London - Shopping

Up, bags stored and out onto Euston Road, and time for a quick photo of St Pancras Station:

Along Judd Street and around the outside of The Brunswick (see here and here) to reach the palindromically named Skoob Books - to find that they were not yet open.  Completing a full circuit of The Brunswick we then made our way instead to Persephone Books:

- which was also "not yet open" but somewhat less so than Skoob.  A quick circuit of the adjacent block and we were amongst the first customers through their doors; on that basis, "She Who Would Like To Be Obeyed" thought it only polite to make a purchase (of which, more later).

More walking, aiming now for the London Review Bookshop.  This establishment has the magical effect of making me feel more intelligent just by crossing the threshold.

Our first port of call was the integral Cake Shop, but we resisted temptation and settled on a couple of drinks - a ginger beer for your correspondent and an iced tea (served in the seemingly de rigueur jam jar) for Amanda:

who then very kindly treated me to a belated anniversary present in the form of the latest volume of Alan Bennett's memoirs, made all the more acceptable by having been signed by the man himself:

In 1968 I was lucky enough (though I hardly appreciated it at the time) to see Bennett perform in his own first play - "Forty Years On" - at the Apollo Theatre in the West End.  In that production, one of Bennett's fellow teachers was played by Paul Eddington (later of "The Good Life" and "Yes, Minister" fame).  The headmaster was played by John Gielgud.

In 1987, Thames Television broadcast a drama series based on the collection of short stories "The London Embassy" by Paul Theroux (see here, here and here for three surviving episodes). I loved the series, but confess that this might have something to do with the little crush I had on the actress Betsy Brantley in later episodes - here she is just after meeting American consul Spencer Savage for the first time, and being introduced to "Margaret Thatcher".

Since only 6 of the nearly 20 short stories were adapted for broadcast, I bought this copy of the book and devoured the rest:

So what is the point of this aside? Moving on to 2001, Amanda and I were engaged in one of our fairly regular tours of second-hand bookshops on London's Charing Cross Road, and in Henry Pordes Books we found that they were in the process of selling the contents of John Gielgud's library, following his death the year before.  There, on the shelf, was this little gem:

and on the inside flyleaf:

I didn't buy it.  I'll say that again: I didn't buy it.

It was only when I got home that I realised what I had let slip through my fingers.  I shall, therefore, be forever indebted to Amanda, who phoned the shop the next day and bought it as a present for me.

After this stroll down memory lane - out into Bury Place, and looking up Gilbert Place to Centre Point:

At the time of writing, a three-bedroom apartment on one of the higher floors of this, the West End's only residential high-rise, will set you back around £5M.  Whenever I think about Centre Point, though, the chill wind of the Cold War wafts through my mind.

Young people today may not appreciate that conspiracy theories and agit-prop predate the internet by quite some time - it's just that in 'olden days' the medium of choice (and necessity) was usually paper.  In my late teens I read Peter Laurie's "Beneath the City Streets".  What started as a simple survey of Britain's civil defences, and a discussion of the probability of the 'man in the street' surviving a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, went on to specify, in some detail, what steps were being taken to ensure the continuation of government after such an event.

Laurie posited that Centre Point (which had been standing empty for six years since its completion) was being kept empty so that it could be quickly brought into service as a shelter against biological and chemical attack, to be occupied as a 'hub of government'.  Laurie went on to state that the then owner, Harry Hyams, was paying to the Greater London Council the ("ludicrously low") ground rent of "£18,500 a year for a fixed term of 150 years".  He further asserted that "Hyams was being paid a heavy but secret subsidy to keep it empty".

A flight of fancy?  Who knows - but the government at the time took the claims sufficiently seriously to produce a formal response - perhaps one day I'll visit The National Archives and take a look at it...

Along Bury Place, past the practice of architects Rodić Davidson immediately adjacent to the LRB.  Why mention this?  Because their window display was, to me, a thing of beauty.  Sadly, the bright sun shining directly onto the windows prevented me from getting a picture, so a description will have to suffice.  On display, in half a dozen open-fronted birch plywood boxes each about two feet square, were over a hundred vintage wood-working tools and toolboxes that had been owned and used by the cabinet-maker grandfather of one of the two directors.  (For the back-story, see here.)

I lost my own cabinet-maker grandfather in 1978, and inherited from him his tool box, and also a bulging tool chest owned by his father before him:

They are prized possessions, and the tool box in particular has remained essentially unchanged over the last nearly 40 years; tools that my grandfather kept in that box continue to be kept in that box - they belong together and are a constant and happy reminder of the hours I spent learning to use them (literally) at his knee.

On to Great Russell Street, past the British Museum, to L. Cornelissen & Son.  If the LRB can seem to magically increase one's IQ, Cornelissens can seem to transport one back in time.  Opened in 1855, this art shop appears to be almost unchanged since then.  With not an artistic bone in my body I resisted temptation; the same cannot be said of Amanda (of which, more later).

From Great Russell Street onto Tottenham Court Road, where refreshments were taken at (and Boris bikes inspected from) a conveniently located Pret a Manger:

Back to the The Brunswick, and Skoob Books, where temptations were endured but not succumbed to.

And so finally back to the Premier Inn to collect bags, across to St Pancras and the train home - where "She Who Would Like to Be Obeyed" was finally able to appreciate her day's purchases: