LONDON TOWN
Down Memory Lane
THE CLOCK on the concourse at Paddington Station read 15.45 as I passed through the ticket barrier. I had been given the opportunity to make what was, for me, a very nostalgic return visit to London. Although I was born and brought up there, my last visit had been in 1979 - whilst en route from Algarve to a holiday in Tunisia. As a youngster, I used to take bus journeys on a Saturday morning from my home in the leafy suburbs of South London up to the West End and spend a few hours wandering the streets before returning home. I remember Paddington from those days, when I used to stand and gaze at the magnificent steam engines as they prepared to set off on their journeys to the West of England. There had been a magic about the place as the smoke mingled with all the other smells of a busy railway terminus.
This time I was a little apprehensive about my visit. All I had seen of the capital for the past 27 years had been on television. I remember the images on Sky News of people sleeping rough in cardboard boxes in doorways of shops in The Strand; of the down-and-outs spending the nights under Charing Cross bridge being visited by a much-concerned Prince Charles; of street riots and IRA terrorist bombings. How would I feel about 'coming home' after all those years? When I set out to answer that question after breakfast the next morning, I was comforted during the short bus journey to Marble Arch to see that little had changed - so far. The magnificent facades of the Natural History and Victoria and Albert museums were as impressive as I remembered them and the early-morning frost still glistened on the grass of Hyde Park, where I recalled the horses cantering along Rotten Row. Along Knightsbridge the big windows of Harrods departmental store were dressed for Christmas - a glittering reindeer in each one alongside the merchandise. So far - so good, I thought, as the bus reached Oxford Street and I got off. The rest of my journey was to be on foot, exploring that part of the West End where I spent endless days and evenings in the 1950s and 60s.
It was here that nostalgia received its first jolt. Oxford Street, once full of smart stores and shops, had now become a kind of bazaar. Cut-price shops side by side, stretches of giant tarpaulins and scaffolding probably heralding the arrival of yet more but, in the middle of all this - reassuringly, I thought - Selfridges. Once the brightest and best of the street's stores at Christmas, the windows, with garish pink surrounds, were now unimaginatively dressed. Inside, where once there was bustle, bored-looking assistants tended endless perfumery counters devoid of customers. Outside again I headed for Regent Street where, surely, things couldn't have changed that much. The ultra-smart facade of Liberty's store still dominated the north end but little else remained as I had remembered. I made eagerly for Hamley's - the nation's No.1 toy shop. As a child, and in later years, I would go there, gaze through the crammed windows and race upstairs to the first floor, where a model train lay-out attracted and captivated children of all ages. Alas, it was no longer there. Of course, today's kids can no longer enjoy that special magic of rail travel at which we, with longer memories, marvelled.
The next part of my journey took me past the London Palladium, once London's premier variety theatre, but now just another venue for a revived old musical or an Andrew Lloyd Webber production. It was closed at present, preparing for the grand Christmas show, "Scrooge" starring Tommy Steele. Now Tommy would know what I'm going on about. In the late 1950s he was Britain's first rock and roll singer/guitarist - our answer to Elvis Presley. He was discovered performing in a Soho cafe in the days when Soho was a thriving, vibrant 'village' with its own identity - the home of pop music and London's sex industry. Years later, when he was famous, he returned to play the part of Buttons in the pantomime "Cinderella" - at the Palladium. It was to Soho that I next went - a close-knit square of narrow streets which used to sport some of the finest restaurants in London and some of the most colourful pubs. Regretfully, this is no longer the case. In vain I searched for the pubs where writers, actors, musicians and satirists of the day held court. They have all either been pulled down or re-styled with such modern, attractive names as 'The Slug and Lettuce' or 'The Pickled Pig". The music and film industries have largely re-located elsewhere. The old-style 'strip joints' - where, at one of which, I remember I once auditioned for a piano-playing job - have been replaced by more acceptable 'Adult Theatres'. The Chinese Quarter, though, was a revelation. It has actually expanded and is full of brightly-coloured tea shops, grocery stores and restaurants. It was a happy note on which to end my day - not, as I had thought, at one of the old landmarks with a glass of wine and a salt-beef sandwich in my hand, but with a pot of China tea and a crispy sweet pastry - and much more healthy.
MICHAEL JOHNSON |
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