Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: A quick guide
From the Writers Trail:
B) Harold Pinter 1947-2008. Playwright: Wrote The Caretaker when he lived in a first floor flat in Chiswick in the 1950s and 60s, and a tramp was invited to stay. Screenwriter: The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Betrayal. Oscar nominee, Best Adapted Screenplay 1981, 1983. Nobel Prize for Literature 2005.
373 Chiswick High Road, W4 4AG (Private house, no access)
From the 2020 Chiswick Book Festival:
Harold Pinter at 90: From Chiswick & The Caretaker to the Nobel Prize – Lady Antonia Fraser & Michael Billington
From Flickr (courtesy Jim Linwood):
373 Chiswick High Road – Where Harold Pinter Wrote The Caretaker
.
373 Chiswick High Road, West London:
Where Harold Pinter Wrote The Caretaker.
“Pinter wrote The Caretaker while living in a first floor flat in Chiswick High Road at number 373 [on the left of the photo]. The events that happen in the play are a fairly close transcription of real events. Pinter and his wife Vivien and their very young son Daniel were living in this very modest two room and there was a kindly man who looked after the flat for his brother, in real life his name was Austin. One day Austin brought a tramp he’d met in a café back to the house and the tramp stayed for two or three weeks. Pinter knew the tramp very slightly and then one day he looked through an open door and saw Austin with his back to the tramp gazing out into the garden and the tramp busy putting stuff back into some kind of grubby hold-all, obviously being given his marching orders. All this matters because it then becomes the bones of the plot of The Caretaker. The Caretaker is not an absolute record of reality but it’s based on real events and very closely on that particular part of West London.”
Michael Billington, Pinter’s biographer – ‘Harold Pinter’
Playwright wins Nobel Prize for Literature
The Nobel Prize: Harold Pinter
Renowned Playwright and Political Activist Harold Pinter Dies
Harold Pinter, 373 Chiswick High Road: Notable Abodes
373 Chiswick High Road – Where Harold Pinter Wrote The Caretaker
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee
Commemorative plaque for Chiswick home of actor Donald Pleasance
(nominated for a Tony for his performance in The Caretaker)
Read more stories via the Writers Tales page.