London novels and memoirs

Coincidentally I just finished the Joan Wyndham memoir I mentioned in the Ruts thread...

Thanks Doug - never heard of West End Girls before you highlighted it

Some of my favourite London-centric books include...

Roland Camberton - Scamp
Roland Camberton - Rain On The Pavements
Gerald Kersh - Night and the City
Patrick Hamilton - Hangover Square
Sumuel Selvon - The Lonely Londoners
Alexander Baron - The Lowlife
Dog Days in Soho: One Man's Adventures in 1950s Bohemia by Nigel Richardson
Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth
Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia by Paul Willets (Julian Maclaren-Ross biog)
Soho In The Fifties by Daniel Farson
May Day by John Sommerfield
Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics: A Sideways Look at Twentieth-Century London by Rob Baker
London E1 by Robert Poole
Adrift in Soho by Colin Wilson
Soho by Keith Waterhouse
Battersea Girl: Tracing a London Life by Martin Knight
Jumpin' Jack Flash by Keiron Pim

I could go on all day

Thanks, read some of those, will check out the rest.

Not yet but only heard good things about it

Thanks for the reminder

Yeah, those Roland Camberton books are well worth a read - repulished a few years back with the lovely original John Minton covers




Here's a review I wrote of Scamp...

Scamp is another of those classic London novels from the 1950s that evokes Julian Maclaren-Ross, Patrick Hamilton, Norman Collins, Samuel Selvon and so on. It makes a brilliant companion piece to Adrift in Soho by Colin Wilson.

The back streets of Soho and the West End are brought vividly to life and, whilst the plot is slightly inconsequential, that doesn't make the book any less enjoyable. Every page provides an opportunity to experience late 1940s bohemian London and, as I think we can all agree, that is a wonderful thing.

Julian Maclaren-Ross makes a few appearances as "Angus Sternforth Simms", who is usually to be found in The Corney Arms (a thinly disguised version of his home-from-home The Wheatsheaf pub). Indeed the sections of Scamp that take place in The Corney Arms could have come straight out of Paul Willetts's biography of Julian Maclaren-Ross "Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia".

Interestingly, and despite his appearance (or perhaps because of), Julian Maclaren-Ross was particularly scathing about this book in his review of it for Times Literary Supplement on 10 November 1950...

"The book is written from the standpoint of the "bum": that bearded and corduroyed figure who may be seen crouching over a half of bitter in the corner of a Bloomsbury "pub"; it is ostensibly concerned with the rise and fall of a short-lived literary review, but Mr. Camberton, who appears to be devoid of any narrative gift, makes this an excuse for dragging in disconnectedly and to little apparent purpose a series of thinly disguised local or literary celebrities."

Despite Julian Maclaren-Ross's negativity, the book won the 1951 Somerset Maugham Award (given to authors under the age of 35) and I can quite see why. The book's great strength is its evocation of late 1940's London and in particular the areas of Bloomsbury, Soho, Kings Cross, Fitzrovia, Fleet Street, and the multifarious and compelling bohemian characters that populate this world.

The book was out of print for many years, until publishers Five Leaves, through their New London Editions imprint, republished it in 2010 (they've also republished two books by Alexander Baron which I have on my shelf and will be reading soon). I love books like this and am delighted that more of these titles are getting reprinted. There's a beauty and a purity in the shabby streets and seedy cafes and the lives lived on the margins. Not only that, but as the story went on the more quietly profound it became as Camberton muses on maturity and the loss of youth, and how being poor and bohemian loses its allure after a time.

Sadly Roland Camberton only wrote one other book before giving up writing, Rain On The Pavements, and that has also been republished by Five Leaves. Whilst about halfway through this book, and filled with enthusiasm for Roland Camberton, I got hold of a copy of Rain On The Pavements yesterday which I will read sometime soon. It's such a shame that there's only two books to read, still we should savour these two novels and be grateful to Five Leaves for bringing them back into print. Both novels have been reprinted complete with their original cover art by John Minton which are both beautiful artworks and really compliment the contents and enhance the reading experience

Here's a review I wrote of Rain On The Pavements....

Having very recently read Scamp, the first novel by Roland Camberton, and filled by enthusiasm for that book, I got hold of this, his only one other book before giving up writing.

Rain On The Pavements, first published in 1951, was - like Scamp - also republished by Five Leaves (via their New London Editions imprint) in 2010, again complete with the book's original cover art by John Minton - a beautiful artwork that really compliments the contents and enhances the whole experience.

Roland Camberton, born Henry Cohen, came from a Jewish family in Hackney where he attended Hackney Downs School in the 1930s. He later anglicised his name to so his strictly religious family remained unaware that he was writing novels. Both Rain On The Pavements and Scamp, are based on Roland Camberton's life.

David Hirsch, the main character, is probably a self-portrait, and the book details his life growing up in a fairly orthodox Jewish family in Hackney throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Each chapter takes a portion of David's life from early childhood to gaining a scholarship to University. Each chapter introduces new characters who were, in the main, significant people in David's life, these include young uncles, school friends, teachers etc. and describes David's experiences around the East End, at school, and beyond into Soho. As with Scamp, a big part of the pleasure of this utterly enjoyable book, is the wealth of social history and detail. It all rings so true and is clearly based on personal experience. Little things, like for instance, David and a friend in Cable Street watching two of their bigger, braver school friends fighting with fascist black shirts, the book is full of this kind of detail.

Hackney is the constant throughout this wonderful book, its streets and characters providing the backdrop to many of David's experiences. As he matures, he is increasingly drawn towards the bohemian world of Soho, however throughout all his experiences what is clear is that he can never really escape from his home borough and all that it signifies.