25/05/19 - Jefferey Bernard is Unwell at Soho's Coach and Horses

Let me start by telling you how I discovered Soho's Coach and Horses.

Back in the early 1990's Gallon Drunk, a band I was aware of but never really listened to, put the words of Derek Raymond's, "I was Dora Suarez" to music.

The book, part of the Factory series of Police Procedurals,  is a staggering piece of fiction.  Timeless, unique and highly influential to the over-saturated crime series market that exists today.

The NME sent a team to interview Derek Raymond, where they met him in "his office" - the Coach and Horses.

I vowed to check it out next time in London and I now class it as one of my "locals", despite living 120 miles away.   An annual visit has been completed for the best part of 25 years. 

And it's never changed in all that time but I have a feeling its going to.

Fullers are threatening the current landlords by not renewing their lease.  This happens as soon as June 2019.  Having pulled out of the brewing business, there's every danger they will do something tragic to a classic piece of Soho "in the name of gentrification" as they support their pub and hotel real estate portfolio. 

Coach and Horses - Romilly Street, Soho

I can't help but think that the interior - all wooden panels - is going to be ripped out for something bland that could be found in a 1000 other establishments. 

If they do, I only hope that they let me bid on the bar background.   I have half a lifetime invested in staring at a wooden back board that offers things I've heard of but never sampled - "Skol, Ind Coope and Double Diamond".

This is how I remember it - Quiet on a mid week lunch time

Its not just the furnishings (or lack of them) that make a great pub.   Its also the people.   Lets go back to Derek.

Born into riches and an Eton dropout in 1948, at the age of 17.  After a spell abroad, rubbing shoulders with William Burroughs in Paris, he returned to London in the 60s, fronting criminal scams for associates of the Krays.   On the cusp of arrest, he started writing about the criminal underworld under the name Robin Cook.  It met with limited success but some books were published.   Bankrupt and going through multiple divorces, he headed back to the continent, abandoning writing and making a living as a farm labourer and slaughtererman.

By the end of the 70s, divorced again, he returned to London and started on the Factory Series, first published in the mid eighties.  His reputation was just starting to spread before his death in 1994.

Some life story and he is not even the most famous writer to frequent the pub.

That accolade belongs to the journalist Jeffrey Bernard and in what could well be my last visit to the establishment in its current guise, I'm here for a fitting finale.

Keith Waterhouse wrote a play about Jeffrey getting locked in the Coach.   Its a riot of cracking one liners, cat racing and a trick involving an egg, a biscuit tin lid and a shoe.   It defies explanation and has to be seen.

For a limited time - and breaking down the 4th wall of theatre - the play is being staged in the pub - with punters like me unwitting extras to a perfect performance from Robert Bathurst.  It takes some doing to have a keep a one man show going from midnight to 1am but I was in awe.

Some experience and it was an honour to be there.

I've signed the petition to keep the Coach as it is and hope for a successful outcome.