City and Suburban
By JOHN BETJEMAN ARE you going to Albania for your summer holidays this year? Though my passport en- titles me to go to all countries in Europe, in- cluding the USSR, it does not apparently include Albania. The A-K part of my telephone directory is 1949 and mentions an Albanian Consul- General on Finsbury Pavement. Alas, he has disappeared. Why did he go? Is he back in Albania or has he joined King Zog? (Forgive my bringing politics into this travel talk.) I tele- phoned to the Foreign Office and said I wanted to go to Albania, and a lady there told me shortly and definitely that we had no diplomatic rela- tions with that country. I asked the Passport Office for its Albanian section, and a very charm- ing lady told me I should have to apply for a visa through the Albanian Embassy in Paris. She did not know -what had become of the Albanian Consul-General. Thomas Cook and Son told me they could book me to Kotor in Yugoslavia or to Brindisi, but they knew of no boats crossing to Albania. So now I shall never know whether there are tramcars in Durazzo nor whether there is electric light in the capital, called Tirana, nor What Orthodox monasteries still have monks, mosaics and frescoes among those mysterious mountains. I shall never know unless, like Waring, I give you all the slip. Perhaps Strix would like to visit Albania?
THE ALBERT BRIDGE I cannot believe that the London County Council decision to reconstruct the Albert Bridge, Chelsea, means that it is to be destroyed and that We will never see its graceful outline again. Strung with electric lights to show the way to Festival Gardens, or grey and airy against the London sky, it is one of the beauties of the London river and far more handsome than any of its .neighbouring bridges from Westminster to Wandsworth. Its engineer, R. M. Ordish, also designed it on his patent straight-chain suspension system which he employed for the Franz Joseph bridge over the Moldau at Prague. For the Albert Bridge, which was opened in 1873, Ordish had a French engineer as partner, Le Feuvre. An original feature of the bridge is that the twenty- five-foot carriage way and eight-foot footpaths are slung between the four towers. Two years after the bridge was opened. Ordish designed with Grover the roof of the Albert Hall, and in his Youth he made all the working drawings for the cast iron of the Crystal Palace. I hope the LCC Will make it quite clear that in any reconstruction of the bridge they are not going to destroy the towers and chains which make it the most attrac- tive suspension bridge in London.
UNSPOILED Except that you are deafened by the through traffic, Huntingdon is one of the least spoiled county towns in England. When the glorious day comes that it and its neighbour Godmanchester on the other bank of the sinuous Ouse arc by- passed, it will become a Mecca for tourists and revert to being the comfortable market town it once was. Right in the middle of the town is an irregularly shaped churchyard belonging to the destroyed church of St. John. It has one of the finest arrays of Georgian tombstones and obelisks to be found for miles. The grass around them has never been mown and the whole area is planted with limes and yews which form a perfect foil to the old plum-coloured walls and handsome Georgian houses opposite. There is a well-meaning plan afoot to remove all these tombs, mow the grass and plant rose beds and flowering shrubs. There is so much to do to bring back the charm to Huntingdon by planting large trees and repairing old houses that I hope it is not too late to suggest that this historic and
peaceful old churchyard be left' in its present Georgian repose.
OPEN AND SHUT This is a time of year when people in towns long to sit, between showers, under emerald trees and with the smell of wet grass and wet• flower beds around them. Londoners are par- ticularly respectful to London squares, however they may behave in the parks. Many commercial squares have been thrown- open to them— Leicester, Russell, Berkeley, Grosvenor and Soho. St. James's Square is the biggest green square in the centre of London. The buildings round it are purely commercial or institutional, and it seems inexcusable that its garden should be surrounded by a hideous wire-mesh fence and shut to the public. I have never seen anybody in it except now and then a man mowing the grass. Who has the key? Who owns it? And why are two other commercial squares, Bedford and Finsbury, kept shut?
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