Tories come news.fitzrovia.org.uk Fitzrovia News Fitzrovia News is produced by residents and volunteers and distributed free to all businesses and residential addresses in Fitzrovia Issue 145 Summer 2017 Competition Win a copy of Neighbourhood groups Architecture book page 6 say no to Oxford Street ‘transformation’ plans

By Linus Rees Community groups are calling on Lady of the residents to oppose pedestrianisa - tion of Oxford Street through the night Page 3 consultation process. The collection of associations in Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair and Soho say the joint consulta - tion by Transport for London and Westminster City Council is designed in such a way as to gain support for the Mayor of London’s desire to pedestrianise the street. However, nowhere in the con - sultation document does the word “pedestrianisation” appear but instead the word “transfor - mation” is used instead. Paul Neville of the Who was Marylebone Association says that The campaign group Living Streets wants taxis taken off Oxford Street and moved into side roads. although the consultation uses Saki ? page 14 the word “transformation” it is “As the number of responses duced 10,000 leaflets for distribu - streets. They told the Mayor they “taking place in the light of the for and against ‘transformation’ tion mostly in Marylebone which want to see traffic reduction and Mayor’s wish to pedestrianise may ultimately be very influential is likely to bear the largest dis - improved air quality in streets Oxford Street”. in helping the Mayor reach a final placement of motor vehicles into where people live. “This initial consultation con - decision on pedestrianisation, we its streets. However, Living Streets say tains only three questions, but the have no choice but to encourage “We all want a Better Oxford they want all motor traffic first key question seeks only to members to select the third Street which really tackles the removed from Oxford Street. measure support for ‘transforma - answer to question one — ‘I do issues of congestion, air quality Living Streets said: “Whilst tion’. It is easy to support not support the transformation of and safety rather than just shift - the design detail is to be worked improvements but, as there are Oxford Street’.” ing the problems into the sur - out, it is essential that any final no actual plans to assess, this The residents groups have rounding streets and areas which proposal includes the full becomes a trap,” says Neville. formed a joint campaign group play a vital part of the West End’s removal of motor vehicles travel - The consultation document and are pressing TfL to fix the success,” states the leaflet. ling along Oxford Street, includ - contains no meaningful informa - current problems with pollution Last year residents told ing buses and taxis, if it is to be All she did was tion about how buses, taxis and and congestion instead of shifting London Assembly members they transformed into one of the kill her husband delivery vehicles will serve the them from one area to another. were worried about traffic being world’s great public spaces.” street and the impact this will Better Oxford Street has pro - displaced into the neighbouring page 18 have on the surrounding area. “There is insufficient informa - tion to judge the possible serious effects on the area at large and traffic modelling data is not yet available to consider the potential impacts,” says Neville. But the ideas being put for - ward include allowing taxi ranks est. 1958 in side streets — as advocated by GIGS the campaign group Living The home of traditional Fish & Chips Streets — and possibly diverting buses through neighbouring Fully licensed Greek restaurant streets, and allowing night-time Trip Adviser Certificate of Excellence winners, 2014, 2015, 2016 deliveries. All of these will increase pollution, congestion 12 Tottenham Street 020 7636 1424 and noise in residential streets. 2 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News Formerly The Tower Letters, emails and comment established 1973 news.fitzrovia.org.uk Write to [email protected] or post to Fitzrovia News, Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association, 39 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RX twitter.com/fitzrovianews facebook.com/fitzrovianews [email protected] 020 7580 4576 Solving London’s air pollution hotspots

Issue 145 Summer 2017 Published 6 June 2017 requires action over a wide area Editorial Team Mike Pentelow: editor and features editor By Linus Rees More than 20,000 people live big improvement for the shop - Linus Rees: in the streets surrounding pers but the pollution didn’t Have your website and assistant editor Residents in the streets sur - Oxford Street but there is little reach zero. The highest hourly Pete Whyatt: rounding Oxford Street and the acknowledgement of this or the NO2 concentration measured on news and production editor campaign group Living Streets four schools here. All Souls the closure day was 68 ug/m3 say on the Clive Jennings: are facing each other in the first Primary School in Foley Street is compared to the 88 ug/m3 arts editor battle over how buses, taxis and exposed to an average of 47.9 measured on autumn Sundays. plans for Brian Jarman: delivery vehicles should serve micrograms of nitrogen dioxide A 20% average reduction was writer and sub-editor London’s busiest street. per cubic metre. This exceeds attained on hourly NO2 concen - Oxford Street Janet Gauld: In an email sent out by the the EU legal limit which is 40 trations due to the closure." associate editor campaign group they tell its micrograms per cubic metre of Kings College commented A public consultation is run - Barb Jacobson: members: "At Living Streets we air. on the results saying: "There was ning until 18 June 2017. You associate editor were delighted when the Mayor But for Living Streets it is all still traffic on the surrounding can respond to it by visiting: Jennifer Kavanagh: of London, Sadiq Khan, prom - about a shopping street and its roads. This shows that solving consultations.tfl.gov.uk/ associate editor ised to pedestrianise the iconic visitors. London’s air pollution hotspots roads/oxford-street/ Jess Owens: shopping street. But opposition "On 6 November, Oxford requires action over a wide associate editor remains and we need to make Street was closed to vehicles to area." There are also public exhibi - sure that change really does allow crowds to gather to watch Action over a wider area is tions happening where TfL Contributors: happen." R&B singer Craig David turn on exactly what residents in and Westminster City John Axon The opposition referred to is the Christmas lights," said Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair Council staff will be on hand Jayne Davis from people like myself and Living Streets as part of its cam - and Soho are calling for. to answer any questions. Terry Egan other residents living in the paign. Yet Living Streets say little Janet Gauld streets surrounding Oxford "The closure to traffic was a about changing people's habits Grosvenor Chapel, Garden David Hayes Street and who are worried great chance to demonstrate the of getting taxis to and from Room, 24 S Audley Street, Ruth Hayes about traffic and pollution being difference in air quality -- and in Oxford Street. Instead they say London, W1K 2PA Clifford Harper displaced to nearer our homes particular levels of deadly nitro - that taxis should be provided in Saturday 10 June 2017, 11:00 – Angela Lovely and where our children go to gen dioxide (NO2) -- after this the "38 side roads" and "access 16:00; Monday 12 June 2017, Beth Lynette Thyr school. world-famous and mostly bus- to buses and taxis a short walk 12:00 – 19:00 Helene Parry And we are campaigning lined street was pedestrianised away" Wendy Shutler hard to ensure that we are not for just one day." That's hardly encouraging Wigmore Hall, Bechstein Clifford Slapper forgotten as the first public con - Living Streets claimed there active transport like walking or Room, 36 Wigmore Street, Sunita Soliar sultations by Westminster coun - was a 31 percent fall in the level cycling. London, W1U 2BP Chris Tyler cil and Transport for London of nitrogen dioxide in the air In their defence Living Saturday 10 June 2017, 11:00 – Kipper Williams take place. after the street was closed to Streets do mention "careful con - 16:00; Friday 16 June 2017, Less than 25 percent of traffic. sideration of the impact on the 10:00 – 16:00 Printed by: households in Fitzrovia have However, according to Kings wider West End" and "consider - Sharman & Co Ltd, access to a car and most people College London which analysed ation will need to be given to Regent Hall, Salvation Army, Newark Road, here walk, cycle or use public the air quality it was only a 20 ensure traffic is not just pushed Church and Community Peterborough PE1 5TD transport. We are Living Streets' percent reduction. on to neighbouring streets". Centre, 275 Oxford Street, sharmanandco.co.uk natural allies. "Analysis of measurements And there lies the contradic - London, W1C 2DJ Yet Living Streets has little made by the Oxford Street moni - tion: a short walk from Oxford Main Hall, Saturday 10 June Fitzrovia News is produced grassroots support in our dense toring site compares NO2 on Street is where people live and 2017, 11:00 – 16:00 quarterly by the Fitzrovia Georgian streetscape, and its Sundays in September and their children go to school. And Oxford Street room, Community Newspaper badly thought-out vision for October 2016 (red line) to the that's why we oppose the pedes - Wednesday 14 June 2017, Group, ISSN: 0967-1404 Oxford Street is seen as nothing closure day on the 6th trianisation of Oxford Street. 12:00 – 19:00 more than a trophy project. November (blue line) shows a Published by the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association (registered charity no. 1111649) Editorial code 39 Tottenham Street, It looks filthy We take care not to publish inac - London, W1T 4RX After the removal of skips for So that’s what was curate, misleading or distorted fitzrovia.org.uk rubbish on Langham Street, now information. If you are not google.com/+FitzroviaOrgUK the skips have gone from the happy with something we have twitter.com/FitzroviaNA corner of Foley Street and Ogle written then contact the editors facebook.com/FitzroviaNA going on next door street! at [email protected] I wondered how to complain about this. Where are residents I wondered where the bass and (Not Safe For Work). meant to put their rubbish if Public editorial drum thump through the walls It seems my neighbours had already denied the street bins Fitzrovia News meetings are held at was coming from and why there either provided use of their (and understandably I see the were so many expensive cars house for an elite club of party street cleaners take those out deadlines 7 pm, first Tuesday of plonked on the single yellow and leave them on the pave - goers to enjoy themselves, or Our deadline for news, fea - every month at lines outside, writes Angela they were away in the Bahamas ment). tures, letters and adverts is Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Lovely . and had let out their rather The skips are the only normally two weeks before Association, Someone’s having a party? attractive and spacious five-bed - answer. And surely the contin - But little did I know about what ued leaving of rubbish bags publication. Sometimes we 39 Tottenham Street roomed home on a short-letting was really going down in a con - site and were completely where the skips used to be are a accept articles later. London W1T 4RX servation area. unaware of what was going on. hazard encouraging rats and The next issue of Fitzrovia Subscribe to Fitzrovia Now that evening so many Like I said, it is pretty explic - dogs. It looks filthy and it is News will be out on News for regular months ago is revealed in an it but if you are curious you can filthy. Tuesday 5 September updates: article in Cosmopolitan that read it here: Deadline is Friday 18 August Resident describes in quite a bit of detail bit.ly/cosmo-sex-party [email protected] bit.ly/fitzrovianews starting with a warning: NSFW Great Portland Street facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 3 Camden Council Fitzrovia Partnership drops plans for cross- pension fund boundary BID Bloomsbury ward councillor The Fitzrovia Partnership has Rishi Madlani may be feeling abandoned plans for a cross- some heat in between knocking boundary business improve - on people’s doors on the election ment district (BID) but will trail, writes Linus Rees. instead seek to renew its five- As chair of Camden’s year mandate and expand its £1.25bn pension fund committee estate in the Camden part of he is all too aware of press Fitzrovia, writes Linus Rees . reports of a high court injunc - The Fitzrovia BID was estab - tion blocking Reuters from pub - lished in 2012 and the current lishing information about BID levy is one percent of rate - Brevan Howard, one of Europe’s able value on all businesses with largest hedge funds. a rateable value above £100,000. Reuters wanted to make But in the new business plan the public the confidential informa - levy will fall to 0.9 percent and tion Brevan Howard had sent to the threshold will rise to its clients — which includes £160,000 which will have the Camden Council. We don’t effect of maintaining roughly the know what this sensitive infor - same membership numbers and mation is as the hearing was total levy. held in private. All qualifying businesses — But the FT’s global invest - about 200 — within the pro - ment editor Miles Johnson com - posed business area will be sent mented on the case saying: ballot papers from 20 June and “While the closed-door nature of will have until 5pm on 20 July to the injunction makes it impossi - cast their vote. The ballot will be ble to know the details, the chill - carried out by Camden Council ing effect it has on the freedom and the result will be announced of the UK press to report on an Jazz Thali (Adrian Northover Saxophones, Harvir Sahota tablas, darabuka and percussion, and Peter Whyatt on 21 July. If successful the new industry ever more reliant on Double Bass) played a selection of Bollywood and Jazz tunes for a “Success, Faith and Philanthropy” event for five-year term will begin in public money for its profits is British business and charitable leaders from Sikh and Jewish backgrounds at the BT tower. August. worrying.” The success or failure of the Johnson noted that ballot will be determined by the “Camden’s overall hedge fund Must we kiss goodbye ability of The Fitzrovia investments lost the pension Partnership to persuade its exist - fund £2.38m, while it paid its to Rathbone Street’s ing and potential new members managers, Brevan Howard and that it provides value for money BlueCrest, fees of £1.06m and young lady of the for the services it supplies. £1.26m respectively.” BID rules mean that it does - Reuters is appealing the night? n’t need a majority of qualifying decision of the high court and businesses to vote in favour to Camden is considering its pen - succeed. Instead it only needs to sion investment options. cajole a majority of those who actually bother to vote and a Licensing Lords majority in proportion of rate - able value of those voting. Some residents were shocked to The BID levy can only come discover that a House of Lords People on both sides of Fitzrovia are grumbling about into effect if these two tests are Select Committee report 'The rubbish on the streets. met. There is no minimum Licensing Act 2003: post-legisla - In Camden there is a new rubbish and recycling con - turnout. The BID levy is then tive scrutiny' (published 4 April tract in operation which has meant fewer residential col - charged to all qualifying busi - 2017) advises abandoning local lections, and more work for street sweepers and the staff nesses, regardless of how they authority licensing committees. on the bin lorries. It’s a borough-wide problem and voted or whether they voted or Instead licensing they recom - Fitzrovia residents are not the only ones complaining. not. Complacency can play a big mend be dealt with via the plan - Residents should check their collection days at part in a BID’s success. ning system. camden.gov.uk/recyclingandrubbish and can report fly- However, Westminster tipping at camden.gov.uk/streetproblems News in brief Council has rejected the recom - Westminster residents are complaining about less mendations. But whether this Marylebone Library will close bulk bins on the street. However, residential rubbish in at Beaumont Street on 25 June will have any sway with govern - most instances has to be bagged and put on the street on ment, which writes the legisla - and re-open at its new tempo - the advertised collection times which can be found here: rary location at 9-11 New tion, is another matter. westminster.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish and you can The Lords committee also Cavendish Street on a date yet report fly-tipping at westminster.gov.uk/report-it Come up and see me. A red haired young woman suggested abolishing the late to be announced. Proposals to looks down at passers by on Rathbone Street. night levy, something which locate a new permanent some local councils like Camden Above the Newman Arms pub in Rathbone library at Seymour Leisure have embraced in order to fund Street there is a bricked up window with a Centre in Marylebone have extra policing late at night. picture of a young woman. been announced. In the painting she can be seen in a Dr Peter Latham will sign nightdress and little cap which partly covers his book, Who Stole The town 80 Charlotte Street her long red hair. She peers down onto the Hall? at 1.30pm Tuesday 13 street below with her bare arms resting June at a free event at TUC Derwent London and Multiplex against the horizontal sash of the half open Congress House, 23-28 Great will hold a construction work window. Russell Street . He will be community liaison meeting at Like many buildings in Fitzrovia it was joined by Dr Jane Lethbridge. 6pm, 22 June, at the 80 Charlotte once home to a brothel and this painted lady Register at tuc.org.uk/ Street site office, Level 1 Meeting of the night is a depiction of those former southern-and-eastern/events Room, 23 Howland Street. times. Historian Neil Davidson But now landowner Shaftesbury wants to will discuss the new abridged Get our regular reinstate the original window which means version of his popular How this working girl will drift into Fitzrovia’s Revolutionary Were the email newsletter A sign directing people to Goodge Street tube station was left past along with so much else. Bourgeois Revolutions? pointing skyward in April after a driver crashed his truck into Planning application: 17/04486/FULL | Tuesday 13 June, 6.30pm, £2 Subscribe at a lamp post at the junction Charlotte Street and Goodge Reinstatement of the central window on the with refreshments, Street. “It was lucky no-one was hurt,” said an eyewitness front elevation at third floor level. | 23 Bookmarks 1 Bloomsbury bit.ly/fitzrovianews who spoke exclusively to Fitzrovia News. Rathbone Street, London W1T 1NG. Street , WC1. 4 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Community group heaps scorn on Westminster Council’s plans for taller and bulkier buildings

