Cocktails and Records

Our local council has been embroiled in a long-running farrago regarding the local cinema. Walthamstow’s EMD cinema was once a much-loved Granada cinema, complete with 30s décor and Christie organ. In addition to the screens, the cinema was built with top-notch staging so in the 50s and 60s the likes of Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Kinks and The Stones played there. In recent years though, the cinema has fallen into decline and now it lies unused in a fairly miserable state.

However, those trusty friends of the large historic building, Christian evangelicals (in this case the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, UCKG) have come to the rescue. Like Finsbury Park Astoria, they have bought the building and plan to transform it into a place of worship.

There has been much public outcry and local campaigning against this decision. Waltham Forest is the only London borough not to have a cinema, people have a genuine fondness for the traditional Grade II* listed cinema and there is very little trust in our local council anyway, particularly its attitude towards regeneration, the arts and heritage. None of this is helped by the fact that there are rumours that various cinema operators have proposed viable plans for refurbishing the EMD and running it as a profitable venue again, but have been rejected by the council. It is all a long, sorrowful story of mistrust between the local authority, the church and cinema campaigners.

So far so typical, sadly enough. This week though, two quotes from local councillors have really made me wonder what world I’m living in.

Councillor Matt Davis: ‘Do you not think the council needs to manage people’s expectations on the EMD, and make it clear that people can get Mick Jagger out and bunches of kids protesting but it won’t make a difference?’

Councillor Terry Wheeler: ‘[a new church will be] more attractive, to particularly young people, than a modified cinema.’

What is happening when public protests (even if they include Mick Jagger) are dismissed so out of hand? And more to the point, what kind of world is it where the council can even think about claiming that a church will more appealing to young people than a cinema?

I’m so out of touch with young people though these days that I wouldn’t have a clue. Maybe he is right. Maybe religion is more appealing to the ‘yoof’ than movies. This can’t possibly be true, can it?

My folks have been visiting recently. This means that I have been busy over the past few weeks entertaining them with the sights of London. And because they have been here quite a few times in the past, this is no mean feat.

However, my trusty standby for the jaded visitor to London has delivered once again. Postman’s Park, tucked away in a small green corner of the City of London, is one man’s tiled tribute to the forgotten heroes of 19th century London.

If  haven’t already been there, then go and have your heartstrings pulled right now.

Place: a suburban London train
Time: a sunny Saturday afternoon
Key characters: shaved headed, large man in filthy white sweater and jeans and a semi-full carriage of increasingly nervous people.

The man gets on the train deeply immersed in a loud conversation on his mobile phone. It goes something like this:

- ‘Yeah, I’m coming over now. But £*%$, I’ll have to be back by 9pm.’
- ‘Because I’m on a stupid £*%$’ing curfew that’s why. That’s what the £*%$ers did, put me back on a curfew.’
- ‘Yes, you £*%$ing  idiot. I have to be back by 9pm otherwise they’ll put me away again.’
- ‘Oh, it was £*%$ing £*%$ed. The handcuffs were on really tight this time, they dug right in. I’ve still got the marks. I’ll show you them later.’
- ‘Well, this time the £*%$er  said that I’d nicked his radio. They’ve got to be £*%$ing joking. It’s a crap radio. If I wanted a decent radio, I’d go and get one from that other £*%$er down the road.’
- ‘I should have £*%$ing kicked their heads in, especially the £*%$ing coloured guy, but I wanted to get off so I could come and see you sweetheart.’

Whilst we’re enjoying our egg and chips down the local caff, we may as well do a spot of shopping.

This short made by the Rank organisation in the 60s features professional lad Sid James showing off London’s markets.

Covent Garden, Portobello Road, Petticoat Lane, Berwick Street, the new supermarkets – they’re all there. You just wouldn’t necessarily recognise them…

‘The Market Place’ from Look at Life

I had last Friday off work, and due to milkman failure*, found myself at home with no milk and no eggs. Obviously the only solution to this was an immediate visit to our local cafe: L Rodi.

Rodi’s is one of those classic and increasingly rare London caffs that has been safely stuck in a timewarp since at least the 1950s. It still proudly clings to its formica tables, handwritten menus, steaming silver tea boiler,  elderly crockery and referring to toast in the singular.  

I ordered my eggs, toasts and coffee, sat back under an ancient swinging sign urging me to enjoy the fresh taste of 7-Up, and opened my book. Of course, I didn’t get much further than the first page. Because, captivated by the regular morning flow of the cafe, I found myself sadly identifying yet another job I could never do. My appalling memory and it’s apparent ‘one-in/one-out’ policy, automatically precludes me from any job with an ordering system like this:

‘Hello love, how are you?’
‘Fine thanks. I’ll have my usual’
[shouts to cook out the back: 'one black coffee, two white toasts, just a bit of marmite']
[muffled positive response, as next customer comes in]
‘Mornin’ John, the usual?’
‘Yep, thanks’.
‘And the usual for Del?’
‘Yes, but not for Stan. He’s a bit hungover.’
‘Right-o’
[shouts out the back: 'John and Del's usual, bacon butty for Stan']
‘Morning love, the usual? Go and sit yourself down’
[shouts: full English, no beans, 3 eggs, brown bread]

And so on and so forth.

