Rain on the Pavements

Not sure where to start with this, but the mystery behind this book has led me on a somewhat obsessive goose chase. Until we moved it had been languishing on my bookshelf for several months and mostly slipped my mind.

Roland Camberton only published two novels during his lifetime and after Rain on the Pavements in 1951, he then vanished almost without a trace, never publishing anything again.

Camberton was another Hackney writer and was born Henry Cohen. Little is still known about his life and he died relatively young in 1965. He served in the RAF during the war and adopted the pen name “Camberton” as a non-Jewish pseudonym that combined the areas of Camberwell and Brixton. The novel is a semi-autobiographical take that traces the young protagonist’s journey from his orthodox upbringing to his explorations with his uncle into the wider world of London - from the cafes and pubs of Soho, to clashes with Mosleyite fascists on Cable Street, and separate meetings with Zionists and Young Communist Party members in smoke-filled basements.

No one has done more than Iain Sinclair to uncover details about Camberton and his “lost years.” In addition to a stripped down audio tape recorded with William S. Burroughs in a Chelsea pub, there is reportedly also a lost manuscript of a hitchhiking journey across the UK and Europe. But apart from his two novels, nothing else has ever surfaced.

For a long time only those close to the author knew where he was buried. But following Sinclair’s digging, he uncovered significantly more and found out that he left behind a daughter and is buried at Rainham Jewish Cemetery under his birth name, Henry Cohen.

The second photo above is a dedication note from a separate copy of Scamp I found online. Whoever Gordon and Joyce were, it’s clear they knew the author on a personal level as Henry Cohen. At the end of the inscription, the name “Camberton” is written in quotations. Just another open shred that leaves more questions than answers.

I’ve added a little bit more from Iain Sinclair to fill in some of the gaps. Here is a link to the full investigative search from 2008.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/30/fiction