Marylebone Journal 15/05 Oct-Nov 2019

October/November 2019 Volume 15/05 FREE

Get into the Christmas spirit at The Langham, London! Boost your culinary confidence with a festive class at Sauce, our cookery school, or treat yourself and friends to a dining or drinking experience with us. From hot toddies at The Wigmore to chic cocktails at Artesian, from a charming afternoon tea at Palm Court to an indulgent New Year’s feast in Roux at The Landau, we have a world of ways to enjoy the very best of the season at The Langham.

1c Portland Place, Regent Street, London, W1B 1JA T 44 (0) 20 7636 1000 F 44 (0) 20 7323 2340 langhamhotels.com

01. Contents Cover: Sauce at The Langham, London 20: First course

04. 28. 40.

FORWARD THINKING YOUR GUIDE TO OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER IN MARYLEBONE

20.

CASE STUDIES AUTHOR BONNIE MACBIRD ON BRINGING SHERLOCK HOLMES BACK TO LIFE

34.

A WORLD OF WORDS THE STARS OF THE ASIA HOUSE LITERATURE FESTIVAL ON THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD 40.

HANDSOME DEVIL THE TERRIFYING STORY OF ROGUE DOCTOR JOHN ST JOHN LONG

20.

FIRST COURSE LEARNING TO COOK LIKE A ROUX AT THE LANGHAM’S SAUCE COOKERY SCHOOL

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34.

58.

LAURA SHIPPEY THE HEAD OF DESIGN AT TOAST ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEL AND THE INFLUENCE OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE

04-19. Up front 04. Forward thinking 12. Local lives 16. My perfect day 20-43. Features 20. First course 28. Case studies 34. Handsome devil 40. A world of words 46-49. Culture 46. Q&A: Darren Hall, textiles artist 48. Book reviews 50-57. Food 50. Q&A: Manmeet Singh Bali of Ooty 56. Food philosophy 58-67. Style 58. Q&A: Laura Shippey of Toast 64. The look 65. Inside knowledge 68-73. Life 68. Q&A: Steve Mellor of AMP Athletic 72. Inside knowledge 74-79. Health 74. Q&A: Ms Ekpemi Irune of The London Clinic 78. Scar wars 80-83. Space 80. Ask the expert 82. Q&A: Chris Harniman of Preside

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02. Editor’s letter

KITCHEN DREAMS MARK RIDDAWAY

Marylebone Journal Web: marylebonejournal.com Twitter: @MaryleboneJrnl Instagram: marylebonejrnl Facebook: Marylebone Journal

Sometimes, I wonder if I might perhaps have enjoyed becoming a chef rather than an editor.

While the closest I ever came to it was a short stint in the kitchen of a down-market chain pub, during which time I managed to fully master the controls of the all-important microwave, there are elements of a life behind the pass that would genuinely appeal: that special blend of creativity and perfectionism, the pumping adrenaline, the tightly-bound team dynamic, the giving of pleasure to strangers. Such reverie, though, usually ends with me remembering that I’m far too big a fan of free time and healthy interpersonal relationships for a career in the restaurant world to have ever taken off.

Editor Mark Riddaway mark@lscpublishing.com Deputy editors Viel Richardson viel@lscpublishing.com Clare Finney clare@lscpublishing.com Managing editor Ellie Costigan ellie@lscpublishing.com Editorial desk 020 7401 7297

But just because I’m glad I’m not a chef, that doesn’t stop me wishing I could cook like one. I love being in the kitchen, I love good food, and more than anything I love showing off. Most of the time, being a competent home cook is more than sufficient.

But, just occasionally, having the ability to impress my friends and family by, for example, whipping up a perfectly silky bearnaise sauce without first watching three YouTube videos and binning four failures would be a glorious thing. The answer, if this issue’s lead feature is anything to go by, is to book a day at the Sauce cookery school, learn to cook three Roux restaurant-standard dishes, then reproduce them for every person I know until someone finally begs me to stop. That, or decades of training and hard graft. It’s an easy choice. mj_2019_volume15_05_UpFront_01.indd 2

Advertising sales Donna Earrey 020 7401 2772 donna@lscpublishing.com Publisher LSC Publishing 13.2.1 The Leathermarket Weston Street London SE1 3ER lscpublishing.com Contributers Jean-Paul Aubin-Parvu, Sasha Garwood, Orlando Gili, Matthew Hancock, Emily Jupp, Jackie Modlinger, Christopher L Proctor Design and art direction Em-Project Limited mike@em-project.com Distribution Letterbox Printing Warwick Owned and supported by The Howard de Walden Estate 27 Baker Street, W1U 8EQ 020 7580 3163 hdwe.co.uk jenny.hancock@hdwe.co.uk The Portman Estate 40 Portman Square, W1H 6LT 020 7563 1400 portmanestate.co.uk rebecca.eckles@portmanestate.co.uk

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1:5 Pupil to Adult Ratio

Extra Curricular Activities

100%

13 Community Projects

IGCSE/Brevet Pass Rate

310

40 Nationalities Represented

Students

3 Schools

Congratulations to our students who achieved an outstanding pass rate of 100% in the IGCSE 2019 exams, with grades of A and higher

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Individual appointments via our website.

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04. Up front

FORWARD THINKING YOUR GUIDE TO OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER IN MARYLEBONE

FOOD 18th OCTOBER TRUFFLE DINNER For one night only, Orrery’s chef patron Igor Tymchyshyn is being joined in the kitchen by Francesco Mazzei, the man behind high-end Italian restaurants Sartoria, Radici and Fiume, for a celebration of that most storied of continental ingredients: the truffle.

The two chefs will bring together their respective French and Italian influences to create a sixcourse set menu, including Igor’s fillet of veal with pomme mousseline, madeira jus and white truffle, and Francesco’s smoked burrata tortelli with burnt butter and grana Padano. The dinner starts at 6:30pm and costs £125 per head.

Orrery 55 Marylebone High Street, W1U 5RB orrery-restaurant.co.uk

EXHIBITION UNTIL 19th OCTOBER THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY FREUD MUSEUM PORTFOLIO When the Freud Museum in Hampstead celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1997, the museum’s wellconnected director Erica Davies persuaded 10 highly regarded international artists to each contribute an image for a special portfolio, with each piece inspired in some way by the life and work of Sigmund Freud. A&D Gallery is exhibiting silkscreens of all these images, by artists including Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, Claes Oldenburg and Cornelia Parker, as well as other works by some of the contributors.

A&D Gallery 51 Chiltern Street, W1U 6LY aanddgallery.com

Patrick Caulfield

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GUIDED WALK 23rd OCTOBER MURDER IN MARYLEBONE GUIDED WALK Anyone with a penchant for true crime books, documentaries or podcasts (and let’s be honest, that’s pretty much everyone) would be likely to appreciate the Baker Street Quarter Partnership’s free Murder in Marylebone walk. Visit the scenes of old Marylebone crimes, dating from 1800 to 1942, including the Blackout Ripper (a terrifying wartime serial killer), a murderous butler and a horrific death in a hotel, and find out how the police managed to solve them (or not!). Meet at 55 Baker Street at 6pm and expect to be simultaneously revolted and thrilled for about 90 minutes.

Baker Street Quarter Partnership bakerstreetq.co.uk

The Blackout Ripper

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05. Up front

EXHIBITION UNTIL 26th OCTOBER THE VICTORIAN BOTANIST During the Victorian era, botany was a popular pursuit. Unlike other scientific disciplines, it could be practised by the general public; it did not require expert or academic training and it could be enjoyed by men, women and children alike.

This exhibition in the Royal Society of Medicine’s library showcases the botanical books held in the institution’s extensive collection, offering a rare opportunity to view detailed 19th century illustrations as well as closely printed taxonomic lists of plant species.

Royal Society of Medicine 1 Wimpole Street, W1G 0AE rsm.ac.uk

EXHIBITION 9th—26th OCTOBER TONY DE WOLF: A REALIST’S FEAST Antwerp-born artist Tony de Wolf, who spent his younger days seeking to emulate the technique of the Flemish Masters, combines these historic influences with a modern sensibility that lends a hyperreal coolness to his depictions of fruit, vegetables, china, glassware and linens.

Thompson’s Gallery 3 Seymour Place, W1H 5AZ thompsonsgallery.co.uk

CRAFT FAIR 24th—27th OCTOBER MADE LONDON: MARYLEBONE For four days in October, more than 120 craftspeople, including ceramicists, glassmakers, jewellers, weavers, furniture designers, metalworkers and clothes designers, will be gathering together at One Marylebone, a stunning Grade I listed former church designed

by Sir John Soane in the 1820s, for a celebration of contemporary British design and craftsmanship.

As well as selling their wares and accepting commissions, the makers will be on hand to share their inspirations and explain the processes and techniques used in their work. Tickets cost £10.

EXHIBITION 27th OCTOBER ECHOES OF THE PAST: TURKISH, VENETIAN, AND GREEK This pop-up exhibition explores how ethnic diversity has defined so much of Greece’s cultural and linguistic heritage, from the five centuries of Venetian presence in the eastern Mediterranean to Greek-Turkish cohabitation in presentday Cyprus. The impact of the mixing of cultures is illuminated through posters, audio and videos of dialect, dance, songs and stories from across recent Greek history.

The Hellenic Centre 16-18 Paddington Street, W1U 5AS helleniccentre.org

One Marylebone 1 Marylebone Road, NW1 4AQ madelondon-marylebone.co.uk

Tony de Wolf

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06. Up front

FILM 28th OCTOBER DON’T LOOK NOW Showing as part of Ink on Screen, the film strand of the Mayfair & St James’s Literary Festival, which explores the indelible link between cinema and the written word, Don’t Look Now is Nicolas Roeg’s haunting 1973 adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s short story Not After Midnight.

Starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland as a couple who travel to Venice in an attempt to rebuild their lives following the accidental death of their daughter, it melds an intimate tale of grief and marital strain with unnerving themes of clairvoyance and murder. It is screening here in a beautiful new 4k restoration, introduced by actor Tobias Menzies, curator of Ink on Screen.

EXHIBITION 2nd OCTOBER —2nd NOVEMBER AI WEIWEI: ROOTS

Ai Weiwei, one of the world’s most prominent and influential artists, presents a major exhibition of new work, featuring a series of monumental iron sculptures cast from giant tree roots. While working in Brazil, Ai visited the eastern state of Bahia to locate roots and trunks from the endangered pequi vinagreiro tree, which is native to the region’s rainforests.

Elements of these roots were painstakingly moulded, conjoined and then cast to create striking compositions that speak to the Chinese artist’s current rootlessness, after being forced to leave his home country in 2015, as well as the horrors of deforestation.

Lisson Gallery 27 Bell Street, NW1 5BY lissongallery.com

The Regent Street Cinema 307 Regent Street, W1B 2HW regentstreetcinema.com

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07. Up front

EXHIBITION 3rd OCTOBER —1st NOVEMBER NAOYA INOSE: THE POSTANTHROPOCENE This exhibition

by London-based Japanese artist Naoya Inose depicts a geological era after the Anthropocene (‘age of humanity)— the name widely given to the epoch in which we live.

Ours is a time of significant human impact on Earth’s geology, ecosystem and climate.

Here, Naoya Inose’s powerful images of human constructions enveloped by nature, hint at the reckoning that is likely to follow.

