EASTER MONDAY ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH.[1]
By Canon Barnett.April, 1905.
By Canon Barnett.
April, 1905.
1From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.
1From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.
Bank Holidayon Hampstead Heath sets moving many thoughts. No drunkenness, no bad temper, no brutal rowdiness—but where are the family parties? Three-quarters of the people seem to be under twenty years of age. Where are the family groups such as are found in France or in the colder Denmark making pleasure by talk, or by gaiety, singing, or dancing, or acting—finding interest in things beautiful or new? There were, indeed, some families at Hampstead, and perambulators were driven through the thickest crowd, every one making room for the baby. But the father often looked bored and the mother worried. They were doing their duty, giving the children pleasure, and getting fresh air. The crowd was a young persons’ crowd—boys by themselves, girls by themselves, and a smaller number paired. They had come to be amused, and the caterers of amusement had established by the roadside the shows and shooting-galleries and swings such as are to be found within the reach of most crowded neighbourhoods. Organ-grinders played, sweets were exposed for sale, and the Heath Road was as packed with people as Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning. The people wandered over the Heath, but while they wandered they seemed listless, or on the watch for anything to occupytheir attention. A few children dancing as every day they dance in Whitechapel at once drew together a crowd. Golder’s Hill Park, which was never more radiant in its beauty, was comparatively empty. The road outside, where public-houses had provided various attractions, was packed, not by people who were customers but by people watching one another and waiting for something to happen. But inside the park, where the County Council’s restaurant had spread its tables for tea, where from the Terrace there is a view of unequalled beauty, where the gardens are rich in flowers, there were only a few scattered groups.
The holiday is not a feast of brutality or drunkenness. No one need have been offended by sight or sound. The Shows, thanks to the County Council regulations, were all decent, and there was everywhere the courtesy of good temper. An observer, thinking of twenty years ago, would say, “What an improvement!” but his next thought would be, “How much better things are possible!” In the first place, the arrangements for the supply of food might be different. In Golder’s Hill itself the regulation that no teas should be served on the grass for fear of its injury shows a curious ignorance of relative values when, for the want of very slight protection, boys are allowed to tear away the banks on the side of Spaniard’s Road. The injured grass would revive in a month; the torn banks are irreparably damaged. There is no reason why the London County Council’s restaurants both on Golder’s Hill and in other parts of the Heath should not attract people by the daintiness of their display, and why the people should not be held by music and singing. Family parties would be more likely to frequent the place if the elders could be assured of pleasant resting-places. How differently, how very much better, they manage feeding abroad! People are always hungry and thirsty on holidays, and from the public-house to thewhelk-stall, from the tea-gardens to the coffee-stand, there was evidence of English incapacity to supply the most persistent of holiday needs. The first improvement possible is, therefore, more dainty and more frequent provision of refreshment. The next improvement, which especially applies to Golder’s Hill, is the addition of objects of interest. There might be an aviary, the greenhouses might be filled with flowers and opened, rooms in the house might be decorated with pictures of the neighbourhood or with a collection of local objects. People who are unconsciously taking in memories through their eyes need some illusion; they must think they are going to see something they understand, if they are to be led to see the better things beyond their understanding. Then, surely, some more care might be taken of the tender places on the Heath—there are acres of grass on which boys may play, who might thereby be kept from scouring the surface of the light sand soil, making highways through the gorse, opening waterways to starve the trees.
These improvements are possible at once. There are others longer in the doing which are also necessary. People must be educated not only to be wage-earners but to enjoy their being. They too much depend on stimulants, on some outside excitement always liable to excess. They might find pleasure in themselves, in the use of their own faculties, in their powers of observation or activity, in their own intelligence and curiosity. They might with better education be “good company” for themselves and for one another. The people possess in Hampstead Heath a property a king might envy, but they only partially enjoy its opportunities.
Samuel A. Barnett.
Samuel A. Barnett.