Kilburn - take another look...

I thought this was really good:
http://southkilburnspeaks.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/hello-world/

Peel Precinct
by Aoife Mannix
The woman in the bright pink scarf says the square
is empty now but back in the fifties this market
was buzzing with barrow boy bargains. Live eels
wriggling with soon to be jelly bravado. Stallions
shivering outside the horse butchers though she
never knew any but the French to eat such meat.
A string of pearl shops where people echoed
your name, your family, the county you came
from back in the old country. Cork, Kerry,
Kilkenny, Killarney, Kildare, Kilburn.
Their music transferred to an alien city,
proud to play more Irish than the Irish themselves.
They were poorer than those up on the high road
but they were never short of a helping hand.
The Paddies and the Blacks united in their reversal
of no dog signs as they mixed Donegal and Trinidad
into coffee children calling out for a chance to show
they are no mere statistics in a drawer, jokers
in a pack that keeps being reshuffled, but voices
of vision that leap across concrete divisions.
Street corner pioneers conquering vertigo
with a single bound. The richness of lyrical
answers sewn into the wings of their trainers.
Hip-hop sky diving acrobats who tumble and spin
across their own urban palaces that have
yet to be built. Angel rebels whose cloud souls
are not for sale, they rewrite the signs so they point
up into the sky. Dance their own invisible maps
through the rain forest of broken stones.

The Film, the General and the Irish...

Back on the Kilburn High Road we have the Sir Colin Campbell Pub.

It has a rich social heritage as a pub and a real tradition as an old local boozer.

There's a bit of bad feeling that there's no hanging sign outside and some attribute that to that fact that Sir Colin was an English soldier and not hanging it is a small anti-english gesture... I'm not sure either way and haven't had chance to ask.

But I have only just stumbled on this

http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=171139

http://www.lovefilm.com/film/County-Kilburn/126536/

http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/619618

It's a film that essentially is based in and around the Campbell

The interesting thing is the extent to which the film captures the atmosphere of the Irish tradition and the way in which the High Road has moved on in the 9 years since it was filmed.

I'm enjoying the DVD and would recommend it to all those who love Kilburn... There's a good review here if you scroll down http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258507/

The power of the lyric to capture an area...

Many's the day I took for granted
Breathing the air that silenced some
As the North Wind blew
With its head of thunder
Beating its breast with a war drenched song
Bathe awhile, awash in slumber
Cry what's left to sleep
Where you dream of the love you left forever
But pity no more nor grieve

For we're the kings of it all
For the day we were born
Now we're the kings of the Kilburn High
Sure we'll always take a drop and we'll never leave a sup
Your empty glass is but a tear filled eye
We were the kings of the Kilburn High

Listen to the sound of dead men dying
March as they flee but exiled bound
Their ship once sailed no longer anchors
For gone is the green
And their hallowed gound
Toast to tears of times past glories
This ageless clock chime stalls
Where to kiss the lips of that love forgotten
To fly where no others have soared

For we're the kings of it all
For the day we were born
Now we're the kings of the Kilburn High
Sure we'll always take a drop and we'll never leave a sup
Your empty glass is but a tear filled eye
We were the kings of the Kilburn High

Toast to tears of times past glories
This ageless clock chime stalls
Where to kiss the lips of that love forgotten
To fly where no others have soared
For we're the kings of it all
For the day we were born
Now we're the kings of the Kilburn High
Sure we'll always take a drop and we'll never leave a sup
Your empty glass is but a tear filled eye
We were the kings of the Kilburn High

and see it here:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lNkkudZ_eGk