Horse & Dolphin Yard – derrickjknight

Great Great Grandma’s Mug

Steady rain fell outside throughout the day.

Almost 50 years ago, when we lived in Soho, and Becky and Matthew spent weekends with us, we often shopped in Gerard Street in the heart of Chinatown. Perhaps I was putting this shoe on in July 1974, for one such a trip.

In June 2008, Becky took her daughter, Flo, on a tour of her old haunts, and sent me this photograph by e-mail.

Regular readers will know that my own mother, who lived until 15th September 2021, had adopted the practice of labelling items with the names, usually of those who had given them as presents, of those to whom she wished to bequeath them.

One which came to me was a Chinese mug and teapot set bought in Gerard street about the time Jessica produced the header picture. Not wishing for her to have to wait as long as I did, I gave this to Becky, who decided to keep it here for when she visits.

This morning my Mum’s great-great-granddaughter took a shine to her Gram-Gram’s mug.

Peering through racing windscreen wipers barely keeping pace with streams of precipitation coursing across the window, on a decidedly cold and wet midsummer afternoon, Jackie and I spied bubbles bouncing from tarmac streaked with reflected headlights as we set out on a forest drive.

Damp sheep huddled where they could beside the road at Bramshaw.

Moorland along Roger Penny Way was barely visible

Venturing across Deadman Hill for this view, ice tipped javelins pierced my skin; I could not see what I was pointing at; and I returned to the car soaked to the skin.

Moorland along the way was scarcely visible.

The first ponies we saw were disrupting the traffic at North Gorley.

Along Gorley Road donkeys dripped; reflecting headlights starred; raindrops bubbled and splashed.

This evening we all dined on Fire Pit beef burgers; fried onions; plentiful salad with Becky’s dressing, and various tasty sauces. Jackie drank Diet Coke and I finished the Merlot.

A Knight’s Tale (68: The Man’s Fingers Still Clutched The Ball)

Michael and Matthew (clearly in the midst of a perennial growth spurt) often played soccer in Horse & Dolphin Yard. The Ball, the subject of this next story was not a deflated football. To take these photographs I must have been standing outside the door of our flat.

On another occasion two gentlemen, to my left, somewhat the worse for having consumed a quantity of the cheapest possible intoxicating liquid, sprawled against each other in a corner on the floor. Michael and his friend Eddie were playing with a tennis ball. Soon, my son came running up the stairs to inform me that one of the imbibers had taken their ball. Naturally I descended into the yard to persuade the gent to give up his spoils.

The man’s fingers still clutched the ball, even though he was now dead.

I called the police who arrived quite quickly. The officer in charge, whilst arranging for disposal of the body, instructed me to send Michael inside because he shouldn’t be seeing this. It didn’t seem politic to argue, so I quietly suggested to the fifteen-year-old that he would get a better view from an upstairs window. Up he went.

There were no blue and white tapes applied to keep out sightseers, and no chalk outlines were made. Clearly this was not really considered to be the scene of a crime. Except possibly the snatching of the ball. In the circumstances, I was prepared to overlook that.

Like all of Chinatown, the yard looks rather different now.