A Fitzrovia community group “Cities like Bangkok, that The Fitzrovia West group is has added its voice to criticism have undergone uncontrolled the latest organisation to take of Westminster Council’s pro - growth in recent years, have Westminster Council to task on posals to increase the number of seen a dramatic fall in economic it plans. tall and denser buildings activity as environmental quality Barbara Weiss, from the allowed to accommodate eco - has plummeted. What happens Skyline Campaign, told the West nomic and population growth. is that instead of the city thriv - End Extra: “I think Westminster The Council asked to hear ing, it starts to die,” says is being incredibly naive in com - the public’s views in an eight Shillam, a professional architect ing out with this consultation. week consultation on how it and town planner. There might be something that should shape the city of the In its public consultation is six or seven storeys that could Cynthia Kee in her roof garden above Goodge Street. future. document the council says take an extra two storeys, but it “Delivering the numbers of “there is potential to get more has to be done very carefully as jobs and homes means we have out of sites by having more otherwise you could ruin the The joys of roof gardens intense development, building character of London.” to look at ways of making best Roof gardens should be encouraged more, says Cynthia Kee, a jour - use of the sites we have, includ - higher than at present — or Cynthia Poole of the St where appropriate, considering Marylebone Society told the nalist who has lived in Goodge Street for about 40 years. ing building higher and denser They would improve both the environment and the feeling of — and considering the scope for significantly taller buildings.” newspaper: “Significant changes But the Fitzrovia West of policy to permit taller build - neighbourliness, she thinks. tall buildings, while protecting "It is nice to have meals in the open air and chat to your neigh - the places and spaces that make Neighbourhood Forum wants to ings within these areas could see a conservation-led approach have a seriously detrimental bours on the adjoining roof," said Cynthia. Westminster special,” says "You can grow all kinds of stuff - such as avocado pears, parsley Daniel Astaire, cabinet member to city planning. effect on the historic architecture “Most historic urban centres and character of our city.” chives, tomatoes, courgettes. for planning and public realm at "Trees are also good for the environment and can be grown in Westminster Council. have a cap to heights. Oxford is A long list of groups have one example. Paris is another. signed a joint letter to planning tubs from shrubs." Wendy Shillam of the She was devastated when an adjoining roof had a trellis removed Fitzrovia West Neighbourhood Westminster should have its chief Councillor Astaire. own height cap. This should not The letter said: “Future gen - recently. "The now empty roof is such a shame to see," she said. Forum said his plans were Cynthia can often be seen cycling around the area, and keeps her doomed to failure. be seen as a restriction to erations would be right to blame growth, but in fact one of the us for not defending the long- bike on the ground floor of the building below her flat. "The lease “Economic growth will not allows us to keep two bikes and one pram, or two prams and one occur if Westminster becomes reasons why the historic centre term benefit of the many while will always be more attractive permitting the short-term profit bike," she smiled. overcrowded with unnecessarily When one of her books was being launched in the Paperback tall and over-bulky buildings,” than the outskirts. Dynamic, of the few.” It said that economic highly profitable, discerning growth does not go “hand in Centre in Charlotte Street some years ago the performer Uri Geller In fact the opposite will occur if attended and announced: "I bend spoons." So they got some from Westminster Council goes ahead businesses wish to locate here,” hand with increased density and says Shillam. or height”. next door which he duly bent. "At least he bought a book," quipped with its planning strategy. Cynthia.

BETTER NOx CO2 PM2.5 ! OXFORD SAAYY ͞NO͟TO THE PEDESTRIANISAATITION SO2 ACCIDENT STREET W1 ͞dZE^&KZDdd/KE͟- OF OXFORD STREET Fixed not shifted WE WWAANT A BETTER OXFORD STREET. TfL SHOULD FIX THE ISSUES, NOT JUST SHIFT THE ISSUES

The Mayor wants to pedestrianise Oxford Street, and TfL have a We all want a Better Oxford Street which really tackles the issues consultation out on this which could gravely impact the future of all congestion, air quality and safety rather than just shifting the the surrounding areas. But they ĚŽŶ͛ƚ call it pedestrianisation - it is problems into the surrounding streets and areas which play a vital called ͞ƚƌĂŶƐĨŽƌŵĂƚŝŽŶ͟. What does this mean? They want to part in the West ŶĚ͛Ɛ success. ͞ƚƌĂŶƐĨŽƌŵ͟ Oxford Street by closing it to traffic: buses, taxis, cyclists and commercial vehicles. Now is your chance to have your say - don't lose it

Respond: ͞EŽ to ƚƌĂŶƐĨŽƌŵĂƚŝŽŶ͟ by going to https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/oxford-street/consultation In question 1 on the consultation form select the third box: ʹ At first sight this looks good. They say that they can close Oxford Street to all traffffic and not damage the surrounding areas. In fact they say I do not support the transformation of Oxford Street that they will benefit from this ͞ƚƌĂŶƐĨŽƌŵĂƚŝŽŶ͟. or write to Freepost TfL Consultations (no stamp required) or email [email protected] But this is untrue, surrounding areas will be greatly damaged. Many of expressing your concerns about pedestrianisation these have large residential communities, with schools and hospitals as well as many businesses. Consultation closes Sunday 18 June 2017 Marylebone, Mayfairr,, Soho and Fitzrovia will all suffer from taking ͞ddŚŚĞĐůŽƐĞƌ ĚĞĐŝŝƐƐŝŽŶƐ ĂƌĞ ƚĂŬĞŶ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ƉĞŽƉůĞ ƚŚĞLJ ŝŵƉĂĐƚƚ͕͕ ƚŚĞ ďĞƚƚĞƌ the traffic that is banned from Oxford Street. They will all suffer from ƚŚŽƐĞĚĞĐŝƐŝŽŶƐ ĂƌĞ͟ ʹ Mayor Sadiq Khan even worse congestion, even worse pollution than at present, just when we, and the Mayor himselff,, are trying reduce it. HAAVEVE YOUR SAAYY TODAAYY

Better Oxford Street, 229 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5PN [email protected] @BetterOxfordSt Better Oxford Street is a not for profit residents and business group formed and supported by The Marylebone Association, The Soho Society, Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association, ŚĂƌůŽƚƚĞ^ƚƌĞĞƚ ƐƐŽĐŝĂƚŝŽŶ͕ DĂLJĨĂŝƌ ZĞƐŝĚĞŶƚƐ 'ƌŽƵƉ͕ ZĞƐŝĚĞŶƚƐ͛ ^ŽĐŝĞƚLJ ŽĨ DĂLJĨĂŝƌ ĂŶĚ ^ƚ :ĂŵĞƐ͛Ɛ͕ Ăůů members of the West End Community Network. © 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 5 Plans will ‘destroy key features’ of Georgian Diana Simmonds building and former home of artist and mum in Doughty Street in Holborn. Diana and Louisa then designer couple moved to Gordon Mansions in Torrington Place during the ond floor rear extensions, and 1970s. alterations to the rear wall and Diana worked at Senate roof. House in Malet Street and then The building is not listed but moved to Somerset House on classed as a positive contributor The Strand where she worked as to the Charlotte Street conserva - a clerical officer in the Wills and tion area. Probate Division before working Objectors to the application up to her retirement in the say the conversion will destroy Divorce Registry. “key features of Georgian archi - She enjoyed theatre, con - tecture” and also the artists’ stu - certs, and art exhibitions. dio purpose built for Adrian Together with two other Heath in the 20th century at the book clubs, she belonged to rear of the house. Waterstones book club which Local campaign group the Charlotte Street Association Above: Diana Simmonds in meets monthly and reads a book argue that redevelopment will in younger days. Below: With her chosen by the group. Diana’s effect demolish the upper floors favourite poet Lemn Sissay. book choice — The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson — was behind a retained facade and Diana Simmonds, who has died discussed at May’s meeting. destroy the proportions of the aged 87, was a mother and An avid reader, she was a building by altering the floor grandmother, lived life to the life member of the London and ceiling heights. Their con - full, and was known locally for Library. cerns are backed by the her friendly manner and razor Diana enjoyed the lunch club Bloomsbury Conservation Area sharp wit. at the Marchmont Street Advisory Committee. She was the only child of Community Centre where she The Twentieth Century Ralph and Mary Louise Wood made many friends. She also Society has objected to the loss (nee Ducret from her attended the Holy Cross crypt of the purpose built artists’ stu - French/Swiss father) and was for their lunches once a month. dio which they say was born in Ilford, Essex. Her family Even at the age of 87 she was designed by architect Charlotte soon moved to Wimbledon and completely sound of mind and Baden-Powell. then Holborn. said of herself: “I still have all However applicant Damon Ralph worked at the Port of my marbles!” Heath (son of Adrian and London Authority but in his She was intelligent, never Corinne) states that “the existing 28 Charlotte Street was at the hub of an artistic community in Fitzrovia. spare time was a composer and afraid to speak her mind elo - house is not only dated, but inadequate by relative design helped form the Society of quently on important matters, Camden Council’s planning er. Their home at 28 Charlotte standards that make it less than Promotion of New Music. and was a fervent supporter of committee have granted permis - Street from 1957 was at the hub ideal for family occupation”. Her parents were keen for local campaigns to improve her sion to allow the former family of an artistic community in The new build will provide her to attended a progressive neighbourhood and abhorred home of artist and designer cou - Fitzrovia. At one time modernist three homes which “not only school called Beltane which was many of the architectural ple Adrian and Corinne Heath artist Birgit Skiöld ran the highly meet, but in most cases signifi - evacuated to Wiltshire during changes that are currently taking to be converted into flats. successful Print Workshop in the cantly exceed, the London Plan the Second World War. place in the London she loved. Adrian Heath (1920-1992) basement of the building. standards” and “provides the On returning to London she She was an active participant in was a major figure in the devel - The application is to convert Council with an opportunity to studied at St Martins School of the Holborn Society which opment of abstract art in the existing house and artist stu - move closer in reaching its hous - Art in Charing Cross Road. worked to preserve the Georgian England during the forties and a dios to provide three self-con - ing target by utilising an under - While she showed promise houses in Great Ormond street key proponent of tained flats, including the used space in a more efficient as a painter she didn’t pursue when they were under threat of Constructivism. Corinne Heath enlargement of existing base - manner”, states the application. her talent after she married fel - demolition. (died 2009) was a theatre design - ment, erection of first and sec - low artist Doig Simmonds who At a celebration of her life took her to Nigeria after he on Saturday 20 May, Holy Cross accepted a job as a medical artist Church, Kings Cross was full there. with her many friends. Married for seven years she She leaves behind her returned to London having sep - daughter Louisa and three Park view spoilt arated from her husband. grandsons. With no children from her Diana Constance Simmonds. marriage she later had a daugh - Born 8 July 1929 Ilford, Essex. ter Louisa from another relation - Died 30 April 2017 Marie Curie ship who she raised as a single Hospice, Belsize Park, London.

Images show proposed extension and the views from Crabtree Fields

An application has been made to Camden Council to add a two storey roof extension to Cyclone House 27-29 Whitfield Street. Individuals and groups (including the 20th Century Society and Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee) have objected to the development. They say it is damaging to the setting of the adjoining listed building at 1 Colville Place It is unsuitable / inappropriate for a conser - vation area, and is overbearing from the public park Crabtree Fields The application is due for decision by the planning committee on 6 July. You can make a comment before that date to [email protected] ref 2016/6495/P 6 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Brave neural world Professor Peter Dayan is Director of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, based at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre (SWC), Howland Street. He builds mathemati - cal and computational models of the way our brains work. A major focus of his work is on understanding the ways in which animals and humans come to choose appropriate “If we can't actions in the face of rewards and punishments, and the processes by which they come to form neural representations of the world. understand In May he was one of three scientists awarded the one million euro Brain Prize 2017. why we make Peter is recognised as a leader in the field of computational neuroscience. His research has far-reaching implications for understanding human behaviour, including good decisions decision-making, gambling, drug addiction, compulsive behaviour and schizophrenia. The capacity to link events and actions to rewards is the foundation of human and ani - maybe we can mal survival, and problems with the processing of reward lie at the heart of many neu - rological and psychiatric disorders. learn why we Reward is essential to survival because humans and other animals learn to direct their decisions and their actions towards outcomes that will satisfy their needs, and make the bad away from danger. This means that they have to learn which events in the environment decisions.” predict future rewards and punishments. For instance, if you feel hungry, you are likely to go to a restaurant because the sign predicts that your hunger will be reduced if you enter. The sense of reward is surprisingly complicated. It is influenced and determined by things, such as taste and smell, as well as by fundamental motivations such as hunger or thirst. In turn, it influences choices, decisions and even attention. Many regions of the brain process information associated with reward, but one central linchpin for the regu - lation of learning and performance is a neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine.

