crammed with wondrous Old Masters makes it more evocative.
The building is ground floor only, set back one hundred paces from leafy College Road, across the bonniest lawn in the land. A wooden fence becomes a brick wall by the gateway. It feels homely, the only art gallery on earth that makes you want to move next door and live there forever. Okay, its Old Masters aren't well lit. And arrangement?
Well, a generous two out of ten. But the genuine quality slams you before you're even in the gate. They haven't yet got round to doing a full catalogue, incidentally. And you want crumpets for tea, you weary visitor? Then hie ye out, where a route march will take you to Dulwich Village's tea houses, and may you make it before hypoglycaemia lays you low.
For me, Dulwich Picture Gallery - lovely, lovely - is forever the portrait of Rembrandt's son Titus. I drew breath and went in past the counter of slides, postcards, what not.
Edward Alleyn bequeathed his collection when he popped his clogs in 1626. Since then, others have chipped in. Of course, there was some dicey goings-on about the time of Waterloo, when Sir Francis Bourgeois crated in nearly four hundred masterpieces. Some of them were assembled by a fabled art dealer called Desenfans, supposedly for Warsaw. Praise be, they ended up in Dulwich. To still greater rejoicing, Mrs Desenfans picked up the tab for the new gallery. What you now see is the restored restored gallery, seeing it got bombed in 1944. It's the best day's worth in London. Go there, and you'll see.
So I went in. The joke among dealers is, its security hasn't been improved since they took down the barrage balloons and Ack-Ack gun emplacements, which means it shouldn't be too hard to burgle. There's the usual stories, endlessly told among antique dealers, about how best to lift the lovely Van Dyck, how the security near their Poussin compares with that of their Gainsborough. Myself, I'd say their Murillo and Rubens are most vulnerable - unless they shift them on reading this - but I'm not worth listening to.
Disturbingly, the famous gallery only pretended to be English cosy, villagey dozy. There was nasty evidence of thirty-six security appliances, including the new UV sensitisors. It was unassailable, impregnable. But useful if I wanted it as a decoy.
Ignoring the stout bowler-hatted gent, who was there before me, I spent a marvellous afternoon, feeling the great artists' vibes. I was almost sick twice but went out for a breath in the nick of time. I judged windows, asked the stewards about the lighting, studiously paced the floors when I was alone. Lovejoy's Law of Theft: Patience is the vice of the artist and the virtue of the thief. I was so patient that warm afternoon. By the time I caught the train I felt replete, like you do after making smiles with a lass you truly deeply love. That's antiques for you.
To teach the trailing bloke a lesson I strolled through lovely Dulwich Village. Teatime, I caught the train at North Dulwich. I bought a ninepenny notebook and started sketching nonsensical doodles, busily counting on my fingers like planning some secret robbery. My follower hesitated. Finally, he sat in the same compartment in a sulk, probably having left his car in Dulwich. I wasn't sure who he worked for, but it hardly mattered now. Gluck? Maybe. Saintly? Possible. Whoever it was, he didn't stand an earthly. 26
THE NEAREST I ever got to monogamy, I was nineteen, barely out of the egg. Joanne (M.A., Oxoniensis) proposed. In Latin, so I had to ask what she said. Laughingly, she told me she'd already fixed things with the vicar in Broxham. It was on a bridge over a lonely river, where a fisherman was angling and massacring. Joanne told me the scene was idyllic. I agreed, because I already knew it was a woman's world.
'We'll live in that cottage,' she said mistily. She indicated remote fields.
'Er, I hate countryside,' I said, uneasy.
'I love it, Lovejoy. And,' she pointed out, 'I am wealthy. You are destitute.'
'Er, what about my antiques?' I'd actually got none. You know what I mean.
'Give them up, darling.' She was so rational. It was only my future after all. 'I'm the better judge.'
And she did have an M.A. in fine art, while I was a serf. Fair's fair.
The angler below the bridge had periodically been yanking out wriggling fish. Each time I turned away.
Suddenly Joanne screeched with laughter, clapped her hands. I looked.
The man was struggling, emitting a noise like 'Argh-argh-argh!' on and on, frantically capering about like someone demented. For a second I couldn't see why. Then I glimpsed something horrible, slimy, wrapped around his forearm. Desperately, he was endeavouring to unravel the evil beast. It seemed yards long. A snake! No, something else.
Finally he cut savagely at it with a fletching knife. It fell off onto the river bank. He kicked it into the water and sheepishly grinned up at us.
'Sorry.' He tried to pass his alarm off with aplomb. 'Bloody eels.'
Joanne fell about. 'Wasn't that hilarious?' She dabbed her eyes. 'Honestly! Townies! An absolute hoot!'
Guess how long we lasted. One thing I did learn from the encounter was that if you want to know anything about countryside, you've to safari out and ask some yokel.
Waterways meant eels. And eels meant Clatter. You 'clatter' for eels in East Anglia, hence his nickname.
He was on the river bank near the Saffron Fields lock gate.
'Stop still, Lovejooy,' he shouted. It was odd. He was facing the other way so couldn't have seen me.
Clatter's a rotund bloke in corduroys, bald as a badger, wheezes like a train, smokes a filthy pipe. He had six buckets on the bank. How he does it beats me, lying down in dank grass holding out that horrible twenty-foot long pole.
'What's on the end, Clatter?' I asked despite myself. His pole dangled a curious rope thing.
He laughed. 'What you arsk fower, booy, if ya don't wanter know?' He came to. 'It's a clat. You clat for eels with worms, Lovejooy. First, a teaspoon of mustard water down every earthworm cast in the moornin', yer gets up a load of earthworms. Thread a yard of worms on a four-foot length of wool with a needle. That's yer clat, see?'
God, lovely countryside. I almost retched.
'Make a figure-of-eight of yer wool, hang it like I'm doing into the water on yer pole.
The eels bite. Their teeth tangle in the wool, see?'
