9 minute read
TALES OF CHELSEA Jane Slade
ONLY IN CHELSEA
Chelsea residents recall the Swinging Sixties, the Psychedelic Seventies and why the area remains unique to this day. By Jane Slade
Chelsea is London’s ultimate village. It has been attracting mavericks and free thinkers since the 16th century. Today, it still brims with individualists and creative types, some young, some old and others who don’t just want to live anywhere else. In the Fifties, Chelsea was a hotspot for spies and thriller writers. Ian Fleming grew up in Cheyne Walk and after the war moved back to live in Carlyle Mansions where he wrote his first James Bond book, Casino Royale. In Moonraker, his hero lived in “a comfortable flat in a plane tree’d square off the King’s Road”. The notorious real-life double agent Kim Philby lived in Carlyle Square and John le Carré’s fictional operative George Smiley lived in Bywater Street – today, its colourful houses make it one of Chelsea’s most Instagrammable streets and Dexters are renting a two-bedroom house for £1,800 per week.
A decade later Chelsea was making waves as the capital of “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”, inspired by outlets selling wild creations by whacky designers and the opening of some colourful clubs. Nigel Waymouth opened his fashion shop Granny Takes a Trip on the King’s Road, kick-starting a “psychedelic craze”, and in the 1970s Peter Golding’s jeans were flying off the hangers at his Ace store and onto the legs of rock groups such as the Rolling Stones and Stray Cats. The European Fashion guide declared Ace as the “hottest” store in the world. There was nothing inside that did not glitter: the jeans, the shirts, the walls and the people. Golding was described as the Eric Clapton of denim, creating the first designer jean in 1970, and first stretch denim in 1978.
“Chelsea had real spirit in those days,” Golding declares when we meet at his favourite haunt, the Chelsea Arts Club. “Chelsea was happening and rocking. It was cheap to live here so attracted lots of artists and artisans. There were clubs like Aratusa and Wedgies, coffee shops, and hangouts like the Chelsea Drugstore which was a favourite during the punk era in the late ‘70s.” Golding was inspired by the American rock ‘n’ roll scene. “I was one of the first to bleach denim and created stretch denim so tight jeans could be comfortable. It was a time when people liked to look individual rather than follow designer labels. People like Freddie Mercury would come in with the Queen band members and parade along the King’s Road.”
Golding still lives in Chelsea and reckons it will always have a special allure. Another long-time resident is Liz Merivale-Austen, who grew up in Cheyne Row in the 60s and still lives in the area. She remembers broadcaster Robert Robinson as a neighbour and Bob Marley’s girlfriend Esther Anderson – the reggae star himself lived nearby with his band The Wailers at 42 Oakley Street. She also recalls a lesbian club called The Gateways on the corner of Bramerton Street. “I never went in as I was too young but it was well known,” she says. The Gateways was popular in the 1960s with Diana Dors and Dusty Springfield. The artist Maggie Hambling, now 75, described it as being “All sweat and sway of so many people
dancing in a small space, that was part of the excitement”. It featured as a backdrop in the iconic film The Killing of Sister George starring Susannah York and Beryl Reid, propelling it to fame.
Closing in 1985, The Gateways wasn’t the only racy club. In his 1960s book The London Spy – a discreet guide to the city’s pleasures, Hunter Davies describes Gigolo at 328 King’s Road as an “aptly named, hot, incredibly packed coffee bar. A frotteur’s delight. Lots of Spanish waiters and terrified Americans. The Rolls-Royce outside could be the one to whisk you away from it all.”
Chelsea was vibrant and accepting, and adored by stars of film and theatre. Lucy Fox, daughter of actor Edward Fox and granddaughter of the late film director Sir Carol Reed, was a frequent visitor to her grandparents’ home at 213 King’s Road. Sir Carol’s Oscar-winning musical Oliver! opened in 1968 when Lucy was just eight. The excitement of attending the first night was eclipsed only by the thrill of visiting her grandparents’ house. “Carol loved animals and had an extraordinary menagerie of exotic creatures and birds,” she recalls. “The owl that belonged to Fagin in Oliver! came to live with them, but its swooping down to catch the live mice and chicks my grandmother Pempie had left out for its supper resulted in lots of blooded remains dotted about. It had to be swiftly despatched to London Zoo.
