WEDNESDAY I was down to work and extra shift and I was upstairs looking at some slides from our Africa trip when the intercom went. Mike Dyke was downstairs. I went down and he was there with his Kumuka co-driver Ox (appropriately named). They had been on their way down to Plymouth with their new overland truck to begin their next southbound expedition when Mike had gone to sleep at the wheel. The truck went off the road and hit a tree root which tore the front axle clean off, then it rolled over! Neither of them was hurt but the truck was written off. So, they are taking the Silver Fox [the truck we’d made our expedition in] back down instead.
We had a good yarn for a couple of hours, then they left and I worked behind the bar for the rest of the evening.
MONDAY At 4:00 when I finished my shift I went for a walk over to the river to take some photos. It was a stormy afternoon with a strong wind blowing heavy, dark clouds past the sun. I photographed the Houses of Parliament from a spot on top of some steps leading down to the water in front of County Hall¹ with filters and it looked quite good. I was using Agfa Tri-X Pan ASA 400 black and white film, a grainy film stock perfect for a moody London afternoon.
My London, February 26th, 1990.
Then, I walked along the Albert Embankment to Lambeth Bridge, round through Jubilee Gardens and back to the pub.
The Embankment, Waterloo, London.
¹ The imposing Country Hall building on the South Bank of the Thames was the headquarters of the London City Council. It is now a hotel.
SATURDAY We had had a busy and late night on Friday with a Bundaberg¹ promotion so we slept in till about 10:00 then got up and watched TV for a while. At around 12:30 we caught the tube over to Liverpool Street station and settled in to the café there with a feed of Casey Jones burgers to wait for the next train to Broxbourne. Tom [the Red Lion’s cleaner] had lent us his discount card so we had quite a decent reduction on the tickets.
We caught the 1:30 train out and sat watching the grey suburbs of London unfold into the green fields of Hertfordshire. It was good to get out of the city for a while and after a taxi ride up to White Stubbs Farm, we walked up the drive to Joyce and Ernie’s house. It was a grey, overcast day with a strong, cold wind blowing but the air was clear and carried the smells of hay, leaves and new grass to us.
We spent a thoroughly boring afternoon at Joyce’s listening to her alcoholic rambling then Ernie drove us along with our box of souvenirs from Africa back to the station. We slept all the way back to Liverpool St and had another of Casey Jones’ horrid burgers then went back to the pub.
We hired the video The Running Man and spent the evening being couch potatoes.
WEDNESDAY Because I had worked an extra ½ day last week, the roster had me down for a full day off today. I spent most of the morning asleep but finally got motivated into getting up and after a shower and some brekkie I went downstairs to find that a check had turned up in the mail from the British Tax Department for a refund of £414-10!! Not a bad result.
I caught the bus over to Oxford Circus and as I was walking up Oxford Street I saw Roy¹, so I followed him round to the building site where he and Colin work. We stood and yarned in the street for a while then Colin took me up to the top of the crane to have a drive. What a great view there was from the cab out across the hazy jumble of London. There was quite a strong wind blowing which made conditions for lifting marginal but he unloaded a truck-load of asphalt then he let me have a go. It is very easy to drive a crane and there are only two controls, one on each arm of the chair. It is the same as driving a digger [something that I had driven back in New Zealand] only on a bigger scale. I spent ¾ of an hour up their with Colin then went back down to the street.
I walked up to Jessops Camera Supplies and bought a cable-release, a blue graduated filter and a little pouch that holds 6 filters.
When I got back to the pub, another cheque had turned up from the Tax Department in the second mail, this one for £404-50! I spent the afternoon mucking around in our room then Linda and I went and saw Family Business starring Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick. It was a disappointing film.
¹A regular drinker at the Red Lion, Roy and his mate Colin operated a tower crane on a big construction site in the centre of London. Colin drove the crane and Roy guided him by radio from the street below.
MY BIRTHDAY The day started as it was to go on – with lots of surprises! I was up at 7:15 to let Old Tom [the cleaner] in and he had a present for me, a pair of kid leather gloves. Then Brian gave me a card from him, Sue, Roo and Lou Lou [his wife and daughters] with £30 in it. Jim was next into the pub and gave me a pair of sox and a tie from him and Mo [his girlfriend]. But the best surprise of the morning came at 10:30. I was cleaning out the glass washer when the phone rang and it was Joe [my brother]. It was Sunday night in Fairlie¹ and he had rung up to say Happy Birthday! With Linda on the extension up in the kitchen we yarned for 20 minutes and that would have cost PGG a fortune!