Pete Whyatt chats diets, politics and mice with award-winning local professor Peter Dayan. Photo by Thomas S.G. Farnett, Wellcome

I met Peter Dayan in his office on the sec - “There are lots of different competing constructed. We are like monkeys with a ond floor of the SWC, he came across as forces at play. We have to develop strate - he still manages to occasionally play the press secretary. We formulate political classical piano and violin which he learnt humble and slightly nervous. The reserve gies to avoid the unhealthy choice like beliefs and then we have powerful ways soon melted away, as our conversation walking a route which does not take you as a youngster. He would like to learn of explaining them to ourselves and the jazz piano and improvisation. It would be developed he showed a warm, engaging past the burger store, and try to under - outside world. The way we explain those and humorous disposition. He is gently stand the forces that are at play that make the opposite approach from having learnt decisions don't have much to do with the music as a formal language to approach it spoken and he speaks very quickly, our us eat unhealthily.” way these decisions were reached in the conversation covered many aspects of his Peter suggested “bright lines.” The from the side of feeling and improvisa - first place. tion. life and work. bright line rule refers to a clearly defined We have to be consistent to the beliefs Peter was born in London and grew rule or standard with clear interpretation He enjoys musical theatre for instance: we have committed to in the past. "Chicago, I really like the cynicism in up in Muswell Hill and Beckenham. As a and very little wiggle room that establish - "In this building we do much work young boy he was always interested in es a bright line. An easy decision clear to that." In common with many engineers collaboration over neural circuits. I have and mathematicians Peter enjoys listening computers, he could always see himself see where you're doing the wrong thing spent 20 years of my life researching good working in that area. His mother used to and where you're doing the right thing. to baroque music. “The order appeals to quality decision-making. If we can't us.” From the early days of the field a link be a GP and his father a neuropathologist Instead of fake promises one must make understand why we make good decisions and then toxicologist, however, he resis - concrete aspirations and very clear goals. was established between the composer maybe we can learn why we make the bad Bach and artificial intelligence (logical ted the family pressure towards medicine. “The field of decision-making is huge decisions." Although he realises that the nature of his and there are large economic and market - impossibility). When I asked Peter if his work has Peter enjoys living and working local - research is heading towards bringing neu - ing forces using clever strategies to affected the way he raises his children, roscience, psychology, and medicine manipulate us, supermarkets and shops ly. "Charlotte Street has a great atmos - there was a pause after which came an phere with good restaurants. I enjoy see - together in a way that means he may try to disrupt our patterns of choice and emphatic yes. have to spend part of his career attending behaviour by moving things around. ing the changes including people queue - "Having children is a way of seeing ing for the latest fashionable restaurants. medical school! There are many interesting anomalies in the nature versus nurture debate in action. At school maths was the subject he the way we make decisions" "Since I have started working at SWC How much of their behaviour is con - on Howland Street I have a straightfor - could relate to well and he went on to Political beliefs in the neural context trolled by their genes and how much by study mathematics at university but was can be seen in terms of defence against ward walk to work. In my previous work - their environment. As I get older I see place, walking to work meant I had to frustrated by its lack of applicability so threat. Conservatives (with a small c) myself doing things my father did more then did a bit of linguistics and showed have been shown to have a much greater make a detour for about 20 metres in the and more, there are very interesting pat - wrong direction, this used to annoy me interest in the field of artificial intelligence reaction to perceived threats, this anxiety terns of influence at work which are not (AI). “We use the way the brain works in about basic defence mechanism then and was a curious manifestation of my easily explained. Also the reversion optimisation characteristic!" the abstract way to model processes and spreads into other areas of their lives. You process means sometimes we don't do devices.” He worked for BT in the early can classify people’s political beliefs cor - I mentioned the fact that many house - things our parents did to us." holds in the area have problems with 1980s. He faced a choice in his life which related to their response of physical Work consumes much of his time but would determine the course of his future threats. Political beliefs are not purely mice. Could the SWC solve our problems direction, academia PhD? or business take the unwanted vermin off our hands! MBA? Peter does theoretical work but not I asked him if he looks back on those directly with the laboratory mice. "The crucial decisions and uses the hindsight of Competition mice that live in the mean streets of his scientific knowledge to analyse that Fitzrovia are smart wily mice. They can decision? He smiled and said “Often we Win a copy of Neural Architects By survive the threats and horrors of life in face interesting important decisions Georgina Ferry Fitzrovia, the mice we use for experi - where there is not nearly enough informa - ments are inbred - they are not quite so Fitzrovia News is delighted to have as a superb prize. smart but we know about their character - tion for us to make a decent choice.” This lavish book about the design and construction of The decision Peter took followed the istics. Where mice come from is essential the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre. For the chance to win for the repeatability of experiments.” academic route to do the PhD in AI at your copy simply email or write in your answer to Edinburgh. the question by August 1 “How many brain cells do I then asked Peter about how we the Fitzrovia News editorial team possess?” make decisions, for instance making the Amusing and flattering answers welcome. right lunchtime choices? Do you have the Please mark your entry “competition”. The editors healthy choice of salad or do you choose a decision is final. burger which is nice but unhealthy? facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017— 7 Threading mid-century American looks with West End cutting edge

Phantom menace

Phantom Thread set in London's fashion world in the 1950s, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville. The film is due to be released late 2017. People came to gawp at the filming and catch a glimpse of the stars. But for many local residents and businesses the months of disruption, procession of vehicles, and use of noisy and polluting generators did not go down well.

By Pete Whyatt Before setting up The Disguisery Giles worked in the media/broadcasting industry for 20 years. For many years the West side of Fitzrovia was He has always had an interest in clothes and music known as the home of the rag trade. Sadly that is starting in his youth when he was a revivalist mod. no more but one company keeping the tradition of He runs a club night in Islington, “Sidewinder” clothes manufacture and tailoring alive is the which specialises in Motown Disguisery at 33 Newman Street. ‘60s RnB and soul. In 2002 he They are high end tailors was a founder member of the with a house style influenced by Bar Italia scooter club mid century America and the “In a relaxed ambience with halcyon days of Hollywood but some cool jazz music in the with their roots firmly in the background we get to know our bespoke techniques and tradi - clients, their requirements and tions of Savile Row. personally guide them through Their customers range from their choice of colour style and those that want a suit for a spe - cloth.” he said “We then com - cial occasion to those that lead a prehensively measure them, sartorial life and those who choose fabrics linings buttons Golden locks want to add a dash of verve and and suit cut. Then comes the theatricality to their wardrobe. first baste fitting which is just Nicholas the barber in Goodge "There are lots of other barbers They started out as free - after the main elements of the Street is celebrating its golden now, but competition is good, lancers seeing clients privately garment have been very basical - anniversary. and we are doing all right." in their homes and offices and ly tacked together so that adjust - It was in 1967 that the late Jimmy Kleantou, who doing work for other tailors. In ments can be made to style and Nicholas Louki, a Greek worked there for 40 years, is 2014 they moved into premises fit. Then comes a second fitting Cypriot, bought the shop. now back in Cyprus, and in Windmill Street which they Gospel/Soul singer Leon Bridges where pockets and details are Now it is run by another "happy baby sitting his grand - quickly outgrew. being baste fitted for a Disguisery refined Sometimes a third fitting Nicholas, his grandson Nicholas children and enjoys being with The partners are, Becky suit Photo Darren Russell is useful to just make the perfect Charalambous, and his father his daughters again." Philp, Edita Grazeviciene and looking and feeling suit. Charalabus (the son-in-law of Charalabus is thinking of Giles Plumpton. Becky grew up “A lot of people don’t realise the original Nicholas). cutting his work back to two in Somerset where her family the amount of work that goes A haircut 50 years ago was days a week. "So we could do were in the rag trade. They into producing high quality tai - half-a-crown (12½ p). It is now with another barber," said designed and manufactured loring, a pair of trousers takes £16. Nicholas. clothes for Liberty’s amongst 16 hours work and a bespoke But ten years ago (when There are just two other others, she studied fine arts then suit 60 hours. The world of Fitzrovia News reported the shops in Goodge Street who trained with Savile Row tailors. clothes making is a close knit 40th anniversary) it was £11. "A have also been there for 50 years She specialises in trousers. Edita community and everyone rise of £5 over ten years is a bar - or more: the Spaghetti House at originally came from Lithuania knows each other. We do a lot of gain," remarked young Nicholas. number 15, and Ryness electri - where she studied fashion work for other tailors and big "Custom has increased since cians at 37. Nicholas is at 38a. design and technology. She name high end tailors. We feel the renovations of the shop in Gone are Holland the butcher at came to London 11 years ago to we are more down to earth. October," said Charalabus. 51, Grodzinski the baker at 53a, further her speciality as London “If you come to us you get Asked about the increased com - Lawtons dairy at 7, and Chivers is the premier place in the world the Savile Row quality in a petition in recent years, he said: fruiterers at 47. for fine cutting and tailoring. relaxed environment.” 8 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews

Word from the Streets By CHARLOTTE STREET and her siblings Getting a kick out of rugby and art Cartoon by Jayne Davis Not many manage to be a pro - into a film in 1963, was inspired fessional rugby player and an by a real life incident in his The perils of drunken spying art student at the same time. But teens. "I was in the second row, that is what the recently with a player who was playing A drunken Soviet diplomat made a fatal mistake when stopped deceased novelist David Storey out his last days. At one moment driving up Tottenham Court Road in 1971. He claimed diplomatic achieved by studying at Slade the ball was at my feet, and I immunity because he was a member of the KGB! Under interroga - School of Fine Art, 62 Gower realised that if I picked it up I'd tion he revealed a wide network of over 120 spies worked with Street , and playing for Leeds get my face kicked. And I hesi - him in the Soviet Embassy. This eventually led to the expulsion of rugby league club for £6 a week tated just that amount, and he 105 Soviet diplomats by the Conservative government of Edward in the early 1960s. didn't, and he got his face Heath. The two different worlds did kicked. He came up with a very The spy with the penchant for drunken driving claimed they not mix easily as he explained. bloody mouth, not knowing had planned to flood London Underground, assassinate key public "This artist swanning in for what had happened to his teeth. figures, and land submarines in remote Scottish bays. matches," he said, "had a very He just turned to me and said: This was all revealed in the Radio 4 programme called poor effect on the other players, 'You c***.' The guilt induced by "Embassy Spooks. Friend & Foes - Narrative History of who were all young coal min - that was enormous, which was Diplomacy" broadcast recently. ers." what prompted me to start writ - They showed their resent - ing about it." Mail misery ment by freezing him out. "You'd be playing and you had Since two of the three post offices in an opening in front of you and Final curtain the area closed last year it is no sur - the guy who ought to pass the prise the queues at the remaining The Samuel French theatre one have lengthened ridiculously. ball to you passed it over your bookshop at 52 Fitzroy Street head to his mate, missing out It is the one on the corner of was visited by a few actors Mortimer Street and Great this outsider from London. Or if before it closed in April. Damian he thought there was real trou - Portland Street. When my sister Lewis bought a copy of Edward Margaret went there early one ble in it, he'd give you the ball." Albee's play"The Goat, or Who On the other hand "at the morning she was delighted to see is Sylvia?" in which he was the queue was less than 20 people Slade I was seen as a bit of an appearing at the time. Sadly, oaf." for once. Glenda Jackson , had a good But of the four staff on duty one "I only really felt at home on look round but did not buy any - the train, where the two differ - was serving only Business (no thing, according to manager queue at all), another was serving ent parts of my life came togeth - Simon Ellison, and Simon Haunting pub news er." only Travel (no queue at all), and Callow merely looked in the one was serving only self service The embalmed head and skele - His first novel This Sporting window from outside. customers (no queue at all). ton of the eccentric philosopher Life , published in 1960 and made See feature page 16. So all the customers were served Jeremy Bentham will be spin - by just the single remaining mem - ning in its glass case in UCL, A crisp performance ber of staff. Margaret has worked Gower Street (above) . Actor John Hurt recalled meeting out it is quicker to walk 20 minutes Why? Because the pub the real Fitzrovian gay icon or so to the Marchmont Street post named after him in University Quentin Crisp before playing him office. Street has become part of the on television in 1975. Simmons cocktail bar chain... Celebrity watch "I had Sunday lunch with Mortimer mortified just 200 yards from another one Quentin and offered him a drink," Russell Brand was snapped in Maple Street. My increasingly senile older recalled the recently deceased actor coming out of Ahi Poke in Percy Bentham (1748-1832) was brother Mortimer was mortified on the BBC2 documentary Talking Street by Angela Nicholson. instrumental in setting up (excuse the pun) to learn his Pictures. University College at 43 Gower story in last month's column "He had one Guinness. Then he Street in 1826. To discourage about the Duke of York in Gobbledygook said yes to another. When I offered the practice of body snatching Rathbone Street was at least a him a third, he said No, any more for medical research he donated decade out of date. He referred "Our number one safety strate - would be a debauch." his own corpse. After the to the removal of the second lot gy is 'Challenging Beliefs, Hurt (pictured right playing organs had been removed his of doors between the bar and Affecting Behaviours'," pro - Crisp) said he was attracted to the padded out skeleton was the gents toilet as if it was claims Galliford Try, the "con - role, based on Crisp's autobiogra - dressed at his request in his recent. Landlady Debi assures siderate constructors" now phy The Naked Civil Servant, own clothes with his embalmed him it was before she took over refurbishing the new hall of because he was "interested in the head on top displayed in the the pub 12 years ago. residence for UCL Astor misunderstood" and admired South Cloisters of UCL where Talking of this excellent com - College at 99 Charlotte Street. Crisp's "life as a crusade" for gay it can still be seen. tenacity of the individual against munity pub we noticed filming "We strive to ensure that rights (when it was illegal). The head was replaced with the cruelty of the crowd." outside it recently (or at least this is understood by all site But, he added, "many people a wax effigy after students kept Many think that this was the within the last few years). Turns personnel," stated its "local advised me not to do it on the using the real one to play foot - finest role of Hurt (who lived local - out it was for a television film of stakeholder newsletter" for grounds of playing a homosexual ball with! ly in Gordon Mansions). J K Rowling's novel called The March. would end my career as it was so His ghost is said to haunt Among them is this column's Cuckoo's Calling. I am not sure I understand contentious." the building waving his walk - own illustrator Jayne Davis . She what it means. Maybe the col - Hurt was proud that he went ing stick which he called recalled that her Great Titchfield Evesdroppings lege's learned lecturers can ahead as it "changed people's minds Dapple (and is next to his Street neighbour, the late actress enlighten me. about their own personal bigotry skeleton). “Perhaps he should Anna Wing , befriended Crisp when Overheard in The Hope in and had a colossal effect." start haunting the pub now he frequented local pubs and cafes Tottenham Street: "He was re He quoted screenwriter Robert eet instead,” mused my boozy (such as the Low Dive of Charlotte irritating, I mean reiterating." Str Bolt that the film was about "the lotte brother Percy. Street). Maybe right first time. Char facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 9 Fitzrovia Bicycles swallowed by the ever-expanding Opening and closing Velorution Closed Opened Fresh Collection dry cleaners shoe repairs 5 Warren Street Black and Blue bar grill 37 Berners Street Fitzrovia Bicycles 136 -138 New Cavendish Street Brot Kultur German Bakery 155 Tottenham Court Road