EXHIBITION 10th OCTOBER —2nd NOVEMBER PATRICIA SWANNELL & KAZUHITO TAKADOI: ALLIANCE / EXCHANGE For this special exhibition, two of Jaggedart’s favourite artists, Patricia Swannell and Kazuhito Takadoi, will, as well as showing their own pieces, be collaborating on the creation of joint works.

Each artist will start the work, after which it will be adapted according to instructions from the other artist, or passed on to the other artist to complete. Despite their styles being very different, both share a rapport with the natural world and a measured, serene and highly detailed approach to creativity.

Jaggedart 28A Devonshire Street, W1G 6PS jaggedart.com

MUSIC 4th NOVEMBER JANINE JANSEN & FRIENDS: MOZART AND MENDELSSOHN Violinist Janine Jansen is joined by a highly distinguished rollcall of string players to take on one of the great masterpieces of chamber music: Felix Mendelssohn’s expansive Octet in E flat Op20, composed in 1825 when the German prodigy was just 16. The first half of the performance will be given over to Mozart’s Divertimento in E flat K563, a substantial piece dating from 1788 and the composer’s only complete work for a string trio. This concert is part of Cavatina U25s, a free ticket scheme for people aged 8-25—visit the website for details.

Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, W1U 2BP wigmore-hall.org.uk

The Daiwa AngloJapanese Foundation 13/14 Cornwall Terrace, NW1 4QP dajf.org.uk Naoya Inose

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08. Up front

EXHIBITION 4th OCTOBER —9th NOVEMBER A FOCUS ON THE MIDDLE EAST Regent’s University showcases a remarkable collection of Middle Eastern clothing and artefacts donated by one of its trustees, Marguerite J Dennis. Marguerite spent a quarter of a century travelling and working in the Middle East—Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain—and along the way gathered together a vast array of objects, either picked up at souks or gifted to her by the generous people she met along the way. As well as showing off the collection, this exhibition will show how it is being used by students and staff in areas including fashion design and art history.

Knapp Gallery Regent’s University London Inner Circle, NW1 4NS regents.ac.uk

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EXHIBITION 24th OCTOBER —9th NOVEMBER LAURIE STEEN: THE SPACE OF NOTHING AND EVERYTHING Canadian artist Laurie Steen, who specialises in drawing, immerses herself fully in the landscape, using all of her senses to create a true impression of her surroundings. “I enjoy focusing on what isn’t there, the unsolved empty space and the power of the negative,” she says. “There is an anticipation of what could be; an openness, and great newness that is just around the corner. I am continually readdressing my connection to my landscape and the emotion of newness it instils in me.”

EVENT 13th NOVEMBER MARYLEBONE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS At the hugely popular Marylebone Christmas Lights event, organised

by The Howard de Walden Estate, the Marylebone Village lights will be switched on by a suitably exciting, but as yet still secret celebrity. The main stage on Devonshire Street will offer the usual blend of live music and entertainment,

while other attractions will include Santa’s grotto, a classic big wheel, food stalls and plenty of Christmas shopping opportunities.

A variety of fundraising activities will be taking place, with all the money raised going to Teenage Cancer Trust. The event starts at 3pm and ends at 7pm, with the lights being fired up at 6pm.

Marylebone Christmas Lights marylebonevillage.com/ christmas-lights

Cube Gallery 16 Crawford Street, W1H 1BS cube-gallery.co.uk

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09. Up front

EXHIBITION UNTIL 16th NOVEMBER SAM HASKINS: COWBOY KATE & OTHER STORIES The photo book Cowboy Kate & Other Stories (1964), shot by South African-British photographer Sam Haskins, was a popular and highly influential work, pioneering in its construction of a fictional narrative to provide context to the imagery.

Through imagery alone, it tells the tale of Cowboy Kate’s fight for justice in the Old West—a fight so urgent she often appears to have forgotten to get dressed.

Playful, cinematic and humming with 1960s sexual liberation, it has sold almost a million copies.

Atlas Gallery 49 Dorset Street, W1U 7NF atlasgallery.com

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10. Up front

THEATRE 4th—17th NOVEMBER VOILA! EUROPE

EXHIBITION 24th NOVEMBER THE MEDIUM’S MEDIUM

There’s a strong chance that the UK won’t be part of the EU by the time November rolls around, but we will never stop being part of Europe: a fact underlined in what could be a very timely way by The Cockpit’s annual showcase of boundary-pushing work from across the continent.

With a programme of 23 shows from 26 European countries, Voila! Europe brings together a rich array of ideas and influences to create a colourful tapestry of different cultures.

Some of the theatre and performance pieces will be deeply personal, some sharply political; all of them promise to be inventive and enriching.

For many years, the strange scribblings, obscure symmetries and figurative imaginings supposedly transmitted from other worlds to the spiritualist art-makers of the 19th and early 20th century were generally ignored by the cultural mainstream.

Now, The Gallery of Everything, which exists to cast light on the darker recesses of art history, is seeking to explore how these uncanny outpourings came to inspire artists from the 1950s to the present day.

The exhibition includes works by four artists (Tony Oursler, Jan Svankmajer, Eva Svankmajerová and Shannon Taggart) whose artistic output has been informed in one way or another by visual spiritualism.

The Cockpit Gateforth Street, NW8 8EH voilafestival.co.uk

EVENT 28th NOVEMBER CHILTERN STREET CHRISTMAS The Chiltern Street Christmas event returns once again, bringing with it a host of exclusive in-store promotions, festive workshops and live music.

Chiltern Street, one of London’s most attractive and atmospheric shopping streets, will be fully pedestrianised for the evening, allowing visitors to

meander between its many characterful independent boutiques on the hunt for gifts, while enjoying some high quality street entertainment and food and drink from some of the area’s best bars and restaurants. Hosted

by The Portman Estate and free to attend, the event, which runs from 5-8pm, will this year celebrate the theme of storytelling.

Chiltern Street Christmas portmanmarylebone.com

The Gallery of Everything 4 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PS gallevery.com

Shannon Taggart

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12. Up front

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13. Up front

LOCAL LIVES

SHAUN HUGHES Shaun is the director of Shaun’s of Marylebone on Paddington Street.

The hairdresser and hair replacement specialist launched his business 27 years ago and works alongside his wife.

The couple live just up the road on Harewood Avenue INTERVIEW: JEAN-PAUL AUBIN-PARVU IMAGES: ORLANDO GILI

I was born on 26th August 1956 at a private nursing clinic right here in the heart of Marylebone. My father, who died in 1972, was the well-known pop-turnedopera singer David Hughes.

Having a famous dad is never easy, because you have such a big act to follow, but I feel I’ve achieved a lot simply by keeping a business going for this long. And working here and being with clients is a little like being on stage—it’s quite theatrical. Occasionally, just occasionally, I sing to them while I’m working.

I really enjoy the theatre of doing people’s hair and the excitement of looking after clients and making them happy.

My family lived in the Hyde Park area until I was two and then my father bought a house up in Elstree, Hertfordshire. As a youngster, I was just really focussed on trying to get on in life. I wasn’t brilliant at school, as I don’t have an affinity with numbers and letters, but I do have an affinity for connecting with people, so at the age of 16 I decided I’d be better off leaving school

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and going out into the world to study hair.

I started off at Michael John in Mayfair, moved to Leonard of Mayfair on Grosvenor Square and eventually worked at a number of places in different parts of London.

During this period I found that I really enjoyed learning languages and meeting people from different cultures. I then spent three years travelling and working abroad, including in Paris, which was where I learnt to speak French. I discovered that I could pick up different languages simply by listening to them, so I speak French fluently and also some German, Arabic and a little Yiddish. I have a talent for communication, which is why I’m a hairdresser rather than an academic.

I launched Shaun’s of Marylebone on Paddington Street in 1992, and have been here ever since. I had always loved Marylebone and actually worked in the area for many years before having my own business. At the shop there are large black and white

I discovered that I could pick up different languages simply by listening to them.

I have a talent for communication, which is why I’m a hairdresser rather than an academic

photographs of me aged 20—they were taken back in the 1970s when I worked for somebody on Crawford Street. I also worked at a place on York Street from 1983 to 1986, so a lot of my life has been spent around this area.

There are two sides to Shaun’s of Marylebone: hairdressing and hair replacement. My wife and I are in business together.

Haircutting is her side of the business, whereas hair replacement is my speciality and it’s what I’m particularly good at. Giving clients a natural-looking head of hair gives both them and me a great deal of satisfaction.

Pleasing somebody where others can’t and making them feel good about themselves gives me a lot of inner happiness.

As well as advising clients on treatments to make their hair grow, my work also involves hair transplants.

I liaise with two or three transplant surgeons, and my role is to help people both before and after the transplant. Cutting hair after a transplant is quite specialist, as there are some elements to it, particularly

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14. Up front

Of all the professions, hairdressers seem to be quite happy, I think because they get to connect with other people every day.

When you’re behind a chair with someone for 90 minutes, you get to know their whole life

with the scarring, that other hairdressers simply wouldn’t understand. My clients range from their early twenties right up to the oldest, who is 92. Many of them become regulars and I still have clients from when I worked in York Street back in the eighties.

Marylebone has changed over the years. It was very upmarket when I was young, but then went downhill for a number of years. Marylebone High Street wasn’t very good.

But now the whole area has come right back up and is deservedly back in the spotlight. I only live a short walk from work and there are so many lovely places to stop for dinner on my way home. My favourites include Casa Becci, Fishworks, The Golden Hind on Marylebone Lane and the vegetarian Indian

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restaurant right next door to it, Woodlands. I tend to work late and often go for a meal afterwards, and I really love just being able to turn up and say: “Can you squeeze me in?”

Walking to and from work means that I bump into so many people I know. I’ll suddenly see someone and will stop and talk to them. I guess that’s through having had the same business in the area for 27 years.

As I work mostly in a basement I don’t see a lot of daylight, so in my free time I enjoy being outside.

I spend as much time as possible in the sunlight and really like gardening and just pottering around. I only have a small garden here in London, but have a second home in France, in Saint Paul de Vence, where I get to do quite a lot of gardening.

My passion is to sneak away over there whenever possible. I get to use my French when I’m out there, which I really enjoy.

I also like listening to music, but I’m a little old fashioned. I enjoy opera, classical and music from the 1950s and 1960s. My favourite songs include All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers and Billy Fury’s Halfway to Paradise.

I’m a huge fan of Elvis Presley and used to have my hair looking like Elvis in all the pictures.

My plan is really just to carry on as I am, to keep trying to make clients happy and to enjoy the satisfaction I get from communicating with people. What I love most about my job is making people happy. That in turn makes me feel happy and is what gets me up in the morning. I’m not looking to retire. Enjoying the communication and satisfying people—I don’t think I could live without it.

Of all the professions, hairdressers seem to be quite happy, I think because they get to connect with other people every day. Hairdressers get to hear everything.

When you’re behind a chair with someone for 90 minutes, you get to know their whole life.

Sometimes I get carried away and adapt to people’s accents. So if I have somebody from Egypt or Israel, for example, because I have such a musical ear I start adapting to their sound. But then either my wife or a colleague will say: “Shaun, you’re doing that thing again.” And I don’t even realise it.

I just love communicating with people.

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16. Up front

Quite often I go to Caffe Caldesi—you can go there just for drinks, and when the weather is nice you are far more likely to get a table outside than you are anywhere else

MY PERFECT DAY PAUL COX

nothing fancy. I have a client who makes a gin called Martin Miller’s Gin, so I always try to have that when I can.