Linda gave me a couple of blank tapes and Billy Joel’s new album Storm Front². As well as a jersey that she has ordered from home.
The lunch session was pretty quiet and when the second mail arrived there was a card from Helen, Brian, Shayne, Linda, Kev and Leah [Linda’s family] as well as letters from Luc [a Canadian we had met in Australia] and Janice [my cousin].
When I went upstairs at 4 PM there was another surprise in store for me. Linda, Louie, Ang, and Mary-Anne [the other bar staff] with a huge cake, wine and more pressies. From Linda, a hip flask² with my initials engraved on it, and from Louie a card and a wooden pen. We ate the cake (which even had 27 candles on it) and drank the wine then Londas and I went upstairs to have a snooze.
27 years old, The Red Lion, Lambeth, London, England.
At 7:00 we went downstairs after showers for a drink in the bar then caught the tube over to Piccadilly Circus. We walked up to Leicester Square and asked around until we found Monmouth Street where Linda had booked a table for two at Mon Plaisir, a little French restaurant.
Mon Plaisir is still in operation, at the same place on Monmouth Street. It is now the oldest French restaurant in London. (Photo supplied)
We had a wonderful neal there – I had escargot and entrecote steak and Linda had king prawns and pigeon. We shared a bottle of 1979 Cabernet Sauvignon and finished with cheese, biscuits and cappuccino. It was a great evening and a wonderful atmosphere in the restaurant.
We made our way back to the pub and went upstairs…
¹The country town on the South Island where he lived and worked as a stock buyer for the firm PGG.
² I still have that cassette and hip flask!
³ In those days, in England, the mail came twice daily during the week
VALENTINE’S DAY Because of the way the roster for the week worked out, I had the whole day off today. My plans for a lie-in went out the window at 8:00 Am though when the dray arrived and Brian and Jim didn’t¹. So, I saw to the delivery then went back to be for ½ and hour.
When Linda got up she gave me her Valentine card then went down to work. I got up and walked down to the bank and drew out £5 to buy some flowers. I ended up buying a red rose for her at a street market on Lower Marsh Road and I gave it to her along with my card.
I had planned to spend a few hours down at the Imperial War Museum but when I got down there (it is only a 10 minute walk from the pub) I found that it cost £2-50 to get in and I hadn’t taken any money with me. The walk wasn’t totally wasted though as on the way I found a house with a small plaque on the wall saying that William Bligh, Captain of the Bounty had lived in the house in the 1700s.
Back at the pub, I collected my camera gear and set off to explore some more of the Thames. I walked along The Embankment which has been renovated and re-built into sterile and atmosphere-less home for big businesses. All of the old wharves and docks have been torn down and modern “old style” buildings have been put up in their place. It is a ghetto of glass, polished stone, expensive cars and yuppies!
One small section is still old and grimy and that is the area adjacent to the old “Clink” prison². There is a tiny, narrow cobbled street running between the old warehouses on the river bank and the back wall of the now dis-used prison. At its narrowest, the alley is only a few feet wide and is cold, dark and dank: just the sort of atmosphere you’d expect beside a medieval prison!
I walked on down past Tower Bridge but couldn’t get much further without leaving the river so I crossed the bridge and walked back up the North Bank past the Tower of London. I detoured away from the river to have another look at St. Paul’s Cathedral then walked back up to Westminster Bridge and back to the pub.
¹Let me explain this strange sentence! The dray refers to the truck that delivered the beer to the pub in aluminium and timber casks. The name is a hangover from bygone days when beer was delivered by horse and dray. Brian, the pub’s owner, and Jim, one of the barmen, didn’t turn up to help unload the delivery which is dropped down a wooden chute into the pub’s cellar.
²The Clink prison was the oldest prison in England, dating back to the 12th century. The slang phrase for being in prison, to be “put in clink”, derives from the prison’s name.
MONDAY We had quite a busy morning session for a Monday. Linda and I went to Break for the Border¹ for tea in the evening with the extra money she earned on Saturday night.
