The fourth gallery in my exhibition at the V&A "Uncle and the Splendour of Homeward" is entitled "The Towers of Homeward" and has a most splendid scale model of my home filling the entire space.
As you know, Homeward consists of hundreds of skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a most with a drawbridge over it. The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens among them, also switchback railways running from tower to tower, and water chutes from top to bottom.
There will be graphic panels describing the history of each tower - and by pressing a button on the panel you can light up the tower in question.
Here are some details of the information on the panels.
Homeward Tower – where Gleamhound and Eva live. There are two hundred storeys and they live at the top. There is a big field on the roof and they have a small house in the middle of it. He is a chemist and purveyor of medicinal remedies. They are all very good, but act the opposite way. For instance, his Headache Mixture gives you a frightful headache.
Lion Tower – it is so high that the whole tower bends in the wind. It has never been fully explored. Doctor Lyre has written a book about the history of the tower which he claims was built in 1066. Uncle, however, claims that it was built by Wizard Blenkinsop only 60 years ago. Being a great philanthropist Uncle had 144 drinking fountains erected there for the dwarfs, which you have already seen in this exhibition. At its top is Summit Station. Here it is possible to catch a train on one of the many switchback railways that link the towers of Homeward.
Standing, like a pencil, at the edge of Lion Tower is Walrus Tower. Living in the top storey of a very slender lighthouse upon this tower is Captain Walrus, and, rough old sea dog that he is, he seems really to enjoy the sensation of constant swaying.
Afghan Flats - is the highest tower and Uncle’s Aunt, Evelyn Maidy, lives there. It is not a very nice neighbourhood. It’s full of thousands of dwarfs of the most cross and irritable disposition. She only lives there because she loves domineering over the dwarfs. The tower has a spiral lift – rather like an ordinary lift but keeps going round and round.
Montague Tower – a most mysterious and baffling place houses the Closed Gallery. Each floor contains examples of only one item, The first floor has nothing but treacle bowls through the ages, the second a collection of Flemish cooking stoves, the third nothing but flamingo bird-baths. Uncle has turned it into a Pleasure Palace.
Watercress Tower – right up the side of this tower is a gigantic salmon ladder. They are like steps with water running over them. Bathing Costumes are requisite for climbing this tower. At the top is a gigantic lake mostly overgrown with watercress. This is where the Maestro and Little Lion live.
Biscuit Tower – made of biscuits.
The Haunted Tower – everyone avoids the place; the last man who tried to sleep there came out in half an hour, unable to speak and with his hair perfectly white. Each room has its own ghost – The White Terror, The Remorseful Duellist, The Wailing Murderer and Chain Dragger etc;
The Sweet Tower - Sweet Store and Chocolate Warehouse. This has hundreds of rooms all filled with coconut ice, toffee, mint rock and every kind of chocolate. The great hall is walled with toffee and floored with slab chocolate. The interior courtyard is paved with glacier mints. The boiled-sweet room has a cascade of hard sweets of all colours which pour out of a spout making a beautiful rainbow-coloured pool on the floor.
Lonely Tower – The only way to climb this tower is via a great stone staircase built in a zigzag right to the top. Here, there is a grassy plain laid out in plots with little wooden huts round the edge. The home of the Crookball people.
Ironside Tower – houses the Antique Shop of Steiner Brashbag. He used to have very little business due to the lack of entrances until a tunnel was dug through the tower.
Treacle Tower – is of course infamous for the Treacle Trouble it caused.
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Buy my Biographies in America here and here
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