Up West

by Pip Granger

An informal 'emotional history' of London’s West End between the end of the World War II and the mid-1960s, when Soho occupied a unique place as a colourful, fascinating place of refuge in a Britain still grey and dreary with post-war austerity and mind-numbing narrow-mindedness. The birth of the Swinging Sixties saw the values of acceptance and egalitarianism, and the freedom to adopt non-conformist ideas and lifestyles – attitudes that had long flourished in Soho – go overground, and become part of the mainstream. In Soho, the Sixties started in the Fifties – if not before.

This is not yet another book about the lifes and loves of the artists and writers who thronged Soho in the 1950s – although they play their part – but one that focuses instead on the so-called ‘ordinary’ people who worked and lived rather extraordinary lives in the West End, making up a colourful, vibrant and largely compassionate community.

The main theme of the book, at once a history, a memorial and a love letter, is the same as Pip’s novels: an evocation of the way in which a thriving, interdependent community was created from the persecuted and cast out, from voluntary and involuntary exiles who managed to find a home, an identity, and a life in a place in which strangeness was tolerated and difference unquestioningly accepted – and often embraced.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Pip Granger was born in Cuckfield, Sussex, in 1947. Her first job was with the City of Westminster, teaching children who had been excluded from school because of emotional and health problems, and she worked as a literacy and special needs teacher in Stoke Newington and Hackney in the 1970s and 1980s. After quitting teaching, she wrote for a while on non-fiction partworks, including My Garden and My Child.

Pip began to write fiction only in the 1990s. Her older brother, Peter, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she wanted to memorialise their extraordinary childhood. The resulting book, Not All Tarts are Apple, was the unanimous winner of the first Harry Bowling Prize for London writing in 2000, and was published in 2002. A sequel, The Widow Ginger, was published the following year, and Trouble in Paradise in 2004. No Peace for the Wicked in April 2005.

Alone, a memoir of her extraordinary childhood, appeared in Corgi in June 2007. Her next book, Up West, an ‘emotional history’ of London’s West End in the two decades between VE Day and the birth of Swinging London

Reviews

[Novelle Novels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

First person accounts are given from those who grew up in post-War London, in the West portion specifically. The thoughts and sharing grab the imagination in such a way the reader feels he or she is actually there. In the past.

[Tammy Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the west end of London, round soho and surrounding areas.
From ww2 to the 1960's what happened in those years and how it changed in those years,
I enjoyed this book it was nice to visualise what it was like in those year's.
I especially liked the chapters about ww2 and their school days, they really brought it to life.
As i dont live in London and dont know the areas i think people who live there now will appreciate this more.

[Marc Maitland]

I really enjoyed reading this book, written about a part of London I know reasonably well, but about an ere before my time. I bought it principally because my father worked in Soho at that time, and I wanted to experience, vicariously, some of what he must have experienced, and some of which he had told me over the years. I was not disappointed.



The two areas which are the subject of this book, Soho and Covent Garden, might be geographical neighbours, but they were and still are very different places. But, the difference between those areas in the 1950s and now can hardly be imagined! Covent Garden Market lost its eponymous market to Nine Elms in the 1970s, and the gentrification of that warren of streets surrounding the mercifully preserved piazza happened during the 1980s, and it now such a tourist Mecca that the Underground station (which only has lifts and no escalators) cannot cope. Luckily, Leicester Square is only a few hundred yards away, and that is in the heart of neighbouring Soho.



Soho and sex (in all its many varied forms) go together like eggs and bacon, but what is interesting, from this book, is how immune to the “trade” the many local inhabitants were – if they were not part of it, children (the author in particular) felt safe and quite uncorrupted by the “vice” that surrounded them. What I found fascinating was the way in which the vice trade (prostitution, clubs, racketeering etc.) was at one time controlled by the Maltese – who had originated around a similar trade in Malta around the Royal Naval Dockyard there, which literally followed the Fleet back home when the Navy’s imperial commitments shrunk.



Overall, a vibrant picture of immigrants, tolerance, “otherness” and variety is vividly painted by Pip Granger, and I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in London – which might just possibly mean everyone: as Dr. Johnson said, ‘When one is tired of London, one is tired of life’. This book is certainly testament to that sentiment!