The co-owner of Atherton Cox describes his perfect Marylebone day INTERVIEW: CLARE FINNEY

Breakfast If I want to go traditional, I go to Bonne Bouche for sausage, beans and toast.

It’s a no-nonsense place that’s been there forever.

If I want something a bit fancier, I go to Le Pain Quotidien—I’m a big fan of their boiled eggs.

Coffee I go between various places, but to be honest Eat’s flat whites are the nicest. My standard daily breakfast, when I’m not treating myself, is a skinny flat white and a porridge pot.

Fresh air I live in Notting Hill, so I walk to work and back.

It takes 45 minutes each way, so I get my fresh air fix then. I love the middle bit of my walk to work, which is along the canal as you approach Marylebone.

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New outfit I do a lot of window shopping in Matches— I have bought a few items there, too. One particularly snowy winter I bought a pair of snow boots, which, naturally, I have only needed to wear twice since. I buy a lot of my shirts from agnès b—I like wearing shirts at work, and hers seem to last for ever.

Culture Whenever I do get some time, and want to get away from the salon, I go to The Wallace Collection.

That is a real hidden gem. I am also very into interior design, so I am always popping into The Conran Shop for a browse.

I never leave there without theoretically spending £20,000. I love Railings Gallery as well—there are lots of Peter Blake

paintings, which I really like. I have bought a few prints from Railings in the past, as well as going there for framing.

Shopping Anthropologie is somewhere I use a lot, for quirky gifts and house things. And Caroline Gardner has been a life-saver on many an occasion, especially as they open early on Saturday mornings. All my cards come from there now.

Pre-dinner drinks Very important, predinner drinks. Quite often I go to Caffe Caldesi— you can go there just for drinks, and when the weather is nice you are far more likely to get a table outside than you are anywhere else. I have a simple gin and tonic,

Eating out Again, Caffe Caldesi.

It’s been here forever, and I’ve tried most of the menu. Another favourite is Galleria, a Persian restaurant up the road, or Fancy Crab on Wigmore Street, which is very good.

Eating in My girlfriend is a good cook, although she’s vegetarian so The Ginger Pig is definitely a no-no, unfortunately. We buy cheese and bits from La Fromagerie, and Waitrose is a go-to, of course. It’s been a rosé year this year, and we’ve got very into Whispering Angel rosé, which is available in Waitrose— as is Martin Miller’s Gin. Anything else A quality haircut! We have just launched the Atherton Cox Club, which offers the same quality hairdressing at a much lower price.

Everyone involved is highly qualified but they’ve not much experience, so we are charging the same as much cheaper brands. People shouldn’t have to skimp on quality just because they can’t afford it.

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108 BRAS SERIE IS DEL I G H T ED TO UN VEI L I T S N EW AUT UMN MEN U BURSTIN G WIT H F R ESH AN D SEASON AL F L AVOUR S

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20. First course

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21. First course

FIRST COURSE

Ever fancied cooking a dinner fit for a Roux restaurant? The new Sauce school at The Langham, London offers home cooks the chance to learn classical cookery techniques under the watchful eye of one of Michel Roux Jnr’s most trusted colleagues. The Journal enjoys the highs and sauce-scrambling lows of one of Chris King’s classes WORDS: CLARE FINNEY

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22. First course It is the August bank holiday weekend.

Outside, temperatures are soaring in a valiant attempt to deliver one last hurrah before summer abruptly finishes. There are protestors demanding Tommy Robinson’s release, and other protestors protesting against their protest, their shouts blending with the cacophony of sirens, car horns and traffic light beeps you’d expect from Oxford Circus on a Saturday. But from where we’re sat, on high wooden stools in a kitchen of The Langham, London, the walls around us laden with hanging alliums, herbs and saucepans, we could just as easily be in an (exceedingly well kitted out) French cottage in the middle of nowhere.

This is not the hotel’s professional kitchen. We’ll get a glimpse of that later, on a behind-the-scenes tour of the hotel’s labyrinthine network of kitchens and storerooms. This oasis, with its exposed brick walls, marble tops and pine drawers filled with gleaming De Buyer cooking equipment, is a cookery school, Sauce, the heavy oak doors of which opened for the first time in July. Our teacher is Chris King, The Langham, London’s executive chef, responsible for overseeing Roux at the Landau, Palm Court, Artesian and The Wigmore, as well as the hotel’s banqueting halls and room service. Bar a two-year stint at Per Se in New York, Chris has worked with Michel Roux Jnr for almost two decades: as commis and sous chef at

Le Gavroche, on the opening of Roux at Parliament Square and then here at Roux at the Landau. In short, when it comes to the Roux repertoire, the only person who could feasibly better Chris as a teacher would be Michel Roux Jnr himself (with whom classes are available, although I’d be even more intimidated cooking in front of him than I am in front of Chris).

This sense of intimidation fades fast, fortunately. For one thing, Chris is funny, kind, calm and clearly spoken, a natural teacher. For another, my classmates—a friendly mix of men and women in their thirties and forties— seem to share both my apprehension and my culinary limitations. “There is no qualification or skill level needed,” Chris insists when I ask him what they’re looking for in potential students. “These classes are for anyone who enjoys cooking.” At one point, Richard and Joana reveal they own a KitchenAid—a sign of culinary commitment I find momentarily daunting until they reveal they got it two-thirds off in a Robert Dyas sale because it was missing a part—but for the most part, we’re on a level: people who just love cooking, eating, drinking, learning and, it seems, talking about food.

It takes Chris a while to get us to shut up and start listening to the first of what will eventually seem like 300,000 steps—this being a course on classic French techniques. “We need to make the clarified butter for

our hollandaise first. Do you know how to use induction hobs?” The class makes doubtful noises. “It’s going to be a long day,” Chris grins.

But the demands of the stove are nothing in comparison to what Chris has in store for us. And so it begins.

Chris likens his role as executive chef to that of a headteacher: “I set the curriculum, I give the team what they need to succeed, but I don’t teach them personally anymore.” In the comfort of Sauce cookery school, however, his talent for hands-on teaching is very much in evidence. In his eagerness to explain the whys and wherefores of each technique and pepper his lessons with facts and anecdotes, he’s like the physics teacher I never had. “Clarified butter is used for hollandaise sauces,” he continues. “It is pure fat, like an oil, so you can also use it to cook meat and fish in the pan. Fresh butter will burn, but clarified butter can be cooked to a higher temperature. You can make clarified butter in advance, or buy ghee, but you need to remember to bring it to room temperature if you’re making hollandaise with it. Not hot, but it needs to be in liquid form.”

The way Sauce lessons work is as follows: Chris (or the teacher taking the lesson) demonstrates the first course. We proceed to our individual work stations—each one of which is larger and better stocked than my entire kitchen—and attempt to recreate it. At this point, it becomes

Lids don’t exist in professional kitchens. Consider how many pans we have. There’d be lids everywhere

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23. First course Chris King

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24. First course

Millie Simpson

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25. First course rapidly apparent who among us is used to cooking from cookbooks; who cooks from instinct and habit; and who learnt to cook from the TV. It’s the latter—those who grew up on a diet on MasterChef and Ready Steady Cook—who seem to fare best.

Though Chris’s instructions could not have been clearer, almost everyone stumbles over the first course—which, just to confuse us, is in fact pudding. “We’re going straight into dessert, which sounds crazy, but we need to do some work now to ensure it’s ready later on,” Chris explains, pointing to the little recipe booklet we received on arrival: îles flottantes with poached cherries, we read, beside an intimidatingly long list of steps. “It’s just meringues cooked in milk floating on custard,” Chris tries and fails to console us, “it’s delicious.” The few of us who have heard of it before have only ever seen it on the menus of fancy French restaurants, and have certainly never contemplated making it at home.

Still, you don’t go to a Roux cookery course to learn about apple crumble.

It begins easily enough. Cherry beer is combined with brown sugar, spices and ginger—sliced, not grated—and placed over a low heat, as is a pan of milk into which Chris scrapes fresh vanilla seeds, popping the wrinkly black pods in for good measure. As these two liquids simmer and infuse, we destone the ripe Kentish cherries then pile them into

the spiced, sugared cherry beer. So far, so simple until I hear that we need to “temper the egg yolks” to make a custard. Like a roller coaster cresting a peak, things take an abrupt dip.

Tempering, in this instance, involves putting a spoonful of hot milk inside the egg yolks to ready them for being added to the milk pan. “There’s a way to make this foolproof, by adding cornflour”—my ears prick up—“but that will give you a Bird’s Eye texture. We want a silky smooth custard, so we play with the temperature a little bit.” If you pull the egg yolks in directly, the eggs will scramble. If you cook the milky, eggy mix for too long, or on slightly too high a heat, the eggs will scramble.

If like me you decide to glance at your cherries at a suboptimal moment—well, the eggs won’t scramble, necessarily, but the custard will be thick and grainy: something Millie Simpson, Chris’s able assistant on this course and a talented teacher in her own right on others, has seen many times.

My saucepan is rushed to a tray of ice and, having immersed its bottom, Millie whisks frantically. You don’t get this at home. You don’t get this on telly either. If there’s one thing good cookery lessons offer that little else can it’s the chance to screw up, safe in the knowledge that you will be rescued by someone more skilled than you.

You can have another go or, like my custard, you can have your attempt

put on life support. Fortunately, I’m not the only one struggling: Richard could serve his custard on toast with smoked salmon and avocado, it’s so scrambled. “I could make a Portuguese custard tart instead? Put it in pastry?” he says optimistically.

“Absolutely, Richard. You do you,” Chris replies, taking the pan of softly scrambled vanilla milk gently away.

On we push, undaunted by our failures. The list of techniques we cover is by no means exhaustive, but it is exhausting, with everything from dicing onions and carrots the ‘cheffy’ way (fingertips back, knuckle to the knife, fast) and making a bearnaise sauce, to searing a salmon properly and using a cartouche instead of a saucepan lid: a round piece of grease-proof paper that covers the surface of a stew, stock or sauce to reduce evaporation and keep the components submerged. All the while, Chris’s dispatches flow thick and fast. “Lids don’t exist in professional kitchens. Consider how many pans we have. There’d be lids everywhere.”

“You can also use greaseproof paper to make a pan non-stick—the lining of non-stick pans doesn’t last that long.”

“The belly of smoked salmon is prized by the Japanese, as it’s fatty and perfect for sushi and sashimi. The royal fillet is prized by the French, as it’s firmer and perfect for fillets.” Every step is an opportunity to broaden both our culinary abilities and our minds.

There’s a way to make this fool-proof, by adding cornflour, but that will give you a Bird’s Eye texture. We want a silky smooth custard

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26. First course We learn about the Norwegian who first introduced the Japanese to salmon in the 1960s (“I’ve met him,” says Chris, “fascinating guy”) and we learn that no ingredient in a professional kitchen is wasted. From the thick, sharp bones of the john dory to the stripped stems of the thyme and tarragon, as he works, Chris compiles a pile of trimmings for the stock in the kitchen downstairs: a ‘stockpile’, if you will (I make a mental note to look that etymology up when I get home).

But I’m getting ahead of myself: the john dory and diced vegetables come later, for our main course.

First, we need to make and eat our starter: seared salmon and sauce choron with a buckwheat tuille. “Is there a chance I could scramble this?” I ask tentatively, as Chris slips some egg yolks into a bain marie along with a bearnaise reduction and whisks rapidly. “Absolutely,” he grins.

