Homage to the heath, my little bit of heaven
In a touching love letter to the glorious park on his doorstep, our veteran writer says the British obsession with public open spaces has been a saviour in the days of Covid
IHAVE lived beside The Heath for 60 years. Sorry, I should have said Hampstead Heath, in north London. I go on as if there is only one Heath in the whole world, which is what I think, but that’s clearly silly, elitist and wrong. Yet park lovers like me, wherever they live, tend to do this all the time – refer to their local park as “The Park”, as if it’s the only one anywhere. They live and breathe and have their being on the park – however small and modest or grand – whether they are walkers, runners, cyclists, footballers, fishermen, swimmers, courting couples, kids, oldies, the lonely and the sad, or just folks who want to commune with nature, look at the sky, get some fresh air, and forget urban life.
Where would we be in this country without our parks?
Especially in the last 20 months when all our lives were turned upside down. I truly deeply believe that, after the vaccine, parks have been our greatest saviours.
I adore Hampstead Heath, and swear it’s the best park anywhere. Not just in London, but the nation, for it is a national treasure, with iconic views over London from Parliament Hill, Kenwood House, the stately home full of famous Old Masters, a race track where national events are held and four different open air swimming places.
In 1871 an Act of Parliament made Hampstead Heath open and free to all. Hurrah for that, and happy 150th birthday. It covers 800 acres and is just four miles from the centre of London, yet feels rural. It has everything a park should have: hills, valleys, sports fields, playgrounds, wildlife, low-life, grand mansions and battered huts.
I can walk for three hours right across the Heath to its further extent and only cross one road. On a winter’s day, when you have seen nobody for ages, you can tell yourself you are alone, just you and nature.
AND yet, despite my lifelong love affair, I knew nothing about Hampstead Heath until the day I got married, on June 11, 1960. I am not from here but from the north, the real north, as was my late wife Margaret Forster.
We came from Carlisle. London was a foreign land, which I only knew about from the Monopoly board. But totally by chance, when we got married and I had a job in London and had to find a place to live, friends recommended a flat in the Vale of Health. You what? Where’s that when it’s at home? Some spot for nudists?
The Victorian house was unconverted. The landlord lived above and we shared the bathroom with him. We had a sitting room and kitchen on one floor and our bedroom was awkwardly placed on the floor below, beside an old lady who had been there for years. Not exactly modern living, or convenient, even for 1960.
But, oh the situation, it was glorious. The Vale of Health is an enclave of about 80 houses and flats right in the middle of the Heath, a hidden village. Our bedroom overlooked the pond.
We felt a bit out of it socially, back in 1960, with our rough northern ways (okay, polished northern ways, we had been to fairly decent universities), but the neighbours all seemed to be posh retired officers who wanted to know which public school I had been to.
When my background was revealed, they never invited us over for drinks.
Our bedroom window overlooked the Vale of Health Pond; so pretty, so romantic, ‘til winter came and the early morning mist brought on the asthma I thought had grown out of as a child. We lived there for three years, saving like mad, me working as a journalist and my wife as a supply teacher, until we had £1,500 saved for a house deposit.
We could not afford Hampstead where houses cost £7,500. So we looked at the other side of the Heath, the wrong side, according to Hampstead snobs. We eventually got a three-storey Victorian house for £5,000. It had a sitting tenant on the top floor and we thought we had paid too much.
But, wow, we had acquired our own house, something neither of our sets of parents had done.
We told ourselves if our boat comes in, and we ever make some money, we will return to Hampstead proper, our spiritual home. When eventually we could, we said, “Nah, too late” – by then our kids had settled at the local primary and then the comprehensives – “We like it here.”
In the 1960s, our area was known as Parliament Hill Fields. Today it is called Dartmouth Park, a term beloved by estate agents, of whom there are now loads.
