The Ned Wood Archive

She’s often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams ’til tomorrow

Try again. Another day, another weather. Still wet and windy, still challenging, but not quite as tempestuous. Finally I make it over the Bridge, I take refuge from the wind in HMV and spend a while browsing. I was planning to get a couple of singles that were just out, but I’d already decided to get them on the way back to save carting them all over town, so HMV weren’t getting any of my precious pounds. Having warmed up again, I go round St James Centre over towards that roundabout near the Playhouse. There was this scaffolding tower in the middle, I guess I was curious to see whether it could have blown over seeing as it had been so windy, but no, it was still stood there, alone, waiting for whatever it was supposed to be holding up to arrive. Pete said it was a launch gantry for the Scottish moonshot. He said he’d seen it light up one time when they were going to launch.

But that’s not what I came out for. I go past the catholic cathedral and past St Paul’s and St Ringo’s and head down Broughton. Past the circular towers guarding Barony Street, over the roundabout, past even more churches, and all the way to the bottom of the hill. This is what is so cool about Edinburgh. It’s just about small enough to be able walk around. Just set off from the Palace of Marchmont and keep going and you’ll see all of it. Just set out from the flat even if you don’t walk in a straight line and you’ll soon get to where you want to go. You’ve got everything you need within walking distance. And you can explore interesting new places.

And here I am, at my destination. My main destination. Bruce’s was going to be another, later. Living in Edinburgh and walking around, it wasn’t long before I found the botanical gardens up in Inverleith. And then I’d spend ages there just wandering around, especially the art gallery and the glass houses. I loved being there. All that variety. I can sit for ages watching leaves waving in the wind. I can watch the trees talking to each other. I can clamber over the rock garden. I can try in vain to learn the names of the plants.

But, today, like most days I go over there, I’m going to spend my time inside. That’s the story of my life. I visit the majestic gardens and spend all day inside. I could spend all day in the glass houses. Looking up at the Victorian architecture. Walking through the various rooms. The big palm house with the massive gangling palm, more likely to launch into the sky than any rocket in Picardy Place. The unfurling ferns. The green saturation. The hot dry desert room. The hot steamy tropical room with water dripping off branches and orchids growing everywhere. The pond with lilies.

There are plants here that resemble nothing so much as stones. Or someone’s big toe. Minimal plants like one of Nessie’s Kosmische Musik albums. Spiky sharp plants full of barbs and needles like one of Fi’s punk rock singles. Dreamy overgrown rooms with long trailing strings of vegetation like Phil Oakey’s hair. Strange exotic rooms with weird shapes and styles like Pall’s PiL album.

Looking at all that rich diversity, I could help but think of my palaeontology lectures back in Southampton. All of that fossil history. All of that evolution. How, when life finds a new idea or a new environment to exploit, it goes crazy and comes up with these weird and wonderful ideas. Like the Cambrian explosion of new fossils. Like a kid at Christmas opening up a tin of sweets and being able to choose from red ones and blue ones and purple ones and green ones and those flat golden toffees or those long thin yellow ones.

And no visit to the garden is complete without a bit of art. I’d go up to the modern art gallery on the hill and look at the paintings and you could see that the artists had been inspired to go crazy with new approaches. Old art is just portraits and landscapes. This new stuff goes everywhere. Strange shapes. Strange colours. Strange subjects. Weird, wonderful, and different. Back then, I didn’t know as much as someone like Pall. I’d just look and admire. I couldn’t tell you the names of the works or the artists I looked at. Only one. I’d stand and stare at it every time I went. Trying to get to know it well. Each time focusing on a different aspect. Like when you love a price of music and listen to it closely, each time hearing a different instrument. Astral Weeks. Sometimes the fluid bubbling jazz bass parts. Sometimes the intricate insistent loose guitar. Sometimes the floating singing flowing flute. Sometimes just simply trying to work out the lyrics. Is Moebius still running crack? And the dead centre back – what’s he up to then? So it is with Wyndham Lewis’ Reading of Ovid. Those shapes. Beautifully curved. Sharply pointed. Those colours. The hot red flesh. The utilitarian hard working blue. The wicked grin of the chap on the left. The worried eyebrows of the bloke on the right. Sometimes just trying to work out what it means. What are they plotting? What’s it got to do with Ovid?

Pall had this game he played. He’d drop a comment like “The Mekons are the Marcel Duchamp of modern music” or “The Fall are the David Hockney of modern music.” Nessie would join in. Apparently John Foxx is Mondrian and Orchestral Manoeuvres are Bridget Riley¹. So what is Percy Wyndham Lewis? Those sharp shapes look like John McKay’s guitar playing, prickly and hurtful. And the other, curved lines look like Kenny Morris’ drumming, meaty and solid. The intensity of the characters reminds me of Steve Severin’s bass on tracks like Lord’s Prayer. And they’re just about to scream in delight or derision like Siouxsie. Yet they’ve got a veneer of glam, signalled by the foppy yellow pocket square in one of the suits. Percy Wyndham Lewis is Siouxsie and the Banshees. Lewis’ iconoclasm is right out of Join Hands, their World War One album.

Having worked that out, I’m feeling like I could gain some credibility with Pall and Nessie. And the wee Fies. And Dusty. So I’m happy as I leave the gallery. The sun has finally appeared in the sky after protracted negotiations with assorted cloud representatives. I notice another work of art off behind a bush. A statue. Only you have to get up close to see it. You have to force your way in between the overgrowth. Only then do I realise that this is the statue of the angel that I saw in the Newington Cemetery.

I want to study it closely, but I’m worried about being spotted traipsing through the hedges and across the borders. Like I said, you can’t step back from it and get a good view. It’s blocked off from the main paths. I make three or four passes through the shrubs, walking round and round it as if I’m lost, all the time gazing at a work of art. The delicate folds of her dress. The proud nobility of her wings. The delicate strands of her hair. The bright warmth of her Audrey Hepburn eyes. The broad sunshine of her smile. Commit them all to memory because you’ll never be able to find this statue again, no matter how many times you walk round the Royal Botanics.

1. And Joy Division are Barbara Hepworth. And the Cure are Georges Braque. And Peter Perrett is Pablo Picasso. ↩︎