The Situationist International held quite a few conferences in its early years, and they were always held in very specific locations. The fourth conference, held from 24th to the 28th September 1960, was held in Limehouse, in east London. This was probably partly due to Debord's friendship with Alexander Trocchi, and also because of Debord's long and mostly fractured relationship with the ICA, where they spoke after the conference. They met and held their conference at the British Sailor's Society, in Commercial Road, but was billed as a 'secret location', and one commentator writes "upon their arrival in the English capital, delegates were set the ‘psychogeographical’ task of locating the British Sailors Society, where the conference was to be held." This ticks all of Debord's boxes - secrecy, psychogeogrpahy, the notion of the sailor finding the northwest passage which will unlock the secrets. This week I set out on my own journey to find this northwest passage, and this post is the results of my findings.
Before I set out to find the building I met up with Richard Cabut, who wrote as Richard North for the NME (and much more since) during the late 1980s, and who was also in the rather remarkable band, Brigandage. I'd also like to say that he had the best hair in London in 1988, and, as a rather plain, shy young woman, walking round north London with Richard and his spectacular bandmate Michelle, they certainly made me feel much better about myself. Richard showed me how to embark on my journey, and I'd like to say thank you to him here. I don't know much of east London and so this was as much a journey into the unknown for me as much as it was for Debord - although he had, by this point, visited London several times, and perhaps knew the East End better than I do, so maybe not. I did some walking up and down Commercial Road, and it was quite miserable, it was raining slightly, and getting towards twilight, and I knew that the landmark I had to hold on to was the Limehouse Library, which in itself is a gorgeous building.
When I come to London now I am very often appalled at the wanton damage done to areas like the East End and Soho by new developments. I know that when the Limehouse Library was built in Victorian times people probably felt much the same emotions as I do now, so I suppose it's all a bit relative. I was worried that the library would have been demolished, and probably the Sailor's Society as well. After a while I found the library, and even though it is boarded up, and flats are being developed, it is within the existing building, which I am very pleased about. I was under the impression that the Sailor's Society was directly opposite the library, and all there was facing the library was a new building. However, I kept walking, and found the new building merged into a much older one. Then I reached the corner of the road.
I wrote in the previous post about finding La Méthode round the corner of the rue Descartes, and it was just the same here, tucked away, around the bend of the road, the huge building which has hardly changed at all :
I have a very mixed family, and part of my family have been sailors, and I was brought up hearing stories of the sea, of keelhauling years after it had been officially outlawed, of countries where my family docked, massive shells that were brought back from the Indian Ocean before the First World War are now in my house. So a building that housed sailors, where they could be cared for, and where Debord and his associates found shelter, is obviously going to please me greatly. There is a photo of the delegates leaving the building in 1960 :
You can see Debord and Jacqueline de Jong on the right of the photo, and I do wish that Michèle Bernstein had attended the conference, as I would have loved to see her in the photo. The only discernible difference in the building is in the wording over the door, and the 'to let' sign.
Just like going to a restaurant that was once ran, for a few weeks one year, by Debord and Michèle, I loved seeing the Sailor's Society. I have been told that I have a very romantic view of the SI and Debord, but as I always say, why not? The most profound criticism of society surely deserves the most profound admiration, but maybe that's just me. In some ways the East End is still a mystery to me, but in other ways it is something extremely close, as one of my very near relatives spent some years there doing charity work with homeless people in the 1920s; and for a while I felt a strong kinship with Freedom Press, housed in an alley off the Whitechapel High Street. I wondered what Debord felt about the area of Limehouse, if he liked it or if it didn't live up to expectations.
I think he did. "The conference then hears a report by Attila Kotányi; it lasts a only few minutes but is followed by two days of discussion" reports the blogger mudlark121 on the Past Tense blog - having been to some conferences I think this is the sort of conference I'd like to go to. Those that I have been to have been great, although, obviously there were times (as there are everywhere) where you want to go to sleep with boredom. Or irritation. Andrew Hussey writes that the conference also produced the leaflet 'Hands Off Alexander Trocchi' who had been arrested for possession of heroin in New York. Trocchi would later go on to inject one of my friends in London with heroin (still legal in the late 60s), whose heroin buddy was none other than William Burroughs. When I asked her if it was massively exciting, shooting up with the pair of them, she replied laconically, 'nah, he was just Bill the junkie'. Hearing that I didn't even bother asking her if Trocchi discussed Situationist ideas with her.
I looked around the immediate vicinity, and across the road is the Limehouse Cut, the oldest canal in London, which leads to the Limehouse Basin :
This looks very peaceful and inviting, but was probably a lot less inviting in 1960, thereby probably making Debord like it immensely. It has been noted that the location was chosen for 'its association with criminals' and near the canal are plenty of alleys, now, like large parts of the East End, scrubbed clean and disinfected beyond recognition.