As for house prices in our street today, I can’t reveal them. You would vomit on the pavement. During the last 60 years, some of the crummiest areas of London have come up. Houses once full of flats and bedsits are now taken over by the middle classes, barristers, publishers, and famous actors.
We had not realised when we moved in in 1963 how near the Heath we were.We found an Anderson air raid shelter in the garden – wish I’d kept it, I could have used it for lectures on my wartime memories. But I knocked it down to create a garage, giving myself access to a private mews.
From there, across just one road, is the Heath. I can get there in two minutes. So in 61 years, I have never left the Heath. Every day of my London life, I do two daily walks
on the Heath. Two years ago, I decided I would do a book about My Year on the Heath – walking it, talking to people, visiting every corner, including some places I had not been for decades, observing the changes, telling the history, telling my own story and memories
So I have done the swimming places, Kenwood House, Keats House, the amazing pergola, the famous pubs which surround the Heath, new events and attractions which have sprung up in the last 60 years, such as professional dog walkers, a Farmers’ Market, people playing quidditch. Come on, you must know that – the game Harry Potter plays.
Back in the 1960s, we had Irish building workers enjoying a game of hurling on the Heath at the weekend.
The Irish have now gone – building workers these days seem to come from Eastern Europe – but funny how both games are played with sticks. Don’t ask me the rules though. Half way through working on the book, Covid came. Damn and blast I thought – which was my father’s worst oath. My book is going to be ruined. Everything will be out of date by the time it is published.
Then I realised it was in a way a godsend. It immediately gave me a narrative, a drama. Instead of just wittering on about me and my memories, I could observe and record the changes and effects caused by Covid. It would be social history.
In the first lockdown, we were warned not to come to the Heath, unless you were locals, and even then to take one short walk a day for exercise. There was silence, on the surrounding streets and on the Heath itself. Playgrounds and the race track closed, and the lido, the men’s pool, the ladies’ pond, the mixed pond. Parkies disappeared, because so many of them went down with Covid. But the wildlife thrived, undisturbed by humans and dogs. Then slowly it opened up again – and then it became overrun.
During this last year, with restrictions almost gone, it has been estimated that 15 million people have visited the Heath – twice the normal number. Verges and paths have got worn with the crowds and are now having to be repaired, but, come on, what a pleasure and relief the Heath has given for these 15 million folk.
During the year, I decided to return to the Vale of Health. I had never been back to the house where we lived since 1963. I thought of just knocking at the front door and saying, “Hi, I used to live here.” But I might be told, “Go ahead, no hawkers.”
So I dropped a note through the letterbox. The owners contacted me and invited me for tea. And told me it was total rubbish today, my memory of how snobby the Vale had been. They had never been asked which school they went to and have been invited to countless parties and events.
Perhaps it was all in my mind. If you venture to the Heath today, I’d like you to look out for one thing.
JUST to the left of the entrance to Kenwood, after you have passed the ladies’ pond on your right, turn left up a sandy track and you will come to a wooden memorial bench, the sort you see in parks all over the country – usually with a plaque in memory of Bert and Doris, who loved this park.
In l985, on our silver wedding anniversary, we decided to mark it with a memorial seat in our names.There was a bit of faffing about getting permission. Traditionally, they are memorials for departed folks. But our bench reads: “Happy Silver Wedding to Hunter and Margaret, June 11, 1985”.
We carefully chose the spot because it was right in front of a little silver birch tree – now grown into a small clump. Good visual joke, eh? A Silver Birch tree for a Silver Wedding.
My wife died in 2016, but I am still here, last time I checked the old bones.Today I am the only living person with a memorial seat on the Heath. Beat that…
‘In 61 years I have never left the Heath. Every day of my London life, I do two walks there‘
●●The Heath: MyYear On Hampstead Heath by Hunter Davies (Head of Zeus, £25) is out now. For free P&P, call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832 or visit expressbookshop.com Hunter has given his book advance to The Heath & Hampstead Society