There’s been a cycle repair shop on the corner of New Cavendish Street and Hanson Street for as long as I’ve iSmash tech repairs lived in Fitzrovia, writes Linus Rees . 38 Tottenham Court Road Now it is boarded up and the staff of Fitzrovia Crep protect sneaker cleaning, restoration Aquatic design centre aquariums, tropical and care 15 Percy Street Bicycles have made a deal to carry on trading as part of Tory leader Theresa May has fish 109 Great Portland Street Kibele Turkish restaurant Velorution in nearby Great Portland Street. been depicted as Marilyn Barnyard eatery 18 Charlotte Street 175-177 Great Portland Street Fitzrovia Bicycles, which was run by three mechan - Monroe in a piece of street Ryman stationery 87 Great Portland Street ics since buying the store from the previous owner in art which appeared on a wall Seventeen 0 seven Italian eatery 2010, was facing a huge increase in rent and rates and on a street corner in 23 Warren Street had planned to move to cheaper premises nearby. But Fitzrovia ahead of the gener - Acuitis spectacles hearing aids the cost of running a retail workshop in Fitzrovia did al election. The stencil paint - 18 Tottenham Court Road not seem viable in the long-term. ing is signed by Loretto and P Johnson tailors 51-52 Rathbone Place Instead, in May this year Velorution announced that shows May with her trade - Senor Cebiche Peruvian cuisine it had come to an arrangement to take on the staff and mark leopard skin shoes with 18 Charlotte Street their workshop expertise and become part of its grow - her skirt blowing in an ing business. Velorution, which has two shops in Great updraft, mimicking the Portland Street, specialises in up-market stylish cycles, Opening soon American film star standing tweed clothing and leather shoes, and publishes a on an air vent above New Pennydrop coffee 13 Tottenham Street cycling lifestyle magazine. It has boosted its finances York’s subway in the movie Meraki Greek restaurant by running a successful crowd-funding strategy. The Seven Year Itch. The 80-82 Great Titchfield Street In the early 1980s the New Cavendish Street shop painting by the prolific Joe and the juice coffee, juices had a large part in popularising the British mountain street artist can be seen out - 96-98 Great Portland Street bike boom importing off-road cycles and selling them side a cafe on the corner of Evans cycles 51-52 Rathbone Place Sushi Kasuga 114 Great Portland Street under the name Muddy Fox. Mortimer Street and Newman Street. NEW HOMES LETTINGS

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23-24 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8LF 020 7927 0616 www.rib.co.uk [email protected] / [email protected] www.rib.co.uk 10 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews New book highlights many aspects of life i Streets of Fitzrovia. Edited by Steven Denford and David Hayes. Published by Camden History Society, £8.50. It is available from Camden Local Studies and Archive Centre, 32-38 Theobalds Road, Holborn, WC1. Or online at: https://camden-history-pchz.squarespace.com/streets-of-admin/streets-of-fitzrovia-new The strange case of the maidservant who supposedly beheaded herself uicide was a coroner's sur - but escaped justice with the de-Camp to the Secretary of (see Notable Women below). a field near Tottenham Court prising verdict of a young unusual verdict. State, Sir William Hutt Curzon An expert banknote forger, woman whose head had Road. S This is one of many quirky Wyllie, and a Parsee doctor Charles Price, hid out in 3 The Pink Floyd fans might be been completely severed from her body! tales to be found in this new Lalcaca. Terrace which was behind 177 interested to know Syd Barrett The unfortunate female was treasure trove of a booklet. Dhingra claimed he wanted Tottenham Court Road, where lived in a bedsit at 12 Tottenham maidservant Rosetta Brown who Others that caught my fancy to avenge British murders of he was arrested in 1784. He was Street in 1964; and Jeremy was employed at 22 Huntley were: Indians. He was hanged at known as Old Patch because of Corbyn fans that his brother Street where her corpse and The shooting gallery in the Pentonville. the eye-patch he disguised him - Piers led a squat in 1977-8 in detached head were found in Fairyland amusement arcade at In the same year two militant self with. Huntley Street at what is now 1846. 92 Tottenham Court Road was suffragettes, who wished to He gained some £200,000 the luxury flats of Bloomsbury Her employer, a surveyor used by an assassin practising assassinate the prime minister, from his forgeries, a huge for - Terrace and was then the named Jenkins, and her fiance his art. It was the Indian nation - Herbert Asquith, for opposing tune in those days, and hanged recently closed police flats who lodged in the house were alist Madan Lal Dhingra who in votes for women, also practised himself while in custody.... after (see Squatters move page 19) . both suspected of her murder, 1909 shot and killed the Aide- in Fairyland's shooting gallery burying his counterfeit plates in MP Suffragettes planned to shoot prime minister murdered there by Jack the DAVID HAYES examines notable women Ripper. Many years later in 1902 Annie was reunited with her John spent a few years at the n the history of Fitzrovia daughter, back on our patch and there’s no shortage of notable turn of the 20th century in a living in great poverty at her women. Among the A-listers, basement flat in Howland Street, I mother’s in a single room in one can’t avoid mentioning the which she called a ‘dungeon’ leading female members of the Pancras (now Capper) Street. and where she was surrounded Bloomsbury Group. The group’s Her daughter Alice, by then 14, name is actually something of a by cats. Gwen had a stormy was described as ‘stone deaf’ misnomer. Although its genesis affair with Ambrose McEvoy, and had applied to St Pancras was in Gordon Square, and it who for a while shared a studio was there that first blossomed parish for relief. in Charlotte Street with her the triangular sexual liaisons for Among non-royal love brother Augustus. which the bohemian set became affairs we might mention a veg - famous, the group’s centre of An earlier artist was Mary etarian restaurant in Rathbone gravity was often just as much in Moser, one of only two female Place, a favourite eating-place of neighbouring Fitzrovia. members of the Royal Academy a young George Bernard Shaw Although Virginia also sub - when it was founded in 1768. and Edith Nesbit, best known as sequently again lived in The other was Angelica the author of The Railway Bloomsbury after her marriage Kauffmann. Especially noted for Children, with whom he had a to Leonard Woolf, the only local her paintings of flowers, Mary passionate affair in the summer blue plaque to Virginia Woolf, as died aged 74, as Mrs Mary of 1886. an individual, is on the house in Lloyd, at 21 Huntley Street. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (illustrated by Clifford Harper) The area has played a part in Fitzroy Square to which she At 36 Percy Street was the the history of women’s rights. moved with her brother Adrian studio of the 19th-century Catsqualani’. And the Italian- An early resident of Store Street in 1907. That year had also seen painter Margaret Gillies, the French singer Adelina Patti lived – for fifteen months from the ill-fated marriage of partner of the health reformer in Fitzroy Square. Verdi September 1791 – was the proto- Virginia’s sister Vanessa to the Dr Southwood Smith. Entrusted described her as being perhaps feminist writer Mary art critic Clive Bell. She, too, had to the doctor’s care had been the the finest singer who had ever Wollstonecraft. While there, she Fitzrovia connections, subse - auto-icon – or preserved corpse - lived and a ‘stupendous artist’. was painted by John Opie and quently sharing a studio in of the philosopher Jeremy More than one royal mis - wrote and published her contro - Fitzroy Street with Paul Nash Bentham. And for a few months tresses enters the story of versial Vindication of the Rights and her bisexual lover Duncan around 1850 it was kept in Fitzrovia. The area owes its very of Woman. This she had dedicat - Grant. And much later, in the Margaret’s Percy Street studio, name to the bedroom adven - ed to the French statesman last six years before Vanessa’s prior to being donated to tures of a lady named Barbara Talleyrand, and when the man death in 1961, she and Grant University College, where it can Palmer, who became Duchess of himself paid a visit to Mary at lived together at 28 Percy Street. still be seen. Margaret later Cleveland. She was one of the her ‘commodious’ Store Street Born in Bloomsbury, moved to another studio in many mistresses of Charles the apartment, he was amazed to be Charlotte Mew was described by what’s now Conway Street. Second. Her illegitimate son, served wine in a teacup. Four Thomas Hardy as the best Nearby at the time, in who was named Henry FitzRoy years later Mary was lodging at woman poet of her day. She Fitzroy Street, was the base of – or son of the King – became 26 Charlotte Street, nursing her lived latterly in Charlotte Street, the Ladies’ Guild, which found the first Duke of Grafton. newborn baby Fanny Imlay. in the studio of her artist sister employment for gentlewomen in Married aged nine to a 5-year- Distraught at her rejection by Anne. After Anne’s death from distressed circumstances. In 1852 Fairyland, whose shooting gallery old heiress, he inherited the land her lover Gilbert Imlay, she tried cancer, Charlotte became Southwood Smith’s daughter was used by suffragettes planning on which Fitzrovia was devel - to poison herself.Bloomsbury depressed and in 1928 commit - Caroline Southwood Hill to assassinate Herbert Asquith. oped a century later. A much had many connections with the ted suicide by drinking disinfec - became its manager. She lived sadder royal mistress was Annie women’s suffrage movement, tant. there with her four young Nancy Storace, who lived in Crook, who worked in a tobac - Fitzrovia had one or two. At 92 As for novelists, much earlier daughters, including Octavia Howland Street, was both a conist’s in Cleveland Street and Tottenham Court Road was an in 1812-13, Fanny Burney lodged Hill, later co-founder of the singer and a comic actress. She also modelled for the artist establishment called Fairyland. for some months in Chenies National Trust. The teenage was very short and plump, but Walter Sickert. Annie formed a Its ground-floor amusement Street with her widowed sister Octavia was made head of the her vivacious personality on liaison with Prince Albert Victor arcade offered slot machines, a Charlotte. By then aged 60, she workroom, where children from stage made up for her lack of (Eddy), the eldest son of the skittle alley and a fortune teller. was recovering from a gruesome a local ragged school made toys. physical beauty. Angelica Prince of Wales (Edward VII). Upstairs was a shooting gallery mastectomy for breast cancer, She would sometimes visit the Catalani lived in 1810 in According to Sickert’s son, she – allegedly used for target prac - performed in Paris without an children’s homes, and in this Charlotte Street. She’s said to gave birth to Eddy’s illegitimate tice in 1909 by two militant suf - anaesthetic. way the future social-housing have been the highest-paid daughter in 1885, apparently fragettes intending to assassi - P D James, in the 1940s a pioneer gained an early insight opera singer in history, and her marrying the prince in secret nate the Prime Minister, Mr young mother with two daugh - into the living conditions of the greed helped spark the ‘Old soon after. Annie was sent to a Asquith. It’s said they didn’t ters, worked as a clerical assis - poor. Price’ riots at Covent Garden mental institution in 1888; her succeed because they were tant at the London Skin Hospital Among Fitzrovia residents against seat prices, which went friend Mary Kelly escaped with shopped to the police by their in Fitzroy Square. from the world of music were on for months. Rowlandson cari - the baby – called Alice - to the less militant (Bloomsbury- Returning to the world of three superlative operatic divas. catured Angelica as ‘Mrs art, the Welsh painter Gwen East End, only to be promptly based!) suffragist sisters. facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 11 n Fitzrovia over the centuries From pianos to perfume RUTH HAYES had been reduced to a shell by describes the wide an air raid on October 14-15, 1940, but the façade was rescued range of industries after the-war. Off the west side of that once thrived Ridgmount Street is Ridgmount any industries devel - Place, which until renamed in oped and declined in 1938 was known as Little Mthe locality including Britain. This short cul-de-sac soap and perfume, household was once a hive of industry, goods, clothing, food, musical instruments, automobile engi - with a piano factory on its south neering and rubber products. side. On the north side (but We start with probably the actually No.6 Ridgmount Street) best known, furniture making. were the soap factory, warehous - Ambrose Heal’s The London es and offices of Yardley and furniture makers from the Co., who moved here from Vine Restoration to the Victorian era, (now Grape) Street in 1883. After 1660-1840 (1972) tells us that Yardley’s departure for Stratford Pierre Langlois was a French in 1904, the premises became the émigré cabinetmaker active from base of A Escoffier Ltd. The cele - 1759, renowned for his use of brated chef of the Carlton Hotel gilt-bronze and elaborate floral had started this business that marquetry. Langlois had opened was run by his son, marketing a shop at No.39 Tottenham pickles and sauces that were Court Road – ‘at the sign of bottled and sold with smart commode tables’ and paid rates labels bearing the Ridgmount on the premises until 1781. Street address. The building sub - Fitzroy House in North sequently became the first local Crescent (strictly, No.11 Chenies base of the previously men - Street) was built in 1913 as the tioned perfumery firm Delafine. Fitzroy Works of cabinet makers Moving on to musical instru - Domenico Bianco & Sons – late Tudor Place, south side, 1972; with Time Out building in the background ments, the Italian-born compos - er and pianoforte maker Muzio of Fitzrovia, hence, presumably, occupied 16 consecutive George Dance the Younger’s Court Road, which would have Clementi, often described as the the factory’s name. I’ve recently addresses in Tottenham Court plan for the City of London adjoined the south side of Tudor ‘Father of the Piano’, was a resi - discovered, on the V&A Road (Nos.200-215), and boasted Corporation’s estate. But in the Place. In the background of this dent of No.21 Alfred Place in the Museum archive website, that of having "the largest stock of early 1900s, the original houses 1970s image of Tudor Place can early 19th century. He was also a the building was London’s first old oak furniture in the world". were demolished, to be replaced be seen the former Time Out piano maker and music publish - steel and concrete five-storey This firm resisted the by buildings for light industrial building on the east side of er, and with several business factory, where during the two Corporation of London’s plans use, such as Nos.35-37 on the Tottenham Court Road, the loca - partners, including Frederick World Wars, aeroplane wings, at around that time to extend east side, also known as Darnoc tion of which is near our next Collard, were short-term occu - propellers and munition boxes Alfred Place north to Alfred House. Products made in its building. pants on the Heal’s site, from were made. At other times, the Mews, but it was forced to move workshops ranged from ladies’ Opened for the Association 1806 at former No.195; unfortu - design and manufacture of a in 1903 to a new building at skirts to cardboard boxes. At the for the General Welfare of the nately the premises burned variety of period furniture was Nos. 209-212 Tottenham Court north end of the street was the Blind at No.258 Tottenham down the following year. the firm’s main concern. Road, which was expensively mineral water factory of the Court Road in 1893 was a pur - Former No.16 Store Street Backing onto North erected, complete with lifts. Norwich-based Quaker firm pose-built factory, designed by was the entrance to the premises Crescent, Alfred Mews offers a Unfortunately, a 330 per cent Messrs Caley, better known as the Bedford Estate architect, of piano makers Robert Wornum commentary on changing occu - increase in the ground rent chocolate makers. Charles Fitzroy Doll. The & Sons, who arrived here in pations in the 19th century. The payable to the City Corporation Round the corner in Chenies Association was founded in 1830. Two years later, the com - carman, wheelwright, coach and contributed to the firm’s bank - Street, former No.12 before WWI Holborn in 1854 by Miss pany’s founder was the inventor harness maker, and livery sta - ruptcy in 1906 and its demise housed Sanatogen Ltd, mar - Elizabeth Gilbert, the blind of the ‘low upright or cottage bles of the 1840s, had given way the next year. keters of the ‘brain tonic’ made daughter of a Bishop of piano’. The factory extended two decades later to cabinet Moving on to other indus - by the German firm, Bauer. Chichester, and aimed to teach north to Little Britain, embracing makers, a timber merchant and tries, this 1970s photo of Tudor During the course of the war, trades to the adult blind, pro - within it the Wornum Hall, an iron-bedstead maker. Place [above] indicates that small the occupier became Genatosan vide them with materials, and opened in 1832 ‘expressly for The furniture making firm factories and warehouses were Ltd, the company set up to pro - assure a market for their work. Morning and Evening Concerts’, that became Hewetson, Milner still located in close proximity to duce a British substitute. Around 80 blind people were and seating up to 1,000 people. & Thexton was founded in 1825 major West End thoroughfares. Present-day No.18 – now part of employed in its ‘light and lofty’ In 1868, the Wornum Hall was by John Hewetson, a Cumbrian No longer extant, Tudor Place RADA – was actually built for workshops, while five or six the venue for the first British upholsterer, and continued by had been developed by the industrial use. In Edwardian worked in their own homes, performance of George him in partnership with two of 1830s on the site of a Black times, it was one of the London making items such as hard- Tolhurst’s Ruth, regarded by his brothers, a cabinet-maker Horse Yard, behind the west addresses of the Scottish firm J wearing mats, baskets and many as ‘the worst oratorio called Robert Thexton, and for - side of Tottenham Court Road at Pullar & Sons, dyers by appoint - brushes. The Association ever’. mer ‘shopman’ William Milner. its southern end; access to it was ment to His Majesty the King. In remained in Tottenham Court The firm John E Dallas & We discover in the 1861 and from Gresse Street. the 1960s and 70s, Jaeger Road until WWII. When No.258 Sons manufactured banjos 1871 Censuses that all five part - Among the many small busi - designed and made clothing was rebuilt after the war, some (trademarked ‘Jedson’), guitars, ners hailed from the nesses there, was the works of models and patterns there: prox - of the Fitzroy Doll ground-floor drums and other instruments, Westmorland parish of Mr Morgan, soap boiler and tal - imity to the West End in what elements and façades were and also published sheet music. Ravenstonedale, as at one time low maker, where a huge fire was then less expensive proper - incorporated; but they seem not Founded in the Strand, the com - did 20 of their workers. By 1839, broke out in 1842. There were no ty would have been a factor in to have survived the recent rede - pany moved from Betterton the business was installed both fatalities, but damage to proper - choice of location. A perfumery velopment, as the Bloomsbury Street in 1937 into a purpose- at Nos. 211-212 Tottenham Court ties was extensive. The soap firm called Delafine had No.18 Conservation Area Advisory built five-storey factory, known Road, and at No.204 (on the works was rebuilt and contin - as one of its premises from the Committee would have wished. as the Dallas Building in what Glen House site); and by 1871, ued in operation throughout the late 1930s, adding to its adjacent Halfway up and behind the was then Little Britain, now had premises in Alfred Mews, Victorian period. In fact, Morgan pre-existing factory buildings east side of Tottenham Court known as Ridgmount Place. The expanding by the end of the cen - was candle and soap manufac - which lined much of the west Road, Alfred Place had been building was hit by an incendi - tury to occupy Nos.1-15. turer to Queen Victoria, and had side of Ridgmount Street. The completed as a residential street ary in the air raid of April 16-17, At that time, Hewetsons shop premises at 18 Tottenham beautiful frontage at Nos.19-21 in 1810, designed as part of 1941. 12 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews All the fun Community Fitzrovia Festival of the centre holds open day Fitzrovia Festival will be cele - school fair brating the life and history of Special event: Collaboration Works Fitzrovia Centre in Foley Street the neighbourhood with a All Souls Primary School will be will welcome people to the series of non-commercial holding its annual summer fair building for a day of workshops events including exhibitions, in July. and activities as part of FitzFest literature, and guided walks, The school playground will this June. from Monday 19 to Sunday 25 be open and Riding House “Come and celebrate the best June. Street will be closed for the of our neighbourhood with The People Live Here event. acoustic quartet, Yorker and a Festival, first held in 1973, will There will be live music, session with the Fitzrovia again explore the past, present, some great food, and all the Village dancers,” says the invita - and future of this fascinating usual fête-type stalls, plus a cir - tion. inner London district. cus-skills workshop (for chil - There will be family work - dren), a bouncy castle (for chil - shops include beatboxing, music List of events: dren!), and a really great balloon making and imagination work - artist. Plus a great raffle outs. Plus facepainting, refresh - • 7pm Monday 19 June: (c. £1,500 in prizes so far). ments, games and more. guided walk — The Curse of Summer Open Day, 11am to Crossrail and Property All Souls School Summer Fair, 5pm Saturday 10 June 2017 at Developers: all about a fast- 12 noon to 4pm, Saturday 1 July, Fitzrovia Centre, 2 Foley Street, changing Fitzrovia. Discover Riding House Street. London W1W 6DL. what the future holds. Admission free. • 7pm Tuesday 20 June: guided walk — Sustainable Transport. From Warren Street to Oxford Street the good and the bad of traffic management. Be a part of the Fitzrovia Festival at an evening that celebrates collab - A tour and talk about changes oration with discussion, readings and audience Q&A. to the streets in and around the Neural scientists, architects, social scientists, science writers and neighbourhood. science fiction authors all come together to take you on their journeys • 6.30pm Thursday 22 June: of collaboration. Collaboration Works. A litera - Georgina Ferry introduces Neural Architects, her behind-the- ture event: Georgina Ferry scenes account of a unique collaboration between a leading architec - introduces Neural Architects tural practice, Ian Ritchie Architects Ltd, and a community of scien - and Stephen Oram launches his tists seeking to understand how we think, feel, understand and new collection, Eating Robots remember. The outcome of this collaboration is the evening’s host and Other Stories. (Note: held building, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre. at Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, Stephen Oram launches his new collection, Eating Robots and Howland Street. See special Other Stories, featuring interconnected and dangerously discarded event preview opposite). 'things', a punishment loop for unethical AIs and an errant robot. •10am to 4pm Saturday 24 Many of the stories were inspired by his collaboration with scientists June: exhibition and browse and artists, in particular a project with the Bristol Robotics and buy book stall. Old photo - Laboratory and social scientists at Kings College London. graphs and books about the As Alan Winfield, Professor of Robot Ethics at Bristol Robotics neighbourhood and by local Laboratory, said, “This collection offers an insightful, often worrying, authors. set of thought experiments on the possible unintended consequences • 12 noon Saturday 24 June: of near future AI.” guided walk — Fitzrovia and Christine Aicardi (Senior Research Fellow, King's College the music industry. A tour of London) will read her own short fiction, Tablet Stroker, and respond former sites and venues from to stories from Eating Robots. Danbee Kim (Researcher at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and Fitzrovia past. Bowie and Clifford Slapper on the set of Extras. Photo by Ray Burmiston • 10am to 4pm, Sunday 25 Scientist-in-Residence at the Brighton Sea Life Centre) is collaborat - June: exhibition and browse ing with Stephen on a new story especially for the event. and buy book stall continues. Following the audience Q&A there will be plenty of time to chat over a glass of wine and get signed copies of Neural Architects and All events are at the Fitzrovia Eating Robots. Pianist celebrates Neighbourhood Centre, 39 Tottenham Street, W1T 4RX Collaboration Works. A literature event: 6.30pm Thursday 22 June at (except Thursday). Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, 25 Howland Street, London W1T 4JG. Admission free. Bowie with friends fitzroviafestival.org.uk

