East End Desire Paths

Magnificent strudel kindly baked with the sweet new Rosette apples of the season by Head Chef, Farokh Talati of St John Bread & Wine, for this Sunday’s tour of Whitechapel. Click here to book your ticket for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR OF WHITECHAPEL this Sunday 23rd August at 2pm In Weavers’ Fields Who can resist the appeal of the path worn solely by footsteps? I was never convinced by John Bunyan’s pilgrim who believed salvation lay in sticking exclusively to the straight path – detours and byways always held greater attraction for me. My experience of life has been that there is more to be discovered by stepping from the tarmac and meandering off down the dusty track, and so I delight in the possibility of liberation offered by these paths which appear year after year, in complete disregard to those official routes laid out by the parks department. It is commonly believed that the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard invented the notion of “desire paths” (lignes de désir) to describe…