“This is the jeopardy right here.”

The yolks are gently cooked, and whisked at the same time, until thick and fluffy. “You can see it changing colour as it cooks. We’re looking for the whisk to leave a visible trail in the mixture. Once you can write your name in it, it’s done” Chris signs his name with a flourish, and takes it off the heat. “Now we add the clarified butter, very, very gradually—if you add it all at once, it will go wrong.”

We get a rundown on egg-based French sauces courtesy of Chris and Millie, who have worked together for years, “hence the banter,” Chris grins, as Millie chucks him some tomato concasse she made earlier.

Here’s the other great thing about Sauce that you don’t get with the telly: the easy but tedious preparations are done for you, on the premise that they either take too long or are too boring to watch in class. Thus Millie has prepped, not just tomato concasse (peeled, chopped tomatoes), but the bearnaise reduction of white wine, vinegar and tarragon, and, most impressive of all, the buckwheat tuille.

Sauce choron is a bearnaise sauce with tomatoes. Sauce paloise is bearnaise sauce with mint instead of tarragon.

Sauce Dijon is hollandaise with Dijon mustard, while sauce Maltaise is hollandaise with blood orange. Millie

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pauses for breath. There are more— many more—but we’ve not got time to go through them. Chris has made his starter (and, with seven forks, we’ve demolished it) and now it’s our turn.

Reader, I almost ruined it.

Remember when Chris told us to add the clarified butter gradually to the warm egg yolk mixture? I don’t.

I chuck the whole lot straight in, and wonder why, after five minutes of fevered whisking, my sauce is like oily orange juice. Millie looks over, puzzled. “Let me have a go,” she says.

“You did add the clarified butter gradually?” I slap my hand to my face, like the emoji, and Chris looks over. “You added it all in one go?” he exclaims—but his ensuing laughter is kind. I’m not on Kitchen Nightmares.

Chris isn’t going to go all Gordon on me. He will get some more clarified butter from the kitchen (another perk of the school!) and I will simply start my sauce choron again, this time under Millie’s watchful eye.

The rest of my starter—indeed the rest of my dinner—proceeds without incident (I don’t count burning myself as an incident, because I burn myself routinely at home). Having learnt my lesson, I spend the rest of the class listening intently to Chris, rather than daydreaming about the food and wine that will eventually ensue. I slow down, recap using the recipe book, and observe my fellow students, who also improve as the class goes on. With Millie by my side, I complete my starter only a couple of minutes after the others and then join them in The Pantry—Sauce’s elegantly rustic dining room.

The table is laid: white wine, red wine, sourdough bread, butter.

Despite the difficult journey, everyone’s plates look perfect: their buckwheat filigree crowning a tricolour of pink salmon, fresh, zesty herb salad, and a deep sunset yellow puddle of sauce choron. “How is it?

Is it what you were expecting?” asks Martin, as the wine is poured. “I love it,” says Joana, “although I can’t imagine putting that much butter and oil in a casual dish at home!” We agree that, in the words of The Great British Bake Off, this is a showstopper: “I’d

definitely do this for a dinner party,” says Richard who, having learnt his lesson with the custard, has absolutely nailed his bearnaise. As all the dishes we cook are basically dinner party dishes (unless you want a one-way ticket to gout), Chris takes care to school us in how we could upscale each course: roasting the salmon instead of frying it, for example, or buying ghee instead of clarifying butter; being a chef, he knows all the tricks of the trade and describes catering en masse as “like Lego. All the building blocks are there; we just snap them together when you order.”

Five hours later (you wouldn’t believe the amount of love and labour that goes into a Roux recipe, nor how much time you want to luxuriate over eating it), Chris takes us round The Langham’s many kitchens. Sure enough, the Lego blocks (“mise en place, it’s called”) are all in place: in storage boxes, in tall, ordered fridges, or piled neatly on the side. At 5pm, a sense of anticipation is building before the evening’s diners arrive, but the chefs seem psyched rather than psyched out at the prospect: they have great teachers, after all. We step out on the madness of Oxford Circus on the last bank holiday Saturday of summer, but inside The Langham’s many kitchens, all is calm.

SAUCE BY THE LANGHAM The Langham, London 1C Portland Place, W1B 1JA saucebylangham.com

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28. Case studies

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29. Case studies

As a child in California, Bonnie MacBird fell in love with Sherlock Holmes. Now, after a successful career as a Hollywood producer and writer, she has brought the Victorian detective back to life in a series of novels that echo the prose of Arthur Conan Doyle. The Journal visits her Marylebone apartment to ask some suitably searching questions WORDS: EMILY JUPP PORTRAIT: DAVID MYERS

Case studies

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30. Case studies Just a stone’s throw away from the Sherlock Holmes statue outside Baker Street tube is a Victorian apartment, furnished with plump blue armchairs and polished teak dressers. A rug, a worn red and blue persian, covers the dark floorboards. A keen-eyed observer with a certain knowledge might recognise this rug as being almost identical to the one found in the flat of the BBC’s BAFTA-winning Sherlock. The walls are decorated with dynamic black and white watercolour scenes of Holmes and Watson and painted with Farrow & Ball’s Rectory Red emulsion—as close as you can get to a genuine Victorian paint colour. This eminently habitable pastiche of Victoriana is perhaps the closest one could come to seeing the dwelling of Sherlock Holmes, who, lest we forget, is a character from fiction, albeit one of our most popular and enduring ones.

“Help yourself to some cake,” says the flat’s owner, nudging towards me a plate from a red and blue patterned tea set. I remark on the design and it is revealed to be Mason’s Ironstone Blue Mandalay, the very same design that featured in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a series made by Granada Television between 1984 and 1994. “Let me explain. I’m a Sherlockian—and we do that,” says my host, Bonnie MacBird, in her Californian accent. “Me and my Sherlockian friends are full of trivia.

It’s a bit crazy, but it’s pretty fun.”

Bonnie is not just any Sherlockian: she is the author of a trio of books that continue the adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genre-defining characters. An anglophile and a bibliophile since she was “a tiny kid”, she would raid her parents’ bookshelves and those of the public library in the San Francisco Bay area where they lived, trawling the pages of a large dictionary to find new words she liked the sound of, then learning them by heart. The first time she read Sherlock she fell in love. She began with Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock novel, A Study in Scarlet, and then raced through the entire canon: 56 short stories and four novels.

For the past 40 years, she has lived in Los Angeles, where she made her name as the writer of Tron, one of the era-shaping sci-fi films of the 1980s and among the first to use 3D computer graphics alongside real actors. She is now a lecturer in screenwriting at UCLA, so she often returns to her house in the LA suburbs, but for a while now she and her husband have been spending more and more time living in this little Sherlockian flat near Baker Street.

“I started coming here, I guess, about six, seven years ago to do some research for the first book, Art in the Blood. Just on a lark, I booked into the Sherlock Holmes hotel down the street, thinking it would probably be very kitschy and silly, but it turned out

to be a very comfortable place to stay.

So I got a nice room looking out onto Baker Street. I started extending my stays and discovered that everything I needed was right there.” She points enthusiastically out the window before describing the hallmarks of the average British high street “You know, there’s Rymans for xeroxing and sending things. There’s Boots.

There’s the, um, what was it? The hardware store. Everything you need is right there. And I was like, wow.”

I look a bit puzzled by her ardour for quotidian shops and she explains: “I’ve never lived in an urban setting before. In LA, where I live, you go outside at night at nine o’clock and it’s dead silent. There are houses all on the street, you know, but it’s suburban and you have to drive everywhere. It was a complete dream to get a flat here,” she enthuses. Later, we discuss some other fixtures of the Marylebone neighbourhood, like Cadenhead’s, the whisky shop she collaborated with for her book launch, and Tossed on Baker Street, which most savvy Sherlockians believe is the real location of 221B. “Whenever I go into Tossed and put in my order for a salad, I imagine the ghostly 17 steps of 221B winding up into the air next to the soup and the cold drinks case.”

In a foreword to the latest book in her series, The Devil’s Due, Bonnie describes the view from her writing desk here: “As torrential downpours

Whenever I go into Tossed on Baker Street and put in my order for a salad, I imagine the ghostly 17 steps of 221B winding up into the air next to the soup and the cold drinks case

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31. Case studies skittered down the bow window of my flat on Chiltern Street, I stood looking at the grey wall of water battering the vista below. Off to the right, across Marylebone Road, umbrellas crowded Baker Street tube entrance, collapsing like evening blossoms as their owners, clad in puffy jackets, windbreakers and trainers, dashed into the building.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, but for some reason sitting in this room, I imagine the people living here during the Blitz. These sirens would go off and you were supposed to take refuge in the tube station. There are

photographs of them sleeping along the tracks and on the escalators. I imagine sitting in here and hearing this siren go off for the sixth time in a month and it’s raining and I have to scoop up a kid or there’s a spouse sick in the next room with a cold. Do I go down there again? Or do I risk it and stay here? Can you imagine?”

Bonnie’s talent for romanticising a rainy day outside a tube station, and imagination for seeing a forgotten bit of history in a salad bar, is part of what enchants her readers.

Bonnie’s writing is pacey and wellstructured. She writes thrilling page-turners that make you both want to rip along with the propulsive narrative and linger over her succinct and bright use of language.

She sees London both as it is and how it was over a hundred years ago; she makes slums in Shoreditch feel dangerously exciting; she’s fascinated by Booth’s poverty maps; she spends days at Senate House and the British Museum researching Victorian poisons. She is a detective, but in reverse, excavating the layers of the city and uncovering Holmesworthy riddles.

“Somebody interviewed Mark Gatiss and asked him: ‘What’s the hardest thing about writing Sherlock?’” she says. “And he said: ‘The deductions! Because they are really hard and you have to work backwards from them.’” Bonnie’s

deductions are arguably as good as Conan Doyle’s. I ask how she creates conundrums worthy of one of the cleverest men in fiction. “I’m often trawling in the general vicinity of a subject. And then these discoveries come out and they are like glitter on the page. And I think, okay, that’s going to be useful somehow.”

In her first book, The Art in the Blood, a meditation on what it means to have an artistic temperament as well as a fast-paced thriller, encompassing Paris, London, an art thief and a murderer, Bonnie had to find a way of making Holmes aware that a woman was pregnant before her own husband knew, even though her husband was a doctor.

They were in the north of England and it was December. So she looked for morning sickness remedies that existed in the late-1880s. “Oranges were rare and expensive in the winter time there. They’re not just hanging around, like you might get one in your Christmas stocking if you were a really good kid. You know what I mean? They were very special things. So Holmes sees several oranges on the window sill and he”— she snaps her fingers, her eyes filled with delight—“ just gets it.”

Victorian medicine is a regular theme. “I also usually put some good doctoring in all the books because I am fascinated by medicine and I almost went to medical school. Even though Conan Doyle was a doctor

THE DEVIL’S DUE BONNIE MACBIRD PUBLISHED 10th OCTOBER HarperCollins

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32. Case studies himself, he didn’t do that. But I like it, so I put it in.”

The idea to write this series of books came to Bonnie in 2011 when she had just recovered from breast cancer, an experience that made her reassess what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. “It was a long, arduous year-and-a-half and I came out at the other end of it completely healed, but changed, of course. It made me think, what do I really want to do? And I don’t have a very long bucket list, cause I generally do what I want to do.”