A new album of David Bowie songs has been released by Clifford Slapper, pianist and Fitzrovia News columnist (page 19). It is called THE DUKE OF YORK Bowie Songs One, and features ten of Bowie's songs perfomed by dif - ferent singers with Clifford on piano. And there is a chance to hear it performed live by the artists on Opening hours, Mon-Fri, 12-11pm, June 14, from 7 to 9pm, in St Giles in the Fields Church, 60 St Giles Sat 1-11pm, Sun closed High Street (near Centre Point). More details, visit bowiesongs.com The full list is: 47 RATHBONE STREET,LONDON W1T 1NW Always Crashing in the Same 020 7636 7065 [email protected] Car Ray Burmiston Oh! You Pretty Things Katherine Ellis A traditional pub, with a good selection of Letter to Hermione Linda Hergarten real ales and varied wine list. Upstairs Sweet Thing David McAlmont Bar/Function room available for private You Can Hear Me Funmilayo Drive-in Saturday Ian Shaw parties and Buffets. Check us out on Stay, sung Marella Puppini After All Billie Ray Martin Facebook! Slip Away Des de Moor Time Linda Hergarten facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 13 True romance of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears revealed in new play The private life of composer Benjamin Britten and Peter and feature the up-and-coming Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears, edited by Vicki P. tenor Andrew Staples. Pears will be played out in pub - Stroeher, Nicholas Clark, and The first performance is on 8 lic and on stage this June ahead Jude Brimmer, which was pub - June — a month before the 50th of the anniversary of the repeal lished last year. anniversary of The Sexual of the law that criminalised sex Drawing on the letters which Offences Act, which finally between men. Britten and Pears wrote to each decriminalised love affairs like Tell Me The Truth About other, Tell Me The Truth About the one between Britten and Love, written by historian and Love is being staged as part of Pears. playwright Sue Blundell, cele - FitzFest — a festival devoted to Tell Me The Truth About brates the relationship between music by composers who lived Love: 7.15 pm, Thursday 8 June the composer and his long-term in Fitzrovia. It will feature 2017, at The Sainsbury Wellcome partner. excerpts from Britten’s music, Centre on Howland Street at Women’s art group The work is adapted from performed by the FitzFest musi - 7.15 pm Tickets: £15.00 plus My Beloved Man: The Letters of cians directed by Daniel Bates £1.52 booking fee. in pop art exhibition FitzFest music festival at British Museum Fitzrovia women working on the panel for the partnership art project at the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre. Fitzrovia’s own music festivial Thursday 8 June and 6pm-7pm Sainsbury will be held again this year at a Yoga and Meditation with Andy Wellcome Centre, corner of A Fitzrovia women’s art group groups have taken a playful variety of venues across the Sotto . Join Andy for yoga from Cleveland and Howland Street will join other community approach in the way they neighbourhood 7-11 June. 9am to 11am followed by medi - Aboriginal Artists - a talk by organisations this summer in express their ideas and designs, FitzFest, in its second year, is tation at 11am. Fitzrovia Chapel. Rebecca Hossack, 5.30pm to putting on a display at the while others have been able to the brainchild of local resident (repeated 9 and 10 June) 7pm, Rebecca Hossack Art British Museum. draw upon patterns from within and oboe player Dan Bates who Guided walk with Mike Gallery, 2a Conway St. London Pop is a collabora - their own culture and translate it says the festival is “grounded in Pentelow, 11am to 12.30pm. "Pure Bliss" Music by Sir tive art installation and a into the notion of contemporary the local community” Fitzrovia Centre. Arthur Bliss . 7.30pm to 9.30pm response to American Dream: pop art. Selected events Evening concert: Tell Me The Fitzrovia Chapel. pop to the present, a major exhi - In common for all the groups (see fitzfest.co.uk for full listing): Truth About Love — Sue Saturday 10 June . bition which has been on show involved has been the opportu - Blundell on Britten and Walter Sickert guided walk at the British Museum since nity of using pop art as the basis Wednesday 7 June Pears,(see above) 7.15 pm at The around Fitzrovia with Matthew March. for a platform to discuss and Fitzrovia Village Tea Dance Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, 25 Sturgis. 11am to 12.30pm, Looking at the art of some of voice current affairs, media and Special 1.30pm to 4pm (doors Howland Street, W1T 4JG. Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery. the most celebrated American other issues. open from 1pm) Fitzrovia Neil McLaren plays Bach on Fitzrovia: A Medley of Music pop artists the project, created The Mary Ward Centre, Chapel, 2 Pearson Square Rudall Carte flute . 9pm to 10pm and Musicians - a talk by Nick by adults from 12 community College for Adult Education, led Family Jam 4pm to 5pm Fitzrovia Chapel. Bailey 5.30pm to 7pm, Fitzrovia groups across Central London, the project, working with several Fitzrovia Centre, 2 Foley Street. Friday 9 June , Centre. has explored themes of con - groups in Camden, Islington sumerism, identity, urban envi - and Hackney.. Join us for an hour of non-stop Fitzrovia: a Diverse Sunday 11 June ronment and food through a London Pop will be dis - beats and rhythms! Community : Guided walk with Middlesex Voices Interlude by variety of art techniques, includ - played from 6 June 2017 for two *No Particular Place to Go - Sue McCarthy from Camden Scanner 10am to 1pm and 3pm ing textiles, weaving, collage, weeks in the Great Court at the Poetry Unbound , 6pm to 8pm. Tour Guides. 11am to 12.30pm. to 6pm Fitzrovia Chapel. printmaking, applique and digi - British Museum, Great Russell Exiled Writers Ink presents poets Fitzrovia Centre. Eric Coates: A Celebration of his tal imagery. Street, London WC1B 3DG. of exiled and immigration back - Jazz with the Pete Whyatt Jazz Life and Music . 7pm The King & Some of the community Admission free. ground. Fitzrovia Centre. Band, outdoor event 1pm-2pm Queen pub Foley Street. Poetry corner

