02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
I left London for Somerset, but realised Soho is the real home of 'village' life
When I lived on Manvers Street, I knew half my block, and was especially friendly with the sex worker next door who kept the same antisocial hours I did, so we'd often collide falling home with boys, or go to each other flats begging for Rizla. Or I'd pop in to see Ivan Massow on his house on D'arbly Street as I was walking home from Heaven. Or run into Howard Jacobson – or another Soho characters like the dapper George Skeggs, lifelong Soho-ite Tim Lord, or the tailor Mark Powell. It's so different to country life which can be so cliquey and unspontaneous.
