Finding the London we never knew existed. A review of Scarp by Nick Papdimitriou.

Nick Papdadimitriou’s 2012 book Scarp is a fascinating look at what he describes as the ‘deep topography’ of the area of London he has been so fully immersed in all of his life. Like the author himself, it is truly original; strange, alluring and challenging in equal measure.

Like many, I suspect, I first heard of Papadimitriou via Iain Sinclair and the filmmaker John Rogers and I wanted to know more about the man who has profoundly influenced them and other psycho geography practitioners such as Will Self who hired Papadimitriou to provide material for his book The Book of Dave (2006)

Papadimitriou is a ‘conscious walker’, someone who explores his local landscape with a deep desire to understand its history, folklore and his own inner self within those confines. I am fascinated by the concept of psycho geography in better understanding the spirit of time, place and our ancestors and Papadimitriou’s obsession with historical maps and local legends both known and forgotten are inspiring.

How often do we truly consider ‘footfall’ when we walk in our towns and cities? To imagine those who have gone before us, how street names came to be or the evolution of buildings and businesses? Everything has its origin and by fully connecting with our landscape we can better understand where we are today and how we can shape our future the way our ancestors did.

Scarp is an unusual book, part city travelogue, part fiction and part autobiographical, the author focuses on his life on the edgelands of both city and society in what he describes as the North Middlesex/South Hertfordshire Tertiary Escarpment, a piece of land to the northern edge of the city’s suburbs.

Papadimitriou talks of his motherless childhood and subsequent experiences including imprisonment as a young man in the mid 1970s. This makes for grim reading and an understanding of how young people so easily slip and slide into hardship. Whether or not his incarceration was the spur to get him walking every day is not known but we are all the better for it through his observations.

What struck me about this book is how many people live on the fringes of society, be it through choice or hardship. It serves as a lesson in pausing for thought once in a while and to take in our surroundings and reflect on those who went before us and those still alive but equally invisible. We live in a society dominated by technology in which communication has never been easier but we have never seemed so far apart. In looking back, as Papadimitriou does we see how much of substance has been lost in the pursuit of speed and manipulated imagery.

‘The black leaves flow like a plague of mice across the windy earth. The Internet will bear no trace of them but Scarp sees it all.’