Soho in the Eighties
Published on 6. September 2018
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-4729-1480-4 (ISBN)
Description
A fascinating glimpse into 1980s Soho by leading journalist and writer Christopher Howse.
In the 1980s Daniel Farson published Soho in the Fifties. This memoir is a sequel from the Eighties, a decade that saw the brilliant flowering of a daily tragi-comedy enacted in pubs like the Coach and Horses or the French and in drinking clubs like the Colony Room.
These were places of constant conversation and regular rows fuelled by alcohol. The cast was more improbable than any soap opera. Some were widely known - Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Tom Baker or John Hurt. Just as important were the character actors: the Village Postmistress, the Red Baron, Granny Smith. The bite came from the underlying tragedy: lost spouses, lost jobs, pennilessness, homelessness and death.
Christopher Howse recaptures the lost Soho he once knew as home, its cellar cafes and butchers' shops, its villains and its generosity. While it lasted, time in those smoky rooms always seemed to be half past ten, not long to closing time. As the author relates, he never laughed so much as he did in Soho in the Eighties.
In the 1980s Daniel Farson published Soho in the Fifties. This memoir is a sequel from the Eighties, a decade that saw the brilliant flowering of a daily tragi-comedy enacted in pubs like the Coach and Horses or the French and in drinking clubs like the Colony Room.
These were places of constant conversation and regular rows fuelled by alcohol. The cast was more improbable than any soap opera. Some were widely known - Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Tom Baker or John Hurt. Just as important were the character actors: the Village Postmistress, the Red Baron, Granny Smith. The bite came from the underlying tragedy: lost spouses, lost jobs, pennilessness, homelessness and death.
Christopher Howse recaptures the lost Soho he once knew as home, its cellar cafes and butchers' shops, its villains and its generosity. While it lasted, time in those smoky rooms always seemed to be half past ten, not long to closing time. As the author relates, he never laughed so much as he did in Soho in the Eighties.
Reviews / Votes
Howse is Soho's Boswell ... this is an astonishing piece of reportage ... It is also a piece of social history that will be vital in future decades for anyone who wants to know what Soho was really like. -- Harry Mount * The Tablet * Elegiac ... [a] sensitive, well-drawn book -- Will Self * Guardian * Opening this book is like walking into a heavy drinkers' pub ... Fortunately the Virgil guiding readers through this particular hell is Christopher Howse ... Thorough and likeable * Financial Times * Howse is [...] such a deft sketcher of people that we feel as if we do know them * Daily Telegraph * Honesty is the thread that holds his book together. It WAS like that -- Nicholas Lezard * Spectator * In Soho in the Eighties Howse chronicles a doomed world of 'poets, painters, retired prostitutes, actors, criminals, musicians and general layabouts' * The Times * Like a prose poem by Philip Larkin * Daily Mail * A wonderfully beady and evocative picture of a bohemian society - drunk and dissolute, irresponsible, individualistic, undeceived * Mail on Sunday * A book-length obituary of a quaint and idiosyncratic set of Sohoites [whom] Howse describes with clinical precision, Proustian lyricism and macabre humour * Times Literary Supplement *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Illustrations
1 x 8pp plate section and maps
Dimensions
Height: 160 mm
Width: 236 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
620 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4729-1480-4 (9781472914804)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Christopher Howse
Soho in the Eighties
E-Book
09/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Continuum
€16.99
Available for download
Christopher Howse
Soho in the Eighties
E-Book
09/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Continuum
€16.99
Available for download
Person
Christopher Howse is a writer for the Daily Telegraph, writing about the world's faiths. He also blogs about the English language and is a regular contributor to The Spectator and The Tablet. He is the author of A Pilgrim in Spain (2011), The Train in Spain (2013) and Soho in the Eighties (2018), all published by Bloomsbury Continuum.
Among his other bestselling books for Continuum are Prayers for This Life (2005) and The Assurance of Hope (2006). He is the author of How We Saw It: 150 years of The Daily Telegraph (2004).
Among his other bestselling books for Continuum are Prayers for This Life (2005) and The Assurance of Hope (2006). He is the author of How We Saw It: 150 years of The Daily Telegraph (2004).
Content
List of Illustrations
1 The Coach - and Horses
2 The Trap
3 Low Life
4 The Office
5 The French
6 Jeffery's Coat
7 Marsh
8 The Asphalt Carpet
9 A Cabinet of Curiosities
10 The Parish
11 Baby Face Scarlatti
12 The Unknown Norman
13 A Farson Attack
14 Bank Holiday Bacon
15 Hard Words
16 Heath
17 Soho Sickness
18 Private Eye
19 The Enigma Richard Ingrams
20 The Lavatory Table
21 Bruce
22 The Red Baron
23 Oliver
24 A Painter Upstairs
25 The Last Lamplighter
Envoi
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index
1 The Coach - and Horses
2 The Trap
3 Low Life
4 The Office
5 The French
6 Jeffery's Coat
7 Marsh
8 The Asphalt Carpet
9 A Cabinet of Curiosities
10 The Parish
11 Baby Face Scarlatti
12 The Unknown Norman
13 A Farson Attack
14 Bank Holiday Bacon
15 Hard Words
16 Heath
17 Soho Sickness
18 Private Eye
19 The Enigma Richard Ingrams
20 The Lavatory Table
21 Bruce
22 The Red Baron
23 Oliver
24 A Painter Upstairs
25 The Last Lamplighter
Envoi
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index