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Soho in the Fifties and Sixties (Character Sketches) by National Portrait Gallery London, Fryer, Jonathan (1997) Hardcover
Ronnie Scott’s, the French Pub, the Coach and Horses; just a few of the names that are synonymous with Soho, London’s bohemian quarter.With its pubs and clubs, coffee houses and strip joints, Soho has been attracting the rich, the poor, the famous and infamous, the gifted and the deluded for decades.Yet it is perhaps the nineteen-fifties and sixties that bore witness to its heyday, when the likes of Francis Bacon, Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan and Colin MacInnes staggered from pub to club, fuelled by the hedonistic atmosphere that continues to characterise Soho today.Highly readable, Jonathan Fryer’s lively account of the lives of the men and women who made Soho their home from home is a fascinating insight into a world of excess, where casualties were high and only the most determined fulfilled their promise.’Jonathan Fryer's text admirably captures the portrait of an age that will probably never be seen again. Even if we weren't there in Soho in the 1950s and 1960s, he conjures up the feeling and atmosphere of the place from the characters who lived through it’ - Goodreads reviewJonathan Fryer is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster whose books include The Great Wall of China (1975), Isherwood (1977; updated and re-published as Eye of the Camera , 1993), Food for Thought (1981), Nine Lives of Dylan Thomas (1993) and André and Oscar (1997).
Hardcover
First published April 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 3, 2017
As a youngster in Blackpool I was always fascinated by London's Soho, not least because many of my rock 'n' roll heroes used to play at the famous 2 I's coffee bar. So it was no surprise that when I went down to London to work as a 17-year-old I visited Soho on my first Saturday. I stood outside the 2 I's but was too shy to go in so I just wandered around the area having a look and then moved on. From then on Soho was dismissed as Charing Cross Road and the bookshops took over my attention!
But back to Soho, supposedly getting its name from a long disused hunting cry, 'Soho!', something apparently along the lines of 'Tally-Ho!'. Property developer Richard Frith and Henry Compton, Bishop of London, whose legacy is reflected in street names, later put paid to much of the greenery of the area with the exception of Soho Square.
From its early days, Soho attracted immigrants and transients while the area's reputation as a home for vice, as well as for cheap foreign food and copious drink, was early sealed. Then in the early 1950s Soho was deemed the next best thing to 'abroad', with its continental bakeries, its wide gastronomic range and its veneer of sin.
Artists such as Francis Bacon, Nina Hamnett and John Minton and writers such as Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan found inspiration there, with food, drink and more drink keeping them going. Not many of them lived there with Lucien Freud, Caroline Blackwood and Henrietta Moraes being the exceptions when they became temporary residents.
The Coach and Horses in Greek Street, the French public house, where Gaston Berlemont reigned supreme, the Gargoyle Club and the Mandrake on Meard Street, Club 11, the Groucho Club and others all catered for the eclectic mix of writers, artists and others who congregated there. Interlopers who wandered into any of these hostelries would quickly wander out again, mystified by those places that had Pernod on tap but did not have beer!
Jonathan Fryer has put together a superb collection of characters who lived the Soho life in the 50s and 60s and the text is augmented by excellent photographs and portraits from the National Portrait Gallery collection.
There is Dylan Thomas regaling listeners with a variety of spicy tales with an ever-growing line of beer glasses snaking across the bar counter in front of him, and the fast-fading artist Nina Hamnett recalling earlier days with the Omega Workshop and the Ballets Russe and with such as Walter Sickert, all the time rattling a tobacco tin into which friends and strangers alike could drop coins into what would apparently contribute to her next gin!
There is Francis Bacon, his reputation soring in the '50s and '60s, remaining faithful to his old haunts and ever ready to whisk groups of friends, admirers and casual acquaintances off to Wheeler's in Old Compton Street for oysters and the finest wines. And George Dyer, probably the great love of Bacon's life, was also a Soho habitué and, totally ignorant of art, he would declare of Bacon's works, 'All that money, an' I fink they're reely 'orrible!'
Lucien Freud liked Soho because in his words it was 'possible to drop in and then drop out again', the two Roberts, artists Colquhoun and MacBryde, formed a friendship with John Minton for a time and this trio, along with Bacon and Freud, used to party at the Gargoyle Club where they were joined by Henrietta Moraes, who was to be the subject of a distorted portrait on a Bacon triptych. And there are plenty of others such as poet George Barker, writer John Deakin, all rounder Dan Farson, writer Colin MacInnes, jazz club owner Ronnie Scott and singer, critic, art-collector, cartoonist, comic and compulsive autobiographer George Melly (who in later life I got to know).
Melly made many perceptive observations about Soho in the '50s and '60s, perhaps the most amusing of which was when he called it, 'that dodgy never-never land, that hallucinated enclave, where we waited, consumed by angst, to cure today's hangover by making certain of tomorrow's'.
Jonathan Fryer's text admirably captures the portrait of an age that will probably never be seen again. Even if we weren't there in Soho in the 1950s and 1960s, he conjures up the feeling and atmosphere of the place from the characters who lived through it.
A great read with excellent complementary illustrations.
But back to Soho, supposedly getting its name from a long disused hunting cry, 'Soho!', something apparently along the lines of 'Tally-Ho!'. Property developer Richard Frith and Henry Compton, Bishop of London, whose legacy is reflected in street names, later put paid to much of the greenery of the area with the exception of Soho Square.
From its early days, Soho attracted immigrants and transients while the area's reputation as a home for vice, as well as for cheap foreign food and copious drink, was early sealed. Then in the early 1950s Soho was deemed the next best thing to 'abroad', with its continental bakeries, its wide gastronomic range and its veneer of sin.
