I’m working on a writing project at the moment that explores the creative impact of visions and dreams and of inspiration that comes seemingly from nowhere. I’ve often woken up with a poem or a story that is being written in my mind or I’ve dreamt I was writing something and then woke up to write it down.
I’m not sure what this project is yet, so I’m allowing it to take shape and form as I research and read around the subject. The English poet and writer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge will feature in the piece and the idea for this came from a period in my life when I first moved to London.
In 1996 I moved to London aged 19 with my best friend Laura. We rented a flat together in North London, on the Archway Road. Right around the corner was Highgate Village with Highgate Wood also a short walk away. In fact, it was a lunch we had at the cafe in Highgate Wood (then called Osho-Basho Cafe) that sealed our decision to take that particular flat. We had seen several that day and whittled the choices down to two. The owner of the cafe was so friendly and welcoming and when we explained to him that we were flat hunting in the area, he brought out 2 glasses of wine ‘on the house’ and said he hoped we’d be very happy in the corner of London.
I didn’t really know much about the Japanese Haiku poet Basho then (and still don’t now!) but I did have a tiny pocket volume of his most famous Haiku. I remember thinking that Osho-Basho was a strange name for a cafe and the owner explained that Osho was a spiritual teacher he had followed and Basho was the poet. Years later I would read one of Osho’s books and watch the Netflix series about his time in Oregon and the scandals that surrounded his work. I’ve often thought how strange and special that lunch at the cafe in the wood was.
So, of course we phoned the lettings agents that afternoon and took the flat. One of Laura’s very good friends from University lived just around the corner, in Highgate Village at the top of a very grand house that belonged to her grandmother. The image pictured here is a postcard of that sweet little cafe in Highgate Wood. Laura’s friend Abigail gave that to us with a housewarming gift. I still have that postcard, framed and hanging in my hallway. On our first few days in London, Abigail invited us to the attic flat of that very grand house in Highgate village and cooked us welcome dinner. It was a very magical time and I was captivated by the previous and very famous occupants of the house; the playwright JB Priestly and the poet Samuel Taylor-Coleridge among them.
After several bottles of wine and lots of very engaging conversation, with a wide smile and her eyes glittering, Abigail informed me that I’d be sleeping in the very same room as one of Englands most famous (and infamous) writers, poets and visionaries.
And that, was how I came to be in Coleridge’s bedroom.