She had already been an actor, lived in Paris, won two Emmy Awards as a producer, written and directed plays. But she wanted to write a novel—something she’d attempted 10 years earlier, although the manuscript was left unpublished in a drawer. “I thought, I’ll just write a novel and I’ll put it out there, because you can self-publish now. Then I thought, who do I want to live with for two years? Sherlock Holmes and Watson. They are the best examples of Victorian gentlemen. Holmes is also a romantic figure, I think, because he’s sexually a mystery. My personal take is that he is a little bit on the asexual side. There’s a whole subset of fans who really want to see Watson and Holmes having a relationship.

And I say, fine, you know, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but I’m not gonna write that in, cause that’s not what I think.”

My husband is kind of a scientist and he gets very interested in what he’s saying to people, so I’m the Watson in social situations, having to tell him that the person he’s talking to needs to leave or is getting bored, but I’m also a little like Holmes because I’m not happy unless I’m working

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I wonder if she’d rather live with Watson or Holmes in reality and she jokes: “I am kind of married to one of them. My husband is kind of a scientist and he gets very interested in what he’s saying to people, so I’m the Watson in social situations, having to tell him that the person he’s talking to needs to leave or is getting bored, but I’m also a little like Holmes because I’m not happy unless I’m working. I work all the time because I like it and that’s what I am most comfortable doing—and with intense energy, to points of exhaustion.”

But while Sherlock would reach for cocaine after a period of intense investigation, Bonnie’s vice is legal and calorie-laden. “Unfortunately, my bias is sugar,” she says with a glance towards the three types of cake laid out between us.

Clearly aware of the sensitivities involved in bringing back to life such widely loved characters, Bonnie seems to be anticipating criticism about her work before I’ve even broached the subject.

The possible homosexuality of Holmes and Watson is a case in point, but also she leaps in with an unprompted defence of her failing the Bechdel test—the test of whether a conversation takes place between two female characters that isn’t about a man. I tell her I found the female characters that do appear in her novels to be really well-rounded. You can’t be all things to all people, and if you want to create a Sherlock novel in the style of Conan Doyle, you can’t simultaneously make it into a written version of Bridesmaids. But Bonnie is already bedding into her argument.

“I’m a feminist, but I can’t really insert a female discourse in and be true to Conan Doyle. He wasn’t an anti-feminist, but the book is about two guys.”

Like everything she does, she took this project very seriously and is understandably defensive when someone has found flaws in it, reasonable or not. However, broadly speaking, the books have been a huge success. Serendipitously, the publication of the first book

rode the wave of Sherlock revivals on television and film, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock had tapped into a new, young, highly engaged fanbase and the novel was both widely read and critically acclaimed. Bonnie was even invited into the Baker Street Irregulars, an elite invitation-only society whose members “have distinguished themselves in activities related to Sherlock Holmes”.

A second book, Unquiet Spirits, published in 2017, quickly followed the first, but her most recent work in the series, The Devil’s Due, took a little longer to produce. “This book was delayed and very difficult for me to finish for two reasons. One is I had several deaths in my family during the writing, but the other one was that I’ve been so upset, honestly, as many of us have been—sometimes sleepless—over the rather ghastly things that are going on in both of our countries right now. It feels very out of control and very nondemocratic.”

LA and other cosmopolitan cities in the States were filled with shock and denial in the aftermath of the Trump election and she describes it as “an upsetting period of time for lots and lots of people”. She says she doesn’t want this to be an interview about politics, but, unavoidably, her views have seeped into the background of her latest work.

The Devil’s Due is set against a backdrop of huge technological shifts in society, a widening poverty gap and a distrust of foreigners— particularly the French anarchists who were living in exile in London.

There are clearly parallels to be drawn with modern London. “There was a worse difference in Victorian times between rich and poor than there is now. I took a walking tour in Marylebone and there were three times the number of street sleepers in 1890. There were also big technological changes. New factories changed people’s lives and not always for the better. I wanted to put relevance in,” she says. “I want to do that always as a writer, but without being polemic. But I mean, I do have a point of view.”

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34. Handsome devil

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35. Handsome devil

HANDSOME DEVIL

The terrifying story of John St John Long, a self-styled doctor who, long before Harley Street became synonymous with high quality medicine, used his good looks and charm to gull patients into believing in a wildly dangerous ‘miracle cure’ WORDS: SASHA GARWOOD ILLUSTRATION: MATTHEW HANCOCK

In the summer of 1830, 24-year-old Catherine Cashin came to London from her home in Dublin, together with her mother and her 16-yearold sister, Ellen. Ellen was suffering from tuberculosis, so while in the city Mrs Cashin sought treatment from fashionable Harley Street physician John St John Long.

The Harley Street of the 1830s was very different from that of today. Doctors only began arriving in any great numbers in the second half of the century, and the street’s townhouses—modest in style and scale compared with those on many of the nearby streets and squares— were as likely to house artists as they were medical men, JMW Turner

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being one notable early-19th century resident. In fact, the entire field of medicine was, like Harley Street, standing on the cusp of a significant change, with many doctors still clinging on to medieval assumptions about the human body, despite the era’s rapid advances in science. Long, whose clients included politicians, generals and members of the aristocracy, seemed on the surface to be the very model of the modern physician. He proved to be nothing of the sort.

Upon seeing the Cashin sisters together, Long pronounced that not only did Ellen have terminal tuberculosis, but the apparently hale and hearty Catherine carried within

her “the seeds of consumption”.

He insisted that Catherine begin a course of his patented treatment: the inhalation of a mystery substance, accompanied by his female assistants rubbing an equally mysterious lotion into her chest.

Harmless enough, one might think, but the rubbing was deemed insufficient unless it produced a running, weeping sore, which Long claimed would enable the disease to leave the body. In Catherine’s case, this wound became so obviously infected that Mrs Roddis, the Cashins’ landlady, wrote to Long and “humanely urged that danger might arise from symptoms which appeared so violent”. Long, however, “laughed at her apprehension, declared that the wound was going on remarkably well, and that he would give a hundred guineas if he could produce similar favourable signs in some other of his patients”.

Even as Catherine began to vomit constantly, Long declared that the sore was “in a beautiful state” and that Catherine’s “recovery” was proceeding just as it should. Mrs Cashin begged him for “a composing draught” to help her daughter’s sickness, but Long declared that he hated “physic” and recommended a tumbler of mulled wine instead, which (like everything else) Catherine failed to retain.

The Newgate Calendar for 1831 tells us that, as “every day brought

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36. Handsome devil

back”. They declared that “few people would have recovered after such a local injury, which appeared to them perfectly unjustifiable”.

Long was tried and convicted— much to the foot-stamping joy of many doctors crowded into the courtroom—but sentenced only to pay a fine of £250. This he promptly did, then walked free to treat (and torment) further patients.

new symptoms”, a respected doctor, Mr (later Sir) Brodie, eventually came to see the patient. This eminent surgeon “took every step possible for Miss Cashin, but all his efforts were useless”—after what Mrs Roddis later described as “a terrible night”, the landlady found her charge dying. She tried to administer brandy, but “her jaws were quite set and [Catherine] was dead”.

The Cashin family, understandably appalled at the callous destruction of their healthy daughter, asked the surgeon, founding editor of The Lancet and future MP Thomas Wakley to represent them at the inquest.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this

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concluded that Long had been responsible for Catherine’s death, and brought a criminal charge of manslaughter against him. Several eminent medical practitioners testified at the trial. These included: “Dr Alexander Thompson, who had examined the body of the deceased, Mr Thomas King, surgeon, Mr Wildgoose, surgeon, Dr John Hogg, Dr Thomas Goodeve, Dr James Johnson, Mr John Maclean and Mr Thomas Evans.” All had been present at the post-mortem examination, and all concurred that Catherine had been “a perfectly healthful subject, beautiful in form, and free from all disease, save that occasioned by the wound in the

How did a working-class artist with no medical training and fewer scruples end up a doctor to the great and the good? By 1830, Long’s social capital was considerable: those testifying to the coroner and court on his behalf included “the Countess of Buckinghamshire, Mr Prendergast, MP, and Mr Higgs, the brewer”, all of whom “spoke in high terms of Mr Long’s treatment, and of the virtues of his lotion for curing various complaints”. He is also known to have treated Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Anglesey, and the Marchioness of Ormond.

This was a far cry from his rural Irish childhood. Born the son of a basket-weaver in 1798 in Newcastle, in the west of County Limerick, the young John St John Long showed considerable artistic talent in childhood—so much so that friends, neighbours and local gentry clubbed together to pay for him to go to Dublin Academy to study fine art. Upon completing his

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37. Handsome devil

Catherine Cashin wasn’t the only healthy patient within whom Long suggested he could see hidden disease. Moving in increasingly high-class circles, he claimed to be able to diagnose “seeds of illness” simply by looking at someone

studies, Long supported himself by teaching, before moving to London in 1822. Here, he studied with John Martin, painter of several Last Judgement canvases. Long produced his own selection of mostly religious artworks, including a version of The Temptation in the Wilderness that remains in the collection of Tate Britain, and exhibited at the Society of British Artists and the British Institution. To make ends meet, he also assisted other artists and collectors, like Sir Thomas Lawrence and William Young Ottley, but struggled to keep himself in the style to which he very much wished to become accustomed.

Instead, by utilising the traditional

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artist’s training in anatomy with his undoubted good looks and personal charm, he decided to strike out in a new direction. At first, he advertised his services as a chiropodist, but in 1826 he found a new niche, announcing that he had found a cure for consumption.

This was the patented process through which Catherine Cashin met her death. One visitor described the scene at Long’s treatment rooms: “When I went into the room there appeared to me to be two cabinet pianos. Each lady took a pipe about a yard and a half long, put it into an orifice in the machine and put the other end into her mouth. I should think there were eight or 10 ladies in the room.” While the ladies inhaled, their backs or chests were scrubbed with sponges soaked in Long’s lotion to produce the sores that Long claimed allowed disease to leave the body. The idea was that after five to 10 days of running with pus, the wound would be covered with cabbage leaves and allowed to heal, and the patient would be pronounced cured.

Catherine Cashin wasn’t the only apparently healthy patient within whom Long suggested he could see hidden disease. Moving in increasingly high-class circles, he claimed to be able to diagnose “seeds of illness” simply by looking at someone, and frequently did so at parties, obviously proceeding to

invite the concerned subject to his consulting rooms for treatment.

By 1830, Long’s extensive patient list included those suffering from disorders such as pulmonary disease, debility, swelling of the glands, gout, rheumatism, cancer, smallpox, measles, and various mental illnesses.

Long’s followers believed him a persecuted martyr, attacked by a medical profession that resented his evident genius, and pointed to old medical wisdom about counterirritation to justify his treatment.

This principle—of creating irritation in one location on the body to lessen it in another—was usually applied through poultices or blisters.

But as the medics testifying at the Catherine Cashin trial pointed out, its application in a healthy patient was entirely contraindicated even by its most devoted adherents.

Nevertheless, lengthy defences, including one written by “a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and member of the Middle Temple”, represented Long as a pioneer, unfairly maligned out of jealousy.

