Heading into south-east London via docklands in early spring last year, I passed a spray of flowers propped against a wall to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Derek Jarman.
The artist lived in various riverside warehouses in the 1970s, arriving at the third floor of Block B Butler’s Wharf in 1973. During his first summer there, he wrote in his diary: “The studio is a forest of emerald-green columns, at sunrise, the ducks float in on the driftwood over a glacial river which reflects orange and vermilion, while the sun pours through the doors.” By 1979 , however, he had jettisoned the old grain warehouse, having tired of lording it over a “gay Butlins”.I’ve never been a fan of Jarman’s art or even his films, many of which feature in a new exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. As a native Londoner with a link to the neighbourhood that Jarman made his home in the 1970s, and with a passion for the Kent coast around Dungeness where …