Now if I worked there, heaven knows what John, Del, Stan and Steve would be having for their breakfasts - because unless ‘the usual’ is a random varient of the available menu, they certainly wouldn’t be getting it with me behind the counter.

* already! I take back everything I wrote last week.

In the continuing exciting tale of my adventures in ye olde London town, today I found myself at a rather posh luncheon (note that’s luncheon, not lunch, thank you very much) at the Guildhall in the City of London.

We ate in the Crypt which was lovely and positively oozing history. The Guildhall’s East Crypt is apparently one of the oldest and largest of its kind in England, dating back to Edward the Confessor in 1042. Like the Tudor Queen’s House at the Tower of London, it is one of the few places in the old city to have survived both the Great Fire and World War II.

Appropriately, the company was similarly ancient. My colleague and I were surrounded by the kind of people who, delightful as they were with their tales of second homes in France, long-lost favourite Latin Masters and ‘fondness for buying boats’, will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

However, I am pleased to say that some of our nearest diners did actually inspire me. Before a speech from the Lord Mayor we were instructed to toast the Queen (reverential looks, raising of glasses and courteous sips), The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall (markedly less enthusiastic clinking of glasses and supping) and ‘the Other Members of the Royal Family’ (outright snorting and smirking, necking down of fine wine).

So there might be hope for the City after all.

I rarely win anything so I was surprised to receive an email telling me that I had, indeed, won something.

What had I won? Free tickets to the Tower of London. Well, I shrugged to myself, if free tickets don’t stop me from avoiding one of the worlds best loved tourist traps, then nothing will. So 21 years after my last visit, I went.

And it was great! Cold January days must be the best time to go to the Tower. There was a nice bite to the air (all the better for truly understanding what it would be like to live in a draughty stone tower), the White Tower looked fabulous against the crisp blue sky and even better, there were virtually no queues.

First things first, we went to see the crown jewels. My other half, happy being a loyal subject, marvelled over the tacky diamond encrusted gilt, but they just bought out the reckless republican in me. Oliver Cromwell had the right idea – sell ‘em off and buy something useful with the profits.

We then wandered around the various towers trying to imagine what it must have been like pre-tourism. This was a pointless pursuit. For one thing, I discovered that boggle-eyed tourists have been visiting the place for hundreds of years to see the crown jewels and that despite the very real graffiti by the prisoners who’d been locked up inside, there is little sense of place about the Tower. The Bloody Tower does not feel like a place where people were imprisoned, persecuted and tortured for their beliefs; it feels like a tired building which has 2 million tourists traipsing through it every year.

And I never realised that there were so many new buildings in the complex (that’s ‘new’ meaning 19th century ‘new’) and that so many people still live there. You can’t go to the uppermost floors of Beauchamp Tower, where the Tudors locked up their celebrity prisoners, because it’s a Yeoman’s flat and one of the most interesting buildings, a wooden Tudor building built pre-Great Fire of London, is someone’s house. Excellent.

Because of this, there was a fascinating feel to the Tower that I really wasn’t anticipating – a sense of continuing history. You can’t hope to imagine what it was really like in the past, because there never was a fixed past. The place is constantly changing and is less a story of state power than a history of royal whims, architectural trends and the impact of mass tourism.

Squeezing in time for an ‘authentic’ Georgian onion soup, we spent a good four hours there – enough time to get well and truly sick of displays of armour. But I’d go back. Definitely.

We went for one last fling at Walthamstow greyhound races on Saturday night. The track is closing this August because of the alleged impact of tax free betting off-course and rising running costs.

What’s not to like about a night at the Dogs (alright, apart from ‘animal rights’ issues)?

Stepping through the gates into the grounds always takes me to another, almost timeless world (like the New Picadilly used to): Scampi and chips at red formica booths; Pretending to pour over the form of the dogs, but really going for the one with the best name; Queuing up to place your bet with the white haired 70-somethings manning the tote (foul tempered but never disdainful of your 50p punt); Old style bookies, the only men in suits, swiftly revising their odds up to the last minute before the race; The lights darkening and the crowd quietening before the start of the race; The dogs streaking by in the blink of an eye, passing the finishing line before you’ve had a chance to put down your betting slip and pick up your pint; Race-sponsors proudly being photographed alongside the winning dog; The sounds of cheering (and swearing) ringing in your ears.  

But it’ll all be over by the end of August. A top night out at a beautiful 1930s East London institution is being swapped for some horrible new flats instead. Bet they won’t be around in 75 years either.

It seems particularly cruel, just after I was eulogising proper cinemas the other week, that that one of my favourite cafes in London, the New Piccadilly on Denman Street, will be closing down this weekend. I only went there a few times over the years, but each visit is a cherished memory.

It was the sort of café where you could just sit on your own with your egg and chips, kick back and lose yourself in the décor and the sense of history. In the New Piccadilly I could pretend that it was 50s/60s London, and that just up the road in Soho, young trendy types (a la Cliff Richard in Expresso Bongo…) might be lurking about in basement cafes.

This temple to formica and coffee, not to mention the long lost art of table service in cafes, will always have a place in my heart.