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 cafés 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.

An essential piece of cultural and social history

List of Illustrations1 The Coach - and Horses2 The Trap3 Low Life4 The Office5 The French6 Jeffery's Coat7 Marsh8 The Asphalt Carpet9 A Cabinet of Curiosities10 The Parish11 Baby Face Scarlatti12 The Unknown Norman13 A Farson Attack14 Bank Holiday Bacon15 Hard Words16 Heath17 Soho Sickness18 Private Eye19 The Enigma Richard Ingrams20 The Lavatory Table21 Bruce22 The Red Baron23 Oliver24 A Painter Upstairs25 The Last LamplighterEnvoiAcknowledgementsBibliographyIndex