History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

In the 1950s and 60s I read articles by the highly regarded jazz writer, Leonard Feather in Down Beat and Melody Maker. From his detailed knowledge of numerous New York musicians, I always assumed he was American, but in fact he was born in 1914 at No.93 Teignmouth Road, just off Walm Lane in Willesden.    In his autobiography he said his father Nathaniel Feather owned a chain of clothing stores and he was brought up in a strictly conformist upper middle class Jewish family. When he was eleven the family moved to No.18 Bracknell Gardens Hampstead. While business was good, they had servants, and a Daimler car driven by a chauffeur.  Leonard studied classical piano and clarinet from an early age while secretly loving popular music. About the age of fifteen he came across Louis Armstrong’s recording of ‘West End Blues’. He said: ‘I was hooked. Though I was not to realize it for many years, this episode in the listening room of the record shop, not long before I turned fiftee...

In the early 1960s I was listening to jazz and reading the ‘Beat’ writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso. Recently, while researching Priory Road in West Hampstead, I found a 1984 interview by Dave Moore with Seymour Wyse who was born there. Then in 1939 he moved to New York where he became a friend of Jack Kerouac. Seymour returned to London and died in May 2015 in Kingston Upon Thames. Seymour was the son of Harry Wyse, a doctor, and Lilian Lipson who married in Hampstead in 1921. Seymour was born two years later in 34 Priory Road West Hampstead, and his younger brother Derek was born in 1926. In May 1939, with the threat of War, Lilian, Seymour and Derek, sailed to New York on the Ile de France. (In the interview Seymour thought they arrived in March, but the passenger list shows they arrived in New York on 10 May 1939). Seymour aged 16, loved jazz and as he says in the interview, was thrilled to meet members of the Duke Ellington band on the ship returning to Ameri...