Emily’s Party

The Openreach/BT engineer came early this morning. He had established that there was nothing wrong with the cabinet mentioned yesterday, but that our screw terminals were incompatible with broadband. He clipped them and fitted a new phone socket with a built-in filter.
This delayed the start of our journey to Sanderstead for Emily’s 21st birthday lunch. Given that we also encountered a three car collision on the M3 Jackie did very well to drive Flo and me there in time to reach Michael and his family’s home before the birthday granddaughter’s arrival from Nottingham.
While we were waiting with the other party members Alice proudly showed us the excellent birthday cake, made by Heidi, of which she had shared in the decoration. It was good to catch up with them both, with Oliver; and with Heidi’s parents Joan and Werner, and her siblings Cath, Chris and John and their partners and children. John was also celebrating his fiftieth birthday, so he was later given a cake proclaiming that fact. Jackie and I were handed coffee soon after our arrival. Oblivious as to whether or not we had finished it Michael forcibly relieved us of our mugs so we could all drink a bubbly toast on Emily’s arrival with her boyfriend Sam. Splendid party buffet food was provided. After this, all we needed on our return home was a slice of pizza and salad.
Emily’s younger sister took equal delight in the present opening.
Item number 75 in Elizabeth’s ‘Derrick through the ages’ series features me holding Emily who is dressed appropriately for her first Christmas. Naturally I made her a card adorned with this photograph taken by Heidi in 1963. In this picture, her mother stands beside her as Emily holds up my creation. Yes, believe it or not it is the mother on the left.
We left in mid afternoon so the family could get ready for a trip to the theatre to watch ‘Phantom of The Opera’. A nostalgic drink was planned to take place in the De Hems pub on the corner of Macclesfield Street where fifteen year old Michael had been Space Invaders champion. No doubt they will also have a look at the exterior of our old flat at 2 Horse and Dolphin Yard. I suppose it was natural that, when all this was being discussed I was prevailed upon to recount various Soho stories such as ‘Rabbits on the Roof’ and the slashed football. Well, there were some people who hadn’t heard them before, and Emily, Oliver, and Alice never tire of them. Or, I suppose, they may just be humouring me.
On 30th June 2008 Becky sent me a photograph of Flo standing under the street name of our yard. She had taken her daughter on a similar visit back in time.
Mist rose from the fields on our way home, reminding me of the French dawn described in my ‘On The Road’ post.
P.S. The Horse and Dolphin Yard picture has been censored and therefore removed.

‘If You Don’t Like It, Move’

Early this morning I did a bit more work on elderly colour slides with which to amplify my residential history. The Soho years spanned 1975 to 1980. This is when Jessica, Michael and I lived at 2 Horse & Dolphin Yard. This mews flat backed onto Gerard Street in the very heart of Chinatown. From our sitting room we could peer through two windows into a kitchen that appeared also to contain bunk beds. I photographed the scene in November 1976. Chopping of food took place all through the night. This somewhat interfered with sleep. In the early ours of one morning Jessica lost patience and rather politely called out asking the choppers to desist. The reply was: ‘We’ve been here fifty years. If you don’t like it, move.’
Jessica and Michael happily stood on the doorstep in December 1979.
Becky, who had spent many weekends there as a child, took her own daughter, Flo, to see the place in June 2008, and sent me this photograph from her mobile phone. That of course would not have been possible in those days.
In the spring of 1980 we bought and moved into a semi-detached house in Gracedale Road, SW16, where we lived until December 1987, by then joined by Sam and Louisa. Behind this photograph taken in 1984 can be seen the makeshift bookshelves featured in ‘Chinese Boxes’. It was in December 1987 that we left London for Newark. I will continue the story tomorrow.
A little later this morning, leaving Tony to spend the day alone before returning to his Essex home, Jackie drove us through severe rain and spray to Sanderstead where Michael and Heidi hosted a family day attended by Emily, Oliver, Alice, Louisa, Errol, Jessica, Imogen, Mat, Tess, Jackie and me. This was the last exchange of Christmas presents this year, except for those we have brought back for Becky, Ian, and Flo who were unable to come. Heidi produced some splendid salads, whilst Michael baked a delicious bacon joint and whole salmon. Trifle and mince pies complemented Alice’s splendid gingerbread house which was a particular hit with Jessica and Imogen. Various wines and beers were on offer.
As usual the older female cousins had an exhausting time playing with the younger two whilst the rest of us enjoyed more sedate conversation. A surprise hit was my labelling machine that I had brought along so that Jessica and Imogen, to whom Jackie and I had given identical boxes of Derwent coloured pencils, could make their own stickers for their presents. This delighted Alice, who first helped the little ones label every one of their gifts, then made progressively ruder messages for them to adhere to the other adults.

