Streets Ahead is the column
from London Walks' Pen & Daily Constitutional Special Correspondent David
Tucker…
By a great old public school.
Pop Pop – it’s a minor orgasm every time you think about
‘em.
School’s Rugby.
Expulsion Number One was Harry Flashman, that cad, bounder,
bully, coward, thief, scoundrel, lecher, cheat, toady – well, you get the idea.
Old Arnold expelled him from Rugby for drunkenness. It was the best thing that
ever happened to the British Empire. And to lovers of historical novels.
Here’s a soupcon of that expulsion. And of our hero. And of
Arnold. And of the Flashman opus – the 12 novels – generally.
“He [Arnold] was standing before the fireplace, with his
hands behind looping up his coat-tails, and a face like a Turk at a
christening. He had eyes like sabre-points, and his face was pale and carried
that disgusted look that he kept for these occasions. Even with the liquor
still working on me a little I was as scared in that minute as I’ve ever been
in my life – and when you have ridden into a Russian battery at Balaclava and
been chained in an Afghan dungeon waiting for the torturers, as I have, you know
what fear means. I still feel uneasy when I think of him, and he’s been dead
sixty years.”
Flashy have any redeeming features? Yeah, horsemanship,
facility with foreign languages and fornication. Plus he’s brutally – and
engagingly – honest about himself (and others). And Lady Luck is as fond of him
as just about every other woman who comes under the spell of his moustaches and
6’ 2” physique.
These last two – his luck and his honesty – are hugely important.
Because Lady Luck can’t get enough of him not only does Flashy survive the most
fearful ordeals and outlandish perils across the four corners of the world –
he’s never caught out. His Victorian contemporaries are in awe of him. They
think he’s heroic and brave beyond measure. Completely clueless as to his true nature. That, for
example, what really impelled him at the Charge of the Light Brigade was fear
and flatulence.
And because he’s so honest, we take to him as well.
How can you not fall for an old rogue who cheerfully fesses
up, “children always like me. They instinctively recognise that in me they’ve
encountered that rarest of phenomena, a grown-up who’s as deeply unscrupulous
as they are.”
To cut to the chase, the point is that if Flashy hadn’t been
expelled from Rugby chances are his career trajectory would have been
completely different. The which would have been a body blow to the British
Empire, the British Army, the morale of the British public and those of us 150
years later who are hooked on the greatest series of British historical novels
ever written.
And Expulsion Number Two? So glad you asked.
Starbucks.
Rugby School’s the landlord of my favourite street in
London.*
Lambs Conduit Street.
And, yes, they turfed out Starbucks. Maybe the only landlord
on the planet to do so.
That all by itself would go a long way toward making Lambs
Conduit Street my favourite street in London.*
But there’s just so much more. And the key to it – for once
– is a really enlightened landlord. Hats off to Rugby School. They’re committed
to small, distinctive, fiercely independent, high quality shops. They’re the
kind of business they want on “their streets”. Which is why Starbucks was shown
the door.
Now, time to fulfil the promise of that previous graf: there’s just so much more.
Lambs Conduit Street is a Mecca of menswear shops. Something
like seven of them. No chains, of course. They’re high quality independents.
Plus a couple of tailors. And a soft tailor. Oh and there’s also a really fine feminist
bookshop. And there’s a couple of brilliant pubs. And three superb restaurants:
French, Spanish and Italian. There’s a proper old school café. There’s a fab
undertakers. A high quality shoe place. There’s Aesop’s – the high end skin
care and body lotion outfit.
There’s a wine shop and a wine bar. Well, you get the idea.
Well, not fully, I should think. Look, Lamb’s Conduit Street
is only fifteen minutes away from that urban retail nightmare of nightmares:
Oxford Street. Think – if you can
bear to – of the traffic on Oxford Street. Yeah, you got it: ain’t no cars on
Lambs Conduit Street. There’s that wonderful continental touch – alfresco
dining and drinking. There’s neighbourliness. And neighbourhoodedness – i.e.,
it’s a neat neighbourhood generally. It’s Bloomsbury. The Dickens House Museum
is round the corner. As is the Foundling Hospital Museum. And the Gordon
Museum. And the Wellcome Collection. And the Percival David Foundation of
Chinese Art. And – goes without saying, this – the British Museum isn’t far.
Ditto the University of London. And of course all those Georgian squares
parading up through there.
It’s just so civilised.
And literary history to die for. Our literary Bloomsbury
walk on Tuesday “takes in” Lambs Conduit Street. Right after they’ve taken
survey of “that” house in the Ted Hughes-Sylvia Plath saga. And gawked at a
nail from Nelson’s flagship, The Victory.
There are over 60,000 streets in London. Lamb’s Conduit
Street is my favourite.* That’s got to count for something.
*Well actually I’ve got two favourites. My (David’s) other favourite street in London will
get its turn in this showcase in due course.
Our London Walks guides will be adding their favourite streets to the list over the next couple of weeks. Richard III (HERE) and Ann (HERE) have already chipped in.
What's YOUR favourite London street?
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