Me and my profile. Me and London. Me and a long time ago.

Chez mr.le Marquis du Galipot.

Temp: 0800hrs/12C 1300hrs/18C last night low/10C Weather:drizzly,mild,s-wind.
Alert State: normal

Now you can "view my complete profile" (just click on the appropriate line). A beautiful picture of a georgeous hunk of male virility (??!!!)

I finally got some news from google/blog support, I still haven't understood what the smiley bit is about, but at least the profile photo seems to have worked!! Now you can have my beautiful face looking at you all the time.

Maybe now I can get on to serious things. I'll try as my first,the article I promised you all, and which you have been waiting for, with bated breath: "Have you ever walked Hungerford Bridge?"
As you will see, I am talking about a period long ago, lost completely, and my researches have turned up only modern things in relation to the subject. Gordon's Free Vintners, for example, I finally found under "London Pub's and Club's" with an article by some young girly whippersnapper, who talks about going through a boarded up door and then DOWN some steps. This means that she has never been to the Gordon's I knew and loved. She is talking about the same place, and very kindly too, but she is talking about it some 40/45 years later. She has never had the honour and privilege of meeting "George" the one and only waiter in "Gordon's" many years ago, and all the charm and tradition involved with this place.
Effectively, "Have you ever walked Hungerford Bridge?" deals with a walk from Charing Cross overground railway station, down Villiers St., with a description of all the "once upon a time things", to Charing Cross Underground Station, and over the old Hungerford pedestrian Bridge (the only rail/pedestrian bridge in London by the way)straddling the Thames, to the back entries of the Royal Festival Hall (the back entry was also the location of the entry to the Festival Hall's own wine bar at the time), with all it's events, and then back across the Bridge to the road leading from the Underground station back up to the Trafalgar Square/Strand (I have forgotten the name of this road - but I'll try to find out again- it runs almost parallell to Villiers St., on the other side of the railway ) where all those years ago, THE most exquisite building existed, a collection of Restaurants, hidden from uneducated eyes by the horrible sight of a "Wimpey Bar". The whole complex was called "Lyon's Corner House" and there were 3 or 4 of them in Central London at the time, but this was the best one. Let yourself be drawn back into the old-fashioned and so enjoyable "Brasserie" (before it became the "Showboat" and lost it's charm) or in the wonderful "Carving Room" just made for gluttons like me, or pass to the right and eat in the "Trident" (where -amongst many other things - smoked salmon and Scottish salmon of REAL quality was served, not like the stuff we pay cheaply for nowadays), or just next to it "The Grill Room" with it's odours of real Charcoal Grill. A description is given, with anecdotes, in length, before finally finishing our walk just behind the 24hr (at the time) Post Office at Trafalgar Square,at an address little known to Londoner's of the "Festival Club" - one of those numerous "Private Supper Clubs" of the epoque, whose entrance is, or was, situated opposite the Stage entrance of the Coliseum Theatre, and it was always guaranteed that weird and wonderful characters would suddenly appear at the bar, demanding a gin and tonic in between acts at the Theatre! More anecdotes are given in my article.
From there, the walk is finished by returning down the road behind St. Martins-in-the-field
to Charing Cross overground station, where the most delicious "high teas" were available at reasonable prices around 4pm Mon - Friday!!
It's a longish article, so I'll be doing it in 3 or 4 parts. I'll keep you hanging on!
I'd love to be able to do the walk again for real, but hardly anything exists anymore of all those wonderful things!
The only photo I could dig up is a modern one of the "NEW" Hungerford Bridge, with a decided lack of charm, lack of black coal clouds from the steam trains of the epoque, but here it is anyway.

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