Western Avenue

I spent my mid-teenage years living on the western crest of London in North Acton. I lived atop the first (or last) feeble "Chiltern Hill", in a little flat surrounded by factories on three sides and the municipal dump on the fourth which afforded superb views over the whole of West and Central London. We were neighboured by Elizabeth Arden's white deco headquarters (the "Vanity Factory" referred to in the song "I'm Not Angry" by Elvis Costello, who worked there as a computer operator at the time, (he also penned Hoover factory about the beautiful white Egyptian deco structure a few miles west on the A40 at Perivale). 

Welcome to my 5-Minute Flaneurs' Guide to "The Desert"

The Western Avenue, about 10 miles in length, is one of the major roads leading out of London, England. It is part of the A40, leaving the West End in a north-westerly direction. It begins at Savoy Circus at East Acton; the junction now has traffic lights, but its name Savoy Circus commemorates the roundabout which once formed the junction. East of this point is Westway, part of the A40 Central London link from Paddington.

Gypsy Corner is the next junction going west where the A40 is crossed by Horn Lane. The name originates from the Irish Travellers, known as Gypsies, who would travel along this main road, in and out of London, and camp at this spot. An official caravan site is still maintained by the local council nearby at North Acton station.

The A40 was called "The Desert" by a few of the people I knew, I am not quite sure why. The road dominates the surrounding area as these trunk roads often do. It is one of the strangest of places, bordering the huge 1930s Park Royal Industrial Estate and Wormwood Scrubs common and Prison down the hill at East Acton on the north east side, with Willesden to the North and Acton "Central" to the south. During the week, North Acton was busy with big artic's and lots of traffic, but at weekends especially Sundays, it was as dead as a doornail.

The whole had been a major player in automotive production during the first 30 years of the 20th century and even now it seems to have a deep connection to the fetish of the automobile culture. There was a history of electrical engineering industries and was bombed to hell during the night raids of the blitz.If you went "off-piste" (over a fence or wall that was posted with the invite: COUNCIL PROPERTY KEEP OUT ahem... for instance) the waste ground that sat between the maze of railways and canals that criss-crossed the area, was littered with derelict WWII pill boxes,  bunkers overgrown with brambles and probably planted with a few rusty old UXBs as well. In the war the whole area had been given over to military, electrical and technical factories, making bomb timers etc.

Symphorophilia is a sexual fantasy, arousal involves staging and watching a tragedy, such as a fire or a traffic accident. Symphorophilia is special form of sacrificial sexual fantasy, which culminates in an arranged disaster, such as an automobile crash. Like a game of Russian roulette, it may end in death, alone or with the partner. However, flirting with disaster, rather than suicide and murder is the trigger responsible for autoerotic arousal and excitement. Being the daredevil who will live to risk a love-death again is an essential part of this fantasy. As a photographic print is the positive made from its negative, so also the positive of self-crashing is arranging for a disaster to occur on the highway, and then watching the carnage from a preselected observation post. For those members of the general public who have a touch of sadomasochism in them, disaster as an unrehearsed event is often a large part of the appeal of entertainment stunts and sports, from the circus to Car racing.

Deathproof - a script and movie by Quentin Tarantino. In Austin, Texas,  girlfriends Julia, Arlene and Shanna meet in a bar to drink, smoke and make out with their boyfriends before traveling alone to Lake LBJ to spend the weekend together. They meet the former Hollywood stuntman Mike, who takes Pam out in his "death-proof" stunt car. Fourteen months later, Mike turns up in Lebanon, Tennessee and chase Abernathy, Zoë and Kim, but these girls are tough and decide to pay-back the attack.

Crash by J G Ballard written 1973, is a novel (and in 1996 a subsequent film) in which the main characters are car-crash fetishists. The story is told through the eyes of narrator James Ballard, named after the author himself, but it centers on the sinister figure of Dr. Robert Vaughan, a "former TV-scientist, turned nightmare angel of the expressways". Ballard meets Vaughan after being involved in a car accident himself near London Airport. Gathering around Vaughan is a group of alienated people, all of them former crash victims, who follow him in his pursuit to re-enact the crashes of celebrities and experience what the narrator calls "a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology". Vaughan's ultimate fantasy is to die in a head-on collision with movie star Elizabeth Taylor.

Leadville is a book by English writer Edward Platt, "A Biography of the A40" and with the strapline "A Journey from White City to the Hangar Lane Gyratory" it tells the story of The Western Avenue, in West London primarily through the words of its residents whom the author visited between 1995 and 1998. At this time many of the houses on the road were being compulsorily purchased and demolished in preparation for a road widening scheme which was later cancelled. Interspersed with the views of the residents are historical accounts of the road's development and wider views on town planning and traffic management, prominently those of Le Corbusier and Robert Moses.

* Flâneur: stroller, lounger or loafer. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations. A near-synonym is boulevardier. The flâneur has been described as the essential figure of the modern urban spectator, an amateur detective and investigator of the city. More than this, his flâneur was a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism.

Source for the factual element above is Wikipedia.

Listen to Last Race by Jack Neitsche from the soundtrack of "Death Proof" Tarantino's B Movie Mondo Schlock movie. among other hot biscuits at my Balls Out Spotify Playlist here

Photo: Fatal traffic accident at Gypsy Corner on The Western Avenue (A40) in the 1960s