A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE subject of the 'rebuilding of the City seems never to end. Meanwhile, thank goodness, many acres of that romantic and beautiful mediaeval square mile remain unbuilt. One can still walk through a green wilderness east of Aldersgate and stumble over the tombs of a forgotten churchyard to find a bastion of the City wall rising near bushes and stunted trees which surround the striking and Middlesex- looking tower of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. One can still lean over temporary walls and look down into weed-grown caverns where once typists hurried under electric light with trays of office tea. The chief topic about rebuilding lately has been whether there are to be residential fiats in the City or not. Big executives who like to streak down to Woking on the Southern and potter round the golf course in the long summer evenings naturally think the City is not a healthy place to live in and should all be offices. As one who has lived in the City and is about to live in it again, 1 can say that of all London it is the most perfect dwelling place, with a friendly and intimate popu- lation of its own. When the workers depart it is as silent in the evening as a country village and down the winding streets one hears the singing of City church bells. At the moment there are squirrels in the plane trees of the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Great. If the City of London had no perma- nent residents it would be a dead place, like the centre of Birmingham at night. But the City is, and, pray heaven, always will be, the living heart of London. Its many parish churches still surviving, its Cathedral, its Guilds and their halls, its ceremonies and separate government, give it an atmosphere which money-worshipping planners or mere traffic-conscious authorities could completely destroy. One has only to step outside the City gates to sense a wholly different atmosphere, less ancient and less apparent than that in those narrow courts and alleys. Domine Dirige Nos ! Long may we who are citizens of London protect the City from those who think of it solely as site values and a traffic problem.
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