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Tuesday 14 May 2019

National Institute for Medical Research. The Ridgeway Mill Hill London



Construction start 1938. Sadly torn down for new housing in 2018.

The copper clad roof on the skyline called “The Lavatory Window view”  
in my home in the 1950s.


©MRC

Formal names.
  • 'The National Institute for Medical Research' - NIMR - from 1937 to 2015
  • ‘The Francis Crick Institute – Mill Hill Laboratory’ From 1 April 2015 for a short period to its vacation and move to the Francis Crick Institute in Camden by the end of 2016.
Other names have included.
  •  ‘The Mill Hill Depot’ or ‘HMS Pembroke’ when occupied by the WRNS from 1942 to 1946.
  •  ‘Dales Folly’ by those who did not agree with the move from Hampstead to Mill Hill in 1950. This after Sir Henry Dale the NIMR Director from 1928 to 1942.     
  •   Nikolaus Pevsner rather insultingly called the building a ‘bulky, brown brick colossus.'
  • The original 'cruciform property and sprawl of industrial boxed buildings' should never have been allowed in first place. Recent comment by a Mill Hill resident.
Since the middle of February 2019 I have been collecting pictures and stories about the building structure as an obituary and scrap-book because I would be sad if the building were forgotten. There are several publications about the people and their achievements, including the excellent MRC book recording the 100 years of NIMR. So I do not want to duplicate these.

I have a number of pictures from the time of its opening in 1950 and post vacation in 2016 but few in-between. Any photos taken during its construction from 1938 to 1940 and while occupied by the WRNS would be welcome.

I know at least one other person who has catalogued the building’s history. Several have written webposts. I would like to make contact with any others or people who worked there who have views on the building design as a place in which to work.

To make contact just use comment below or email - Alexander@allrighters.com. Thanks.

Welcome to the fantasy home of the Allrighters



Why continue with this web site?

While trying in February and March 2019 to put together eighty years of history into a book about the now demolished National Institute for Medical Research Building in Mill Hill London the fickle nature of the internet became apparent. Even over a few weeks historical research information on sites came and went with much being un-archived. All the time I speculated whether others were also travelling the same road with each of us unaware of our existence. I found one person and am sure there are more.

Also I wondered if there might be out there in the ether someone who enjoys self publishing but struggles with writing who might want to discuss taking on some of the Allrighters million draft words of fantasy fiction and publish them.

Two long shots, but thinking as my self publisher Duncan - if you do not tell people of your hopes they will not know you exist. We are but an email away.

This site was originally set up in 2013 at about the same time as the Allrighters first book Ywnwab! You Will Never Write A Book was being prepared for publication with contributions from other authors.

During the last couple of weeks the landing page has been redesigned to reflect the results of making a start to writing. Apart from a six monthly update this page will remain static. The action will take place on this blog page. 

There are links to this Writing and Reading for Pleasure Blog and also to the old pages as an Archive. Only the first page of the archive has been updated. On the other pages some web sites are no longer accessible as mentioned in the first sentence above.

Enjoy our blog posts ...

 

Monday 13 May 2019


2019 Reflections

In a month's time I will have been writing for nine years which despite various ups and downs has overall all been an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

I see my last blog post was nearly two years ago.

Just because there appears to be no activity on the surface does not mean nothing has been happening. Like a duck much has been happening out of sight in trying to bring all my writing of over a million words in over a dozen books up to manuscript proof stage.

Earlier this year 2019 I thought I would close my blog and web site down in July 2019 but during the last few weeks I decided I would give the site another two years life. This goes past the June 2020 date when I will have been a writer for ten years when I thought I may put down my pen for good. I tend to get involved in leisure activities for about five years when I get bored and move onto new activities. Perhaps writing is different and in any case there is nothing yet on the horizon to take its place ... except aging and the footsteps of the Grim Reaper getting closer behind me.

The nine years since 1 June 2010 seem to have flashed by.  Each year has produced its share of navigation adjustments.

From June 2010. I started writing in the belief I could learn by doing. By accident I had got over the big hurdle of making a start which stops other potential writers, no doubt because I like Goethe's idea about making a beginning when doors will then open.
 
