Suggs and the City: Journeys Through Disappearing London Read Online Free Page B
Author: Suggs
successful and tremendously talented British pop group. I’m wondering now whatever did happen to BB 170!
Obviously the demise of small business isn’t just a Soho phenomenon - it’s a familiar tale on the high streets of cities everywhere - but because Soho is essentially a village, their passing is more noticeable and keenly felt. However, Bar Italia is still doing business after all this time and will probably do so for many years to come, because not only is it popular with the hip brigade, it also has very strong ties with London’s Italian community - you only have to be around when Italy are playing a footie match to see that. Thousands of Italians gathered outside the cafe for the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy, despite the fact that there was little or no chance of seeing any of the game on the two TV screens which are located at the back of the bar. Those of you who haven’t yet seen the game and don’t want to know the result, please turn away now. Italy won! Funnily enough, I watched the game on TV in a bar in southern Italy and it was followed by the news, which included a report from London showing the Italian crowd celebrating outside Bar Italia. Quite a surreal moment for me and, by all accounts, a pretty messy affair for them. Having failed to stock up on ticker tape, the Polledri family decided to throw the next best thing from the windows above: pasta. Good job England didn’t win: King Edwards could have done some serious damage.
After my caffeine fix and a spot of people-watching, it’s time once again to follow in the footsteps of Farson. His next port of call was the York Minster. A trek to the cathedral of Yorkshire’s county town does seem an awfully long way to go just for a tiny measure of claret and a wafer-thin canapé, but fortunately I don’t have to go that far: the York Minster is the former name of the famous French House pub on Dean Street, which is a relief because I believe you have to confirm your membership of the former club in order to partake of the wine, and I didn’t even make it to the font.
Back in 1951, Daniel Farson moseyed over to ‘the French’, as it has always been known, as soon as the doors opened at 11.30 a.m. for a few glasses of shampoo and a chinwag with the pub’s legendary landlord, Gaston Berlemont. The pub was a rendezvous for the French Resistance during the Second World War and, allegedly, the location where Charles de Gaulle drew up his Free French call-to-arms speech. Gaston, who was born in an upstairs room shortly after his father took over the pub in 1914, sported a huge handlebar moustache and was a master of diplomacy when it came to ejecting troublesome customers. ‘I’m afraid one of us is going to have to leave, and it’s not going to be me’ was his signature line when such action needed to be taken. Indeed, Daniel Farson was diplomatically banished from the French by Gaston on many occasions, which is no surprise when you understand that he was cut from the same cloth as his contemporaries, whom he describes as being such reckless drinkers ‘that when they met the next morning they had to ask if they needed to apologise for the day before’.
I remember Gaston well because he was still running the pub right up until his retirement on Bastille Day 1989. Unlike Farson, I don’t think I was ever benignly booted out of the pub, but we do share something in common at the French: among the many black-and-white photographs of movie stars, politicians, aviators, boxers and legendary drinkers that adorn the walls of this bijou boozer, there happens to be one of him and another featuring my ugly mug.
All the legendary Soho drinkers of the 50s were regulars at the French, including Dylan Thomas, who, before he went plastered into that dark night, left his one and only manuscript of Under Milk Wood under a table in the bar following a night on the lash. Amazing he managed to misplace it, as that’s where he ended up
Obviously the demise of small business isn’t just a Soho phenomenon - it’s a familiar tale on the high streets of cities everywhere - but because Soho is essentially a village, their passing is more noticeable and keenly felt. However, Bar Italia is still doing business after all this time and will probably do so for many years to come, because not only is it popular with the hip brigade, it also has very strong ties with London’s Italian community - you only have to be around when Italy are playing a footie match to see that. Thousands of Italians gathered outside the cafe for the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy, despite the fact that there was little or no chance of seeing any of the game on the two TV screens which are located at the back of the bar. Those of you who haven’t yet seen the game and don’t want to know the result, please turn away now. Italy won! Funnily enough, I watched the game on TV in a bar in southern Italy and it was followed by the news, which included a report from London showing the Italian crowd celebrating outside Bar Italia. Quite a surreal moment for me and, by all accounts, a pretty messy affair for them. Having failed to stock up on ticker tape, the Polledri family decided to throw the next best thing from the windows above: pasta. Good job England didn’t win: King Edwards could have done some serious damage.
After my caffeine fix and a spot of people-watching, it’s time once again to follow in the footsteps of Farson. His next port of call was the York Minster. A trek to the cathedral of Yorkshire’s county town does seem an awfully long way to go just for a tiny measure of claret and a wafer-thin canapé, but fortunately I don’t have to go that far: the York Minster is the former name of the famous French House pub on Dean Street, which is a relief because I believe you have to confirm your membership of the former club in order to partake of the wine, and I didn’t even make it to the font.
Back in 1951, Daniel Farson moseyed over to ‘the French’, as it has always been known, as soon as the doors opened at 11.30 a.m. for a few glasses of shampoo and a chinwag with the pub’s legendary landlord, Gaston Berlemont. The pub was a rendezvous for the French Resistance during the Second World War and, allegedly, the location where Charles de Gaulle drew up his Free French call-to-arms speech. Gaston, who was born in an upstairs room shortly after his father took over the pub in 1914, sported a huge handlebar moustache and was a master of diplomacy when it came to ejecting troublesome customers. ‘I’m afraid one of us is going to have to leave, and it’s not going to be me’ was his signature line when such action needed to be taken. Indeed, Daniel Farson was diplomatically banished from the French by Gaston on many occasions, which is no surprise when you understand that he was cut from the same cloth as his contemporaries, whom he describes as being such reckless drinkers ‘that when they met the next morning they had to ask if they needed to apologise for the day before’.
I remember Gaston well because he was still running the pub right up until his retirement on Bastille Day 1989. Unlike Farson, I don’t think I was ever benignly booted out of the pub, but we do share something in common at the French: among the many black-and-white photographs of movie stars, politicians, aviators, boxers and legendary drinkers that adorn the walls of this bijou boozer, there happens to be one of him and another featuring my ugly mug.
All the legendary Soho drinkers of the 50s were regulars at the French, including Dylan Thomas, who, before he went plastered into that dark night, left his one and only manuscript of Under Milk Wood under a table in the bar following a night on the lash. Amazing he managed to misplace it, as that’s where he ended up
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