Ruth calls last orders at The One Tun
By News Reporters “I will greatly miss the welcoming community of Fitzrovia,” said Ruth Harris who is leaving as manager of The One Tun pub in Goodge Street after six [...]
Life
people, obituaries, celebrities
Edward Turner is a man with a plan for corporate governance
Lulu Rumsey meets the chairman of the Fitzrovia Community Centre Ltd to talk about the challenge of running a voluntary organisation in difficult times. The recently inaugurated Fitzrovia Community Centre is a welcome addition to Fitzrovia’s wonderfully varied cultural [...]
Fiona’s fantastic life
Queen of Fitzrovia for 48 years driven out by rent hike Imagine Tottenham Street, Fitzrovia in 1964. Shortly after moving in with her boyfriend at number 28, 20-year-old Fiona Green looks out of her window to see the Beatles filming their new picture “A Hard Day’s [...]
Gosfield Street discovers its neighbours with its own jubilee party
By News Reporters The rain held off and neighbours who had been living only doors away for many years greeted each other for the first time. Gosfield Street in Fitzrovia was closed to motor traffic and children played in the road. As one resident said: “This is how it [...]
Charlotte Place brings out the flags to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
By News Reporters It’s one of Fitzrovia’s iconic streets and it’s having a party to celebrate the Jubilee in its own particular way. On Tuesday 5 June all of Charlotte Place will be open from 12pm onwards with a range of activities, raffles and some [...]
Barry Miles – adventures in the counterculture
By Clive Jennings Miles, for nobody calls him Barry, has devoted his life to both creating and chronicling the countercultural life of London. Doyen of the underground, he co-founded International Times, the first English underground newspaper (which I remember as an [...]
On Road magazine lets young people tell their own story
Young people in the UK are often painted in broad strokes, dismissed as layabouts and criminals, and burdened with the blame for last year’s riots. Theron Mohamed looks behind the scenes at On Road, a youth magazine attempting to alter these harmful [...]
My family and other bohemians
By Angela Lovely A new book telling the story of the marriage of Nancy and Lawrence Durell was launched at The Wheatsheaf in Rathbone Place on 7 February. Author Joanna Hodgkin told Fitzrovia News: “I chose a pub in Fitzrovia because that was where Nancy met Lawrence [...]
Obituary: Enrico Fumagalli
By Fiona Green The friendly face of Enrico (Rico) Fumagalli will no longer be seen in his favourite Fitzrovian haunts because he died at his home on the night of 24 and 25 October 2011. He was 65. He had been suffering from multiple tumours but he bravely kept going to his [...]
UCLH staff swimming pool in Gower Street closed
By News Reporters In the summer of this year members of UCLH’s sport and social Club in Gower Street who turned up to swim in the club’s pool were disappointed to find it closed because of maintenance problems. In the autumn news emerged that the much-loved [...]
Adrienne 104 says: “Debout Citoyens – support our Neighbourhood Association”
By Joe McConnell Over the past few years, I have been approached by several editors of the Fitzrovia News to write an article to the tune of my experiences as ‘a live-in carer for a lady of very advanced years’. I’ve always wanted to comply, but invariably refused. [...]
Autumn darkness
By Wilson Weaver Rain drips off the leaves in the Holcroft Court gardens. I can smell broccoli on the boil downstairs, hear a television blaring upstairs, and almost spy the mould on the window panes. The autumn darkness illuminates the BT tower amidst fireworks in the [...]
In conflict we sometimes find strange resolution
By Adam Samuel As someone who has lived on the patch for a mere five years, I feel a bit of a beginner compared with the wizened souls that regard anyone who is coming up to twenty Fitzrovian years as a new kid on the bloc. The fact that the novelty has not worn off must [...]
Joseph: Man of the street
By Fiona Green Tall and kindly, unassuming, vulnerable talented and loquacious. Joseph is like the pied piper of Tottenham Street. Every Thursday he meets with me and a band of interested guests we have gathered together, and start work at the Soup Kitchen of the American [...]
The O of Fitzrovia 6: Dodgems
By Jennifer Kavanagh One of the pleasant challenges of walking around the busier parts of Fitzrovia is managing our encounters with strangers. Have you noticed the subtle interweaving as we walk down the street? Meeting or not meeting others’ eyes. Gently moving to right [...]
Rebel with a cause
By Brian Jarman If you’re running a theatre and need government funding, putting on a play in which the Prime Minister does a striptease is perhaps not the most sensible strategy. But then Philip Hedley never was one to take the easy way out. He became Artistic Director [...]
The Boy From Charlotte Street: My first school years
By Sam Lomberg MBE From the age of four (1924) I attended Upper Marylebone Street School (later called Cavendish Street), just around the corner from Charlotte Street. A London County Council school opened in 1914 and divided into a boys school, girls school and infants [...]
Clio Rickman: Shelley’s Bookseller
Thomas Paine was not the only associate of Clio Rickman to make a name for himself. When he was composing the verses that eventually became Queen Mab the young poet, Shelley, had recourse to his ideas. [...]
John gave radio breaks to Adrian Mole, Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard
By Brian Jarman I’ve wanted to meet Mr Tydeman for many years. And for most of those years, to be precise, I wanted to find out if he was real. It was to John Tydeman of the BBC, you may recall, that 13 ¾-year-old Adrian Mole sent his poems. The creation of Sue Townsend, [...]
The doors of Sohemia
If you are in the vicinity of Rathbone Place in the early evening, you will occasionally see a bunch of disparate types, myself included, disappear into the upstairs room of The Wheatsheaf pub to attend a talk at The Sohemian Society - but be advised, Sohemia is more than a club, it is a state of mind. [...]