Afterwards I caught the bus back, it rained more, I went to a very enjoyable event to do with another part of my life, and with other writing that I do. So why do I want to travel round, getting wet or scorched by sun, to hang around where the Situationists once went? Like I said in a much earlier post I wasn't around in the days of their finest hours, and while I can't do anything to change that, at least I can see where it all went on. A couple of years ago I spent a dispiriting couple of hours walking round the rue St Jacques and the rue Gay Lussac, in the freezing cold November wind and rain. I found it a bit hard to imagine what it had been like, although I had seen those streets before, less than ten years after 68, and in the summer, and both times it made me feel as though those feelings lingered and were still there for me to merge into. Limehouse, in the rain, was much the same, the same ground, the same buildings, the same roads. How can you fully understand something if you are so removed from it?
It all ended well for the SI on their trip to London as well. There was an invitation for them to speak at the ICA, and Andrew Hussey recounts that they were supposed to start at 8pm, but at 9 were still drunkenly arguing about the translation of their text. Eventually they appeared, but it ended in threats, drunkenness and a bit of swearing. "The whole event had of course been most carefully managed," Andrew writes, "and on the way back to Paris was declared a great success." Much like my day out.
With quotations from Andrew Hussey's The Game of War (2001) and the Past Tense blog https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com
I have a very mixed family, and part of my family have been sailors, and I was brought up hearing stories of the sea, of keelhauling years after it had been officially outlawed, of countries where my family docked, massive shells that were brought back from the Indian Ocean before the First World War are now in my house. So a building that housed sailors, where they could be cared for, and where Debord and his associates found shelter, is obviously going to please me greatly. There is a photo of the delegates leaving the building in 1960 :
You can see Debord and Jacqueline de Jong on the right of the photo, and I do wish that Michèle Bernstein had attended the conference, as I would have loved to see her in the photo. The only discernible difference in the building is in the wording over the door, and the 'to let' sign.
Just like going to a restaurant that was once ran, for a few weeks one year, by Debord and Michèle, I loved seeing the Sailor's Society. I have been told that I have a very romantic view of the SI and Debord, but as I always say, why not? The most profound criticism of society surely deserves the most profound admiration, but maybe that's just me. In some ways the East End is still a mystery to me, but in other ways it is something extremely close, as one of my very near relatives spent some years there doing charity work with homeless people in the 1920s; and for a while I felt a strong kinship with Freedom Press, housed in an alley off the Whitechapel High Street. I wondered what Debord felt about the area of Limehouse, if he liked it or if it didn't live up to expectations.
I think he did. "The conference then hears a report by Attila Kotányi; it lasts a only few minutes but is followed by two days of discussion" reports the blogger mudlark121 on the Past Tense blog - having been to some conferences I think this is the sort of conference I'd like to go to. Those that I have been to have been great, although, obviously there were times (as there are everywhere) where you want to go to sleep with boredom. Or irritation. Andrew Hussey writes that the conference also produced the leaflet 'Hands Off Alexander Trocchi' who had been arrested for possession of heroin in New York. Trocchi would later go on to inject one of my friends in London with heroin (still legal in the late 60s), whose heroin buddy was none other than William Burroughs. When I asked her if it was massively exciting, shooting up with the pair of them, she replied laconically, 'nah, he was just Bill the junkie'. Hearing that I didn't even bother asking her if Trocchi discussed Situationist ideas with her.
I looked around the immediate vicinity, and across the road is the Limehouse Cut, the oldest canal in London, which leads to the Limehouse Basin :
This looks very peaceful and inviting, but was probably a lot less inviting in 1960, thereby probably making Debord like it immensely. It has been noted that the location was chosen for 'its association with criminals' and near the canal are plenty of alleys, now, like large parts of the East End, scrubbed clean and disinfected beyond recognition.
Afterwards I caught the bus back, it rained more, I went to a very enjoyable event to do with another part of my life, and with other writing that I do. So why do I want to travel round, getting wet or scorched by sun, to hang around where the Situationists once went? Like I said in a much earlier post I wasn't around in the days of their finest hours, and while I can't do anything to change that, at least I can see where it all went on. A couple of years ago I spent a dispiriting couple of hours walking round the rue St Jacques and the rue Gay Lussac, in the freezing cold November wind and rain. I found it a bit hard to imagine what it had been like, although I had seen those streets before, less than ten years after 68, and in the summer, and both times it made me feel as though those feelings lingered and were still there for me to merge into. Limehouse, in the rain, was much the same, the same ground, the same buildings, the same roads. How can you fully understand something if you are so removed from it?
It all ended well for the SI on their trip to London as well. There was an invitation for them to speak at the ICA, and Andrew Hussey recounts that they were supposed to start at 8pm, but at 9 were still drunkenly arguing about the translation of their text. Eventually they appeared, but it ended in threats, drunkenness and a bit of swearing. "The whole event had of course been most carefully managed," Andrew writes, "and on the way back to Paris was declared a great success." Much like my day out.
With quotations from Andrew Hussey's The Game of War (2001) and the Past Tense blog https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com
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