Soho Night and Day By Frank Norman
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At the time I was fourteen years of age and the war had just ended and I was let loose on the world I must own that every single word my worthy headmaster had to say has turned out to be God s honest truth Loose women can indeed get you into a lot of trouble and drink can destroy you both mentally and physically and as for gambling it is a curse that can end you in the poorhouse However there was one thing my headmaster did not tell me that is the best place in the world in the world to find these things is Soho that I found out for myself Frank Norman 1966 This book is not a crime novel or a true crime book but rather a gravelly love letter to Soho London About 40 or 50 so real life vignettes written by Frank Norman detailing both the history of the once notorious streets of Soho Old Compton Dean Brewer Greek Poland Berwick Wardour Romilly and the stories of the larger than life characters who once graced its streets restaurants clip joints alley ways bars and clubs like old neon bulbs which once lit up a once upon night but whose names are largely forgotten or have entered urban folklore We are talking about its restaurateurs its residents yes it s hard to imagine but ordinary people once lived in Soho and some still do but they re a rarefied breed its artists its waiters its barmen its fruit and veg men its window cleaners its pop stars and wanna be popstars all milling around rubbing shoulders within one another within this very small community which punched well above its cultural weight in the central London in the mid 1960 s Frank Norman 1930 1980 was a playwright and novelist whose most well known works are Banana Boy Bang To Rights an autobiography of his time in prison and the troika of Soho based detective novels Too Many Cooks Spoil the Caper The Dead Butler Caper and The Baskerville Caper which featured the worn weary and ever so slightly dilapidated and bleary private detective Ed Nelson He also wrote the musical Fings Ain t Wot They Used To Be Born in Bristol he was abandoned as a child and spent his formative years being passed from foster home to foster home including Barnados like a human parcel He ran away to London when he left school and quickly got caught up in a Fagin like world of shady dealings and crookery for which he spent a short spell in prison However he had a talent for writing and within a year of his release he had published in Encounter magazine a 10000 word extract from his prison memoir Championed at first by the editor of the Magazine Stephen Spender and subsequently by Raymond Chandler who wrote the foreword to Bang to Rights Soho Night and Day is generously interspersed with black and white photographs taken by that famous doyen and journalist Jeffrey Bernard 1932 1997 who once wrote the legendary Lowlife column for the Spectator magazine a column where his drinking exploits and encounters with the famous and infamous would be exotically and languidly brought to life in an equal measure of lucidity and humour mostly dark These largely took place within the triumvirate of the Coach and Horses the Colony Rooms and The French Pub aka Yorkminster It was perhaps not entirely unexpected that Mr Bernard did not always meet his deadlines and there were several occasions when the space where his column should have appeared was printed with the notice Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell which later became the title of a play by the late Keith Waterhouse depicting the life and times of Mr Bernard The photographs like the real life histories and vignettes document the Soho of time warts and all This is not another Carnaby Street celebration of the cool and hip We have a generous helping of long forgotten shop fronts butchers newsagents cafes drapers record stores as well as every day street scenes of residents shoppers office workers and of course some of the many colourful characters who all weaved their own personal magical thread into the ever changing and ever luxuriant tapestry that Soho was and still is to this very day Some of the restaurants still exist The Gay Hussar and Quo Vadis are still going strong as are the clubs such as The Colony Rooms once owned and managed by Muriel Belcher who was both balm of troubled minds and de facto agony aunt and redoubtable verbal piranha for those who crossed the line To give a taste a little window into this bygone character of that bygone world Shut your mouth Mary and buy a round of drinks She shrieks at a rather effeminate young man wearing an art noveau tie who is involved in a screaming row with a masculine looking woman with a butch hair cut The row is over nothing serious than the price of rhubarb Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard were old school Soho doyens part of a cadre of bohemians which are now largely and sadly passed on Had Soho been a television opera these two gentlemen would have assumed the mantle of Best Loved Characters But Soho was and is and always will be a soap opera endlessly depicted analysed emulated but never recreated This book is sadly out of print but I came across it while researching the works of Frank Norman and I was lucky to find an affordable copy on eBay If you re a fan or aficionado of the London or Soho of recent yore I can suggest no finer or beautifully written or depicted book Martin J Frankson s The Noirista Lounge Soho Night and Day
Frank Norman 9 June 1930 23 December 1980 was a British novelist and playwright. Soho night and dayjobs reviews His reputation rests on his first memoir Bang to Rights 1958 and his musical play Fings Aint Wot They Used TBe 1960 but much of the remainder of his work remains fresh and readable Normans early success was based in part on the frankness of his memoirs and in part on the style of his writing which contained both renditions of cockney speakers and his own poor spelling Jeffrey Bernard in an obituary of Norman wrote that he was a natural writer of considerable wit powers of sardonic observation and with a razor sharp ear for dialogue particularly as spoken in the underworld site_link Click here to read and contribute to a discussion thread about Frank No Frank Norman 9 June 1930 23 December 1980 was a British novelist and playwright. Soho night and dayhousing His reputation rests on his first memoir Bang to Rights 1958 and his musical play Fings Ain t Wot They Used T Be 1960 but much of the remainder of his work remains fresh and readable Norman s early success was based in part on the frankness of his memoirs and in part on the style of his writing which contained both renditions of cockney speakers and his own poor spelling Jeffrey Bernard in an obituary of Norman wrote that he was a natural writer of considerable wit powers of sardonic observation and with a razor sharp ear for dialogue particularly as spoken in the underworld site_link Click here to read and contribute to a discussion thread about Frank Norman site_link A combination of Frank Norman s very personalized prose and Jeffrey Bernard s very personalized uncharacteristically photography about London s square mile of vice Jeff of course was a long time chronicler of Soho life and it s nice to see the things he picked out to photograph Frank s writing follows much of what he had previously and would continue to document about the Soho he loved It s a great document of what Soho was like in the 60 s after it was the haven of Bohemians and before it became the jungle of sleaze Jeff talks about the book and several of the photos appear in this BBC documentary about himInterestingly he was living in Frank s flat at the timehttps www.youtube.com watch v doA__ Soho Night and Day
| Soho Night and Day By Frank Norman |
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