Thursday, 12 December, 2019
The day I had to go to Somerset House, it rained…too much. It was rarely pouring but the darkness and the showers and the cold wind made it difficult to ignore and enjoy things. It felt as if even the lights and the colours struggled to assert themselves. I had imagined that, with three hours of spare time I could slowly look around – I thought maybe Bond Street and Soho would be nice – before I had to meet Susanne for dinner. When the day actually came, the most tempting thought was ‘stay home, wrap up, do nothing,’ especially when Lisa had suggested she may not make it. Bah humbug.
But off I went. I took advantage of my early arrival – once I know I’m going somewhere I just want to get out and deal with the extra time when I get there – to get a SIM card for my new phone. In Dalston the same venture had been painful the day before and I’d remained SIMless. And this was the Strand.
When I was just 17 I got a job there. The job itself was clerical and bottom of the ladder. But I was 17 and each day I’d travel in to Waterloo Station from Woking, where we’d moved one year earlier. From the station I’d walk along the South Bank – a shadow of what South Bank is today but walking along there, taking in the sights on the other side, watching the river, before arriving at the Royal Festival Hall and then going up to street level was exciting every time.
Crossing Waterloo Bridge was the low and the highlight. Low because it seemed long and, when windy or rainy, quite challenging. High because the view from up there was, and still is, the finest in London for me. To the east Saint Pauls, the power station, and Tower bridge. To the west the sweeping view towards Westminster and the Parliament Buildings. Quintessential London was spread out.
The building I worked in was at the head of the bridge, taking up the corner of Waterloo bridge and the Strand. The office was a few floors up. From my window I could see the working side of the Savoy Hotel and, on my breaks, I could go out onto the large balcony and see that east and westward view from a height. I never tired of it.
Every day I’d use a luncheon voucher, which I somehow remember might have been a couple of shillings – part of most London wages in those days, and take myself to lunch. I got in the habit of going to Lyons Corner House along the Strand and buying a tomato sandwich and a drink, which I’d take along to Trafalgar Square and eat in that wonderful setting. While the tomato sandwich was delicious, my method was to hold back some of the money from the voucher and once a week have a magnificent lunch somewhere. It seems to me most of the time this was a European cafe on the east side of the bridge, where the flavours were mysterious and fancy.
Sometimes I’d go to a cafe in what is now the touristy Covent Garden area – something with chips, perhaps egg, sausage and chips. And sometimes I’d meet my dad on Fleet Street where he’d treat me to steak, chips and mushrooms. I was grown up and ‘rich’ and acutely aware of how exciting life and this city was.
So how can I ever go to the Strand and not think about my youthful adventures there, the place where my love affair with London was cemented? (And perhaps where the seed of my love affair with food was planted.)
And yet that day, happy to be there, I also wanted to flee. Somehow I grabbed the minutes I had and did what I could with the soggy time.
Instead of my planned leisurely walk around the west end, I caught a very cold bus at Aldwych and headed north and east – to The City.