Ah yes, Electric Garden, metamorphed into Middle Earth, Café des Artistes, Chelsea Potter, the Blue Flamingo in Wardour Street, Ramjam Club in Brixton. Nearly all gone, just nostalgia and history.
Just remembered the Star in Belgrave Mews West and the lovely Christine. What a looker.
Barbara- did it matter if you were asked? Often we hung around sniffing parties out. One night I was at one in Kensington I think and a guy was just slinging bottles etc out onto the street below and when I remonstrated he asked me who the h was I and I was unmasked as a crasher! He thought it was just funny but I was just a tad embarassed...
Sorry about Ken!!!! The all nighters were great- took a sleeping bag down there. I passed it not too long ago... it's 0023 and the young are shouting outside the bar opposite!
What has London got? Well, at the moment - empty streets, hotels, theatres, shops and restaurants. So come on over it;s a good time to visit and I'm sure you'll get a really good deal!
'The Zetland Arms', you're right (and it is still there, I've just looked it up); happy days indeed. 'The Scarsdale', 'The Queen's Elm', and walking back (to Hampstead) in the very early ("just as the sun was rising") hours of the morning. I don't think that I'd have been quite as sanguine as my parents were in London in the late fifties had my son appeared at that time in the morning in the late nineties. We moved him to rural (ish) Dorset, where it was usual to be offered a bed or a lift home. "Different times, different manners"... and dangers!.
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I'm a South Kensington Lycee girl - but from the late sixties - and the pub in Bute Street was (is?) the Zetland.... happy days....
Yes it is a small world and you asked ....Many of you why? Where is this going?
It is digging up the great memories of dear old London before she lost all those places
like The stock Pot, bistro vino and the clubs. Some may have survived? 606? Marquee.
Saturday night along the King's road at the Chelsea Potter....and surely you would be
invited to a party somewhere. But you were never alone....you always had a big group of
friends who ten shillings to spend on entrance to Cafe Les Artistes...just off Fulham Road.
Or the Electric Garden in Convent Garden.
Small world. The Tatty Bogle, Greens, Annabel's, Ken Collyer's (not Chris), the Marquee, Raffles, 555 Battersea, Finch's (can't remember much of the time there for obvious reasons, good pint!) - oh yes, less than you but those were some days. I am certain that since I was an early starter, well under age, and then a weekender (therefore twice as serious about getting the benefits) that we crossed paths. Which of us was the one whose wobbly legs lead the other to get a soaking and where? Ah, Tooting Bec. Must tell my sister whose flat it was - summer 1983 I figured it out, on and off when in UK or London with the work at the time until mid-summer 84.
Started in Kinghtsbridge paying £5 per week to share a penthouse flat in Basil Street and we ate every night at the Stockpot dining off curried eggs in a mysterious sauce and ended up in Tooting where the houses are now worth £2 million, via Elm Park Gardens, POW Drive (see the Burton film shot in the same block) and Brixton. En route via Julies,the Bistro Vino, Wiltons, Greens, Annabel's, Grumbles, the Tatty Bogle, Chris Collyer's, the Marquee, the Clermont, The Garrison, the Duke of Boots, the Grenadier, Frere Jacques, Nick's Diner, Raffles, the HAC and the RNR and on top, or was it underneath, some V E R Y seedy places and others far too awful to mention. King's Road Saturday car revving, Hyde Park underpass car racing. 555 Battersea, Pooh Corner, Buck House, the Hurlingham it's all a blur. Hunt the Shunt's naked bum in Sam'n'fred's with Fergie's braying in PJ's. Pint's in Finch's, quarts in the Poule au Pot and gallons in the Anglesey. Serious quaffing of delicious NZ white in the Ebury Wine Bar.
I do keep on meaning to put it all down but I can't remember and if I can I won't tell. Will I ever meet somebody on this site I met there, and then? The nearest so far is Brian who lived in the same street and in a friend's house. Incidentally Brian I saw the people who bought off Mickey at my youngest son's wedding in the UK in June- a great couple!