[Enya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book merely out of curiosity after the words 'war' and 'London' in the title awakened my sleepy history nerd self. This is an easygoing read that's ideal to keep on your coffee table and skim over a anecdote or two every now and then but can't be taken seriously in large doses. While it's cheery enough, the book relies solely on anecdotes from a range of people we never hear anything else about and they're largely remembering their childhoods which makes for quite patchy stories.

I imagine this would make a decent little book if you have a particular fondness for Soho and Convent Garden but it still wouldn't be a great book due to how repetitive it is and how its coverage is all over the place. It would've been better if it had an interview-style write up from the contributors along with mini-profiles because the attempt to group the book into themes meant stretching the anecdotes into themes they didn't quite fit naturally in. It also meant that it became hard to match the anecdotes up to any particular person and mixing them up all the time meant I had to backtrack a few times to figure out if their stories had contradicted or who they vaguely were from previous anecdotes.

It's a shame this book wasn't a touch shorter so it could focus on the interesting anecdotes and leave some of the more uneventful ones aside. That, and a change in its format, would make it so much more of a fun read which I think would be more of a credit to the amount of effort this author has clearly put into trying to keep it as upbeat and enjoyable as possible.

The best thing about this book is what kept me stuck to it as I read more about what people's lives where like during that time - it is charmingly honest. The love spoken from these pages comes across in waves and makes you really admire how much love these people have for their home. This book is advertised as being for people who want to reminisce about post-war London but I'd recommend it as chicken soup for homesickness and as a side to childhood memories.

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed this book for Londonist: http://londonist.com/2009/09/book_rev...

The street names and the landmarks are all there, though many have also now gone. The busy and diverse crowds are also livening up the streets but the colours have gone and everything has the drab greyness of post-war Britain and its ‘pea-soupers’. The smells are different too. Stronger and earthier. Everything you know seems there but somehow it's not quite the same.

"At once a history, a memorial and a love story", Up West by Pip Granger manages to be all of these things as it draws on the lives and testimonies of those who lived in the West End of London in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

The book, with its amazing cast of characters - some famous, many unknown - covers all the various aspects of life in the West End, its material harshness and its human warmth, in 18 independent chapters. The very detailed index is helpful to get around a book whose scope goes beyond the confine of that relatively small area of the city. It eventually describes post-war London as a whole, with its social and existential turmoil in readjusting to everyday civvy life.

A real problem with the book however is its vagueness with locations (often places that have now disappeared). The map at the front is woefully sketchy for anyone who hasn't done the Knowledge. Details of what the various businesses and places mentioned have now become or been replaced with would have been very welcome too.

This informative book remains a highly enjoyable and nostalgic walk around one of London's most idiosyncratic villages. The best place to enjoy is it probably in a café in Soho or on the top of a bus where you often only have to take your eyes from the book to see the street you've just been reading about. So close and yet so different.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gem of a book about London in the 50's and 60's, and the people who lived and grew up there, nowadays all cities are interchangable and you have a job to tell one from the other, the heart has been ripped out of many cities and the centre now taken over by admin and finance .The London i knew in the 60's was special and completely different from any other city.It has all changed now and become touristy and the people moved to "new " cities. This is the story of how a melting pot of different nationalities lived and worked together and laid the foundations for the places we know today. How tolerant people were in those days in London ( the book concentrates on Soho and Covent garden) compared to the narrow mindedness you would have found elsewhere. The start of the music scene, when some of the biggest groups started off in the coffee bars and clubs in Soho. It also tells the darker side with the criminal gangs and the gang warfare which went on ,the protection money club owners had to pay and the corrupt policemen who were on the payroll of certain gangs.It tells of the heyday of Covent Garden when it was a working district and not the tourist attraction it has now become, Most people who lived in London in those days lived and worked within walking distance from their home, it made you feel a certain nostalgia for a simpler way of life which has now passed. well worth a read if you have any interest in British social History or if you grew up in those areas of London.

[Emma Coleman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading and learning all about history of the war etc and different cultures coming to London but I didn't read this whole book as it became a little boring. You could pick this book up and read any chapter as each chapter was different and it wasn't very addictive.

[Lynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting to start with but it then became very repetitive so I gave up on it