THE BODY OF HISTORY I became crippled. by Beth Lynette Thyr "Not for the first time," said my mother, MAYDAY HEYDAY I was born crippled marshal of my history. By Wendy Shutler Legs akimbo "You may have unseen, lasting damage The sun rose, bringing into being Left foot stubbornly refusing to uncurl From the battle we fought together. the dreaming spires of Oxford: the choir My mother, heeding the doctors' orders, Now respect your body's past was singing. Singing in the May Morning Put her blonde baby in a leg brace As you walk into the future." from the top of Christchurch Tower. Then, Her toddler in stiff, white, corrective boots a joyous clamour of church bells ringing. Her mended, beaming school-girl In shop-bought shoes DRUNKEN LONDON Girls in long white dresses, flowers in Just like the rest of the class by Terry Egan their tresses, My mind forgot From the lay-by here - slightly dishevelled mediaeval princesses, My body remembered with its yellow and white lines - released During years of peacetime, my body kept I see the market debouch from ivory towers, drifted on the Isis in her counsel into the High Road: punts, Only upon conscription did she begin to pick-ups and hatch-backs casting blossoms on the water, with raffish protest screech in and out, where tumble young men in rumpled dinner jackets. "Reflect on your history," my body whis - oranges and tomatoes pered in twinges onto smashed pavements... And there was dancing in the streets that "Remember your history," my body dilapidated, day, intoned in aches the buildings, though, are propped up when the sun rose on the first of May, "Ignore your history at your peril," my with grey scaffolding: on that enchanted green and glittering body screamed cars swerve out of a side-street; time A dog gets a rare close-up view of the portrait of Henry In searing pain an apple teeters... when we were in our heady summer Fitzroy on the sign of The Fitzrovia in Goodge Street As the fascia of my left foot ripped apart who's at that open window? prime. while the exterior was being renovated. And decades of détente unravelled. 14 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews The anarchic writer with a taste for the macabre who was killed in the trenches

By HELENE PARRY will amuse anyone who’s ever struggled over writing a thank- blue plaque on the facade you letter for some unwanted of a red-brick building in gift. In The Interlopers, two Mortimer Street, Fitzrovia, A men, neighbours but lifelong informs passers-by that this was once the home of the short story enemies, meet on a stormy night writer Hector Hugh Munro in an Eastern European forest. (1870-1916). This respectful trib - When a falling tree pins them ute stops short of revealing that H H Munro, better known by his both to the ground, they pen name Saki, was possibly the exchange bitter insults, but most anarchic English writer of eventually reconcile and agree to the Edwardian age. end their feud, only to find that To his delighted readers, Saki they face a far more terrible is, simply, the king of the short enemy from the natural world. story. One devotee describes him One subject Saki never as “a glorious pyromaniac let expanded on was his choice of loose in the genteel upper-mid - nom de plume, but there are two dle class Edwardian world he theories about it - either that he knew so well”. took the name of a cupbearer Saki is chiefly remembered who appears in the Rubaiyat of as a humorist, and his stories Omar Khayyám, or that he sparkle with wit and brilliant adopted the name of a South dialogue. But his taste for the American monkey which macabre is such that sometimes appears in one of his the reader laughs to keep from stories. Certainly the monkey shivering, as in The Reticence Of theory would fit the playful Lady Anne, when a put-upon quality of his fiction. husband tries to make up with When World War I broke his wife after an argument, not out, Saki, then 43, was officially realising that she is sitting in too old to enlist, but refused a cold silence because she is dead. commission, joined as an ordi - When Saki was two years nary trooper, and eventually old, his mother was killed by a transferred to the Royal runaway cow and he was Fusiliers, in which he rose to the brought up by two tyrannical rank of lance-sergeant. In maiden aunts. It is perhaps not November 1916, when shelter - surprising that, in his world, ing with his battalion in a shell nature is savage, and humans crater in the trenches of France, who clash with animals – ferrets, he was killed by a German she-wolves, tigers – rarely come sniper’s bullet. As so often in his off best. In one of his funniest tales, his own story ended with The plaque at 97 Mortimer Street stories, The Elk, a domineering an unexpected, untimely death. grandmother relies on a cantan - According to several sources, his kerous elk to help her control last words were: “Put that her grandson’s love life, only to bloody cigarette out!” see the beast thwart her plans. Although the Edwardian era In another tale with a twist, is long gone, the vices Saki so Tobermory, Lady Blemley’s pet tirelessly exposed – pomposity, cat is taught to speak by a cruelty, greed, hypocrisy – are learned guest, and proceeds to still very much with us, giving shock the members of her house his stories a timeless appeal. As party with his frank comments he wrote of the political scene of on their indiscretions. Much to his day: “We all know that the relief of the guests, Prime Ministers are wedded to Tobermory meets his end at the the truth, but like other married paws of Big Tom from the recto - couples, they sometimes live ry, while the learned guest ends apart.” up trampled by an elephant in Saki’s blue plaque at 97 Dresden Zoo. As one sardonic Mortimer Street was unveiled by guest remarks: “If he was trying the writer Will Self in 2003. German irregular verbs on the Perhaps it’s as well that the poor beast, he deserved all he inscription doesn’t include one got.” Book cover for Saki, The Complete of Saki’s quips about the area – The Edwardian house-party Short Stories (Penguin Modern Hector Hugh Munro aka Saki, by E O Hoppe, 1913 in one story, his hero Reginald is a setting Saki frequently uses Classics 2000 edition) decries the kind of relative who, to ridicule the follies and preten - nerves of a fragile visitor with Vashtar. He asks a boon of his at Christmas “’knows a tie is sions of the society he lived in. reviewer puts it: “In a truly an imaginative prank. But few of god: “Do one thing for me, always useful’ and sends you Two of his heroes, Reginald and Sakian Wodehouse story, Bertie his stories are darker than Sredni Vashtar.” His request is some spotted horror you could Clovis, are young men-about- Wooster would be trapped Sredni Vashtar, which blends never made clear, but when his only wear in secret or in town whose lives revolve under a piece of vintage furni - adult cruelty, paganism and the guardian investigates the shed, Tottenham Court Road”. Next around dining out, getting into ture and torn apart by the dog savagery of nature. Conradin, a intending to ruin the source of time you walk down Mortimer mischief and encouraging others Bartholomew.” sickly ten-year-old, lives with the boy’s absorption, the story Street, look up to find Saki’s to misbehave: “I always say Saki’s joyless childhood, his sadistic guardian, Mrs De comes to a brutal climax. plaque. And how fitting, if, beauty is only sin deep” ruled by his dour aunts, almost Ropp, who delights in oppress - Yet Saki doesn’t confine him - beside it, there should be an observes Reginald. They bear a certainly fuelled his pitch-black ing him “for his own good”. self to rewriting his childhood. open window. superficial similarity to the imagination. His stories often Conradin secretly cares for a In Filboid Studge he skewers members of PG Wodehouse’s feature knowing children who polecat-ferret, which he keeps in health food, advertising, bosses, Saki’s short stories are available Drones Club, although Saki’s get the better of pompous a hutch in the shed, venerating it and gullible employees in less to read online at: humour is much darker and at adults. In The Open Window, a as a deity and naming it Sredni than three pages. Down Pens online-literature.com/hh-munro times, slips into fantasy. As one teenage girl wreaks havoc on the facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 15 A Warning Shot... A short story by SUNITA SOLIAR

never planned to kill her and ‘She loves the that was my mistake: I Ithought a warning would do sense of her own and that I could make him real - ize. He only wants her because she makes a spectacle of herself daring. From at The Harlequin – oh, she was a poser long before he ever posed her. that point of His sculptures are better than the woman herself. In view, they’re a bronze, her eyes are feral, unblinking and fierce. The metal match: Kathleen slope of her shoulders, collar - bones – he can’t get enough of Garman and them – gleams and tanatalizes in the light. That is what he’s in love with, even if he doesn’t Jacob Epstein, know it. Because in life, her skin is pale, bloodless; her eyes are my husband, cruel and petty.

Of course she’s dressed bet - r

with his exotic e p

ter than me and she knows it, r a

although maybe better is not the H nudes and d

word. Scandalous. Risqué. I r o f f

know what I look like to her, i l

exploding C

dowdy old Margaret, in my y b

knitted stockings, a ragged mop n

sexuality’ o of red hair, my skin toughened i t a

to be as hard as one of his busts. r t s

But it’s not her taking care of his u l l kids. Peggy Jean and Meum. I They’re sweet enough; his, not mine though. We can’t have any waited behind it. Waiting is like why she endured in the flesh. would do after I shot her. I her into a chair, pressing my of our own. Of course he thinks wading through time – she was No, I thought. No more. imagined she’d run out of the hand against the wound. it’s my fault, but what would he only five minutes late, but the I invited her to tea. I told her house and wouldn’t be my prob - I don’t like to think of how it do with them if we’d had any? anticipation was exhausting. I that I accepted his choice, that lem, but that’s not her way. She all went after that. I got her to Back then, if he wasn’t cavorting thought I might not hear her for she was a fixed part of my mar - collapsed onto the carpet, the the hospital, and when Jacob with her at that place she lived all the thumping in my brain, riage and that we ought to be silk folds of her skirt sprawling arrived, he apologized, actually in behind The Foundling but there she was, her heels tap - civil. Vain as she is, she took me across the floor, blood soaking apologized for me. He promised Hospital, he was bringing her ping their way up the stairs. at my word, not doubting that into the rug, her legs kicking. to pay her medical bills. He put here, his muse, swanning in Who wears such silly, echoing she had won. Oh, she had no The silk scarf she had tied his arms around her and they with black lace around her head, heels to their death? But no, it intention of being civil. I could around her head came loose, her lamented the injury to her poor, sitting at the table with her chin wasn’t to be her death, just a picture her: she’d turn up here smooth hair becoming frizzy. At beautiful shoulder. I left them perched coquettishly on her warning, I had to remember. She in turquoise, sequins, something least I have that. She was dig - there. I don’t think they noticed. intertwined hands, her arms came in – so like her not to that draped low off her back. ging her nails into the skin She’s pregnant now, isn’t cased in velvet. She loves being knock. I shot her. I can’t say She’d sashay about the room, around the wound, trying to she? I heard her father’s not looked at – she’s a social queen, where I was aiming: I pulled the touching photographs of the keep her arm in place. How long happy about it and he’s cut her isn’t she? Kathleen Garman. It’s trigger before I had a chance to children, ornaments, for no pur - was it going to go on? Why out of his will. Apparently, she hardly the name of a muse, is it? renege. She fell back, clutching pose other than to show me that wouldn’t she go away? The doesn’t care. She’s going to pre - Kathleen teeth clean. Wean, her shoulder, her fingers dyeing she could touch whatever she more she screamed, the more tend it’s true love, is she? Follow preen, mean. The times he was red. She was groaning and liked in my house. She loves the she seemed to impress herself through. I should have shot her in the house without her draped squealing. sense of her own daring. From into my room, taking over the through the heart. I didn’t think of what I over our things, the children had that point of view, they’re a entire space. Then I was helping to scarper sharpish. Father is match: Kathleen Garman and working. And was she to give Jacob Epstein, my husband, with him children too? Was I sup - his exotic nudes and exploding All Saints Church posed to rear her brats, while sexuality. her bronze eyes scorned me I said half past three. She Margaret Street from every corner of the house? said yes. I got the gun from Our diverse and inclusive parish is grounded in the No. Of all the women, it was her inside the ottoman. rich catholic tradition of Anglicanism. We offer a he immortalized and that was I left the door unlocked and place of peace and beauty in busy central London (open daily from 7 to 7). We maintain fine liturgical traditions and excellence in music. The parish would be delighted to welcome you to all or any of our Bloomsbury ward liturgies if you are able to join us in ‘one of the ten buildings that have changed the face of Britain’ councillors’ surgeries (English Heritage). 6:00 - 7:00pm first Friday of the month at Main services on Sunday Fitzrovia Community Centre, Foley Street, W1W 6DN 11am High Mass 6pm Choral Evensong and Benediction 6:00 - 7:00pm second and fourth Fridays of the month at Marchmont Community Centre, 62 Marchmont Street, WC1N 1AB Times of Daily Prayer, Masses & opportunities Third Friday of the month is a 'roving surgery'. Get in touch if you would for confession & counselling are advertised at: like us to conduct the surgery at your street or building. www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk Adam Harrison, Sabrina Francis, and Rishi Madlani Parish office: 020 7636 1788 Contact 020 7974 3111 or [email protected] Please tell us if you came to All Saints [email protected] [email protected] after seeing this advertisement. 16 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Rent hike drives out theatre bookshop that tracked down ‘lesbians on the loose’