A Different Mother Each Day

After Jackie delivered me to Southampton Parkway for my trip to visit Norman, my train journey was almost uneventful. No doubt taking the Quiet zone notices literally, a taciturn young man opposite me, sporting an attenuated Mohican that had recently been mown, said nothing and did not take his eyes off the screen of his DELL laptop, even when I asked him to allow me to place my book on the table. Spread all over the surface, he drew the device about two centimetres towards himself. For form’s sake, and in order not to lose face, I positioned my book half way on to the table’s edge under the forward-leaning p.c.’s seemingly invertebrate lid, and read a page or two before shifting my seat from the aisle to the window where there was no-one opposite. I was not being difficult sitting opposite the man. I don’t have leg room on the inside seats if someone does come and sit opposite, whereas, as long as I pull them in when someone passes I can stick them in the gangway. Of the three laptop users sharing the table on the return journey, two were asleep before we reached Winchester, and the other’s DELL was not spineless.

From the terminal station, keeping an Eye on Big Ben, I crossed Waterloo Bridge, skirted Covent Garden, and wandered into Bloomsbury, passing James Smith’s magnificent umbrella shop where I had bought the brolly stolen from the stairs of our flat in Horse & Dolphin Yard mentioned on 9th February this year.

Incidentally, Becky, who has many memories of that Soho residence, on 30th June 2008 sent me a photograph of Flo taken beneath the yard’s street sign during a nostalgic visit.

From Bloomsbury I returned via Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Street, the New version of which I had crossed, and weaved in and out among the whole world’s populace to Bond Street tube station where I boarded a train to Neasden. The main difference between Westminster Bridge and Oxford Street, in terms of the crush of people, is that Westminster Bridge is shorter. Perhaps that is the better route after all.

Shortly before I reached Neasden, as an elderly man wearing a cross put his bible away in preparation for departure, a young woman, carrying a comatose child dangling from a sling like a puppet on a string, walked the length of the carriage placing a printed notice on each of the many vacant seats. She then retraced her steps in a not very enthusiastic effort to collect the money the message claimed she needed. Empty handed, she gathered up all her slips of paper and moved on to the next compartment. My fellow passenger, clearly a kind man, said how difficult it was to determine genuine need. I offered the observation that the infant was probably not hers, but agreed that it was very problematic and not a very comfortable way for the woman to make a living. This, however, is a scam I have seen so much of in the London Underground that I have become sadly cynical. I also experience some guilt when I do not offer help. Finsbury Park’s station entrance described in my post of 14th June 2012 was notorious when I frequented it in the ’80s and ’90s. The apparently sleeping three year old flopping in a buggy had a different mother each day.

A display on South Bank for the amusement of those crossing the bridge enabled me to pay lip service to the week’s gardening theme. A roof was being swept by a woman in curlers and a rather short hoodie, seemingly created from grass cuttings. A winding string of coloured wheelbarrows containing floral baskets could been seen below.

For lunch Norman provided duck in plum sauce followed by bread and butter pudding. We shared a bottle of excellent Rioja.

I finished reading John Guy’s ‘The Tudor Age’ section of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, and began John S. Morrill’s ‘The Stuarts’ before arriving back at Southampton where my driver was waiting.

The Benefits Of Hearing

A new visitor alighted on the bird table today. Jackie was able to view this creature from the hide she had constructed in the kitchen. As usual, as for the would-be panda photographer in the Kitkat television advert, when I arrived with the camera, the bird disappeared. She had to look it up in Dave Farrow’s ‘A Guide to the birds of Britain and Northern Europe’. At first studying the illustration for an apparently rare garden sparrow, she eventually settled on the female blackcap. A pied wagtail did battle with another bird that it saw off so quickly we couldn’t identify it. A blue tit showed a preference for the fat balls.

In celebration of a much brighter day, blossom has come to Castle Malwood Lodge garden, and fresh lemon coloured leaves are beginning to festoon Running Hill. I chose the first ford Q walk this morning. A distant cuckoo intruded upon the conversation of other forest birds, just as its chicks will intrude upon their unwilling foster parents.

