Suggs and the City: Journeys Through Disappearing London (3 page)

This stumbling block didn’t prevent a number of Soho characters I knew in the early 70s from regularly chancing their drinking arms in the hope of hoisting a few before the milkman delivered and, for others, the pubs of Covent Garden were the last port of call after a night out. It didn’t work for everyone though: apparently the barman of the Coach and Horses on Wellington Street in Covent Garden was gunned down by a Canadian soldier during the Second World War after refusing to serve him an early-morning drink. Which seems a trifle harsh, even by Soho standards.

Daniel Farson took his coffee at Torino’s cafe on the corner of Dean Street and Old Compton Street. This was a popular rendezvous for poets and artists in the 50s and was run, as most Soho cafes were back then, by an Italian family. The attraction of this place was that the owners not only allowed credit, they also permitted customers to sit and talk for hours over a small cup of ‘real’ coffee. Unfortunately, Soho said
arrivederci
to Torino’s long ago, but not to worry, there’s an establishment of a similar vintage and cultural ancestry just around the corner that we can visit instead.

Bar Italia is a Soho institution which has been run by three generations of the Polledri family since it first opened for business on Frith Street in 1949. Over the centuries, Soho’s been home to a huge number of different cultures following the lead of the French Huguenots, who first arrived here in the seventeenth century having fled religious persecution in their homeland. Greek Cypriots, Chinese, Russians, Poles, Spaniards, Maltese and Bengalis have all prospered and made their mark in this oasis of toleration. However, if you were to pressure me into revealing who I think has made the biggest impact on Soho, I’d have to go with the Italians. This judgement is not governed by the fact that I have a penchant for all things Italian - no, it’s all down to the coffee bars the Italians introduced to Soho, which brought a welcome splash of colour and style to a dour post-war London and set the capital on its way to becoming the world’s hippest city. Soho’s coffee bars were a breeding ground for British rock’n’roll and hosted early gigs by the country’s pop pioneers. Without them there would’ve been no Tommy Steele or Billy Fury, no Cliff and the Shadows, no Johnny Kidd and, further on up pop’s long and winding road, no me. What a cultural vacuum there could’ve been.

I’ve been going to Bar Italia for aeons and, being the hardy individual I am, I like to take my coffee
al fresco
. Partly because of a pathological aversion to offices, I try to have all my meetings there, much to the consternation of my agent. It can be quite cramped as we huddle round tables and it can get a bit fresh in the winter, but I am sure it’s extremely efficient. But more important than efficiency, there are few finer places to sit and watch the kaleidoscopic street theatre of Soho unfold.

Because the concept of sitting at a pavement table was as remote as closing down a post office in 1951, Daniel Farson watched the Soho world go by from inside Torino’s Cafe, and what a different world it was. In the days before freezers and fridges were commonplace, ice used to be delivered in huge blocks by robust geezers who, in Soho, were usually of Italian descent. Farson mentions blocks of ice that were left outside shuttered restaurants and had ‘started to dribble across the pavements’. Rather as the modern out-of-town revellers do now on a Friday night.

He also talks about the large number of musicians who’d venture into Soho on Monday mornings armed with instruments in their cases, making their way to the Musicians’ Union offices on Archer Street in the hope of securing employment in a dance band, theatre orchestra, club band and so on.

Around this period, Bar Italia was set to take delivery of a new-fangled machine made by Gaggia, thus making it one of the first espresso bars in London and, to paraphrase the famous song that featured in the show written by the ex-jailbird and Soho drinking accomplice of Daniel Farson, Frank Norman, with lyrics and music provided by Lionel Bart, the arrival of frothy coffee meant that fings weren’t what they used to be.

Unfortunately, things nowadays aren’t what they used to be either when it comes to classic, family-run cafes. In the 1950s Soho had the greatest concentration of Formica-festooned Italian coffee bars in London, but over the past decade or so many of my old favourites have served their last fried slice. Perhaps the most shocking closure in recent times was the much-loved New Piccadilly Cafe on Denman Street, which first opened its doors coincidentally in 1951. Described by classic-cafe connoisseur Adrian Maddox as a ‘cathedral amongst caffs’, the New Piccadilly’s populuxe interior remained intact right up until 2007 when a rent hike of Land’s End to John O’Groats proportions forced its owner, Lorenzo Marioni - who’d put in over 50 years’ service at the cafe - to throw in the tea towel. This great cafe, with its iconic 50s décor, was like a set straight out of
Expresso Bongo
, a film that starred Cliff Richard in that famous, not-to-be-reprised role of Bongo Herbert. Cliff is still clinging to his youthful looks but the New Piccadilly has bitten the dust. Its closure sounds a bit of a warning. I feel I ought to remove my bowler as a sign of respect when I mention it. And, to be honest, every time its name does pass my lips or comes to my mind I feel sickened that I/we/they didn’t do more to save such an important cultural icon.

