BBC Four, 25 October 2005. The spiritual home of Francis Bacon , Dylan Thomas and Quentin Crisp , Soho was a bohemian centre in London. Anthony Howell narrates a look back.
My parents were always in Soho and would invariably come home drunk with Nina Hamnett and others as we all lived in Paddington by the canal. Lucian was our neighbour and a frequent visitor. He painted my step-father and two paintings of my Mother Ruby of which one is in M O M A. It was a crazy and stimulating life.
I was visiting the haunts of Earls Court after an earlier evening at Adams club In Leicester Square. 1980’s, brilliant decade when visiting old smokie I was showing the American playwright Jerome Lawrence (Aunty Mame) around when he introduced me to Quintin Crisp at his small studio near Harrods That must have been about 45 years ago- today being 2023 👌 too those gone and us that still stand 😊 👌 ❤
I can't imagine a place like that existing now. The rich and poor, famous and ordinary, educated and uneducated, all sharing the same pubs and locations is almost unthinkable now.
The awful truth. Now bars have tattooed thugs on the doors deciding who can or cannot enter. The irony is, the very people who made Soho what it became wouldn't be given the time of day now. What a lot of crap.
Stumbling upon this documentary has been quite meaningful. Harold Drury friends with bacon and Dylan Thomas was my father. He had come over from Australia on a grant by Sir Edward marsh who was the secretary of state to Winston Churchill. He was in Soho from 1948 to 1952. Then in 52 went to Paris because that’s where the artists often went. He met my mother at Shakespeare and Company book shop and I was born and raised there. I own about 60 of my fathers paintings and I have always wished I could’ve learned even more about his time in Soho. But certainly this documentary speaks to me in terms of what dad‘s stories were all about. He knew these characters and he certainly knew the haunts.
Loved Soho 1950's - The Pub, Street and 'arty' club characters one encountered - The mischievous ladies standing in doorways - The Jazz, the Coffee bars and the Skiffle! Just walking through in your Duffle coat and battered Trilby, you felt intellectually reinvigorated. Then you got the late bus home to Surbiton and next morning left your faux Bohemian self behind and became once again just another boring bank clerk, plumber or shop assistant! Halcyon days!
Just watched this again - great introductory to my reading some of the lesser known writers of that era. Sadly, Haight-Ashbury went the same way. Those that stayed behind became caricatures of themselves when the tourists arrived. So it goes - RIP Soho.
Thanks for posting. I saw this when it was first broadcast but I've since read quite a bit about and by Julian MacLaren Ross so I've enjoyed watching this again with fresh eyes.
mid 19th century: from French bohémien ‘Gypsy’ (because Gypsies were thought to come from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), or because they perhaps entered the West through Bohemia).
It’s unfortunate that most are brainwashed into believing conformity is mandatory to achieve acceptance. It’s precisely what the system so desperately enforce to keep the minions in slavery and drudgery. The few who are courageous enough to reject the mind prison are looked upon by the slaves with ignorant fear and disdain. This is why these communities come into existence, humans are social creatures, having a desire for acceptance and like mindedness. There seems to be a resurgence of escapee’s. Thank goodness for that. These are the people and places I seek, I am at home.
Whilst agreeing with your general view about enforced conformity it's made clear in the doc that most people post WW2 in UK wanted stability in their lives ,ie, a job and place to live and to rear a family. Most people who frequented the 'Soho scene' then were often down at heel middle class dilettantes including among them many ne'er do well scroungers it would appear. How many working class people then could really afford to spend all day (and night!) boozing whilst proclaiming to be skint?
@@brianoreilly239 yes. It was a choice you were free to make. I wonder how many of them would make that same choice if they had another chance at life.
Now the bars have tattooed thugd deciding who can or cannot go anywhere. The irony is, the figures who made Soho what it became would be considered persona non grata🎉