“I particularly remember Obadiah, a mynah bird which used to mimic their telephone. He would then pretend to answer and either call out ‘Pempie, telephone,’ in Carol’s voice or ‘Carol darling, telephone,’ in Pempie’s voice. This would have my grandparents racing to answer non-existent calls.” The Chelsea Arts Club in Old Church Street is the heartland of old Chelsea, a sanctuary for those who want to chew the fat with old chums or wallow in nostalgia. The CAC attracts members like pop artist Peter Blake who codesigned the album cover for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is where Roddy Baldwin plays snooker with his chum cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, who is one of his best customers. Roddy owns Green & Stone, an arts materials shop which had stood for over 90 years on the King’s Road until 2018 when it moved round the corner from the Arts Club to the Fulham Road. Roddy, 68, bought the shop in the 1970s after joining as a picture framing apprentice when he was just 18. He has supplied everyone with painting paraphernalia from Prince Philip to David Hockney. Princes William and Harry used to buy birthday presents for Prince Charles there. Damien Hirst orders huge oak easels and rock stars Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts are regulars.
Roddy has now handed the day-to-day running of the shop over to his 32-year-old daughter Hester. She is promoting younger artists by offering them exhibitions in the shop’s gallery. “We still tie into Chelsea’s original ethos of supporting young up and coming artists,” Roddy explains. “We try to make it easier
for them to show their work and it is much less expensive than curating an exhibition in a gallery in town.” Green & Stone is a treasure trove of paints, palettes, paper and canvasses. It also sells antique paint brushes, hand-made china pots and pencils, as well as greetings cards and wrapping paper. Actress Felicity Kendal often pops in as does pop princess Kylie Minogue. “Kylie buys materials for her collages. Making them helps her relax when she is on tour,” Roddy says. They are all part of the Chelsea village community which continues to attract an eclectic mix, from Mick Jagger and theatre impresario Sally Greene, to award-winning architect Richard Rogers and his wife Ruth, owner of the River Café. The streets of SW3 are festooned with blue plaques: Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Bob Marley, AA Milne, Samuel Beckett, Augustus John are just a few. But one of the most well-known residents, who arguably should have his own plaque, was a lion cub who lived here in 1970. Conservationist John Rendall and fellow university graduate Anthony ‘Ace’ Bourke had just migrated from Australia and were working at a pine furniture shop called Sophistocat in the World’s End in Chelsea. “London was an exciting place to be,” Rendall says. “I followed on from Germaine Greer who had been my English lecturer at Sydney In the evening, Christian University. I knew Clive James, Barry the lion would be allowed Humphries, Martin Sharp, Richard Walsh and Richard Neville, who had started Oz into the shop and would magazine here, and fellow Australian patron sit on tables attracting a Clytie Jessop had just opened a gallery in the King’s Road.”fan base of locals Rendall and Bourke bought three-monthold Christian from Harrods, which in those days had a zoo on the second floor, and kept him in Sophistocat’s basement. They took him for walks and played with him in the churchyard garden in Moravian Close. “We could take him off the lead and play football with him there,” John remembers. “The vicar Rex Williamson loved animals so was happy to let us use the garden.” In the evening Christian would be allowed into the shop and would sit on the tables attracting a fan base of locals who would watch him through the window. After ten months the actress Virginia McKenna and her husband Bill Travers wandered in looking for a desk. They had starred as naturalists Joy and George Adamson in the 1966 film Born Free. The Adamsons ran an animal rehabilitation programme in Kenya so Rendall and Bourke flew Christian out. It was time for the cub to swap SW3 for the African bush. “There are still people on the estate here who remember Christian,” says Rendall. “The local community regarded him as their lion.” Rendall still lives in the area, at the Chelsea Reach towers which were built on the site of the demolished furniture shop. A free exhibition of Derek Cattani’s iconic photographs, including Rendall and Bourke’s emotional reunion with Christian the lion a year after his move to Africa, will be on display at the Chelsea Theatre from 14-19 September marking the 50th anniversary of Christian’s departure (chelseatheatre.org.uk). It is one of Chelsea’s many tales, never to be forgotten. L
FOREVER CHELSEA Clockwise from left:
Diana Dors lived at Burnsall Street in the 1950s and 60s (now for sale at £4.5m through Lurot Brand); Peter Golding’s Ace jeans brand; actress Bonnie Langford and a Charlie Chaplin lookalike were styled by Golding for the opening of a new Ace store in 1979; Green & Stone art shop in its original King’s Road location (now 251-253 Fulham Road); models at the Guys ‘n’ Dolls restaurant, King’s Road in 1967; Christian the Lion living in SW3. Previous page: In 1969 the Chelsea Drugstore offered ice creams to celebrate its birthday
