Reminisce for a tick on the books of Enid Blyton and one’s mind will most likely puff up thoughts of camping, adventure, camaraderie, wild animals, creepy-crawlies, spatchcock on the spit, boiled liquorice cakes and dandelion fizzpop by the campfire. Spiffing, what, what! In the hands of Royal College of Art graduate and fine artist, Ms. Ceal Warnants however, the children’s author’s sugar-coated world is faithfully recreated, but seasoned bittersweet.
With many a traditional barber shop now closing down, it is Proper gratifying to see the opening of London’s third Ted’s Grooming Room in Mayfair, W1. Located at number 5 Avery Row, the Room has taken up residence on a street which one thousand years ago was the bank of the River Tyburn and marked the eastern boundary of the manor of Eia (an ‘island’ bounded on three sides by the Rivers Tyburn, Westbourne and Thames – as recorded in the Domesday Book). Anchored on such ancient ground, Ted Baker revives the age old Ottoman arts of Turkish barbering, straight razor wet-shaving and ear-hair singeing, so beloved of our immaculately curlicued Victorian forebears.
En passant through the avenues and alleyways of the Continent some weeks ago, one happened upon a wonderous olde toy shoppe stocking these plastic beauties priced at not more than a couple of ducats each, manufactured since 1964 by Mr. Johnny Foreigner. No bigger than little cocktail gherkins, these minikin wonders brought forth some misty eyed memories from one’s childhood; of the cheap, unbranded, plastic bagged, ‘Made in Hong Kong’ penny toys hanging from the display carousel at the local newsagents. These ‘toys’ shared nothing in common with their posh Matchbox, Corgi and Dinky cousins, nor often much with the real life cars they aspired to represent. Oh yes, these toys were fully deserving of this whipster’s heaped scorn and opprobrium. Yet somehow, one now finds oneself delighting in their naive splendour and delicately caressing their untrimmed acetate castings. How did this come to pass?
Beating the hoof across the rolling Warwickshire countryside this sunday last, one was timely reminded of the nation’s enduring love affair with nostalgia. The hills were alive with the sights and sounds of bygone ages. From byway to highway, roads teemed with classic autos and motorcycles. Villages were overrun with new ‘old time’ tea shops and garrisoned at their ends by huge antique barns. Even the native bovines had been driven from their fields by battalions of car boot sellers, vending the sweepings of yore. Yes, jolly old nostalgia can happily be relied upon to snuggle us through this age of irreversible change. Soothing as a warm mug of cocoa, she’ll hold our hand as we slow wave farewell to the white cliffs of yesteryear, to all we fondly remember. So hold tight dear reader, there’s rough seas ahead..
Dark days indeed in the history of this sceptred isle. One’s offshore sojourn was thunderstruck by news of the mindless mayhem and savagery sweeping across our land. From London to Manchester, good folk were gripped with fear for their lives, their homes, and their businesses, as the country teetered on the edge of anarchy. The rule of law collapsed and for a moment at least, it seemed the mobs held dominion over all.
Mr. David Ogilvy, the godfather of modern-day advertising once penned the copy line ‘At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock’. Today, the loudest noise to be heard along the ‘Glass Mile’ assembly line at the Rolls Royce factory at Goodwood is the sound of one’s heels click-clacking on concrete as the engineers ply their tasks in a golden silence.
“I want paint to work as flesh, I know my idea of portraiture came from dissatisfaction with portraits that resembled people. I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having to look at the sitter, being them. As far as I am concerned, the paint is the person. I want it to work for me just as the flesh does.” (Lucien Freud)
On this, the six month anniversary of Once Was England.com, one gives thanks to you dear reader for your patronage, communiques and support. Your numbers are now legion. Tip top! But one has only just rolled up one’s sleeves. The land is long, its history deep and there is much on which to jaw-jaw. Without further ado its off with these galoshes and time to compend reports on the Rolls Royce factory at Goodwood and the new Labour & Wait shop in Redchurch Street, in London E2 – two sterling brands who know whence they came from and wherefore they go.
If ever there were a way to out the child in a sixty-something Englishman, it must be the sight, the sound and the smell of a classic race car tearing its way around a circuit. And so, the weekend before last, in the back garden of the Earl of March’s ancestral pile, hordes of grey, shrunken-shanked, spectacled fellows in their sixth age, dew-beat a pilgrimage to the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed to play peek a-boo with the boy within and reconnect with a time when they were all Graham Hill and raced 1:43 scale Corgi’s. For three balmy days, Goodwood celebrates the glory of the automobile – its beauty, its power, its speed; affording visitors a one on one in the paddock with the legends of yesteryear. Most champion!
Established in 1892 in London’s Great Portland Street, Lewis Leathers is by several laps, England’s oldest motorcycle clothing company. Hitherto a gentlemen’s outfitters, the arrival in the 1920′s of the newfangled pursuits of motorcycling and flying led to a hurry-skurry of customers requesting purpose-made leather sports suits to protect them from blasted gravel-rash and the elements. The rest, as they say, is history. Lewis became the country’s premier name in sports leathers, producing legendary jacket styles such as the ’Thunderbolt’, ’Cyclone’ and ‘Lightning’. Verily Once Was England!
