I have marched across Spain with VS Pritchett and hacked across Spain with two middle-aged ladies; Penelope Betjeman’s account of rural Andalusia in November 1962. The latter fulfills all the requirements of a great travel book.
Her descriptions of the terrain, the villages, the paradors in which she usually stays, the people she meets, the churches she attends, the food she and the Marquesa eat do make Spain sound rather backward. But the sincerity of her affection for the people and their simple lifestyle shines through and she is aware that this is on the cusp of change. How she would hate Spain today; richer, yes, but more secular, more crowded and with hollowed-out villages as a result of migration to the cities.
What was London like in 1962? London Perceived by VS Pritchett (again) supplemented with black and white photographs by Evelyn Hofer furnishes the answer. He pays tribute to a 19th century chronicler of London in his opening paragraph.
”How Do You Like London? … London, Londres, London?” Mr Podsnap asked the Frenchman, putting – we notice – capital letters into his accent. “And Do You Find, Sir,” he went on, Many Evidences that Strike You …?” (The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens, 1836)
The two greatest changes since 1962, it seems to me, are two things that have vanished, or almost so: London is now a cosmopolitan city with a shifting population speaking almost every language in the world; the terrible and deadly London pea-soupers have been replaced by invisible nitrogen dioxide pollution.
“One lives in it, afloat but half submerged in a heavy flood of brick, stone, asphalt,slate, steel glass, concrete and tarmac, seeing nothing fixable beyond a few score white spires … “ London Perceived, VS Pritchett, 1962)
The only change, at least in the City and Docklands, is that the landmarks are now temples of Mammon.