Three Picture Story

From the Friendly-Bombs archives: Three pictures tell a tiny story of life in the under-class

 

 

This short Victorian terrace used to stand on the Bath Road, at numbers 150-160. A few years ago Slough Borough Council decided to condemn the row to demolition, as part of a bludgeoning scheme of road-widening along the Bath Road. The houses were bought up with compulsory purchase orders, the occupants moved out, and then, as usual, the gears slowed down. During the lull in development, the buildings were let for five years (until 2009) to a social landlord, after which the council toyed with the idea of renovating the now-derelict houses to serve as temporary accommodation for Slough’s homeless but decided against it, saying that it wouldn’t be cost-viable. No compromise was offered.

 

 

With the houses standing vacant for so long, homeless people moved in; the front was boarded up, but you could see washing hanging in the overgrown back gardens. People were now living there, whether the Council had approved it or not. Despite this, and although they were still waiting for a final decision on funding for the road-widening, the Council decided to press ahead with demolition to ‘demonstrate the Council’s commitment’ to the traffic plan. Eviction notices appeared on the doors of the houses telling the homeless people inside to clear off.

 

 

 

For a little while afterwards you could see the aftermath of the eviction littered outside: bedding, simple furniture, clothes and in particular lots of shoes- the latter being particularly telling as amongst the pile you could see men’s, women’s and children’s shoes. Here we see these meagre accoutrements of lives on the edge now literally lying on the edge of the busy road, a testament to the layer of precarious lives that exist almost invisibly within busy, bustling towns and cities.

 

A little while later the buildings came down, but as of Summer 2016 there is no advance on the road-widening scheme or the promised residential redevelopment of the rest of the space; it simply remains as an overgrown, empty gap. There is no mention in the Council reports of what happened to the people who, for a while, called it home and were then moved on like human tumbleweed, and for many this will be a non-story; but it’s hard to let go of the feeling that, with the sight of peoples’ garments blowing down the street in the car-breeze, a sad little human episode happened here, and was swiftly forgotten. 

 

 

 

30 Bath Road, or Why I Hate Glass Balconies

 

Residential housing design conflating with office architecture– the building does not look all that different from many of the large office buildings it shares this stretch of the Bath Road with; the over-use of steel and glass coupled with the strips of grey panels and windows is the kind of thing you would expect in a building you push pens in, not one you sleep in (indeed, friendly-bombs walked past this building many times thinking it was some kind of office complex before the sight of people’s washing hung up to dry let slip that it was housing).

 

Glass-panelled balconies especially are all the rage now, usually constructed with grey, unpainted metal frames, bonus points if you leave the bottom exposed in a dubious attempt at some kind of structural expressionism. Friendly-bombs is not a fan: the use of glass on the balconies has the effect of making them seem cold and brittle, you can imagine the whole lot shattering with a loud thunderclap; they also don’t seem appropriate for our blustery climate.

 

The use of glass in balconies, banisters and balustrades has a further, unnerving psychological affect, that of giving the impression that there is nothing there. So we have panels installed for safety which at first glance don’t appear to be there and thus offer no instinctive reassurance– you have to consciously remind yourself not only that the barrier is there but also that it is probably, probably, not going to break. Glass has never evoked strength and security in the popular mind, and perhaps it never should.

 

Here the identically-sized and spaced balconies, one per flat, face onto the psychotically busy Bath Road dual carriageway, providing probably not the best view or the healthiest air, but actually offering the passer-by a good look in at the occupants. This is because these glass balconies are also de facto windows, offering inadvertent glimpses of the life inside, particularly at night when the flats light up in a kind of snooper’s advent calendar.

 

There’s something slightly depressing about the little hints of humanity you can see in each balcony– a plastic chair for the Summer, kids’ toys, some potted plants, the ubiquitous washing drying in the car fumes– that has perhaps something to do with the uniformity of the flats and the meagreness of the personal space, and the realisation that here, amidst the rush-hour noise, clamour and pollution are people trying to quietly exist in modestly-accessorized lives (Thank goodness the nearby Salt Hill Park provides at least a partial escape). And the more the building you live in looks like the building you wage-slave in, the less comfort both occupant and passer-by gain from it.

 

A Look at the Old Adelphi Cinema

 

 

View of the side of the old Adelphi Cinema, seen from Adelphi Gardens

 

The Adelphi opened in 1930, with its first movie being On With the Show!, an all-singing all-dancing new musical talkie, directed by Alan Crosland who had had mega-success with his film The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson just a couple of years prior. Other than films, the Adelphi hosted live music, ballroom dancing, social functions and even wrestling. Over the years some big names finally realised their artistic ambitions by playing in Slough: Yehudi Menuhin, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, Nana Mouskouri, the Walker Brothers and even some backwater talent contest runner-ups called The Beatles in 1963. The Rolling Stones did a gig here in the 60s, and were asked to leave by a lady who worked there as they were so scruffy she had no idea who they were!

 

Far superior to those rank amateurs was one James Marshall ‘Jimi’ Hendrix, who performed here in the mid 60s with the Experience, on tour supporting Engelbert Humperdinck. Forget Woodstock, Hendrix plays Slough! Older locals still remember the occasion: one lady related to me the story of how she and her friends had gone there to see the dreamy Engelbert, only to find the wild man of rock opening the night. “You could smell him from the other side of the room,” she recalled, adding “It was so loud we spent the whole time in the toilets”. And with that glowing praise, Slough cements itself in rock history forever.

 

 

View of the side of the old Adelphi Cinema (built in 1929)

 

For many years the Adelphi Cinema was the focal point of the town’s entertainment, including music, theatre, ballroom dancing and movies. It was built in 1929 and designed by Eric Norman Bailey of Maidenhead. Cinemas are functional buildings, and can be difficult to design appealingly as they don’t require windows or other features, and need to be large enough inside to house an audience and give decent acoustics. The picture above shows the back of the building (the front being obviously more elaborate), and the grim brick monolith has been lent a bit of old-fashioned charm by retaining the old Adelphi letters– in its day a form of advertising, now an echo of the town’s past and heritage; many a little nipper’s face would have lit up at the sight of these letters.

 

Smaller venues could be tucked away in the terrace of a high street, with all the focus being on the frontage and entrance, but there’s no hiding once you reach behemoth-size. Built with over 2,000 seats, the free-standing Adelphi was an ancestor of the massive, multiscreen ‘multiplexes’ we see today, built large enough to service a large customer base that had grown with the town (when the cinema opened in 1930, the town’s population was double what it had been just ten years prior). Its variety of uses, particularly for local functions and dance evenings, would have meant it could serve as a hub for social entertainment, rather than the more individualistic experiences you get in such venues today. The Adelphi ceased to function as a cinema many years ago, but still retains a bit of that old social entertainment character in its new life as… a bingo hall! Eyes Down!

 

 

Adelphi Cinema, now Gala Bingo, seen from the Bath Road

 

A view of the front of the building, in need of a little love and restoration-- certainly the grubby entrance and filthy parapet could do with a bit of refurb. Give it a new paintjob, get rid of that duff Gala billboard, lose the scaffolding, do up the entrance and this could be one impressive edifice.