can there possibly be a more poetic view of deptford than jason mcniff's song 'shadow ships of deptford' which i stumbled upon at transpontine's blog, a place that already in the past has been the source of much joy and enlightenment.
but isn't it just grotesque to imagine i'd listened to this beautiful tune in what must pass these days as my hometown, hanover, and dreamt up a place like the creek? in my very first years in london, deptford seemed to be a haunted place - the more i tried to get away from it, physically by living in hampstead and highgate instead of greenwich, the more it caught me, first by working in a theatre production where all of a sudden rehearsals were scheduled to the albany and then i was asked to find props and costumes on deptford market, and where i was not only unable to understand a word spoken, but also terrified by everything and everybody. i remember when a pair of shoes for our main character had an asking price of one £ and i volonteered a fiver just to not be hussled. not good for the company, as they soon realised...
but it wasn't until i put on my own production that involved a study of peter the great and his ship building tuition in the deptford docks that i started to embrace what was so worlds apart. certainly i could imagine peter testing the great british dentistry on his own men in the docks, and the rubbish and dirt were just consequences, shadows, indeed shadow ships...
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