Touring London with Mr Ma and Son – Gordon Street

Posted: October 1st, 2013 | No Comments »

Fantastic to see that Penguin Modern Classics (well done Penguin China!) have reissued Lao She’s great 1920s novel of London Mr Ma and Son.

Seems a good time to wander the street where Mr Ma and his son’s lodged in London after their arrival – Gordon Street, WC1 in Bloomsbury. As Lao she writes:

“Number X Gordon street was the widowed Mrs. Wedderburn’s house. It wasn’t very big, just a small three-storied building, with no more than seven or eight rooms. At the front, by the door, there was a row of green railings. The three white stone steps were scrubbed spotless, and the brass knocker on the red- painted door was polished sparkling bright. On entering the house, you came first to the drawing-room, behind which was a small dining-room. If you passed through the dining-room, took a turn, and descended some stairs, you‟d come to a further three, small rooms. Upstairs there were just another three rooms, one facing onto the street, and two at the back.”

Lao She notes – “There were quite a few Chinese living in this street.”

Sadly Gordon Street – best known for the buildings that are now part of University College London, took some direct hits from the Luftwaffe during the Blitz (actually Graham Greene was a fire watcher in the area and remembered it in his autobiography Ways of Escape, while Henry Green wrote of a firefighting crew during the Blitz working in the area in his wonderful novel Caught) so most of the houses Lao She would have known are gone now….

 

The UCL Union building on Gordon Street – note the old London road name signs underneath and partially obscured by the new…

 

Some of the larger buildings on Gordon Street….

 

The southern end of Gordon Street becomes Gordon Square with some remaining buildings perhaps more like Mrs Wedderburn’s

 

PS: don’t forget that you can still sign up (for free) to the Fu Manchu in London: Lao She, Limehouse and the Yellow Peril in the Heart of Empire conference at the University of Westminster on Friday October 4th – click here for more details.

 

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