By BRIAN JARMAN requests. His favourites are always misheard titles. unique theatre bookshop near Fitzroy Square has The best one ever was when Afaced its final curtain a perplexed secretary rang say - because of a 200 per cent rent ing her boss had left her a mes - hike. sage on the dictaphone asking Samuel French’s, which can her to order a play from trace its roots back to 1830, French’s. closed its doors for the last time She’d listened to it over and in April, despite a campaign by over again and the only thing leading actors such as Sir Derek she could come up with was Jacobi to save it. Lesbian Agents On The Loose. “Everybody who was They eventually worked out it involved in theatre would have was Les Liaisons Dangereuses. come through these doors at As well as book launches some point,” says manager and events, the store was home Simon Ellison, who joined the for a couple of years to a group store as an assistant for six called Shakespeare Out Loud, months 23 years ago and has set up by the actress and pro - been there ever since. ducer Lauren Reed. “The clientele goes from peo - Every month some ten or so Michael McEvoy ple who want to go to drama people would sit round the large The actor and writer Michael school right the way through to Shakespeare Out Loud members read Merry Wives of Windsor in French’s round table and read the bard’s McEvoy belongs to the Globe people who’ve become profes - works. They even put on a Players, a family company sionals in the business in one that facility for people to spend Samuel French’s is more than rehearsed reading of The Merry which has been putting on way or another - not just per - hours looking at a range of a bookshop - it sells online, Wives of Windsor before Shakespeare plays in schools for formers but writers, directors plays.” acquires performing rights to Christmas. some 50 years. and designers." The shop has been there for plays, and publishes them. “It was a brilliant venue,” “Throughout my career and He and the other four full- 34 years, after starting in Covent “One of our regulars in the says Lauren. “The staff were life Samuel French’s was the time members of staff have been Garden and moving to the past was Alan Bennett, who always lovely. It was such a his - place to go to for scripts and heartened by the support they Strand. Samuel French was an used to cycle down from toric establishment in which to browsing through anything have received. American who came to London Regent’s Park with the latest read the plays. There was some - about the theatre,” he says. “We all think this is a fantas - in the 1850s and bought a com - batch of proofs that needed to be thing poetic about it.” “Students used to go there to tic place that deserves to stay pany called Lacy’s Plays. checked." One couple once drove work on their audition pieces - and it’s comforting to know that “From our point of view it’s The company will continue down from Lancashire to take there were loads of books spe - that opinion is shared by a large rather a steep rise in the rent and expand these areas in new part. cialising in that.” proportion of our customers. because the lease was coming to office premises near Euston The reading group has now At their closing down party Unfortunately, nobody has been an end,” says Simon. “The value Station and some of the staff will moved to the So and So Arts on April 12, the bookstore was able to dig into their pockets of property in this area has gone continue on this side of things. Club at London Bridge, who packed - it was a full house. sufficiently.” up at an astronomical rate and Simon himself, after 40 years also started out at Samuel People queued up patiently to The thing people seem sad - so any private landlord would lending and selling books, has French’s. record their memories in special dest about is that there’s now want to maximise their income. decided to move on - he’s “It’s very sad that something books and purchase their last. nowhere for them go to browse “But it was at a level at exploring options. has gone and couldn’t be The shop now stands empty, leisurely through the shelves. which it was no longer viable In that time, he’s certainly saved,” says Lauren. “It’s the waiting for the next scene. “Here there’s always been for us to continue.” had his fair share of odd end of an era for lots of people.” Slow Curtain. The End. Dosas to die for again and again ones in Chettinad highly menu) prawn. Cooked they say, By the DINING DETECTIVE enough. Nor apparently can in 23 spices from the southern many people – the fairly large Indian area and the town of Chettinad, 16 Percy Street restaurant is often crowded, Chettinadu. There seems to be I have to thank restaurant critic especially towards the end of the two kinds of dosa: the other one, Fay Maschler for introducing me week, and the Guardian and made with semolina and rice to Chettinad which offers cui - Trip Advisor have both called it flour batter, is even bigger, sine from South India in one of the best budget Indian lighter, and sort of looks like a Fitzrovia. In a tiny paragraph restaurants in London. big lace handkerchief! under one of her bigger reviews I have now been four times On one visit a friend and I she said she always thought she and my only problem (as a din - decided to order a platter of

was back in India when she tast -

. t e e r t S d n a l w o ing detective) is that I ALWAYS H vegetarian starters first. This is

ed one of Chettinad’s dosas.

5 2 , e r t n e C e m o c l l e W y r u b s n i a S e h t t have a dosa, although there are a the most expensive dish on the

My Indian experience only s r e n n i w e z i r p l e b o N s ’ L C U w o h s 7 1 e g a curries around £10 and biriyanis p menu (£16.95) and is really an

goes as far as passing through n o e r u t c i p e h T : E L Z Z U P E R U T C I (£11) that my dining compan - P ample meal for two. It was so the Bombay (as it was called ions have enjoyed. One friend HUGE – and so filling: samosas, then) Airport in pre 9/11 days, particularly enjoyed a Kannara is on the interestingly-written bhajis, filled mini-dosas etc that, sitting outside in the sun – no Curry (£10.95) which was squid really, we shouldn’t have such things as security checks or menu). cooked in a tomato and A dosa is paper-thin and ordered main course dosas as fences - wearing garlands of tamarind gravy, sautéed with well. Very generous glasses of scented flowers and drinking light, yet firm somehow and curry leaves, mustard seeds and does not break even if you pick house wine by the glass mean Indian tea and eating Indian fennel. And there are all kinds of that eating here is well within sweets with kind people in saris it up whole. When it arrives on tantalising rice at £3.45: lemon the table it looks about a foot the range I try and set for while our broken plane was rice, coconut rice, tomato rice as myself. If I gave stars, Chettinad fixed. And although I enjoy and a half long and your stom - New guide out well as cheaper plain basmati. ach quells. But unlike much would get four, losing one for, Indian food I had never even A revised edition of Writers of For the uninitiated a dosa is Indian food it is somehow light on a very busy night, hustling us heard of a dosa so this review is Fitzrovia is available free from a pancake made from a mixture as well, and the actual filling is towards the end of a meal when especially for ignorami like the Neighbourhood Centre at 39 of soaked lentils and rice ground only in the very centre; plain, or we hadn’t quite finished and the myself. Tottenham Street. It includes together and fermented vegetarian, or chicken, or lamb restaurant had no empty tables. I have experience of dosas information on writers and overnight. (All this information and (although it is not on the Otherwise highly recommended. now and I can't recommend the where they lived. facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 17 Pioneering film against discrimination set in Charlotte Street

By JOHN AXON term casual racism had yet to be is a dowdy thoroughfare, as show it for what it meant to live he 2017 Academy Awards formulated and prejudice, big - busy as today but with a quasi in a two tier society and to will be remembered for the otry and intolerance were fully industrial feel, not chic just parade an England not of Queen Tshambolic finale which paid up and accepted members shabby. I failed to recognise any - and Empire but one of resent - saw La La Land win the Oscar of post-war British orthodoxy. one, you won't be surprised to ment, squalor, a society in transi - for Best Picture - for a short peri - The movie was "Sapphire", od of time - only to be usurped discover. tion, unsure of its past and by Moonlight amid chaotic released in 1959 and intriguingly The Police investigate the uncertain of the future. scenes which owed more to the it had a Fitzrovian connection. crime in a staccato form of Coming a matter of months Marx Brothers than Warner Bros. The film's plot revolves sleuthing, no interview lasts after the 1958 Notting Hill riots Conspiracy or cock-up? Who around the discovery of a girl's more than a few moments and the film is a brave attempt to knows, but I made a mental note body on Hampstead Heath. She the racial epithets are as ubiqui - examine a social issue that could not to use Price Waterhouse to has been stabbed to death else - tous as the unrelenting cigarette be dismissed by discrimination. complete my tax returns. Or where and her corpse taken to smoke and the brown paint in As unacceptable 60 years ago as Warren Beatty to order me a NW3 and dumped. A student, every building. it is now. The broad language minicab. we learn her name was Sapphire The characterisations are an and the stilted acting of Nigel The confusion distracted and that she was pregnant. We uncomfortable stereotype of Patrick and Michael Craig in no from a more important agenda, also discover that she was of Them and Us. Nicknames way detract from the worthiness that Hollywood had finally mixed race but had been, in the abound in the Black community of the work. It's also fun to spot appeared to embrace diversity curious argot of the time, "pass - (Johnnie Fiddle, Horace Big an uncredited Fenella Fielding and to judge movies on merit ing as white". Cigar) and the musical score is, as a shop girl. and not box office grosses. Early in the picture we are of course, Jazz, seen as a motif of The critics awarded it This also applied to the taken to an almost unrecognis - promiscuity. The screenplay is BAFTA Best British Film of 1960. BAFTA awards which preceded able Charlotte Street, to a coffee hardly a thing of nuance and I It is rarely seen these days but the Oscar ceremonies and quite bar (some things do not change) will not spoil the finale and end - should be better known. by chance rang a long forgotten where her boyfriend, a duffle- ing but here's the vital point: it It is available as a DVD on bell about a British film that coated, bespectacled Paul Massie tries very hard to tackle the Amazon. bravely attempted to engage the hears of her murder. Charlotte abhorrent subject of what was Recommended. "D" notices in a time when the Street in 1959, in Eastmancolor, then known as the Colour Bar, to First world war tale of gas masks, blinded soldiers and a dodgy dentist

Cumberland Mansions, by A dentist in New Cavendish Eileen Mahony. Published by Street called Dr Goldberg was at Wiverton Press, £11.99. pains to make it clear he had no German connections of any Fascinating insights into kind, despite rumours put about Fitzrovia's contributions to the by "unscrupulous persons". first world war are provided in His public notice of this fact-based novel. December 7, 1914, pointed out The book is supplemented he was "the first dental practi - with over 70 pages of actual tioner to offer his services free to Daily Telegraph newspaper clip - all volunteers who were refused pings from 1914 and 1915. [military service] owing to the These includes an advert for state of their teeth, and was the gas masks and goggles pro - means of many being accepted Middlesex Hospital nurses uniforms of 1895 are pictured as part of the duced by the Surgical after being attended by him." archive displayed in University College Hospital, Euston Road, on the Manufacturing Company at 85 By April 12, 1915, this ground floor between the Patients’ Lounge and the Pharmacy, and on the Mortimer Street, from May 31, American dental specialist was first floor near the Outpatients’ Department. 1915. stressing "the importance of The gas mask, called the mastication" to avoid various Cavendish inhaler, invented by a forms of stomach troubles and Picture puzzle Royal Naval senior surgeon with defective teeth which had led to "great experience in coal mine thousands of recruits being rescue work", claimed to "effec - rejected by Lord Kitchener's tively avert the menace to your - Army. "Modern dental science is self and family from asphyxiat - a totally painless art," he assured ing bombs dropped by the An appeal by the National potential patients in what enemy's airships. And, by send - Institute for the Blind at 206 appeared a news story but in the ing them to the Front, you can Great Portland Street on behalf last line was revealed as an work actively in defence of our of blinded soldiers was made in advertisement. men when assailed by the dead - the newspaper on February 15, But by May 10 of that year ly fumes." 1915. his solicitors were offering a It also warns that deadly gas Its president Arthur Pearson reward of £5 for any information can attack more than lungs, as called on parliament to provide about people continuing to proved by experiences at the adequate pensions and claim he was in any way con - Front. Gas also "inflames and allowances for them. nected with or descended from causes intense pain to the eyes "I do feel that the future of Germans. and may inflict lasting weakness these young, hearty fellows The book can be bought or total blindness." This can be plunged into darkness so early from Waterstones online and it prevented by the company's in their lives, merits a particular is stocked in the Piccadilly "unbreakable goggles which fit degree of sympathy and atten - branch, Daunts in Marylebone, closely to the eyes." tion," he wrote. This was essen - Hatchards in Piccadilly and St How well do you know Fitzrovia? Can you make out the face of a UCL The inhaler mask cost 5s 6d tial to cover the costs of their Pancras, and in Heywood Hill Nobel Prize winner on this awning and identify where it is? Answer below (27½ p) and the goggles 2s (10p). guides, he concluded. books, Curzon Street Mayfair. the Dining Detective picture on page 16. 18 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Burnt alive for killing her ‘master’

By MIKE PENTELOW male "is a superior person in a living body." power and honour; for that the The local magistrate had the he last woman to be burnt head washed "and its hair alive was Catherine Hayes husband is called the head of the in 1726 for the murder of wife, her lord." combed" before putting it on a T pole in the nearby churchyard of her husband John, who had a Even so, it was customary, chandler's shop and coal busi - when burning females, to stran - St Margaret for public view, ness in Tottenham Court Road. gle them to death by a rope hoping it would be identified. They lived in a house in pulled by the executioner before When it was the culprits Tyburn Road (now Oxford the flames reached her, chained gave varying stories which was Street) where two of their to a stake. to be their undoing. First they lodgers were involved in the But in her case at Tyburn said they had seen him alive, murder and also executed. (Marble Arch) she was denied then that he had fled to Portugal Her extreme form of execu - this mercy. When lighting the because he had killed someone, tion was because killing a hus - fire, the executioner burned his then the same story but to band was seen in those days in own hand, so dropping the rope. Hertfordshire instead. law as killing your "master" According to the Newgate This led to their arrests on which was deemed as "petty Calendar of 1773 she "rent the suspicion of the murder. treason." air with her cries" for a consider - Catherine asked to see the head, The Treason Act of 1351 justi - able time amid the flames. The which was now in a jar of gin to fied this on the grounds that "by executioner threw a piece of tim - prevent it putrefying. Putting the laws of God and man" the ber which broke her skull and on a show of surprise she "her brains came plentifully exclaimed: "Oh, it is my dear out." It took three hours before husband's head" and then kissed her body was reduced to ashes. it amid tears, and asked for a The tale of the murder is lock of his hair. When told she equally gruesome. had too much of his blood Catherine and the two already she fell into a fit. lodgers, Thomas Billings (who it When the other body parts later emerged was her son by a were found Wood and Billings previous liaison) and Thomas confessed, but Hayes did not. Wood, got John drunk. They bet After the trial, however, she him the price of six bottles of claimed: "The devil put it into mountain wine if he could quaff my head, but John Hayes was the lot without passing out. He none of the best of husbands, for managed to do this, danced I have been half starved ever about the room "like a man dis - since I was married to him. I tracted", had a seventh bottle of don't in the least repent any - wine and fell senseless to the thing that I have done, but only floor. drawing those two poor men His own coal hatchet was into this misfortune... The devil then used by Billings to fracture was in us all, and we were all his skull, but it needed two The execution as depicted in the Newgate Calendar drunk." She had told them she would more blows from Wood to finish so they decided to throw it in Marylebone (near Upper share her husband's £1,500 for - him off. the Thames. Wimpole Street). tune if they helped her. Their Catherine then cut off her They got a box to put the The low tide meant that the conviction was the first for a husband's head with a pocket body in, but when it did not fit head was found the next morn - murder where the body parts knife and put it in a bucket. She they cut off the legs and arms ing near where Lambeth Bridge were found it different places. suggested they boil it until the and put them in a blanket. All now is. The press reported this Hayes tried unsuccessfully to flesh came away, but the others the body parts were then as the head of a man "appearing poison herself while awaiting CATHERINE HAYES thought it would take too long dumped in a pond in to have been newly cut from off execution, Wood died in prison of a fever, and Billings was hanged, then hung in chains 6 Fitzroy Square: The Perfect Venue Gruesome parcel delivery near the pond where he had The perfect venue for meetings, launches, to swish house on square dumped the body. seminars, dinners, wedding receptions and other corporate events. Criminal London, A sightseer's guide to the capital of crime. By Shiv Kris and Nina Hollington. The Georgian Group’s elegant Published by Aurum, £10.99. Pharmacy eighteenth-century headquarters The now swish house at 33 overlooking Fitzroy Square provides 70 Great Titchfield Street Fitzroy Square was once the a unique location for all types of London W1W 7QN private and corporate events in the scene of a gruesome crime in heart of central London. 1884 as revealed in this book. Prescriptions In those days it was a mili - tary drill hall and a passing Multivitamins We cordially invite local police constable noticed a large Herbal Medications businesses and individuals to visit brown parcel outside it. Inside Natural and was part of a human torso. our building and get a taste of the Homeopathic authentic Georgian experience… A few days earlier in a near - by street was found a skull and Cartoon by Chris Tyler produce a chunk of human thigh. A few Later parcels were found in For booking enquiries, days later in Bedford Square Mornington Crescent containing availability and rates please contact: gardens was found another par - bones of a right arm, and two Friendly Medical Rob Kouyoumdjian on cel containing a tattooed female feet. A police surgeon stated that Advice 020 7529 8921 or human arm. The Times astutely they were from a different Open Monday to Friday [email protected] surmised that foul play was pos - woman. 8.30am to 6pm sible. Ironically the building was The inquest found all the later occupied by the London Tel/Fax body parts were from the same Foot Hospital. 020 7580 2393 woman and had been cut up by Next door is now the house "someone skilled but certainly of crime film director Guy [email protected] not for the purpose of anatomy." Ritchie. facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 — 19 Singing the praises of the beautiful banks

