Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: A quick guide
Like JG Ballard, the artist Sir Peter Blake liked walking with his daughter in the gardens of Chiswick House, and he painted her there. See Sir Peter Blake at Chiswick House.
From the Writers Trail:
F) JG Ballard 1930-2009. Novelist: Empire of the Sun, Crash. Lived in a flat in Chiswick in the 1950s and wrote short stories before moving to Shepperton and writing full-time.
69 Barrowgate Road, W4 4QS. (Private house, no access)
JG Ballard lived here: Flickr
JG Ballard obituary: The Guardian
See more in Chiswick’s Timeline of Writers and Books in the April issue of The Chiswick Lifestyle Magazine
JG Ballard loved to walk with his family in the gardens of Chiswick House, close to his home in 69 Barrowgate Road, where he lived from around 1955 to 1957. He and his wife had previously lived at 30 Fairlawn Avenue, close to Chiswick Park tube station. They still used to enjoy days out at Chiswick House after the family moved to St Margaret’s in Twickenham, before moving to Shepperton, where he lived for nearly 50 years.
Guardian obituary: JG Ballard
Ballard’s daughter, the artist Fay Ballard, drew this picture of him with her as a baby in his arms. It was drawn from a photograph that she found after his death in 2009, as she describes here:
Omen Drawings, by Fay Ballard
These pencil drawings show me in the arms of my mother (below) and father (above) in late 1957. They were based on posed photographs taken by my father, the novelist, JG Ballard, and my mother, Mary. The location is Chiswick House Gardens, close to the family’s home.
The title ‘Omen’ refers to my mother’s impending death, seven years after this photo was taken. She died suddenly of pneumonia while on holiday in Spain, aged 34. We buried her in the city cemetery of Alicante and returned home.
The drawings are based on a pair of small 6” x 4” black and white photographic prints. My mother’s sister, Peggy, gave me a print of my mother and me when I visited her with my own baby daughter in 1997, aged 40. Mary had given this print of herself to Peggy soon after it was taken. After my father’s death in 2009, I discovered the companion photograph in his study and reunited these two images, conscious of being the common link in 1957 and in 2009.
When I visited Chiswick House Gardens to see the Sphinx, it had moved location from the front garden to the rear since these photos were taken in 1957.
Fay Ballard said her father would have loved to see the Chiswick Timeline mural under the bridges at Turnham Green tube station:
My father drove past that station every weekend for years on the way to visit his girlfriend in the Goldhawk Road. I know it well, as it was on my route to Shepperton too. I recall visiting the studios of Mary Fedden and Julian Trevelyan on the river at Hammersmith just behind Fullers.
Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail
Read more stories via the Writers Tales page.