Wednesday, March 08, 2006

(69) Lambolle Road: from Buzan - via the lady - to Patrick Hughes

V
In the summer of 1991 Raymond Keene recounted to me some coincidences he had involving Lambolle Road in London.
http://www.londontown.com/LondonStreets/lambolle_road_204.html
He bought some pictures from an artist called Patrick Hughes whom he then discovered to be the best friend of the brother of Tony Buzan.
T.Buzan was founder of The Brain Foundation and he and Keene collaborated on several books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan
Tony’s brother turned out to be very good friends with Professor Nathan Divinsky, who also co-authored a book with Keene. Divinsky’s daughter, Pamela, turned out to be a good friend of Alison Hawkes. Ms Hawkes brother, Nigel, was the science correspondent of The Times, and Keene the chess correspondent.

Hughes, Buzan and Ms Hawkes all lived in adjacent addresses of Lambolle Road, London, 15, 17, and 17a but Keene encountered the three neighbours all via separate routes.

I then chipped in my codicil.

When I sent my material on coincidences to Brian Inglis (see Point (43) in Part Two: The Narrative, Epilogues and Appendices) I did so via a journalist at The Guardian newspaper.
But I retrieved it from Inglis himself, from his home. Which was in Lambolle Road, the only time until then that I had ever been to that road or even heard of it. (Although in the early 1990s I was to accompany Murray Sharp there when he was to visit someone who had arranged to buy some picture frames from him. Not completely out of the question, I suppose, that might have been Patrick Hughes!?)

In 1994 I met Alison Hawkes at a party in London.
She mentioned her friendship with Prof. Pamela Divinsky and also her father, but I did not appreciate then that she was the sister of The Times science correspondent, Nigel Hawkes having forgotten some of the details of what Keene had told me.

When years later I mentioned this coincidence to my wife, she told me that the first person ever to interview her was Patrick Hughes, for The Observer on April 13th 1986.

In December 2004 I chanced upon a retained copy of the page of The Observer containing Hughes´ interview with Fiona.
It trailers the publication of her collection of poems; Sky Ray Lolly.

It ends with the writer´s name in large letters - PATRICK HUGHES.
But it begins, thus -

" The psychologist Tony Buzan says that to remember things, the second-best kind of association of ideas is a bizarre or comical link; but that the very best way to remember is by a sexual hook. "

NB. On Nov 3rd 2008, I thought back to Brian Inglis and thus to the TV series All Our Yesterdays which I knew he had presented years ago, and about maybe looking it up on Wikipedia.
Next day a book arrived in the post for Fiona. It was about childhood and included many quotes from writers including herself.
And was called All Our Yesterdays.

2 comments:

Deborah Buzan said...

Barry Buzan, my husband and brother of Tony, was not, as reported above, 'best friend' of Patrick Hughes, but they did occasionally play chess together.
To add to the list of coincidences, in the early eighties I shared an exhibition with Patrick Hughes at a Gallery in Fulham called Limited Editions. Patrick, of course, has gone on to be a very successful artist; I had much more modest success.
Deborah Skinner Buzan

James said...

Thank you, Deborah.
I only reported what Keene told me.

I have spoken with Tony Buzan e.g. at the 1997 Mind Sports Olympiad.

To add to the pictures theme;
I believe that the only other occasion when I (may) have visited Lambolle Road as an evening in the early 1990s when in a car with Murray Sharp. He was delivering some picture frames to a client.