Getting It Straight in Notting Hill Gate from Tom Vague is a 2020s sequel to Notting Hill in Bygone Days by Florence Gladstone (1924).
An historical and psychogeographical report on Notting Hill considered in its economic, political, sexual and intellectual aspects and a modest proposal for its remedy.
- The Folk Who Lived on the Hill – pre 19th century
- The Gravel Pits – early 19th century
- The Piggeries – part 1 – early 19th century
- North Kensington: a built environment – early 19th century
- The Hippodrome – early 19th century
- Holland House – early 19th century
- The Piggeries – part 2 – early 19th century
- A Tale of Two Cities – mid 19th century
- Notting Hill in the Crimean War – mid 19th century
- Beyond the Colony of the Pigkeepers – mid 19th century
- Kensal New Town – mid 19th century
- Temperance and intemperance – mid 19th century
- Metroland – mid 19th century
- The Notting Dale Gypsies – mid 19th century
- Going Down The Lane – mid 19th century
- Notting Barns – mid 19th century
- Thomas Hardy in the Madding Crowd – late 19th century
- The Hill of Dreams and Far-Off Things – late 19th century
- Baths and Clubs – late 19th century
- Notting Hell – late 19th century
Future chapters
4 Noting Barons – early 20th century
5 Rotting Hill – 1940s
6 In the Ghetto – early 1950s
7 The Clash – 1958
8 It Happened Here – 1959
9 Rachmania – early 1960s
10 Dancing in the Street – 1966/67
11 Open the Squares – 1968/69
12 One Foot in the Grove – 1970/71
13 Underground Overground – 1972-76
14 The Sound of the Westway – 1976/77
15 State of Independents – 1978/79
16 Notting Hill Babylon – early 1980s
17 Subterania – late 1980s
18 All the Sinners Saints – 1990s
19 Interstellar Overdrive – 2000-10
20 Ghosts of Ladbroke Grove – 2010-20
21 Nothing ill – 2020s
‘Enter a lunatic: The King of the Fairies, who was, it is presumed, the godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his delight… these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the joke… They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion named by the king as the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the neighbourhood, which he once frequented… King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, thunderstruck. “My god in heaven!” he said, “Is it true that there is within the four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?”… “And I suppose”, said the king, “that it never crossed your mind that anyone ever thought that the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was – er – slightly – slightly ridiculous… Don’t you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?” “Absurd?” asked Wayne blankly. “Why should I?”… “Notting Hill”, said the provost simply, “is a rise or high ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses to live in, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry and die. Why should I think it absurd?”… The king’s thoughts were in a kind of rout, he could not collect them. “It is generally felt to be a little funny”, he said vaguely.’
GK Chesterton ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ 1904