David Lean and Croydon
His background in Croydon wasn't as rough as depicted. In fact, South Croydon in 1908, when he was born, was quite a select place to live.
I originally put this comment in notes, but as quite a long comment, I feel it warranted its own space…
Alex Churchill’s recent substack article about David Lean and his epic film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ starts as follows:
David Lean, director of Lawrence of Arabia, was born in 1908, in Croydon. How did a man who grew up with a vista of what now rates as one the grimmest places in Britain, end up producing one of the most stunning motion pictures ever made?
»» Now, I might have just made my comment at the end of the article, but unfortunately it was one of those substack entries that disallows comments unless you are a paid subscriber. And why on earth should I subscribe to a thread that has got some basic facts clearly wrong.
I know quite a bit about Croydon, because I was born there and lived there much of my life. And it wasn’t only David Lean that was born there, but also Brian Clemens, one of the UK’s leading TV writers and producers, creating series like The Avengers, Danger Man and The Professionals.
I myself have had quite a succesful writing career (though nothing in David Lean’s or Brian Clemens’ league), writing 22 books which have notched up 1.7 million in sales. ‘Past Imperfect’, one of my biggest successes, in fact was listed in a top-ten all-time best crime-thrillers list in ‘The Times’ alongside John Grisham and Harper Lee.
But David Lean in fact was raised in South Croydon, only a mile from my main family home, which is a very leafy suburb with a mix of middle-class and more wealthy homes. My own family home was just across from a golf course, backed onto a forest which was the Queen’s land and housed a public school, and we had a swimming pool in the garden. Far removed from the ‘grimmest’ image portrayed by the writer.
In fact, half a mile away from us was a private road which had some of the most exclusive homes in the UK… home to the likes of Adam Faith, Jonny Halliday (a major singer in the 60s) and footballer Ian Wright.
Indeed, in the 1930s, nearby was the UK’s first airport in Croydon (on the nearby Purley Way), with a glorious swimming pool in art deco style 50 yards away from the main terminal and airport hotel. So, Croydon then was a very select place to live.
Still now, South Croydon remains more select and leafy, as well as neighbouring Shirley, still a haven of millionaire homes. But in West Croydon, the deterioration can be seen. A collection of more tightly packed terraced houses, an influx of immigrants in that area (partly because the Home Office is centred there for processing newly arrived immigrants), there has been a terrible increase in gang and knife crime… so that is where the ‘grim’ label comes from. But sit in the luxury homes in the Shirley Hills and South Croydon’s Croham Valley and you could easily be in the Beverly Hills (less a few palm tress, of course!).
Besides which, even if David Lean, Brian Clemens or myself had been brought up the ‘other side of the railway tracks’ in West Croydon, that wouldn’t equal a stifling of creative juices. Just look at the Beatles, all raised in middle or working class homes in one of the roughest towns in the UK, Liverpool, but their creativity shone through. Possibly in part as a way of escaping from that dire background.
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John Matthews - Notes from the Edge. If you like my articles and wish to receive them regularly - mainly on Israel, Middle East and World Affairs, plus now a comedy spoof and two thrillers in serial form - then I look forward to getting your subscription.
John Matthews is an experienced writer and journalist. The author of 24 books, including two centred around WW2 and the holocaust in the name of J.C. Maetis (his father’s original Jewish name) his first experience of writing about the Middle East came as a war correspondent covering the last years of the Lebanese Civil War, which led to his second book, ‘The Crescents of the Moon’. He has since written on the subject for a number of journals, including The Times, Sunday Times, Newsweek, The Independent and The Spectator. He was also in the run-up to the millennium editor of European Brief, the main magazine for the European Parliament, editing the likes of Tony Blair, Al Gore and Henry Kissinger on subjects ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and European unity, climate change and nuclear fusion to, once again, the Middle East. He lives in London with his wife and family.
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As a side note to Lawrence of Arabia. In his book Scott Anderson, based on military documents. T. E. Lawrence, a British officer in WWI fought the Ottomans on the side of Arab Tribes. Lawrence documents that the Arab tribes that lived there were violently opposed to each other; none were Palestinians and alliances between Arab Tribes were made and broken in a matter of a blink of an eye. The normal Tribal behavior.
This is an interesting article that reminds me of the thirteen summers ( from 2007 to 2019) I spent in Croydon : as a French teacher of the English language, I used to teach classes of French students preparing for their difficult entrance examinations to engineering schools. The boys and girls as well as myself stayed with local familles in the suburbs surrounding Croydon. The venue for the lessons was Croydon College : the first years my classroom was in a grim concrete building , but the latter years the working I was upgraded to the newly restored main building where the facilities were much more pleasant to work in.
So, as you can see, I also have some personal connection with your hometown.
Jean-Bernard