ness. But try going to either of s a musician, it is some - ‘The Piano times necessary to make Man’ No 9 these banks if you have just Aethical decisions about the by been made redundant and can causes which we allow our out - CLIFFORD no longer pay your mortgage or put to be allied to. The same rent. Ask them to show a bit of applies to poets and other artists. SLAPPER And sometimes, something community spirit by covering it which appears ethical is not all it mer radio show on-air commen - for you for a couple of years. Let seems. tator, George The Poet, who us know their response. At the turn of the century, I utters ponderous platitudes as if All of those poets were either was living on Store Street, near these capitalist high-street banks incredibly stupid and gullible, or the border between Fitzrovia and supermarkets were some ambitious and easily bought. and Bloomsbury. Roughly oppo - kind of socialist utopia. In fact, The Nationwide, like the Co-op site my rented flat was an old, of course, today’s Co-op bears Bank, is a capitalist institution, traditional, family-run café, hardly even a trace of the ideal - committed to invest in order to Sidolis, which served faultlessly ism of the Rochdale Pioneers of accumulate surpluses. It stands good-value Italian food along - 1844. Like the John Lewis right at the heart of the most side perfect English fry-ups. It Partnership, it has long suc - exploitative system ever to curse was just the kind of place which cumbed to the pressure to act the human species. Is this what has given this neighbourhood its just like any other profit-hungry, music and lyrics are for, to special warmth, and its residents hierarchical corporation within a praise banks? If only these 'Sidolis Buttery', oil on canvas, 1999. Artist: Carl Randall. See more a sense of belonging, for over a capitalist world. artists had possessed one tenth of Carl's work here: www.carlrandall.com hundred years. Soon afterwards, In 2016 a total of £16 million of the decency and principle of however, the café was replaced was allocated nationally by the Ricky Gervais, who once turned tax) was only 2p out of every “doesn’t feel like advertising at by a national chain supermarket, Co-op to community projects down a million pounds rather £10. all. It shows the power of com - in one of the earlier examples of and “good causes”, out of a than advertise something he The recruitment of artistic munity”. the current trend which has group turnover of £7.1 billion. found tacky and undesirable – talent to sell such messages has In using that power to sell since accelerated to the point Just three of their bank directors and that was at a time when he become the holy grail of compa - products and make millions for where faceless, corporate chains (Niall Booker, Liam Coleman was not yet wealthy himself. nies, and it was a great coup people like Niall Booker and are replacing almost every last and John Baines) that year What those cheap, venal sell- that they had this film directed Liam Coleman, the Co-op has outlet of character. shared an income of £4 million, outs bought into was the mod - by one of our greatest living film shamelessly copied a series of The supermarket in question a quarter of the entire national ern trend in which capitalist cor - makers, Shane Meadows (Made adverts run shortly before by a happens to be the Co-operative. community causes budget. So porations do not advertise the In England, Dead Man’s Shoes, rival bank, also with false pre - The banking branch of their when George The Poet intones products they are selling, but Somers Town, A Room for tensions to being less bank-like business has had various scan - “let’s work together and strive rather their proclaimed decency Romeo, Brass), well known for than other banks, the dals in recent years, financial for unity” as “great things hap - and high moral values. Of his working-class realism and Nationwide. Those ads featured and otherwise. The Co-op pen when we work together”, it course, they protest too much. affinity. Rather than carp from a whole range of “cool” and “brand” has decided it needs to is an utter sham. Likewise, when The people and organisations the sidelines, however, we can popular young performance clean up its image. The result is he asks, “What if communities who really devote themselves to rely on the self-description from poets, telling us through their a current television advertising got a share of the profits? What caring about people and work - the horse’s mouth, as it were. rhyming sermons that campaign which is as preposter - if everyone could win from ing for the community do not The director of the Co-op brand, Nationwide is another bank ous as it is insulting to our intel - this?” he neglects to mention need to spend millions of adver - Helen Carroll, has praised the devoted to sharing, caring, com - ligence. The television ads are that last year the share handed tising dollars insisting how nice style of this new campaign, as it munity, responsibility and fair - voiced by Russell Brand’s for - to “the community” (in lieu of they really are.

Looking back through the archives See also archive.fitzrovia.org.uk 40 years ago 10 years ago Screen hit in hospital Squatters move From Fitzrovia News, From Tower, August 1977: Autumn 2007: Plans to convert ex-police flats at 1 to 9 The then recently closed Middlesex Huntley Street into a nurses' home were Hospital in Mortimer Street was used to submitted by the regional health authori - shoot scenes for Guy Ritchie's film ty under pressure from local campaign - RocknRolla. The film was released in ers. September 2008 and became number one Squatters had moved in to draw at the box office in its first week (see pub - attention to "the scandal of excellent licity poster below). The film was both housing lying unused for years while written and directed by Ritchie who has a there are many homeless people." house in Fitzroy Square. The site of the hospital is now occu - pied by Pearson Square (aka Fitzroy Place).

The squatters, including Jeremy Gill Burke stressed the importance of Corbyn's brother Piers, (see Streets of "a safe play space where working mums Fitzrovia, centre pages) moved out, but could leave their children without anxiety. after it became a nurses' home it was later Fitzrovian mothers did rag-trade outwork sold on for the present luxury flats. at home for desperately needed income Dennis’s delight Daily Express correspondent in and that this placed extra strains on a family's living space and relationships." Local publisher Felix Dennis chose as Cyprus, Tommy Thompson, had just his luxury on Desert Island Discs a long moved into Tottenham Street, where he An appeal fund for £15,000 to reno - steel shaft "to encourage underwater had taken up writing plays. pole dancing by mermaids." He chose Whitfield Play Centre received a vate the Warren playground was launched, and a picture by Yvonne records by Eric Clapton and John £31,000 urban aid grant from Camden Lennon as both had let him stay in their Council to build an extra storey as a day McLean of what it would look like was published (above) . homes when he was released from jail in centre for the under-5s. 1971. 20 — Fitzrovia News issue 145 Summer 2017 facebook.com/FitzroviaNews :: twitter.com/FitzroviaNews WHAT’S ON AROUND FITZROVIA Email [email protected] by August 18 for the September issue, and put “Listings” in the subject box. LIVE MUSIC ART GALLERIES Featured exhibitions. A full The Albany , 240 Great Portland list of all galleries is on our St (thealbanyw1w.co.uk): website Ukeleles on Wednesdays, 8pm. Bartha Gallery , 25 Margaret St: Alan Johnson “Works from the King & Queen , 1 Foley St : Folk 1970s to the Present Day”, until once a month on Fridays 8-11pm July 8. “Recent Works by (visit web mustradclub.co.uk). Gallery Artists", July 13-Sept 2. The Linane Family & Friends, June 9. Scaledown alternative live entertainments last Friday of the month (theorchestrapit.com).

Sevilla Mia Spanish Bar , 22 Hanway St (basement): World Fusion, Tue, 9.30pm; Swing 'n' Blues, Wed, 9.30pm; Spanish Rumba, Thur-Sat, 10.30pm.

Simmons , 28 Maple St: Live music every Wednesday Rebecca Hossack Gallery , 28 evening. Charlotte St: Allyson Reynolds (above) “Float” to July 1. The 100 Club , 100 Oxford St (the100club.co.uk): The Smyths, July 28-29; Eddie and the Hot Rods, Aug 12; Dexys Bootleg An American in Paris is on at the Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road until September 30. Runners, Aug 18. CINEMA/FILM EXHIBITIONS WALKS British Museum , Great Russell THEATRE Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way London Literary Pub Crawl , St (britishmuseum.org): Free: (cultura.embavenez-uk.org): every Saturday, 5pm. Start at the Japanese woodblock printing: a Bloomsbury Theatre Studio , 15 London Socialist Film Co-op Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place. craft of precision, until July 16. Richard Saltoun , 111 Great Gordon St (thebloomsbury.com): screen films at 11am on the sec - LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com. The Drousy Chaperone, June 9- ond Sunday of each month. British watercolour landscapes Titchfield St: Dom Sylvester 1850-1950, until Aug 27. Where Houédard (above) “Typestracts”, 10. London Walks (walks.com) £10, the Thunderbird lives: cultural to July 14. Green Man , 36 Riding House St: Over 65 £8: resilience in the Northwest Camden People's Theatre , 58-60 London Animation Club, first Beatles Magical Mystery Tour, Coast of North America, until Hampstead Rd Tuesday of month. Tottenham Court Rd station, Aug 27. Desire, love, identity: (cptheatre.co.uk): Talawa Make, every Sunday 11am, and every exploring LGBTQ histories, until June 10. Bullish, Sept 12-30. Odeon , 30 Tottenham Court Rd: Thursday, 11am, Wednesdays Oct 15. Pay for: The American Weekly film details from 2pm.Rock'n'Roll London, Dream: pop to the present, until Dominion Theatre , 269 www.odeon.co.uk or 08712 Tottenham Court Rd station, June 18. Hokusai: beyond the Tottenham Court Rd 244007. every Wednesday, 7pm, every Great Wave, until Aug 13. (dominiontheatre.com): An Friday, 2pm. American in Paris, until Sept 30. Regent Street Cinema , 309 Scythians: warriors of ancient Regent St: For daily programme Siberia, Sept 14-Jan 14. London Palladium , Argyll St visit regentstreetcinema.com/ FAMILY EVENTS (palladium.londontheatres.co.uk programme. Matinee classics UCL Art Museum , South every Wednesday at 2pm, for Cloisters, Wilkins Building, ): The Wind in the Willows, from UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, over 55s, £1.75. Kids' Kino Club, Gower St: Mindfulness and Art, June 29 (previews from June 17) 21 University St: Creature cre - every Saturday, 11.30am. June 9, 1-2pm. to Sept 9. ations (create art inspired by ani - Store Street Gallery , 32 Store St: UCL Main Library , Wilkins mal exhibits), June 24, and July New Diorama Theatre “Oversized”, to June 23. LIVE COMEDY Building, Gower St: East side 29, 1.30-4.30pm. Explore (newdiorama.com), 15-16 Triton “Re:Imagined”, June 26-July 1, stories: Londoners in transition, Zoology (learn fascinating ani - St (Euston Rd opposite Fitzroy includes "The Walker" by Robert The Albany, 240 Great Portland until Dec 15. mal facts), June 10 and July 22, St): Incoming Festival, June 2- St : Mondays at 8pm, basement. 1-4pm. John (above). 11.Secret Life of Humans, July 7 and 8. UCL Petrie Museum of Wheatsheaf , 25 Rathbone Place : Egyptian Archeology, Malet UCL Petrie Museum of Improvisation on Thursdays, Place: Archeology and the Egyptian Archeology, Malet RADA Theatres , Malet St 8.30pm, and stand-up on Place: Papyrus: storytelling (con - (rada.ac.uk/whats-on): Middle East in World War 1, Saturdays, 7.30pm upstairs. until Sept 30, 1-5pm nected to exhibits), July 25-27, 2- Gielgud Theatre : When You 4pm. Cure Me, until June 10. GBS Theatre : Scuttlers, until PUB QUIZZES Wellcome Library , 183 Euston June 10. Clay to Flesh, Sept 5-9. Rd (wellcomecollection.org): OTHER EVENTS Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre : The Court , 108a Tottenham Electricity: The spark of life, Stange Orchestra, until June 10. Court Rd: Every Sunday, 8pm. until June 25. Permanent exhibi - UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, Shakespeare for Young tions: Medicine Now, and 21 University St: Dead, life Audiences: The Tempest, June King's Arms , 68 Great Titchfield Medicine Man. drawing (of exhibits), June 22 28-July8; Twelfth Night, June 29- St: First Monday of the month and July 13, 6.30-9pm. Tiwani Contemporary , 16 Little (resuming soon). TALKS Portland St: Mimi Cherono July 8; The Comedy of Errors, Sohemians , Wheatsheaf, 25 UCL Petrie Museum of Ng’ok “Everyone is Lonely in June 30-July 8. Rathbone Place: (all 7.30pm) Prince of Wales Feathers , 8 Egyptian Archeology, Malet Kigali”, to June 17. Includes Life, Love and Art in Venice, Warren St: Every Monday, 7pm. Place: Papyrus for the people: "Untitled" (above). Theo Eshetu Regent’s Park Open Air June 14. Art in the Service of the open night (learn about the “The Slave Ship”, June 30-Aug Theatre (openairtheatre.com): Revolution, Creation of the Please mention exhibits), June 28, 6-8pm. 12. On The Town, until July 1. A Soviet Myth, June 21. Tale of Two Cities, July 7-Aug 5. Fitzrovia News UCL Darwin Lecture Theatre , UCL Slade School of Fine Art , UCL Festival of Culture , several Oliver Twist, July 17-Aug 5. Malet Place (ucl.ac.uk/events): UCL Quad, Gower St: Annual when replying to sites, June 5-11. Visit: Jesus Christ Superstar, Aug 11- Tuesdays and Thursdays (1.15- showcase of graduating stu - ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture Sept 23. advertisers 1.55pm) during term time: dents, June 8-18, 10am-5pm.