Regrets? I've had a few but I do THINK I enjoyed my time in London but I do enjoy Scrignac pop 809 now!
Well we all get older and possibly wiser.
Which part of East London did you live in?
I guesse that you knew the Blind Beggars haunt of the
Krays...I lived near thaT pub as a child.
Lived in the east and worked in the west and the City.
London was a friendly place where smiles were free and you could
usually get a seat on a bus.
I was born in East London but nowadays I detest London in general. It is too crowded and I don't feel safe.
I know loads love the place and it does have a buzz in some areas but having worked there for many years and seen it change over the years, I preferred the old London that I loved.
Life and work was so much more enjoyable then. Relaxed lunches at Italian restaurants near Selfridges and great nightlife around the Oxford St/Soho areas. Technology and increased amounts of people seemed to spoil all that. I suppose its a sign that I am getting old LOL.
Definitely!
How amazing.... yes, the Operation Julie link rings a bell now! I used to go there a lot for a time with a friend called Jonathan, aka Josh, he was so enamoured of the place, not to mention the cocktails, he ended up working there behind the bar: did you know him?
Another time I was a paid extra in a photoshoot for an album cover that was taken there, could have been Steve Miller band, but so long ago I'm not sure!
They were fun days... crazy days - and nights - too.
Fingals is lurking round the edge of my fuzzy memory, but can't nail it at the moment!
Getting back to Little Venice a place which Lawashie mentioned.
I remember visiting a friend's house which was just by the canal and
as we finished dinner I would hear the owls welcoming the night.
This was a lovely old house...apparently lived in by Lilly Langtree.
Oxford street at Christmas time was a delight for children. The windows
of Selfridges, the lights and the asperations to venture into Hamleys.
Oxford street seems to belong to Primark and street traders. The great music
shops in the small streets have given up their leases to more profitable ventures...
the weak Lattee brigade.
Lavina yes...I was the chef who worked there before and when it opened.
Held the drinks liscence with a chap called Eric...
Left and found out that he was one of the major players in OPERATION Julie...MANUFACTURING LSD. In prision he dedicated himself to learning everything he could about computors and, apparently when he "came out" HE CHANGED HIS PROFESSION. Wise move.
The other partners IN the restaurant...one was called Charlie and he become a client
at Chinon at later days. There are lots of stories about the good, the bad, especially
beautiful and, undeed the mighty ugly.
I PROBABLY CHEFED at Fingals after that....now I am sure that you would know Fingals?
The Last Resort??? Do you mean The Last Resort in Fulham Road, purveyors of lethal cocktails until the wee small hours?
Yes Daquise ....I worked there for a while hoping to learn the art of waitressing.
Not sure if it is there now.
I will google and see.
Ah yes Thurloe street....interesting ...have a look at what google tells us.
The Polish restaurant... the Restaurant Daquise, exactly opposite where we lived and my father had his studio... so old-fashioned even then, I wonder if it is there now?
Perhaps it was youth which helped me have so much fun. But I feel that it was dear old
London who died a few years ago and was re born as she is now.
The London I yern for did exist and offered no boundaries.
Achievements never when hand in hand with robbing, stealing or taking from others.
Money was something you worked for and then when it was spent you waited for the next pay packet.
Ambition was a manufactured item....outside most people's perimiters. But if you wanted something from life you could reach out for it.
At the age of nineteen I was writing ....
I enjoyed meeting David Bowie at Ken Pitt's home in Manchester Sq and learning about
the way model agencies worked by visiting Models 1.
Yes....I chose my topics and the editor then corrected my spelling.
I managed a band and we made it to the Marquee.
Jimi Hendrix played bass with the band one night.
Then came my chefing career which began with assiting
at Derry and Toms...then cooking for Andre Duetch...
Then the story begins with my experiences with The Last Resort, A Taste
of Honey, Naturally and Chinon.
I cooked and worked with some very important people.
It was not about money but appreciation and the pleasure of
eating well.
I began with no money in my purse and worked my way though the wonders
of dear old London.
I guesse we are Surviving....THAT was living!