A death and a guilty verdict did nothing to chasten Long. On Wednesday 10th November 1830, two months after his conviction for the death of Catherine Cashin, a highly respectable coroner’s jury led

by JH Gell assembled at the Wilton Arms in Knightsbridge. They were there to inquire into the death of Mrs Colin Campbell Lloyd, aged 48, the wife of Edward Lloyd, a captain in the Royal Navy. This worthy lady had consulted Long about a sporadic cough, and she too underwent the patented treatment that had proved fatal to Catherine. Within days, she developed violent burning pains in the wound in her chest, accompanied by shivering, thirst and nausea. Her husband testified that the sore induced by Long had been “discharging a dirty, white-ish, thick kind of substance”. Discolouration and inflammation spread down her arms. When consulted, Long (as with Catherine) declared Mrs Lloyd’s state to be absolutely normal, recommending no medications save “brandy and water” and suggesting only that she put her head under

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The 19th century would see the medical sciences take several giant leaps forward, but Long managed to thrive at the tailend of an era in which faith and folklore had yet to be demolished by evidence and empiricism

the bedclothes. After two days of increasing agony, Long was banned from seeing the patient and other doctors were called in, again including eminent figures like Sir Benjamin Brodie, but it was too late.

Three painful weeks later, she died.

The coroner’s jury were staunch in their attribution of blame. After only half an hour, the foreman declared that “having attentively and deliberately considered their verdict, [the jury] can come to no other verdict than manslaughter against John St John Long… on the ground of gross ignorance, and on other considerations”. Long was tried for manslaughter a second time at the Old Bailey on the 19th February 1831, with several “elegantly dressed ladies” accompanying him in the dock. Again, the question of counterirritation was brought up. Brodie, on the stand, was asked, “Wasn’t it true in orthodox medicine that the same counter-irritant might benefit one patient but harm another?” and responded with impressive restraint that although orthodox medical practitioners may sometimes misjudge the degree of counterirritation, he couldn’t recall a case where the result had been death. The jury, however, perhaps overawed by Long’s client list and smart feminine escort, returned a verdict of not guilty.

Perhaps fortunately for the population at large, Long himself died aged 35, only three years after

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being acquitted of the death of Mrs Lloyd. Rumour has it that he died of consumption, refusing his own treatments to the last, although the Lancet suggests that it was a rather more prosaic riding accident.

He is buried in Kensal Green cemetery, beneath an elaborate and defensively adulatory monument funded by his former patients, and in the illustrious (and probably contemptuous) company of medical pioneers such as Richard Bright (physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria, for whom Bright’s disease was named); Sir Anthony Carlisle; Sir James McGrigor (Wellington’s chief of medical staff); and Dr Thomas Wakley, he who had testified against

Long at the Cashin trial. Long’s famous liniment, the formula to which was bought by an Irishman for an immense sum at his death, was tested many years later and found to consist of turpentine, egg yolk and vinegar—although in 1831 a Dr James McCabe speculated, probably accurately, about the regular addition of quicklime to produce the corrosive effects crucial to Long’s treatment.

The case of John St John Long echoes through medical history, testifying to the enormous power of faith (some would say gullibility) in medicine, the powerlessness of humanity before illness for much of our history, and also, more prosaically, the importance of medicine’s professional bodies.

Regulation of medical practice would begin just a couple of decades after Long’s demise, with the establishment of the British Medical Association in 1856 and the General Medical Council in 1858.

Why was Long acquitted after the death of Mrs Lloyd? Partly his popularity and social status, undoubtedly, but also the general helplessness of most doctors before illness in an age before vaccinations, disinfectants, antibiotics or anaesthetics. The 19th century would see the medical sciences take several giant leaps forward, but Long managed to thrive at the tail-end of an era in which faith and folklore had yet to be demolished by evidence and empiricism.

His confidence and seemingly efficacious treatments—producing as they did visible, tangible effects, however unpleasant—were probably reassuring to those who felt helpless before encroaching death. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that many women— and it was mostly women—to whom he had offered a glimpse of hope defended him vigorously against charges of quackery. But reading the trial transcripts of those who died so horribly at the hands of somebody who professed the knowledge to heal is a resounding argument in favour of medical training, regulation and the miraculous technologies of modern medicine.

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40. A world of words

Throughout the autumn, The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival is providing a stage on which Asian voices can be heard in all their glorious diversity, on a bewildering array of topics. Three writers— Nikesh Shukla, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan and Karl Sharro—talk to us about their work and their expectations of the festival INTERVIEWS: ELLIE COSTIGAN PORTRAITS: MAHTAB HUSSAIN, JAMES VEALL, JAMES BERRY

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41. A world of words Right now, writers and speakers who either live in Asia or have roots there are gathering at Asia House for a two-month-long festival of events centred on the spoken and written word. It’s a celebration of culture and identity, in all its forms, spanning from Turkey to Tokyo and including the huge Asian diaspora found in every other corner of the globe.

“We’re a unique space: you won’t find many other venues which cover Asia in so much breadth and depth,” says curator Anna Temby. “We cover a very large region—it’s important to highlight the differences of experience within it.”

The festival brings together authors both established (think Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans, and Claudia Roden, who’s credited with introducing Britain to Middle Eastern food culture) and up-andcoming. The intention, says Anna, is to make the programme accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

“The word ‘literature’ can sometimes put people off—some festivals can be seen as being quite academic and maybe a little bit elitist, but you don’t have to be a lifelong fan of a particular author or read 50 books a year to engage with these events,” she continues. “You just need to be interested in what we’re exploring.”

Now in its 13th year, The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival provides a platform for creative people of colour, who are often shockingly underrepresented at similar events: a report by writers’ development agency Spread the Word in 2015 showed that black and minority ethnic speakers made up just four per cent of the cast at the UK’s mainstream arts festivals in 2014. “It’s important to me personally that we’re doing more to give a platform to those speakers,” says Anna. “For us, diversity and ethnic representation is not a case of box-ticking, it’s an integral part of the programme.”

Many of the events give voice to sections of society that are often spoken about but seldom listened to—it’s rare, for example, to hear the perspectives of female Isis recruits, as will be the case at investigative journalist Azadeh Moaveni’s event.

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“We aim to represent those opinions that aren’t necessarily widespread in the media, to find people who have direct experience.” It’s not all sociopolitical issues and race relations, though: “While Azadeh’s event is obviously very serious, we’re also hosting the likes of comedian Dom Joly, who’ll be discussing his book about a trip across Lebanon, which is very funny.

“It’s essential that what we are discussing is topical, but Asia House is a neutral platform. We want to bring together diverse voices, have a debate and allow people to share different viewpoints. In essence, it’s a festival of ideas, thoughts and means of expression.”

We have lived lives that are fundamentally political from the day we were born” Nikesh Shukla Born and brought up in Harrow, north London, Nikesh Shukla is the author of three novels and editor of 2016’s bestselling essay collection, The Good Immigrant, in which 21 British writers of colour discuss race and immigration in the UK. On 15th October, he will be joined at Asia House by Tanika Gupta, Nish Kumar and Vinay Patel to discuss the pursuit of creative freedom, literary acts of defiance and the stories that British-Asian writers are encouraged or allowed to tell.

Right now, a crop of writers of colour are coming through who are not writing about race and immigration—or at least not in an overt way. Instead, they’re getting to tell the stories we’ve been missing out on for years.

I find that very exciting.

ASIA HOUSE BAGRI FOUNDATION LITERATURE FESTIVAL UNTIL 11th NOVEMBER Asia House 63 New Cavendish Street, W1G 7LP asiahouse.org

It’s that lack of pigeonholing that makes this festival: it provides a platform for us to talk about our work and what inspires us, rather than only talking about diversity, inclusion and representation. I never set out for those to be the only topics I was ever invited to discuss. As a writer, I want to talk about literature, I want to talk about the themes in my work. I don’t want to endlessly talk about why we need more diverse stories or why we need more diverse writers. That, to me, just feels like a self-perpetuating loop. I want to talk about things that I wouldn’t ordinarily be invited to speak about, to an audience that looks much more like me.

Of course, race will always be there in the subtext. Politics is less of an ‘interest’ to people like me and more of a necessity. We live in political times, no doubt, but while for a lot of people those times started in 2016 with the referendum, or in 2011 with Occupy Wall Street, or in 2010 when the Conservatives came in, there are others of us who,

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42. A world of words Nikesh Shukla Right: Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

because of our identities and our bodies, have lived lives that are fundamentally political from the day we were born, and what we write will always reflect that.

The feeling of not being like the people around me, of not fitting in, is something that has manifested itself in my work a lot. Often, it’s as though I’m speaking to a younger me, in the hope that there are others out there who might benefit in the same way that I benefited from reading Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia when I was a teenager.

Good literature, like good films, like good computer games, like good art, holds up a mirror. But the thing that fiction is able to do that a lot of other cultural forms can’t is give you the interior. On a basic level, stories can make you feel seen and make you feel like your experiences are valid, but they can also give you an insight into another world, another life that you might have never considered before. Fiction forces us to think outside of just ourselves. That’s its power.

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What you discard, what you take with you—that is what immigrants weigh, all the time” Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New Yorkbased Singaporean journalist. She has written two books: A Tiger in the Kitchen and Sarong Party Girls, a satirical novel about the underbelly of Singapore and the conflicts surrounding class and gender within it. Cheryl will be joined at Asia House on Thursday 7th November by fellow Singaporean authors Sharlene Teo and Jing-Jing Lee to discuss the country’s culture and contemporary literature scene.

I like to think of Sarong Party Girls as a trojan horse: the premise sounds frothy—it’s about a young Singaporean girl, Jazzy, trying to find love—but it’s very layered. It’s about society, it’s about gender relations, it’s about intra-Asian relations. It’s about wealth. It’s about materialism.

It’s about class.

So much about Singapore is paradoxical. Everyone thinks it’s this strict, pristine, squeaky clean country, which it is—but there is another side to it. In such a small country, worlds are constantly colliding: different races, different classes, the wildly wealthy, the really poor and the in-betweens, all living in the same tiny space. Those crossroads, and the little cracks in society that happen as a result, I find endlessly interesting. That’s what I tried to explore in this book.

The term ‘sarong party girl’ is a very derogatory one. To be an SPG is to be a woman who seeks to hitch her life to an expat man. It’s not a desirable thing. When I returned home to write my first book, A Tiger in the Kitchen, I reconnected with some childhood friends who’d done the good Singaporean girl thing: got married in their twenties, had children. By the time they got to their thirties, some of them had got divorced and were declaring themselves ‘modern sarong party girls’. For them it was about being a modern feminist, able to date whoever they wanted. I thought that

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43. A world of words Karl Sharro

was an interesting notion. Jazzy herself is a modern kind of SPG: she’s a raging feminist underneath it all. The book is about her as a Singaporean woman, inviting in, exploring and ultimately rejecting that western influence.

Singaporean identity is something I think about a lot, even though I left 20 years ago. When you’re there, you don’t really think about what it is to be Singaporean but when you’re the only Singaporean in your own setting, you realise much more acutely what it means. As an immigrant, you think about the aspects of the culture that you left behind, that you miss, that you wish you had taken with you. What you discard, what you take—that is what immigrants weigh, all the time.

Asia is a multi-layered, complex, varied continent, country to country, city to city. There are so many stories to be told. Having a platform such as Asia House is important for helping us tell those stories; for bringing together varied voices; for casting a light on pockets of Asia that haven’t been examined before. How else are you going to understand the world?

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Complex situations are simplified by the media—reality is far messier than those depictions” Karl Sharro Karl Sharro is a Lebanese writer, author and architect. Best known for his Twitter presence and online blog Karl reMarks, a political and cultural commentary on the Middle East, he has written for numerous international publications and authored two books: And Then God Created the Middle East and Said ‘Let There Be Breaking News’, and Style: In defence of Islamic Architecture.

