Lower Morden Lane
CHRISTMAS STREET WAYS TO SEE BRITAIN Illustrator Alice Stevenson enjoys curious places and surprising perspectives in her travels around the country, seeking out puzzles and wonders with an artist’s eye
Hillcross Avenue, the road that runs parallel to London’s Morden Park, could be the most ordinary street in Britain. Elinor and I march stoically through the drizzle, past the 1920s semis, heading towards our destination at the bottom end of the park. Lower Morden Lane is renowned for an extravagant display of Christmas lights that causes traffic chaos as drivers slow down to admire the show. Joe, a friend who grew up nearby, called it ‘Christmas Street’ as a child, enthralled by this spectacle.
There is something soothing about the dullness of this suburban street. Its crazy-paved driveways are lit up in a dirty yellow street lamp glow, and the lack of people feels like a refreshing relief from the madness that overtakes London at this time of year. As we walk, Elinor talks to me of her relationship troubles, which are magnified and exacerbated by the Technicolor hysteria of the season. There is something about the relentless imagery of societally prescribed happiness that throws your disappointments, failures and worries into sharp relief, escalating anxieties to fever pitch. While my personal life is reasonably uneventful at the moment, I am exhausted and rundown, and as we walk these soggy streets we are united in a desire to run as far away from the festivities as possible, and let our winter melancholy and fears just be.
Still on Hillcross Avenue, lights start to appear, infrequent at first, but slowly increasing in numbers. We pass a house projecting moving disco lights over its surface, the front garden’s ornamental pond reflecting a blurry version, creating a bubbling cauldron. Another house, painted white, with a large, black, empty driveway, has white netted lights dangling from the roof and white lights in the perfect bay trees by its entrance. But these delights are merely a teaser for what awaits us over the roundabout in Lower Morden Lane, where it seems every home has gone to a tremendous amount of effort. Houses are covered in strips of LED lights forming complex, moving shapes. Patterns and cross formations move over their fronts, which to me suggest the Tudor architecture these buildings were inspired by. On our left, a giant inflatable Father Christmas, his sleigh led by a rather deflated reindeer, emerges from the side passage; an inflatable snowman and Nutcracker prince bring up the rear. A sign in the front garden, next to its charity collection bucket, clearly states how far we may walk into their driveway so we can peer more closely at these lumpen figures. As I gaze into their faces I feel an ugly sadness. It’s as if we are looking straight into the heart of the emptiness of Christmas. However, the quietness of the area – Elinor, me and an after-school youth group are the only ones around – makes me feel that perhaps we are confronting our seasonal demons head on, on our own terms. We pass by several houses where lit-up shapes are stamped evenly over their façades: candles, Nutcracker princes, Santa, Santa in a helicopter ( yes, really!) dot the walls like fresh tattoos. We pass clusters of deer on lawns, hollow constructions made with fairy-lightcovered wire. The strangeness and slight creepiness of the displays are closer to my feelings about Christmas than, say, the pure horror of Winter Wonderland, but there is still a disconnect; the sense that the
joy of Christmas is an emotional state that I don’t seem to be able to access. The displays that draw my eyes are of perennial shrubs and trees wound with Christmas lights. As we discuss the nightmarish tangles of emotions that trying to live with another person inevitably creates, we come across a tree with silver lights sporadically looped over it. It looks as if someone has scribbled a knot-like formation over black paper in silver pen.
Nearing the end of the lane we stop at a house on our left, where a choral version of ‘Silent Night’ is emanating from a large gold dome construction on a front porch. We peer through its round window into a disturbing nativity scene: papier mâché models of shepherds and Joseph cluster around a cot, marks are drawn on their lumpy faces to suggest facial features. Mary is half the size of the others and a hideous face peers out of her headscarf, grinning at the sleeping babe like a witch about to place a curse. We are both horrified and delighted by this wretched scene.
But Lower Morden Lane is saving its finest spectacle until last. As we near the end of the road, something catches our eye, and we cross the street to investigate. It is a large ornamental carp in painted metal, several feet long, protruding from above the doorway of a mockTudor semi. The carp has an outline of white Christmas lights and a glowing blue eye. A flashing ornament of Christmas bells flickers below it. Its surrealness pleases us both, and we happily consider the thought process that went into making it the centrepiece of the display.
Something about the incongruity of this giant sparkling fish among all the Santas and snowmen momentarily breaks through my wall of numbness; our sense of joy in the ridiculousness of life is restored. We walk back into the centre of Morden, laughing and looking forward to a large glass of wine.