St Pancras
Railway Station

HISTORY LESSON FROM RIGHT TO LEFT

Arrival point from Leeds at King's Cross railway station
Majestic St. Pancras railway station &
Infamous St. Pancras library
en route to Camden Town

Okay, so St. Pancras libaray is a later addition and has nothing to do with Scritti. I answer GUILTY to charge of being seduced by words. But isn't Scritti all about seduction and getting into trouble because you can't resist? Anyway, the library is suppose to host the British Museum's book collection, but it earned fame for running out of space before its construction is even finished.

Back to Scritti and St. Pancras...

And yet again the wear of Time has taken its toll. Was St. Pancras Records, Scritti's own label for their DIY vinyls, the namesake of this railway station we shall never know -- like so many other things about all things Scritti.

Even the statement regarding King's Cross is problematic. Trains from Leeds do arrive here now, but service might have changed during the past twenty years. For those of you unfamiliar with early Scritti history, the group started in Leeds where Green and Tom, the first Scritti drummer, studied at a fine-arts college, where they acquired a taste for philosophical mumble jumble.

Unfortunately when I was there, the 4th Arch-Angel hasn't announced him/herself yet; so I had no personal guide to give me the spiel and I had to conjure up what I can with an overactive imagination. But for the life of me I couldn't come up with a plausible story why the leftist Scritti would have adopted St. Pancras. Not knowing about the St. Pancras relief sculpture somewhere on Parkway street in Camden Town and in fact featured on the first vinyl (see cover below),

-- I thought the picture was of Green with a dog on his chest! Don't ask me how I accounted for the flatness of the figure -- sunken ground? ):-) -- I assumed the St Pancras reference was to the railway station, which is impressive, but actually quite small inside. Most of the building is in fact a 19th century hotel long in disuse and currently under restoration. The terminal itself is just approximately 4-6 tracks under one lone arch with nice Neo-Gothic ticketing booths in a room to one side.

Exiting the station, right between it and the library is the curved road which at one stretch is called Pancras Road and has a side road leading off it called St. Pancras Way. Another side street leading off it is Camden Street which intersects quiet Carol Street, where Scritti had its squat headquarter at building no. ONE. Carol Street is L-shaped and ends on the other leg at Greenland Street, which ends at a big junction on Camden High Street. The area thus far is pretty residential. At the junction are the Camden Town Tube station and a cross street which to the east of Camden High Street is called Camden Road and to the west is called Parkway, where supposedly the other St. Pancras contender is located.

After that dizzing trip and nowhere closer to St. Pancras, let's try another route: the symbolic one. Who is St. Pancras and why did Scritti appropriate him? No one could give me the local significance of this saint at the time. It wasn't until I checked some obscure art history reference book on all saints major and minor back in NYC that I uncover some insignificant facts. St. Pancras was an orphan who converted to Christianity in Rome and was martyred by beheading around 300 AD at the tender age of 13. No standard iconography given -- is that a dog? -- so, hard to tell why him. He certainly looks like he's in ecstacy in that relief. Or perhaps it's 'cos the sculpture look like Green with a dog??? :-)

Now if we can only get Green on the couch and psychoanalysis him to near martyrdom, maybe, just maybe, we can uncover a St. Pancras trail...

HUGH?


Erika Chang
24.3.97

The aimless meandering curtesy of Green;
who has a habit of leaving love letters incomplete.