Artists such as Francis Bacon, Nina Hamnett and John Minton and writers such as Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan found inspiration there, with food, drink and more drink keeping them going. Not many of them lived there with Lucien Freud, Caroline Blackwood and Henrietta Moraes being the exceptions when they became temporary residents.
The Coach and Horses in Greek Street, the French public house, where Gaston Berlemont reigned supreme, the Gargoyle Club and the Mandrake on Meard Street, Club 11, the Groucho Club and others all catered for the eclectic mix of writers, artists and others who congregated there. Interlopers who wandered into any of these hostelries would quickly wander out again, mystified by those places that had Pernod on tap but did not have beer!
Jonathan Fryer has put together a superb collection of characters who lived the Soho life in the 50s and 60s and the text is augmented by excellent photographs and portraits from the National Portrait Gallery collection.
There is Dylan Thomas regaling listeners with a variety of spicy tales with an ever-growing line of beer glasses snaking across the bar counter in front of him, and the fast-fading artist Nina Hamnett recalling earlier days with the Omega Workshop and the Ballets Russe and with such as Walter Sickert, all the time rattling a tobacco tin into which friends and strangers alike could drop coins into what would apparently contribute to her next gin!
There is Francis Bacon, his reputation soring in the '50s and '60s, remaining faithful to his old haunts and ever ready to whisk groups of friends, admirers and casual acquaintances off to Wheeler's in Old Compton Street for oysters and the finest wines. And George Dyer, probably the great love of Bacon's life, was also a Soho habitué and, totally ignorant of art, he would declare of Bacon's works, 'All that money, an' I fink they're reely 'orrible!'
Lucien Freud liked Soho because in his words it was 'possible to drop in and then drop out again', the two Roberts, artists Colquhoun and MacBryde, formed a friendship with John Minton for a time and this trio, along with Bacon and Freud, used to party at the Gargoyle Club where they were joined by Henrietta Moraes, who was to be the subject of a distorted portrait on a Bacon triptych. And there are plenty of others such as poet George Barker, writer John Deakin, all rounder Dan Farson, writer Colin MacInnes, jazz club owner Ronnie Scott and singer, critic, art-collector, cartoonist, comic and compulsive autobiographer George Melly (who in later life I got to know).
Melly made many perceptive observations about Soho in the '50s and '60s, perhaps the most amusing of which was when he called it, 'that dodgy never-never land, that hallucinated enclave, where we waited, consumed by angst, to cure today's hangover by making certain of tomorrow's'.
Jonathan Fryer's text admirably captures the portrait of an age that will probably never be seen again. Even if we weren't there in Soho in the 1950s and 1960s, he conjures up the feeling and atmosphere of the place from the characters who lived through it.
A great read with excellent complementary illustrations.
September 3, 2014
Soho is a part of London which is still thought of as slightly bohemian, possibly also slightly seedy, and has always seemed to appeal more to people who live in the city than to tourists. This short book shows us that it was the same in the 1950’s and 1960’s, when Soho was full of clubs, bars, after hours drinking, artists, writers and musicians.
This book gives us brief portraits of the various people linked to Soho during this time and includes artists and writers from Dylan Thomas to Jeffrey Bernard and takes in George Melly, Ronnie Scott and Lucian Freud, amongst others, along the way. There are many key post war Soho figures, mostly connected to the art world, some writers, musicians and others who were simply just characters – artists models or club owners. I was a little disappointed that the author did not turn his eye to those involved in music outside jazz; after all, the British rock and roll scene was first recognised in Soho and could even be argued to be important to Merseybeat (Allan Williams, an early supporter of Liverpool bands, meeting the man who would lead him to send bands to Hamburg in the 2i’s coffee bar of all places – a location which also saw a desperate George Martin scurrying to look for talent to sign and that elusive chart success which would all but elude him until he signed the Beatles).
Some of those discussed saw their greatest links to Soho in earlier times than those in this book; Dylan Thomas for example, is one person discussed who left Soho for New York shortly before his death. So, often, you feel that those chosen are, obviously, linked to the place but not necessarily in the time frame chosen. Still, this is a nice introduction to the arty side of Soho and to the bohemian aspect of a part of London which is constantly reinventing itself.
This book gives us brief portraits of the various people linked to Soho during this time and includes artists and writers from Dylan Thomas to Jeffrey Bernard and takes in George Melly, Ronnie Scott and Lucian Freud, amongst others, along the way. There are many key post war Soho figures, mostly connected to the art world, some writers, musicians and others who were simply just characters – artists models or club owners. I was a little disappointed that the author did not turn his eye to those involved in music outside jazz; after all, the British rock and roll scene was first recognised in Soho and could even be argued to be important to Merseybeat (Allan Williams, an early supporter of Liverpool bands, meeting the man who would lead him to send bands to Hamburg in the 2i’s coffee bar of all places – a location which also saw a desperate George Martin scurrying to look for talent to sign and that elusive chart success which would all but elude him until he signed the Beatles).
Some of those discussed saw their greatest links to Soho in earlier times than those in this book; Dylan Thomas for example, is one person discussed who left Soho for New York shortly before his death. So, often, you feel that those chosen are, obviously, linked to the place but not necessarily in the time frame chosen. Still, this is a nice introduction to the arty side of Soho and to the bohemian aspect of a part of London which is constantly reinventing itself.
October 4, 2019
A Short series of biographies on fascinating personalities who have all been explored more fully in other books by the likes of Dan Farson and and Sophie Parkin.
July 9, 2020
a very slender book but it does give a good picture of those people who were most prominent in Soho
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews