There was a ‘singer’ in the 60s called Adam Faith. I say ‘singer’ because he couldn’t. What he could do was look very pretty and cool and cause multiple mass screamage in teenage girls. Though anyone with long hair holding a mike in those days produced the same effect. If you doubt his inability to sing, google ‘what do you want’ and play it. Very quietly and with your hand on the STOP!!! button. I’ve just checked and Alexa played it for me. Whereas really all recordings should have been destroyed in human interest.

So he re-invented himself as an actor. Which he wasn’t that great at either, but didn’t need to be. He appeared in a tv series called ‘Budgie’, which was the nick-name of his character. I loved that show. Everyone did, but remember, in 1971 there were seriously limited options available on the 3 tv channels so we were all a little less discerning.

In fact, after that I loved Adam Faith. Who, bizarrely, coincidentally and yet more reincarnatedly, strolled into my practice in about 1988 for some glasses. He was dapper and smart, suited and booted, as he was then working for the Daily Mail (then in Fleet Street) as a stocks and shares pundit/advisor/tipster. And apparently a pretty hot one. And he was a lovely guy. Not quite as Cockney as in his previous 2 lives but charming. Then he died. Shame.

Budgie was an artful dodger of his time. He was a scummy little geezer who ran errands for a big-time gangster. And he was very funny, a bit tragic, often pathetic, but wore ‘fab Carnaby Street gear’ like this horrendous satin jacket. In Soho. Which was gangster central in 70s. Because it was the last central area of London which posh people wouldn’t visit. It was sleazy, grotty, seedy and filled with sex shops, strip clubs, gambling dens, amusement arcades (so you could buy drugs) and even then, a few nice restaurants. For those who liked to dine ‘on the edge’.

And that was the Soho into which I was immersed, aged about 14. In a bespoke tailors shop. Owned by a mate of my dad. In Berwick Street. So as I walked down the road I’d be greeted by half a dozen blow-up sex dolls in shop-windows. All staring at me ‘open-mouthed’ as if in amazement. Then dirty book shops, then closed, darkened windows of brothels, dangly plastic chain curtains of the strip-joints, and then a hand-made, custom-built violin craftsman. What? Yeah. Soho was always about music too. Sex and music. Just round the corner in Old Compton Street was the cafe where every aspiring musician had met up, from the Beatles to the Stones, from the Who to Gerry and the Pacemakers, to find fame.

And as I trundled round, picking up buttons from Beak Street suppliers and fabrics from… errr, fabric places, I was (in my mind) Budgie. Soho was also ‘little Italy’. Where the cafes served ‘real cappucinos’ just like we get them now. Everywhere else in the country served ‘coffee’ by placing a spoonful of Maxwell House in a cup and pouring on water. Only in Soho would Italy’s finest export be enjoyed. I got friendly with the cafe dudes. I chatted with the ‘regulars’, who, it turned out, were mainly prostitutes. What did I know? I was 14 FFS. They were nice. And very friendly. I knew all the strip-joint bouncers by name. I recognised them by their scars.

It was enlightening. I still love Soho, but only through the sepia lens of reminiscence. How many All-Bar-Ones does anywhere really need?

Happy almost pre-post-lockdown Day… ish

A xxxx