ABSTRACT
On March 14th 1958 the Kolnais moved to their final home at 24 Hilltop Road, West Hampstead. Although the Clifton Hill flat had been a little nearer to central London, Hilltop Road was much more convenient, since it was nearer to a variety of shops and to various forms of public transport. The Kolnais’ flat occupied the top floor of a three-storey comer house, part of which had been bombed in the war and later rebuilt. It was spacious enough for their needs, with a large living room (where Aurel slept), a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom and a small hall or landing. But the huge areas of Victorian speculative housing and often dingy shops that surrounded them probably contributed greatly to Kolnai’s sense of the squalid ugliness of London, which greatly depressed him. Even the close proximity of three different railway lines could not make up for that.