Fortunately for us another caff that belongs to old Soho and is still open for business is the Lorelei on Bateman Street. The wood-panelled exterior of this A-list anachronism is painted in the colours of the Italian flag, and its village-hall-like interior features a large, tobacco-stained mural of a mermaid that covers one wall. Also on the menu, décor or otherwise, are faux-leather banquettes, dodgy light fittings, a linoleum floor, creaky chairs, perfect pasta and pizzas, excellent espresso, great chips, an elderly owner and, just when you thought things couldn’t get more authentic, you have to take a walk in the open air to get to the lavs, which are located in an outside yard. There used to be tons of caffs like the Lorelei in Soho, but nearly all of them have done a vanishing act in recent times due to the inexorable march of the global coffee conglomerates.

It’s one of life’s great mysteries to me as to who wants to pay £6.90 for the privilege of having ‘coffee’ in a gallon of warm milk served in a bucket with a straw. It always amazes Italian friends of mine, when they’re over here on a visit, to see office workers in contortions on benches in Soho Square, balancing one of those super-sized mocha frappuccinos between their knees while trying to eat a sandwich and talk on a mobile phone at the same time. Mind you, talking of contortions, you should have seen their faces when they came out of one of the brighter Soho clubs later that evening.

The sterile, uniform surroundings of the coffee-chain cafes don’t pass muster either. Do you know what I want? I want to hear the dull chink of Pyrex crockery and the rattle of cutlery trays; I want wall-to-wall laminate surfaces and chrome and vitriolite espresso machines; I want steamed-up windows and the whiff of a fat fryer; I want tea urns and tomato-shaped sauce dispensers; I want a bit of banter with a familiar face behind the counter instead of being told to ‘have a nice day’ by remote. Above all, I want the charismatic caffs of yesteryear over the bland, branded coffee combines that have stripped our high streets, back streets, avenues and alleyways of their individuality. Give me a coffee outside Bar Italia underneath its big neon clock that directs lost latte lovers to its two-tone Formica charms and I’ll greet all passers-by with a contented smile.

Sitting on Frith Street with the froth blowing off cappuccinos all around me, it’s evident that catering is king in Soho these days, because just about every retail outlet opposite me is either a coffee concession, club, bar, takeaway or restaurant. Thirty years ago sex shops ruled the retail roost in Soho, with over 200 outlets dotted around the district selling a different variety of takeaway wrapped in a brown paper bag. A balance had to be found. Soho needed to be cleaned up a smidge, because its sleazy reputation was not only killing other businesses, it was also destroying the sense of community that had long existed among residents and tradespeople. The district was reborn in the 1980s, thanks to the concerted efforts of the Soho Society. However, Soho’s resurgence was accompanied by the rise of commercial rents, which had been artificially low during the period the district was in the grip of vice and, inevitably, there were some casualties.

Most of the small businesses that used to supply goods and provisions to the local community - butchers, fishmongers and ironmongers - are long gone. There used to be a fair number of back-street tailors and specialist instrument-makers too, of which only a few still survive. Recently I’ve noticed that the record shops of Berwick Street have all but vanished, which has special resonance for me. Berwick Street used to be a Mecca for vinyl and CD junkies, and in the 70s I used to buy obscure singles on the Bluebeat label here. Initially I bought a couple out of curiosity, because it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing that would’ve been played on the self-proclaimed ‘Nation’s Favourite’ pop music station, BBC Radio One. Of course, had I been around a few years earlier, I would’ve been able to walk into Soho’s mod clubs, like the Scene or the Flamingo, not more than a few yards away, and hear this kind of music every night. Anyway, by the time I was about 17, my collection of Bluebeat singles had grown to a couple of hundred and a fair proportion of these 45s were by Prince Buster, including one called ‘Madness’. I can even recall the number of the single: BB 170. Of course, this later became the name of a very 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 most evenings. Apparently, Gaston retrieved the script and kept it safe until the grateful head of BBC radio drama came to collect it.

When Gaston retired it seemed as if the lights were about to go out all over Soho, but the new owners, Lesley Lewis and Noel Botham, fitted into his seemingly irreplaceable shoes rather well. Lesley formerly made clothes for strippers at a club on Old Compton Street, having acquired the skill of dropping stitches in all the right places, and Noel is an author and journalist. The French has been a second home for thirsty journalists across the years and the source of many a missed deadline no doubt; it’s a tradition that Noel has worked hard to perpetuate and resulted in him establishing Anti-Alcoholics Anonymous. This august organisation consists only of its founder member, who allows acquaintances to phone him if they feel in danger of climbing on the wagon, in which case Noel, being the altruistic soul that he is, promises to deter them from going through with it at any time of the day or night.