Saturday 19th July 2014. I am still reeling from a single sentence of a Muriel Spark story. ‘He looked as if he would murder me and he did.’

It’s from ‘The Portobello Road’ (1958). The lack of a comma before the ‘and’ is deliberate and crucial to the effect.

* * *

London is hot and humid. Some tube stations have finally managed to pump air conditioning into their ancient tunnels. Oxford Circus is one. But a few stations have natural blasts of air all year round, as a side-effect of the architecture. There is a sign at the top of the Kentish Town escalator saying ‘hold onto your hat!’ The wind rushes in as one steps off, and one feels like Marcel Marceau, struggling to walk against the breeze.

I drag out my linen ensemble every day to the point where its whiteness is visibly in question. The best place to go for reading and writing in such temperatures is the British Library, with its air conditioning, huge reading rooms, and high ceilings.

At St Pancras station next door, the branch of Foyles is in its last few weeks. After six years of profitable bookselling, they will close for good on July 31st. It is not Amazon or e-books that have defeated them, but the rent increases of the landlord. Today Foyles St Pancras has a little display of books marked ‘So Long’. One of them is their local top bestseller, The Expats by Chris Pavone. It is a thriller set among the sort of people who take the Eurostar regularly: intrigue on the Continent, characters who zip about from London to Paris.

* * *

Sunday 20th July 2014. My course choices for the fourth and final year of the BA English have been confirmed. Happily, it’s all the modules I wanted. From October till May next year I will be studying ‘Literature 1945-1979’, which is effectively British Post-War novels and poetry. The other course is ‘The American Century’, which is all types of USA literature from 1900 to the present. I’m also doing a thesis on Literary Camp, for which there are no classes. Instead, I’m left to my own self-discipline, and only have to report to a supervisor every so often. This is something which slightly scares me, but it’s about time I was let off the leash. Another little step.

The classes for the two courses will be on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, in Bloomsbury. It’s funny how a whole chunk of one’s time can be allocated away just like that. Thus I commit my life to London, and to the degree, for one more year.

* * *

Monday 21st July 2014. To 10 Upper Bank Street, one of the skyscrapers in Canary Wharf. Not the biggest one with the point, and not one of its two companions, but another slightly shorter one close by. It’s currently the world headquarters of the law firm Clifford Chance. Tonight they have let Birkbeck use their 30th floor to host their Scholar’s Evening. This is where various donors, alumni and patrons of Birkbeck meet some of the current students and discuss the importance of the college’s work. I was invited as an example of a penurious student who has benefited from such support. The invite told me there was no obligation to attend, but I am always happy to be a Birkbeck praise singer, so I go along. And besides, I do love a skyscraper.

I get out at Canary Wharf station, and explore the area. Everything is designed to within an inch of its geometric, twenty-first century life.

 

Next door to the skyscraper is Jubilee Park, built not on top of earth but over the roof of the tube station and shopping mall below. It is a roof garden at street level. A sign advertises a free performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this very evening.

The Clifford Chance building is straight out of a Christopher Nolan film. Outer walls of plate glass, pristine rooms of open-plan modernism, long toilets with mirrors at either end, doors that disappear into pine panels. I feel ready for my Inception fight scene.

The clean lines apply to the people too: a strict dress code of ‘as smart as possible’. Dark suits for myself and the other male students. We look like we could all be in finance, even though many of us are in history, or science, or in my case, literature.

At the lobby I am given a badge (‘Dickon Edwards – BA English’) and a plastic visitor’s pass with which to best the security barriers. Then I’m escorted into an express lift, which zooms directly to the floor in question, ears threatening to pop.

The event is in a large, open room that forms the south-west corner of the thirtieth floor. Two of its walls are floor-to-ceiling windows commanding views over the Thames and beyond, particularly Greenwich to the south and Rotherhithe to the west. I can make out the red ball at the top of Greenwich Observatory, tiny yet clear on this bright summer day.

 

It is not the height that makes me giddy, but the apprehension of the city as achievement. What a piece of work is a man, indeed.

There’s about 150 people here. I don’t feel it’s right to approach them by myself, but thankfully there are Birkbeck staffers on hand who physically grab me and introduce me to donors and governors. I live in a rented bedsit and worry about being able to buy new shoes. Not only do these people have enough money to not live like that, but they choose to spend some of their spare money on helping people like me study for a degree. So tonight I feel up amongst the gods.

I meet the Birkbeck Master, David Latchman, who is effectively the boss. He’ll be the one presenting me with my degree next year, all being well. I also meet Tricia King, who is the Pro-Vice-Master for Student Experience, and Hilary Fraser, who is my more immediate boss, being as she is the Executive Dean of the School of Arts. I chat to some of the donors too, many of whom were once at Birkbeck themselves. One gentleman is from the steel firm ArcelorMittal, who funded the Orbit, the twisting sculpture-cum-watchtower in the Olympic Park. I tell him how it can be seen from as far away as Highgate Hill, and that I mean to go up it sometime, when it’s open again (the Olympic park was closed after the 2012 Games). He tells me it is open again. So I make a mental note to go to the Orbit soon, and to think of its connection with Birkbeck when I do.

Speeches are given, free wine is served. In her speech, Tricia King is kind enough to mention me and even point me out. The honorary President of Birkbeck, Baroness Joan Bakewell, then comes over to me (an important detail!) and congratulates me for coming back to education, and sticking with it.

I am asked if I can cram my story into a Tweet, allowing for the dutiful hashtag. I provide the following:

Birkbeck upgrades minds. I dropped out of A-levels; am dyspraxic & dyslexic. Now doing a BA English, getting 1st class marks. #BBKScholars.

Just before I leave, I look down over Jubilee Park next door, and see that the performance of A Midsummer’s Night Dream has begun. The symbolism is irresistible. Birkbeck has enabled me to literally look at literature from a position of empowerment.

I go down to street level and watch some of the show. The production is a loose and fun version, featuring stuffed animal toys at one point. People are sitting around with picnics as the sun sets.  This moment in the metropolis feels happy and peaceful, even Utopian; how a civilisation should be. A midsummer night’s urban dream.

* * *

Tuesday 22nd July 2014. To the ICA for Finding Vivian Maier. It’s a film that’s been getting a lot of attention – posters on the tube even, unusual for what is essentially a BBC4-type arts documentary. It tells the story of the amateur street photographer of the title, who despite being immensely prolific died without ever displaying her work.

The story starts with her negatives being bought in a garage sale by the young man who narrates the film. He has them printed, and is startled by the quality of the work, yet cannot find a mention of her on Google (that very modern reflex action, now part of life, and so part of movies). So begins his double campaign: to have Vivian Maier’s photographs brought to public attention, and to find out why she didn’t do this herself. The film takes in all kinds of issues, such as the connection between ‘eccentricity’ and mental health, the role of live-in nannies in families, and the strange rules some arts institutions have when defining art. One gallery tells the narrator that if a photographer didn’t print their own work, they cannot be regarded as a proper artist. He convincingly exposes the flaws in this argument, backing it up with instances of famous photographers who did have their work printed posthumously. The work is the image, not the print. Thank to this film, Vivian Maier has made her name at last. Even if she didn’t want to.

Tags: birkbeck, canary wharf, foyles st pancras, joan bakewell, London, muriel spark, scholars evening, vivian maier