The lambs that caught my eye as I walked towards the bridle path were black with white faces. Two of them vied with each other for either shelter or suckle under their mother. In a display of modesty the ewe, as I peered in their direction, waddled awkwardly off. How, I wondered, did those thin legs support that ungainly, wool-covered body? Her offspring hopped and skipped over each other, trying to latch onto their moving target.

At the top end of the path I tried a new route by taking Tom’s Lane. On a bend I soon saw a notice that made me change my mind. I was first inclined to ignore it, because it had probably been there some time. However, around the bend there were two houses, neither of which possessed a gate. Discretion was called for, so I retraced my steps and took Forest Road, beside which bony cattle basked in the morning sunlight. Walking back through Newtown, watching ponies grazing, I marvelled at the amount of unrelenting mandibular exercise required to feed these animals for a day. It is little wonder they don’t do much else.

On two occasions I had differing reasons for being grateful for the sense of hearing. About to approach the hill back into Minstead from ‘The Splash’ ford, the familiar clopping of an as yet out of sight horse drawn cart alerted me to the photo opportunity that was on its way. I was therefore able to take up a suitable position. As the carriage passed me the riders laughed at my poised lens. ‘I’ll bet you have lots of these taken’, I cried, as I clicked. ‘Just a few’, was the reply.

There is a particular blind bend on the road up to Seamans Corner. As usual I walked up the narrow road on my right hand side, so I would face cars coming towards me on their left. Round the bend sped a car I had only heard. The driver was looking in the direction of her passenger. Had I not pinned my back to a thorn hedge in anticipation, the vehicle would have hit me.

This afternoon, my granddaughter, Alice, visiting Soho with her Mum and Dad, sent me a photograph of the front door of Nos. 1 – 2 Horse and Dolphin Yard, where Michael had lived with Jessica and me during the 1970s. It was the roof of this building that formed part of the route to Michael’s rabbit pens described in my post of 21st May last year.

Jackie’s luscious lamb’s liver casserole followed by bread and butter pudding was for dinner. This was accompanied by Hoegaarden by Jackie, whilst I finished the Piccini.

Raincoat Or Umbrella?

It seems we had our one summer day yesterday. Today’s forecast was for widespread rain over the next few days, becoming colder each day. Consequently I set off in warm and humid weather for lunch with Norman. This involved the usual walk to Colliers Wood to board the tube for Neasden from where it is ten minutes on foot.

On such a day with such a forecast I always have two dilemmas. The first is do I pay attention to the weatherpeople? Mostly I don’t, but this time I decided to do so. In fact, although there were signs of rain wherever I went, I only experienced one flurry of light rain. The skies were, however, so threatening that it made sense to go prepared.

My second decision is whether to take an umbrella or wear a raincoat.

A light salad was followed by a drive home.

I settled for no jacket and my Daniel Hechter raincoat purchased in Bergerac a couple of years ago. This had been a gorgeous sunny day in August until, as is not unusual, we were hit by a spectacular thunderstorm whilst I was showing Chris and Frances the sights of Bergerac Old Town and I was totally unprepared. We happened to be standing outside a men’s outfitters. I dived inside. They only had one on the racks. Miraculously it fitted me. Sorted.

Once I had a Burberry but I left it on a train. This is one of the reasons I have trouble with umbrellas. I generally keep an umbrella for two trips and two years. The first trip is when I’ve just bought it in similar circumstances to the Bergerac raincoat. The second is usually about two years later when the brolly gets left on a train or at a bus stop; in a cafe or restaurant; in fact anywhere it’s not raining. I can live with losing one through such carelessness, but the one I lost in Soho seemed a bit out of order. I had left the soaking wet umbrella at the foot of the stairs to our flat in Horse and Dolphin Yard, a mews between Shaftsbury Avenue and Gerard Street. Another family member had left the door open. My weather protection vanished.

