Friday 7 January 2011

Eliot Wrote 'The Wasteland' in a Shelter in Margate

Well, not all of it. Rather, part of Part III: "On Margate Sands./I can connect/Nothing with nothing./The broken fingernails of dirty hands./My people humble people who expect/Nothing." He was in Margate in 1921 recovering from a nervous breakdown. He spent three weeks in the autumn there, staying in the Albemarle Hotel in Cliftonville. The shelter where Eliot mused and connected nothing with nothing is the Nayland Rock Promenade Shelter. A recent campaign spearheaded by Alan Bennett and Andrew Motion resulted in it getting listed status in 2009. Motion called the shelter 'a shrine, a temple, a small monument to a great genius.' Come worship!
If you can't make it in person, you can walk in the virtual footsteps of someone who has, via this YouTube video. Perhaps too much of the bloke's feet. But hey, you get the idea.

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