'A STAND-OUT BOOK IN THE GENRE'
Picture Postcard Monthly DECEMBER 2007 (p.56)
"Notting Hill Behind The Scenes (Hermione Cameron) follows the familiar format of showing us what a particular place was like a century ago. The format is a well-established and simple one: the postcard illustrations have the starring role, and the introduction and captions serve as footnotes, a touch of extra detail for the observer.
Yet Hermione Cameron's production has a couple of features which make this a stand-out book in the genre. She's gone in search of the people who populated the streets all those years ago, and she makes us look at them, too, by the trick of giving us some of the pictures twice, the second time with part of the detail magnified. It's a double-take that has you flitting from the general to the particular and back again, and above all makes the characters come alive. We all love those 'animated' street scenes. The author's in your face treatment of Notting Hill's Edwardian residents is a thought-provoking master stroke.
The introduction instantly focuses on the inhabitants rather than the buildings and their history. She gives us Miss Perfect, William Jealous and the Madders sisters, people we meet later, along with many other residents. 'Seeing a familiar street all those years ago made me wonder about the past overlapping with the present: how we may walk in someone else's footsteps, turn the the same street corner, pass the same shop and cross the same road, and do all this a century apart.'
So, half a century before Marc Bolan lived at 57 Blenheim Crescent, Emily Needham was a dressmaker there. Henry Armfield, a dyer and cleaner, is brought to life outside his shop by the magnification technique and assumes a stature that he can never do in the original picture.
The captions, too, investigate the human side of Notting Hill, probing the people who ran the shops, lived in houses and worked in businesses. Even if you begin by not knowing Notting Hill, you're soon inside it, an inquisitive voyeur. Beats Albert Square any day."
HC adds: I really am thrilled that the book is getting such a great response. For a first-timer, it is an incredible feeling. Thank you to The Travel Bookshop, Notting Hill, Waterstones, Notting Hill Gate and Daunt Books, Holland Park Avenue for showcasing 'Notting Hill Behind The Scenes.'