On 9th October, he and writer Nasri Atallah will be looking back at the media’s depiction of some of the key moments in the Middle East this year.

There are some tropes and clichés that are used constantly in British media coverage of the Middle East—ancient rivalries, for example, are used to explain current events in terms of long historic trends, often at the cost of understanding

contemporary political dynamics.

But perhaps more damaging than that is the notion of the journalist slipping into the role of an activist and becoming part of the events they are covering, often ending in lending support to unwise interventions. Journalistic objectivity is key, and reviving it, despite all the difficulties, is important. One of the by-products of this attitude today is the oversimplification of complex situations in order to get a simple message across, but reality is far messier than those depictions.

Without a doubt the key events that have taken place in the Middle East this year are the demonstrations in Algeria and Sudan, which culminated in the removal of two long-sitting presidents, as well as the escalating situation with Iran. With respect to Algeria and Sudan, there was noticeably more subtlety in covering these events compared to the uprisings of 2011, in particular in terms of paying more attention to local factors as opposed to the all-sweeping nature of the previous episode. Ultimately, I think this is a positive change and in no small measure due to the ability of the Algerian and Sudanese protesters to dictate their own narrative.

Nevertheless, given how historic those events were, I don’t think they received enough attention in the media, perhaps because they didn’t fit into a bigger narrative—as was the case in 2011.

Fortunately, today it’s possible to get your news and opinions from a multiplicity of sources and, despite the elitist anguish about this, this is a good thing. Gone are the days when the major newspapers can dictate particular narratives—although curiously, there are many in the UK who choose to pretend this is still the case.

At the Asia House Literature Festival, the audience have in the past seemed particularly thirsty for a different type of approach to storytelling. The festival plays an important role in providing that; in projecting the true multi-faceted nature of British society, which rarely gets celebrated today amid the general mood of pessimism.

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46. Culture

QA DARREN BALL The textiles artist and MADE London Marylebone exhibitor on 1940s sewing magazines, knitting for The Clothes Show and how his craft is still seen as a woman’s sphere INTERVIEW: EMILY JUPP PORTRAIT: CHRISTOPHER L PROCTOR

Darren Ball is a textiles artist focusing on designs from 1940s knitting and sewing magazines which he infuses with new life and character by representing models from their pages in mixed textile, hand woven and embellished designs. His embroidery combines a love of the textural qualities of knitted and woven fabrics with linear sewing machine stitching. He references the period with found vintage embroidery, handkerchiefs and recycled fabrics to suggest personal narratives.

Darren is one of the Makers exhibiting at MADE London 2019, the annual contemporary craft and design fair held in Marylebone, where the very best of national and international designer-

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makers present and sell their work to the public.

Tell us about your art.

I had been a full time teacher for about 20 years, teaching textiles, then one day one of my colleagues gave me a little collection of these 1940s Stitchcraft magazines. I was doing a piece of work about my grandparents, and the photographs I had of them were from 1941, so I decided to combine them with the magazines.

1941 was a time when granddad was away at war and grandma was at home and I did a piece of work which related to that. The piece, which was called Stitchcraft Aircraft, had a couple of the covers from these Stitchcraft magazines photographically transferred onto it, but I also made use of pattern and cut-through, which is a technique where you lay a fabric, you sew it together, and then you cut bits away to reveal the other fabrics behind. In one of the photos, grandma was wearing a patterned dress and I thought about this idea of airplanes flying in formation and transforming into flowers, so I stitched that onto the dress. It all started from there.

I’m also now producing framed work as well, where I take the original textile work and make a large print of it. They become quite different when you blow them up—you’re more reliant on the quality of the image itself rather than the techniques that went into the making of it, which is quite interesting.

Why are you interested in the 1940s?

It’s really interesting to look at another time and to imagine how people lived in that period.

You also have your own preconceptions that you bring to it. Living through a war must’ve been like putting your life on hold, especially with the men away at war, leaving the women to manage things at home. You see the old recipes they had, which show how they became experts in making something out of nothing.

It’s really fascinating to imagine what it might have been like to live then. You have to piece it together from depictions that you get from things like these old sewing magazines that I collect and old films where you have an imagined version of the 1940s, like Brief Encounter where the actors have these amazingly clipped accents.

What other textiles artists inspire you?

Karen Nicol is a very wellestablished embroiderer and textile artist. She does these large-scale animals which are quite moving when you look at them because there’s such beauty in them. She did an exhibition which was of monkeys covered in tiny tattoos, like little stories running across each of them. She’s really inventive because she uses quite rubbishy materials like broken jewellery and resin and makes them into this fabulous stuff. The use of colour is wonderful too. If I had the money I’d definitely buy one of her works.

Do you think that there has been any kind of

historic de-valuing of craft versus art because craft is seen more as women’s work?

Well, that’s always been there. Textiles are still viewed as women’s work— although obviously I don’t agree with that. Fashion attracts lots of men, but textiles doesn’t attract so many. It’s the same when you think about chefs, where men have made their way into those roles as well...

And then suddenly they get paid more.

Yes. Well.

But you have not gone into fashion, you do textiles. Why? When I was looking around for degree courses, Middlesex was the only one that did construction textiles. At the time I didn’t

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47. Culture

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48. Culture

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know much about print.

I probably would have enjoyed it, with hindsight, because I enjoy painting, but I was attracted to the construction—weaving and knitting. I went to an open day and saw they were weaving around scaffolding, which I found fascinating. So I actually ended up specialising in knit and hand-knit particularly. And it was because it allowed me to use more colour and to not use it in a particularly regimented kind of way— more colour, more texture.

But you have dabbled in fashion too.

Well, I entered a knitting competition for The Clothes Show, which was a huge fashion event. In 1991 I was in the national finals. The theme was ‘freedom’ and my piece was a little vest top with a paisley design and these naked floating people, a bit like a Marc Chagall but all in pink lurex. It was slightly flared and it had a little frill layer on the bottom.

It was actually quite nice. I didn’t win though.

You were one of 26 artists selected for the Crafts Council Hothouse 2019 programme. How has that helped you?

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It’s a six-month programme giving you more understanding of the starting points of a creative business. All the participants have different specialisms, including ceramics, knifemakers, furniture makers, ceramics, metal jewellery, plastic jewellery, weaving.

We’ve been to Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Wakefield. We had talks from leading makers, like Tatty Divine, she was very good, and Tessa Eastman, who does really beautiful ceramics.

She was talking about the formation of the business from its starting point because her business kind of grew from nothing.

We also dealt with mundane but very necessary things like cashflow and pricing. So it’s not all airy-fairy. It’s also nice to have people you can talk to, because I don’t work in a studio with a group of people; my work can be isolating.

And are you excited to be exhibiting at MADE London in Marylebone for the first time? What does it mean to you?

I’ve visited it for years. It’s been kind of aspirational, I suppose, because it is a really good show. I’ve always thought it’s one of the best shows in London, actually. It’s nice and fresh. I think it’s a lot livelier than some other shows I’ve been to and I like the style of the exhibitors.

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Food philosophy Ravinder Bhogal of Jikoni on why food is the conduit through which we can come to understand other cultures

BOOK REVIEWS WORDS: SASHA GARWOOD

YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS KRISTEN ROUPENIAN

You Know You Want This is the aptly titled debut short story collection from Kristen Roupenian, the author of Cat Person, the tale of a dysfunctional hookup that went viral in 2017 and launched a thousand awkward conversations. Cat Person’s impact is right up there with Carmen Maria Machado’s The Husband Stitch, and there are certainly similarities in the way these writers blend horror and fantasy to discuss sex and the everyday awfulness of gender. But where Machado’s work seems political, Roupenian’s presents us with an infinitely bleak world where everybody hates themselves and one another and momentary connection is both flawed and futile. Here, all human intimacy ultimately stumbles on the inability to truly know another person, and vulnerability becomes cruelty in the blink of an eye.

Even loving people are ultimately destructive, and probably destroyed.

All these stories are in some way about relationships, in both the broad sense and the narrower one of romantic and sexual interactions.

In Bad Boy, a couple inviting their roommate to join them for sex takes a dark, unexpected but exciting turn; in The Good Guy, a young man’s unrequited love changes his ability to connect with anyone; in The Matchbox Sign, a man struggles to protect his partner from the itching parasites beneath her skin; in The Mirror, the Bucket and the Old Thigh Bone, a princess falls in love with... well, okay, you might just have to read that one.

It never, ever ends well.

Roupenian captures mercilessly the feeling of being trapped in unwanted intimacy with someone who isn’t what you thought they were. “It was almost existentially

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49. Culture unsettling,” thinks eponymous ‘good guy’ Ted as his date grinds on top of him, “that two people in such close physical proximity could be experiencing the same moment so differently.” Attraction is never about connection as much as power: “I had never desired him more than I did then, broken and ugly and needing me.”

Despite its accessible fluency and thought-provoking, unexpected narrative twists, You Know You Want This is not much fun to read.

Brilliant as the stories are—dark and glittering, with the gravitational pull of a black hole—they’re all pretty horrible. Human nature is stretched and twisted until only its cruelty and tragedy show beneath the black, black humour. There’s no warmth or comfort, except perhaps in Roupenian’s bleakly familiar evocations of discomfort or futility—Margot’s inability to stop sex she doesn’t want because “it would require an amount of tact and gentleness she felt was impossible to summon”, or Ellie “working in communications, which meant she spent 90 per cent of her time crafting emails that nobody ever read”, or women “arguing themselves into settling for [Ted]”.

This is excellent, powerful writing, but I’d make sure You Know You Want This before diving in.

A SHORT HISTORY OF FALLING JOE HAMMOND £12.99, Fourth Estate

Playwright and writer Joe Hammond is dying of motor neurone disease, and A Short History of Falling is his sharp, poignant, tragicomic, plain tragic meditation on the agonies of the slow, inexorable loss of the self. It’s brilliant, agonising stuff.

“It’s hard to live the losses moment to moment, accepting them as they arise, dispensing with pieces of the self fluently like a bag of birdseed strewn into a flock of pigeons,” he tell us, and then he shows us too: taking us in merciless detail through the loss of coordination and dignity and hope.

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I now scare them with the thought of death. And I can see that the conversations they are really having are not with me but with themselves; conversations in which they reassure themselves that they are not the ones now dying.” This is a brave, brutal book, and it’s hard to leave it unchanged. Hammond has created something that points up, sharply, what it means to be human.

THE CASE OF THE WANDERING SCHOLAR KATE SAUNDERS £14.99, Bloomsbury Publishing

But A Short History of Falling isn’t just about loss, but about the sharp clarity that loss can bring, about love, parenting and responsibility, about the experience and meanings of disability in the contemporary world.

It’s pretty frightening—not just because it introduces the possibility, nay certainty, of fragile mortality, but because it exposes how badly most of us deal with disability, how wrapped up we are in our rituals of wellness— diets, exercise, potions—and how little difference these actually make if one is just unlucky. Hammond describes with merciless clarity not just his own loss of mobility and independence but the modern inability to deal with “the idea that things happen: the idea that we might all grow old or that any of us might contract an illness or a disease and not be able to do anything about it, or the idea that none of us really have control over our lives”. For him, it is human connection and experience that generate meaning: “All that interests me is being with people—and with my body as it dies—and writing about it.”

