literature to the working class. He founded Penguin Books, publishing high quality paperbacks for sixpence each.
After the War, people started to challenge the British Establishment. We’d seen Elvis gyrating; our playwrights had become ‘Angry Young Men’ and the seeds of later rebellion were sown.
In 1960 Penguin Books published the full version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover as a paperback costing 3/6d.
A public prosecution ensued accusing Penguin of publishing obscenity. The trial was held at the Central Criminal Court known as the Old Bailey.
The Old Bailey
London’s Central Criminal Court
This was not a clear cut case. The Obscene Publications Bill of 1959 had included a let-out clause for certain publications with serious ‘literary merit’ that justified their ‘obscene’ content. Penguin Books had to prove that this was the case here.
The main prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones accepted that D.H. Lawrence who had died 30 years previously, was a writer of merit. But he was disturbed by the flagrant adultery described. What made it beyond redemption was the affair between an upper class lady and a common gamekeeper.
He asked the court: “Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”
The British public read this quote and fell about laughing. Your servants?
The defence brought out a string of witnesses that included academics, women, and a bishop who argued coherently that the book should be published.
On 2 November 1960, the Judge ruled that Penguin books were not guilty.
In Britain we said: Goodbye old order. Hello Permissive Society.
By the end of the day, 200,000 copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover were sold to men, women, girls, boys, servants – and my dad.
Buck House (as Londoners sometimes call it) features on almost every tourist’s hit list.
Take a snapshot
If you simply want to stand outside it and have your image captured and sent globally to all your Facebook or Instagram followers, please feel free to do so.
If you want your photo to suggest that you were standing alone at the gates, as if about to enter with a special queenly invitation, avoid going there between the hours of 10-12 during the Guard Change. You won’t get anywhere near the gates. This usually takes place on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and more frequently in the summer.
You actually want to go inside?
You don’t have an invitation but still want to go inside the Palace? You’ll have to wait until ‘Her Maj’ is away.
From late July until the end of September, she spends the hunting season in her cold and draughty Balmoral Castle in Scotland. While she’s battling with rain, midges and duty visits from Prime Ministers she allows the hoi polloi to trail through her 19 State Rooms.
10 things to see and know about Buckingham Palace.
1 Still counting…
It’s bigger than it looks with 775 rooms in total. The Queen lives in a dozen private rooms on the first (upper) floor overlooking The Green Park.
2 We are not amused…
Queen Victoria was the first monarch to move in, aged 18, in 1837. You can see her statue on the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. Not the breast feeding young mother that faces the palace, but the grumpy looking matron around the back.
Keep smiling.
See the balcony in the middle where, on special days, the royal A-list line up to wave and occasionally kiss.
3 Regal gestures.
A flag always flies above Buckingham Palace. If you recognise our national flag, you’ll know that the Queen is away. If it’s the flag full of lions and a harp merged with a winged, topless girl, you’ll know that the Queen is at home.
5 Eerie nights.
Buckingham Palace is haunted
On Christmas Day, a chain-rattling brown-hooded monk wanders, moaning, at night. He was imprisoned and died in a punishment cell that once existed many years before this Palace was built.
Palace staff also talk about strange auras in one particular office where a private secretary to King Edward VII allegedly shot himself after a scandalous divorce.
6 We’re still standing.
The Palace was bombed nine times in World War 2. On one occasion, the Queen (later to become the Queen Mother) stated, while inspecting the bomb damage: “I’m glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face.”
London’s East End was a poor, run-down area where the docks were situated and where people spoke with Cockney accents. (Think Eliza Doolittle.) This location (not the accents) made it a perfect target for the German bombers. The newly made homeless sheltered in deplorable conditions in London’s underground stations.
The Queen Mother’s sentiments ensured her East Enders’ devotion for the rest of her life. (Her predilection for a glass of gin and a flutter on the horses didn’t harm her popularity either.)
7 Sorry, you’re not on the list.
Some people simply can’t wait for an invitation to the Palace.
In 1982 a man called Michael Fagan managed to scale the palace garden walls, break into the palace and enter the Queen’s bedroom. He woke her up, sat on her bed and asked her for a cigarette. Her footman had taken her little corgi dogs for a walk in the garden, and she was left unprotected.
Eventually, the police were called and the intruder was taken away. Is he still languishing in jail today? Not a bit of it. He was released without charge. In those days it was not a criminal offence to break into the Queen’s bedroom. I can assure you it is now.
In 2004 Batman climbed on to a ledge next to the palace balcony and refused to come down for five hours. He was campaigning for greater rights for fathers.
8 One does not feel at home here.
The Palace may be Her Majesty’s official residence but she doesn’t particularly like it. Treating it as her office, she generally stays here on weekdays only. Most Fridays afternoons she heads home to the much older and grander Windsor Castle.
9 We all stayed for tea.
Each year, over 20,000 people do get invited to have tea at Buckingham Palace in the garden. The Queen hosts three garden parties during the summer for people usually in public service whom she wishes to reward.
At each event, these 8000 people devour 27,000 cups of tea, 20,000 sandwiches, and 20,000 slices of cake between.
The men wear smart suits and the women wear hats and fascinators and uncomfortable shoes. They can often be seen leaving the Palace carrying their stilettos in their hands.
10 How to get there.
The prettiest route to the Palace is from Green Park tube station, 10 minutes walk across The Green Park. Other nearby tube stops are Victoria and St. James’s Park.
