FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
The Beauty, Quiet and Idyllic Nature of East Wickham Farm
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IN this new feature…
PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Moorhouse/Getty Images
I am going to focus on various aspects of Kate Bush’s life and career. A real tour around her home, heart, work and legacy. Taking in various different sides of her personality and some key moments. In the first part, I am taking things back pretty much to the beginning. The house where she grew up in. East Wickham Farm was this sanctuary and paradise. Inspired by Graeme Thomson’s writing in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, I have been compelled to write about Kate Bush’s life. I might take it chronologically and follow the biography. Take parts from it. I wanted to start out with what Thomson’s words right near the beginning. Thomson paints this beautiful picture of East Wickham Farm. If you want to know more about this special place, you can read more here and here. It is in Welling, Kent (though I think it may technically fall within Greater London). Still in the family, it was a home and hearth that saw the very young Kate Bush (Catherine/Cathy) drink in all the art and music around her. The influence of her siblings, Jay and Paddy. Her mother, Hannah, and her father, Robert. The fact that her mother especially was incredibly sweet and embraced everyone. That definitely rubbed off on Bush. That warmth and sense of hospitality. Graeme Thomson notes how Kate Bush’s speaking voice is closer to her father’s. Her Irish mother’s musical tastes and heritages had their own impact. The home was once almost isolated and stood without much companionship.
“By the time Bush had started primary school in the early Sixties, only the back of the house backed onto open land. The scrubland of ‘Fanny on the Hill’, stretching away to the north-east towards Plumstead Cemetery”. Into the 1960s, East Wickham Farm was in the same road and area as modern properties. However, there was this privacy. Thicket of trees and a fence meant that there was a carapace. This meant the Bush family was not exposed to the glares of passing traffic and people. It remains this almost old-fashioned and idiosyncratic house that has not drastically changed since Bush lived there in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I think of East Wickham Farm and I picture nature, escape and pure tranquillity. I have talked about the spot before. However, in light of re-reading Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, my imagination has been stoked once more. You can learn even more about the history of East Wickham Farm/Farmhouse here. As Graeme Thomson notes in his book, there were myriad corners and crooks the young Kate Bush could immerse herself in. I often chart some of her earliest songs to her home and garden. The fact that she had nature and some rural escape within this space. One that was so close to a major city. In her brother’s book, Cathy (Jay/John Carder Bush is a photographer that shot his sister from the 1960s through to 2011), you can see the young girl relaxed and curious.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush poses at East Wickham Farm in September 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Moorhouse/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
These black-and-white photos give you a sense of the wonder and peace that she enjoyed growing up. The mixture of beauty, horror, light and dark that you get from all the sides; contours and historic aspects of East Wickham Farm fed into Kate Bush’s music. Definitely so much of Hounds of Love – Kate Bush’s fifth studio album, released in 1985 – is connected with both her time growing up in East Wickham Farm and the fact she returned and recorded there for the album. There was this bubble and cocoon. Almost in its own universe, the fertile and extraordinary energy of East Wickham Farm was evident to anyone who visited. When Kate Bush was young, there was this access to beautiful gardens, farmland and animals. Among the pets were rabbits, Winkle and Took. Hippy-like, eccentric, pre-Raphaelite and secluded, the Bushes would have their weekly shopping delivered. There were plans for the family to move out to Australia/New Zealand when their daughter was six. That was abandoned. I think where an artist grows up and what they experience affects not only their music and personality but the way they interact with people and see the world. For Kate Bush, she had this very comfortable and loving environment. The range of music, arts and television. The literature around the house. The Irish influence from her mother and the English from her father. This almost too picturesque scene! I often think of how Kate Bush would have been in her bedroom thinking about music. Images from around her home and garden flooding her mind. Consider how she had this space and support. Even though the Bush family were not rich, they were not struggling like many people were in the 1950s and 1960s. Not only did Bush absorb music from her parents. She was growing up at a time when artists like The Beatles, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie were coming through.
Think of some of the songs that can be traced back to East Wickham Farm. From Under the Ivy to A Coral Room through to Warm and Soothing, Oh England My Lionheart and In Search of Peter Pan. All those early demos written in and around East Wickham Farm. There is so much heritage, history and tapestry. I think an entire book can be written about East Wickham Farm. From the time Kate Bush was born through to how it was still this real home to her in the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps, when her mother died in 1992, there was this sense that part of her home and childhood died too. I often imagine what it was like growing up at East Wickham Farm. The warm summers where Kate Bush and her family were around the garden and farmhouse. In the winter, it would have been frosty and snow-covered. At all times, there was physical and meteorological inspiration. In the first part of this series, I wanted to give a sense of the home in which Kate Bush grew up. Thanks to Graeme Thomson for his invaluable book, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. I felt as though, when reading his book, I was transported to East Wickham Farm in the 1960s. Imagining this close and creative family bonded by the energy and unique atmosphere. I picture the young Kate Bush walking down the house stairs, through this beautiful living room, into the garden, by the duck pond, past the flowers, where she makes her way…
UNDER the ivy.