After a month an old friend said acidly, "You will never write a book." Looking back now this probably provided an enormous spur to prove her wrong. When a child when asked at a family gathering what I wanted to be when I grew up I said a scientist. An aunt fixated "by one's station in life" said I was too big for my boots. Again looking back nearly seventy years later I feel this again sowed a seed of rebellion for me to make more of my life than others in earlier generations. Circumstances were different as they had come through two world wars and a depression. But as promised in the Festival of Britain 1951 life was going to be better with more opportunities, and yes I have made my own luck on the way.

By the end of 2010 I had written 100k of unusual modern fantasy fiction in "my way," towards my million words in three yeras target. I then set about reading the Teach Yourself book my daughter had given me about writing in July. To 2010 although I had read more nonfiction than fiction the story-books I enjoyed told straight forward stories and there was not much "show not tell,"  or "three act structures." I could not understand why editors and publishers would want to rewrite "my" stories to make them "their" stories.

In 2011 I sensed that I needed to test the water and engaged two editors, selectred as they would not try to make my book their book, to comment on my first book - GEMINI. They both said my book was unusual and I had broken many "rules of the literary world!" If I had interpreted this "as do not bother," I could have stopped than. As I did not have a very high opinion of the literary world bracketting them with my aunt resting at her station I carried on.

By January 2014 I completed a million draft words. This seven months later than planned. The reason for this  being during 2012 and 2013 I did try very had to "write as one is supposed to write" and in reading too many blogs written by those who knew how to write. The penny did drop in the end that many of them had either not written many books nor if they had did the reviews match there advice.  The two shining exceptions being Stephen King in his "On Writing" book and John Braine's similar "How to write a novel"

In May and June 2013 I put together a small story-book titled "Ywnwab!" - You will never write a book - to go on sale at the Tenby Festival and Penfro book fair in September. In July and August I went through the tedious and painful process of preparing the book for printing in hard copy and ebook by York Publishing. Of course they knew and were experts at what they were doing and I as usual was learning by doing. The printed producy was excellent despite my text not being up to the same standard. I sold a few and gave away many but as I had not ordered many I have not been left with a garage full of unsold books.

In 2015 and 2016 I struggled to make progress in turning my million words into final books. My target of writing 1000 words a day to complete my million words was a great success. I failed to find a similar driver for editing rewriting and completing. Over the six years my first book GEMINI had taken too much of my time and grown to over 400k words and been broken down into 20k chunks before ending up as a trilogy. During this period I also decided I would write and read for pleasure and not bother about marketing and selling any books. I started using Autocrit which proved a great help and decided on my writing style as present active. I 2016 I did a few hours writing consultancy on a book conversion.

During 2017 I started writing a monthly blog for TIPM and did so for a year before reducing the contributions to twice a year. I also gave up reading many web sites where the same content was coming around again. My reading words also dropped sharply as most attention was given to completing books now using Style Writer for self editing. Late in 2017 I discovered Dox direct and managed to learn the uploading process for main text and covers. By the end of 2018 I had over a dozen books printed up in A5 format including the Original GEMINI of 2011 ans a second edition of Ywnwab! in A5.

In 2019 I expected to carry on  with the remaining fantasy fiction books. However for the first six weeks of the year the housework and repairs neglected for the previous eight years caught up with me. Then I have spent the last two months working on a non-fiction work about the NIMR building in Mill Hill London. This involved much research building on work done in the early 1980s on a project essay. This showed me how fickle the internet can be on retaining history and also getting people with information to share ones own enthusiasm.

I have also reviewed the Allrighters web site. A new home page tracks what happened after I made a start in writing on 1 June 2010. The results, a précis of this post, show what is possible by writing a few new words everyday. The old site is retained as an unamended archive. I am having to remember how to write a blog. Since my last post Data Protection Law has changed.



Your privacy is respected. Allrighters will endeavour to treat any information held about you under Data Protection Law. You can ask what data is held, amend or delete it or opt out of receiving updates by contacting us at Alexander@allrighters.co.uk


Good writing and reading to you all.