When I awoke this morning Jane was alive.
I took the subway to Leicester Square and walked down in a light rain past my favourite London alley, one that passed for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies. I like how for we the living, amidst the grey, fantasy brightens things up. The “Diagon” stores were not open yet, and later when I returned, walking past various theatres, the alley stores were closed.
Today I witnessed, as we are all traveling through time to meet our Maker, the teenage Jane Grey being gently assisted by a decades-older balding man, on her way to death. Another man stood by, ready to do the lethal (injection) thing, looking both hardened and, even though Jane had been “found guilty,” sympathetic too. I stood long enough, in room 38, to notice something I had previously somehow missed: one of Jane’s two companions wore ample jewelry, treasures that she would have given away to save Lady Jane’s life, if possible, goods that could never make the transit to the next world. As Ecclesiastes notes, “all is vanity.” Sic transit gloria.
Being tired, I couldn’t “stand easy.” I stood still, my knees and thighs locked, so I could look long at the great painting. Behind me people streamed by, some of them smiling or smirking with unknown humours. If they’re happy, I’m happy. The bench I had used in previous years has been removed.
I don’t like that change, or changes in general. Downstairs in Muriel’s Kitchen, I thought some of the tables have been removed, but I can’t say, and neither could the couple to my left that I got into conversation with, after I had told the husband he could take my table. They only see five rooms per visit, and hadn’t got to room 38 yet. “A sensible plan” approved the interested lady to my right. I invited her to shift over on her bench, as I stood with my coat on, and indeed she moved along the wall bench a half-seat. We four got into conversation because I proudly held up the picture I bought, by a women artist with four names. “She’s my hero,” said the lady, who works here at the National Gallery, and teaches classes of students traveling from the US. “What? They’ve removed the bench?” She didn’t like that change.
The couple, in from Manchester, had tickets to an Arther Miller play, one that I had read and the husband had seen. We didn’t blab the ending to the wife; a play too powerful for me to experience when I already knew the moment of catharsis. Hollywood actor Bryan Cranston plays the father in All My Children. We four talked of plays, and a local children’s theatre.
At one point, after nodding, “I like teaching too,” I gave an “elevator speech” about Toastmasters International, including how I had taken lightly-mounted pictures from home to teach about modern art —then with my “quick speech” finished, went “whew!” And adroitly turned the conversation over to the couple.
Lady Jane has almost vanished from our memory. She was the queen of England once, something not widely known. Were it not for the classic painting, few indeed would know. In the gift shop I found a stupidly dark and small copy of The Execution… : Not worth my wall space. As it turns out, Jane is not the only person, or category of innocent people, to disappear from our consciousness.
Or should I say, “be disappeared”? Because earlier today I was in the adjoining National Portrait Gallery, behind Trafalgar Square. Don’t think boring “head shots,” think quirky pop posters from my own lifetime. Think of centuries before cameras were invented, of portraits packed with symbolism, personal messages and sociology. The most memorable thing to me was in a dark separate room: a film about people, and groups, and an entire gender, sucked down the memory hole.
Such a documentary! As an essayist I enjoyed the craft: No schoolchild topic sentence, no jarring table of contents so that people expect being taken by the hand, sleepy or impatient, on a pre-determined journey. Rather, each new direction is worth watching as an end in itself. This doc is artistic, beginning with the narrator saying that when she was a girl she liked looking at faces in old pictures. Her sentences, over big captions, are delivered without the usual spoken word variable flow, but instead are subtly like that drama exercise where the student reads one sentence at a time, lowering the script after each “full stop,” also called a “period.” Because each documentary sentence is worth attending to. And sometimes, instead of an interesting portrait on the screen for escape, there is a close up of a plant or something, so the viewer may ponder the words—but only if the viewer chooses to, as the gentle words, and soft Socratic questions, are disturbing, as art often is.
I was reminded that neither coincidence nor genetic inferiority accounts for the dearth of women painters, and a Black genius could not legally register a patent, and Alan Turing is on the fifty pound note while the lady who invented computers is gone, and our social memory hole means our society has lost… something…
Jane and all the forgotten once knew tonight’s rain. My screen glows against the dark.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
London
February
2026
Blog continuity: I guess this essay continues the idea that yes, a tourist can talk with the locals. I had replied that I only go to London, because I have already seen much of Europe when I was stationed in West Germany. Then I remembered: back in those days, although I conversed easily with my buddies, whenever we traveled I stayed quiet and always let others take the initiative. I’m so pleased that somehow, down the years, I too have learned how to mingle!
Oh ya, the artist I bought is Elizabeth Louise Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, 1782
