London's Cherry Blossom. Beauty and History, Joy at Your Fingertips
By Annegret Schopp-O'Dwyer
AODW Publishing (2021)
ISBN-13: 978-1527293274
Review by Carole Tongue
When I was recommended London's Cherry Blossom by my partner who is an experienced publisher, I was somewhat surprised. He actually called it ‘special’, so I became curious.
This is the first book ever about the Cherry Blossom in London. The cover is beautiful and the back cover amusing. Not many picture books have a Parrott quoting an old-time film star (Mae West!!) But at first it looked to me like any good quality picture book. Many pretty blossom pictures, a useful map at the back. Only when I engaged a little with London's Cherry Blossom did I realize it really is special. Leafing through I got drawn into the beautiful pictures as well as the texts accompanying them. As if there is a spell that makes you want to read more - just like one reviewer on Amazon said. I felt mesmerized; I do like flowers, but flower books not so much, so this was a very strange effect indeed. This is not at all a Botanical book, no Latin names to puzzle you, or too many photos of attractive blossom, that become same-ish after a while. The texts establish links between those little flowers, as the author is fond of calling them and their surroundings- the people who live there and their history. Very few comments on the current Monarchy as most guidebooks would, even a few slightly irreverent ones on the Victorian Monarchy, though also appreciation of what was accomplished in that Age. But it is the information about people like you and I that makes you want to turn the pages and the flowers just sink into your heart while you are reading. A very smart way to present a slightly niche theme like the cherry blossom!
The places chosen surprise too! And the intimate knowledge shown is amazing. Who after all has really profound knowledge of the Old Kent Road other than historians and would know that apart from the Kray twins dreadful deeds ‘’good works” were also happening there. The first hotel for women travelling alone was created near the flyover! And the peaceful co-existence nowadays of a huge but very beautiful mosque with The Second Ministry of Arms (yes, not Alms!) a few Protestant churches and many evangelical ones is rarely mentioned in the press. To find Mary Seacole on the same page as Florence Nightingale is a welcome surprise too- at last there is a mention in a “normal” book of that amazing lady. Even the RHS Chelsea Flower show in 2021 seems to have overlooked her: The Nightingale/Seacole garden could have been so much more agreeable in an age of Black Lives Matter, offering a real welcome to its black visitors. I’m told by the author that a small survey she did herself confirmed the disappointment of black visitors she spoke to. Herne Hill also is a place not many know about as a wonderful place for blossom watching, fabulous white Yoshino lined streets with lovely old houses- how “instagrammable” is that!
When inspecting the interesting bibliography I found the answer to one question that kept troubling me while enjoying my read: why is this simple book so evocative? Why are we really drawn into a Sakura spirit of contentment, joy, almost meditation? While the pictures are beautiful, they are not “art”- and not meant to be, the texts informative, but not deeply researched. So why are readers talking about these powerful, positive states reading it created for them? A little research of my own, browsing through the further reading recommendations proved useful . Much appreciation by the author for books by Naoko Abe, Sue Stuart-Smith, Christopher Harding. But then I found my answer, when William Bloom’s book on endorphins in mentioned. Bloom is the co-founder of Alternatives at St. James Piccadilly and teaches courses in Meditation/Spirituality nowadays. It seems his “strawberry exercise” is being in “flower action” here! A highly effective way of short meditations during each day are described in Bloom’s endorphin book, a way of deliberately focusing on things we love to enhance our endorphin lives. The cherry blossom is just one of those strawberries for the author, I would speculate, smuggled in by the canny writer? After all, who does not love the cherry blossom! It’s a book for the open-minded curious person, although if they can set aside their previous knowledge for those precious moments, they too might enjoy excursions all over London town and find the little flowers cheering them up without noticing.
Surprises abound but it is of course hard to classify this book. It seems to fit into none of the boxes I know: .it’s not a picture book, not a history book; it seems “trans-genre” and why not, as long as we want to turn the pages and find ourselves smiling when we do. Classifications serve good purpose often, but they also tend to box in, so to try a “trans-genre” approach fits. However for a self-publisher that choice is quite courageous. But Schopp-O’Dwyer has delivered what she intended, as it says on the front cover: ‘joy at your fingertips’. Pick it up and feeling like smiling in our pandemic times is worth the transgression, I think, jumping out of boxes is sometimes quite freeing! Of course the writer being a psychotherapist for 25 years has much to do with this and I am so glad she pursued her good intentions when publishers were not keen and self-published it. Touching to hear that a prominent psychiatrist, now suffering from debilitating dementia, smiles every time he picks it up; what greater compliment can a writer wish for; Or a lady who lives near the Old Kent Road relishing the idea of getting a new take on her area. A bizarre coincidence helped the writer with her determination: Damian Hirst’s first painting exhibition in Paris’ Fondation Cartier, Cherry Blossoms, was announced. This persuaded her that maybe she had reason to believe that there are many people ready to engage with that little cherry tree flower, after all Hirst is one of the most successful artists of our time! And to then find her book accepted by Herve Chandes for the Fondation Cartier showed that the road well-travelled was the right one.
Reviewers found that by picking up London’s Cherry Blossom, their wellbeing really is enhanced and the way we are guided gently towards further exploration is quite canny too. The author wrote the first travel guide of London in the Marco Polo Series 25 years ago, so she would have known how to write proper directions. But here she does not inform us in that straightforward way. She invites people to search elsewhere to complete their own picture of our great town. After all we all have a phone, so we chose what is of interest to us and then dig deeper! Inviting us to participate she enables rather than talks down to us as an expert. Learning can be such a joyful activity.
There are some negatives to this approach, or are we to believe that some “spellos” are part of the plan? Are they her form of kintsugi, the Japanese cultural way of appreciating imperfect things? Quoting Leonard Cohen, ‘there is a crack in everything- that’s how the light gets in! Maybe we can embrace those cracks then in a self-published book and brush them with a little gold dust too, considering the joy we experience when leafing through this beautiful, enchanting book.
William Hogarth’s friend David Garrick was on to this when he wrote on his gravestone:
Farewell great painter of Mankind.
Who reached the noblest point of art
Whose pictured morals charm the mind
And through the eye correct the heart
If genius fire thee, reader, stay
If nature touches thee, drop a tear
If neither move thee, turn away
For Hogarth’s honoured dust lies here
If those powerful pictures can do it, why not a tiny but abundantly generous and reliable flower, maybe beauty can change the heart? London's Cherry Blossom is a joy to read and a tonic in difficult times.