The thief ventured no further into the flat. An intruder on another occasion did come up the stairs and I found him rooting around the bedroom. Someone was a bit careless about that door. This young man claimed to be looking for a woman. As I didn’t think he was likely to find one in the drawers he was ferreting amongst, I politely indicated that I didn’t believe him and it would be in his best interests to depart. He did so rather rapidly. Not so another unwelcome visitor. This time a couple of soldiers on leave actually rang the bell, again looking for a woman. This was late at night and one of them was rather threatening, so my response wasn’t very friendly. His mate looked somewhat uncomfortable and warned me that the other man was likely to kill me. Sizing him up and considering my chances, I decided upon discretion and quickly closed the door.

After lunch which consisted of stuffed pork steaks rolled in bacon, roast potatoes, and veg., all courtesy of Mrs. Waitrose; accompanied by an excellent Turkish red wine (Trio on the label), I travelled by tube to Victoria where I caught a train to Mitcham Eastfields from where I walked to Becky’s. Our daughter had taken herself off in her car to visit her friends at her workplace – just six days after her operation. You can tell she’s my daughter. Thirty eight years ago I discharged myself from Westminster Hospital 5 days after an appendicectomy and drove myself home. It seems inconceivable that in those days I could have parked my car outside a Central London hospital, left it for that period, and found it awaiting my collection.

At Victoria a pair of policemen bearing what to my uneducated eye looked like automatic rifles were strolling among the crowds on the main concourse. Although not by any means a daily occurrence it is common enough for no-one to be taking any notice.

Chartwell

Today we had another family gathering, this time with Michael, Becky, and Matthew and their families. We went to Winston Churchill’s former home, now a National Trust property at Chartwell and afterwards to Michael’s for a meal involving starters of barbecued sausages followed by chicken, salads and finally Eton mess.

A minor panic was calmed by the arrival of Matthew and his dog Oddie some while after the rest of us. The arrangement was that we would all congregate at Chartwell. Matthew was to ring Becky if he got lost. The only problem was that both Becky and I had left our mobile phones behind and noone else was sure of Mat’s number. In any event there was no signal at Chartwell. We are now so dependent on mobile phones that it becomes disastrous if anything goes awry with them. Anyway, panic averted.

Oddie is quite an old Jack Russell terrier. It has become more and more marked lately that this formerly black and white dog has hair on his head and face which is now almost completely white. Speculating about this it occurred to me that the same thing has happened to me. Why not also to a dog?

After a pleasant drive through the Surrey and into the Kent countryside, we arrived at Chartwell, near Westerham in Kent, on a fine spring afternoon and had an idyllic walk in the grounds before visiting the house. The greens of the trees, shrubs and fields are bright and fresh at this time of the year, as are the rape fields. Chartwell is set in a beautiful wooded valley in the Kentish Weald. The house itself is perched on the hillside offering stunning uninterrupted views of the grounds and the slopes beyond. It is easy to see why Sir Winston chose this spot. As in all National Trust properties the gardens are beautifully maintained, the spring flowers and shrubs, particularly rhododendrons and a magnolia, being now at their peak.

The house itself is a museum of Churchill’s life. We are reminded of his honours, his many talents, and his very exciting existence. He truly was one of the greatest Englishmen. In the grounds is a smaller building which was his studio and is still stocked with many of his paintings. I had an interesting discussion with one of the attendants about his painting style. This in fact was in the main house, rather than the studio. It was Heidi who accompanied me in the house and we spoke to the custodian of the kitchen about the recipe for Amber Apple pudding which she was reading in the open period cookery book on the kitchen table.

Back at Michael’s house we spent a pleasant while talking and telling stories. Inevitably these involve what are known as Soho stories. These are from the time of Michael’s years from 10 to 18 when we lived in Horse and Dolphin Yard, SW1. Emily, Oliver, Alice and Flo know these stories off by heart, although they all took place before they were born. When appropriate I will weave some of them into these annals.