People
Real lives
Life in 1950s London: Q&A with Pip Granger
Bestselling author of Alone, Pip Granger, has written another fascinating memoir of life in London's West End in the 1950s. We asked her what life was like in the heart of the capital back then
Are there any remaining echoes of the West End of the Fifties which are there today?
The West End is still a refuge for people to go to if they feel that they don't fit in elsewhere or have been rejected from other societies. The West End is a very accepting place with lots of entertainment, music, art and theatricals so you can be whatever you want to be there and people don't mind. There is always music playing in the streets and the food there is still wonderful. You can get the best food in London there, in my mind. So much choice and so busy and lively.
Was there a really a strong sense of community in the post-War West End? Or had the all-too-tangible legacy of the war - the bombed-out buildings, the austerity - already started to erode that? Or make it even stronger?
The sense of community was probably strongest in Covent Garden; the austerity made people come together and gave them a common enemy. Everyone was in the same boat; tatty clothes, grubby bodies, lack of luxury, but as everyone was the same it didn't matter, as this brought people closer together. You could only bathe and wash your clothes once a week so the smells were interesting at times! This was something we all very quickly got used to though. In the West End there were two distinct communities. One was made up of the people that lived there and the other of the people who visited and brought with them glamour, sleaze and some crime. They didn't live there but would go there daily to tout their wares. There were other smaller communities who all lived side by side – disaffected servicemen, the gay community – they lived quietly though and didn't cross each other.
Can you name, say, three things that were totally different about life then which would be seen as totally alien in modern day London?
Quite a few things were, unsurprisingly, different! Very few of us had a bathroom or laundry room so once a week we would all go down to the community baths and wash ourselves and our clothes if we did not have the facility for this in the block of flats where we lived. As I said, we were all a bit grubby but that was the way it was so it was just accepted.
Celebrities were treated differently back then as opposed to today. There were no paparazzi and no mobile phones with cameras. If the celebrities knew you then you could quite literally go up to them and chat to them, ask them how they were, even take tea with them if they had the time. You could phone them at their hotel and ask to be put through to their room...and reception would! Famous faces like Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire were regularly seen around Soho and would stop and say 'hi' and chat.
Prostitutes openly plying their trade was a common sight in Soho back then. In fact it was these working girls that kept the streets safe. They would watch over children if their parents were at work and keep an eye on those who were coming and going. Before the Street Offences Act of 1959 life was lived far more out in the open and on the streets - there were always children playing and people selling things.
You write at length about Fifties Soho, and some of the characters who populated the place. Do you think Soho was a dangerous place at the time, and if so how does it compare with today?
Soho is not a particularly dangerous place, no more so than anywhere else in London, you just need to keep your wits about you. It always had a bad reputation but on the whole, this was undeserved. Newspapers would conveniently shift the boundaries of local boroughs so that crimes would be reported to have been carried out in Soho. This sent the statistics sky-high but they were largely exaggerated. Anywhere where alcohol and large groups of people are causes trouble - everyone needs to be careful to a certain extent.
Tell us a yarn or two from Soho's coffee bar heyday. Living above the famous 2I's coffee bar must have been exciting. Which soon-to-be famous people hung out there?
Once I was walking down the stairs from our flat and I bumped into a black lady. I apologised and walked on. Years later I realised that this must have been Billie Holliday, which is just wonderful. She was friends with one of our neighbours who was a jazz singer and she was around Soho a fair bit. I was used to seeing famous faces such as Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and Marty Wilde. Tin Pan Alley was just up the road and Lita Rosa was a friend of my father's. When I was growing up I saw the beginnings of the transition of music from showtunes to pop music. I was just that little bit too young to appreciate this at the time though...I was also a little bit young to appreciate these lovely young boys who we would see in the streets. I was still at the ponies and puppies stage of girlhood!
One thing I do remember though is that the noise from the 2I’s used to drive my Dad crazy! The music and the drunks swearing and shouting.
Do you think the West End is more exciting today, or less so? What particular aspects have been lost, and of which you regret their passing?
I wouldn’t actually like to say if I think it's more exciting now than then or vice versa as I haven't lived there for a long time now. The fundamental thing about Soho is that it was and still is a place of refuge where people can go and feel safe. I regret the working girls not being around as they really did keep the streets safe and looked after the children while their parents were working. I regret the passing of the street traders and street entertainers, although some of these are still around today (though I doubt the same ones!). Local eccentrics made each day different and interesting and there was a huge sense of artistic flowering after WW2, which promoted such a creative spark in people who'd seen such atrocities in the war years. I'd imagine there are still local eccentrics there now, I just don't know them! Soho in the 1940s and '50s had such an energy about it that came from people who had come back from war where they had seen death first-hand and their need to Live, with a capital L, was urgent.
What are your memories of the old Covent Garden, when it was still a vibrant fruit, veg and flower market?
Everyone loved Covent Garden. The heart of the West End stopped when the market left in my mind. It was replaced with a rather saccharine excuse for what was there before. Whereas Soho was the more bohemian area full of artists and entertainers, Covent Garden was the working class area. At it's heart was the market, market traders and horses. Lots of stables were based around there and all of the people that worked there really made it what it was. I have a deep regret that it's gone.
The smell of Covent Garden was special. The scents of fruit, veg, flowers, horses and horse dung all mingled in the air and it was amazing. It was a whiff of the countryside in the heart of London.
What was it like being a child growing up in the very heart of the capital? One chapter in your book is entitled "Glamour and Sleaze". Can you give us a pertinent memory of both?
The glamorous aspect of the West End was provided by the working girls and entertainers. The majority of the working girls were French and they always looked amazing. Fashion, music and theatre were all based in Soho and the celebrities of the day used to hang out there. My father owned an "erotic literature" shop and one of his best clients was an Italian opera singer named Gigli; he used to sing to me while he waited. The first transsexual lived in Soho, April Ashley. She was beautiful, and in fact she still is.
The sleazy element was provided mainly by the street traders who used to hang around trying to sell dodgy photos. They had handfuls of Brylcreem in their hair, so much that it looked like patent leather. They'd have trilby hats, big lapelled suits and wide turn-up trousers. They always had great big wodges of folded up notes and would hiss out of the side of their mouths to passing would-be punters. They operated a casual trade to servicemen and visitors to the capital – they were clever as they knew that by targeting these people they wouldn't be back to try and make them take the photos back!
When I was growing up I was aware that I was in an extraordinary place and surrounded by extraordinary people. I lived between Soho and a housing estate in Essex so knew how special this small part of London was. A special place at a pinnacle time of change.
* Up West by Pip Granger is published by Corgi and available now priced £6.99.