A lot of A Short History of Falling is, inevitably, about death, and how badly we deal with it. Hammond himself finds that “it’s not possible to be frightened of something you finally recognise and feel so close to”, but his visitors panic: “I see that

The Case of the Wandering Scholar is the second in Kate Saunders’s Laetitia Dodd mystery series, and like its predecessor it is the equivalent of a Sunday night BBC drama: warm and gentle, set in a softfocus historical period that belies the human interest of its characters and the occasionally barbed nature of its dialogue. It is escapist, immersive, fluffy, and as English as tea and scones.

Laetitia Dodd is a clergyman’s widow, now living alone except for her housekeeper and good friend Mary Bentley. With the help of her brother, theatrical criminal lawyer Frederick, she is trying genteelly to pursue a career as a private investigator, and is approached by dying guano magnate (really!) Jacob Welland. He asks her to investigate the whereabouts of his long-lost brother Joshua, who walked out of his Oxford college one day and never returned. Laetitia finds herself caught in a tangled web of broken families, moral conflicts, salt-of-theearth policemen, mistaken identity, hidden deaths, and everything else you might expect. Kind of like Downton Abbey crossed with Miss Marple.

“Tough old bird” Laetitia is a likable, practical heroine, her mistakes plausible and her insight sure, and Saunders’s low-key, quiet writing suits her. It’s hard not to use the word ‘nice’ about this book, because it is, even when its characters are trying to kill one another. It may never win the Booker, but it’s very enjoyable for all that.

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50. Food

QA MANMEET SINGH BALI The head chef of Ooty on showcasing some of India’s less familiar cuisine and why a man from the far north of the country is focusing on the food of its south INTERVIEW: VIEL RICHARDSON IMAGES: ORLANDO GILI

Where does the name Ooty come from?

It is a shortened version of Udhagamandalam, the name of a hill station in Tamil Nadu in the south of India. Hill stations are small towns at high altitudes, often based around a railway station, where the climate is cool and lush. People would go to them during the summer months to escape the extreme heat of the south Indian coastal plains.

British officers adopted this habit in large numbers to escape the coastal heat.

The idea of the hill station still conjures up the idea of a cool, pleasant refuge from the summer heat.

Is the food of southern India less well known in Britain than its northern counterpart?

I would definitely say so.

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India has a very varied cuisine. Every five miles you walk in India the food changes, sometimes quite drastically. But there is a distinct difference between southern and northern food. North India’s food uses a lot of butter and ghee, and they use a lot of rich sauces such as a thick cashew paste. They also use meat in a lot of their dishes.

Southern Indian food, as a rule, is a lot lighter, with more vegetables. For example, you will find a lot of wild mushrooms in their cooking and there are not so many of those big, rich sauces.

Is it a spicy cuisine?

In the south, they produce a lot of spices. Some of the very first trading the British did in India was for pepper from Calicut on the southwestern coast.

They have chillies ranging from mild to extremely hot.

There’s cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Tamarind fruit adds sourness to dishes. They also use a lot of coconut in their sauces.

One popular spice that British diners may not be familiar with is a lichen called kalpasi, often called the black stone flower. It is usually served with meat and gives dishes a very distinct taste—an aroma of the woods that brings a real sense of nature to the plate.

You come from the far north, in Kashmir. Where did you learn to love south Indian cuisine?

The food from my home is very different. In Kashmir the climate can be very cold, with long winters and hot but rainy summers, so it is very lush. I grew up eating a lot of meat, especially lamb and chicken. In Kashmir,

the thing they probably use most is fennel—most of the sauces will have a hint of fennel in them.

I moved to a small town called Mangalore, on the southwest Indian coast, for my culinary training.

I then joined the Taj Hotel group, and for the next five years worked in hotels throughout the south. This is when I experienced the full variety of southern Indian cuisine and I really just loved the flavours. This is when I really developed my love for this cuisine.

What brought you here?

I was offered a position as chef de partie at the five-star Turnberry Hotel in Scotland. That was very interesting, as it was my first experience of cooking Indian food for the European palate. In those days, you definitely had to adjust the spicing. Now, I think people are happier to try more authentic dishes.

After moving to London, I became sous chef at Zaika and head chef at Vineet Bhatia, both Michelin star restaurants. All the time I was experimenting with combining the techniques I was learning with the Indian ingredients I knew so well.

There are three different sections at Ooty. Tell us about them.

We decided early on that this site gave us the opportunity to serve two different types of food. The main restaurant, which faces onto Baker Street, would be about the fine dining experience. The smaller space facing onto Dorset Street has a design reminiscent of a hill station railway building. This has more of a street food feel,

with a more relaxed, less formal environment. Here you can get beer on tap, cocktails, all-day dining menu and take away food.

Finally we have the bar downstairs called The Ooty Club. This has the feel of a Victorian-era colonial bar, with dark woods and subdued lighting. We serve whiskys, gins and beers in a very old-fashioned atmosphere. You can get some food, but first and foremost it is a bar.

How long did it take to develop your menus?

My sous chef, chef Niru, and I were the core menu development team.

Creating ideas, cooking, experimenting and tasting was about three to four months of solid work.

When we were happy with a dish, we got input from the kitchen staff and selected connoisseurs who understood our flavours.

It takes skill and time to really balance the flavours.

It also takes deep knowledge of the ingredients. Once you are happy, you lock in that recipe, but it does not stop there. As you get more experience cooking it, any dish will slowly evolve as ways of improving it reveal themselves. Menu development is a neverending process—it doesn’t stop when the restaurant opens.

Spice blends are a key part of Indian cuisine.

Did you develop your own?

We created our own biryani mix and the garam masala powder. We roast whole spices, grind them and blend the powders in our kitchen. We do buy very high quality blends for the chaat masala and the chana masala. With chaat

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India has a very varied cuisine. Every five miles you walk in India the food changes, sometimes quite drastically. But there is a distinct difference between southern and northern food

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52. Food masala, for example, it can be tricky to consistently find all the ingredients in the UK of the right quality, so it is better to buy that from a producer we can trust.

What are the dishes that you think exemplify Ooty?

We serve a wonderful Hyderabadi south Indian biryani with egg, cooked in a sauce of cashew, brown onions and spices. Then Tellicherry crab with a zesty coconut crab relish and tomato chutney; lamb shank koora with lemon pine nut rice, coconut foam and plantain crisps; and eral poriyal, which is a stir-fried gunpower shrimp dosa.

How have you approached the drinks?

Gone are the times when it was: “You have to have a beer with a curry.” People are now coming to the restaurant with the idea of having wine with their food. We have worked very hard on our wine pairings.

There are some wonderful pairings that may surprise people, but work beautifully.

We use wines from both the old and the new world: French, Argentinian, American, Spanish. There are some really good wines coming from the smaller European countries.

We have a producer in Poona in India who is making us a mango wine.

Just as you can taste the grapes in a good wine, you can taste the essence of mango in his wine. It is quite a sweet taste initially but this fades, leaving a lovely mellow finish. It pairs beautifully with fish, scallops and chicken.

Can you give us an example of a pairing?

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It is a very important part of what we do. We have an extensive tea list that we give the same attention to detail to as we do the wine.

Our main tea supplier regularly sends down one of their tea sommeliers to train our staff. The sommeliers have spent time becoming very familiar with our flavours and take the staff through potential matches. They train them how to combine the teas with different flavours we use. It means our staff can tailor their suggestions to the customers’ tastes and where they are in their meal.

When you start experimenting with different ways of plating a dish, different presentations on different types of crockery, each one will bring out a new dimension. It can completely change how a diner experiences the food

We have one dish where we marinate lamb for 12 hours with yoghurt, tomatoes, onions, garam masala, chilli powder, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, kalpasi, bay leaf, black peppercorn, green cardamom and black cardamom. Then we slowly braise the lamb in the oven at a very low temperature until the meat just flakes off the bone. We remove the meat and pass the sauce through a sieve and serve the smooth sauce with the lamb. This is served with ottappam—a spinach and artichoke pancake. We suggest pairing this with a malbec. You see so many spices and wonder about the wine pairing, but it is a wonderful combination.

How important to you is the way food is presented?

Considering the plate design is as important as

considering the recipes.

When you initially imagine a dish, you are imagining tastes and textures against a blank canvas. But when you start experimenting with different ways of plating that dish, different presentations on different types of crockery, each one will bring out a new dimension. It can change how the ingredients interact with each other and how the diner will experience the final dish. This is the point where the dish really comes to life. If you serve the same piece of meat on a ceramic, wooden or steel plate, each one will look and taste different. It is the way the human mind works. Plating a dish well allows you to play with that to improve the dish’s appeal.

Tell us about your tea offering.

How do you see the menu evolving?

South India is such a huge region, I can see different dishes coming and going from the menu at different times of the year. We won’t target specific areas—we won’t say, “We need a dish from Goa or Tamil Nadu”—but there is such a variety to choose from that the menu will always be fresh.

Have you been enjoying yourself?

Absolutely, I have enjoyed the whole project. I was the first person through the door of the site once we acquired it. I have really enjoyed being involved with the whole process, from helping devise the interior design concept, to designing the menu, to hiring and training the staff. I feel really connected to this restaurant. It gives me a sense of satisfaction seeing people sitting down at our tables, enjoying their meals with friends.

OOTY 66 Baker Street, W1U 7DJ ooty.co.uk

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54. Food The gardener

Drinks have become so complex it can often be hard to taste the individual ingredients; with this menu, we wanted to simplify things so you could really identify the flavours—we just happened to make those primary flavours a little unusual

PAIRING UP Giacomo Guarnera, head bartender at The Churchill Bar & Terrace, on the creation of a cocktail menu that celebrates Winston Churchill’s life and some classic British pairings INTERVIEW: VIEL RICHARDSON

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The aristocrat, the lover, the bon vivant, the writer, the traveller, the gardener: these were just some of the many aspects that made up the complex character of Winston Churchill. And it was these characteristics, as well as four others, that we tried to bring to life in cocktail form for The Churchill Bar & Terrace’s new menu: Shades of the Life of Winston Churchill.

The basic idea was to represent through drinks and side bites some of the classic taste combinations that the British have taken to their hearts over the centuries. We also wanted to have a bit of fun by creating drinks that would surprise guests, appealing to their sense of curiosity and adventure. Our aim is for people to wonder, “How on earth do they do this?”

The flavours for the lover

are strawberry and cream, the aristocrat is toast and salted butter, and probably the most surprising is the traveller, which is jacket potato and baked beans.

When you summon up these flavours in your mind, it is not easy to separate the flavours from the texture and consistency of the food.

Sipping a drink is a very different experience to biting into food, but if you get those flavours exactly right, it can still trigger all sorts of memories and associations. That takes real skill, so our head chef Carlo Martino’s expertise played a very important part in the journey to create the cocktail list. In the cocktail world, drinks have become so complex it can often be hard to taste the individual ingredients; with this menu, we wanted to simplify things so you

could really identify the flavours—we just happened to make those primary flavours a little unusual.

The traveller is a good example. Its base is a vodka infused with baked potato.

To that we add pinto bean orgeat—orgeat is a sweet syrup usually made from almonds, sugar and rose water, but for this we decided to make one with pinto beans to represent the baked bean part of pairing—as well as Muyu Chinotto Nero (a liqueur, made using natural ingredients and inspired by the Amazon), pandan leaf soda and dill tincture.

The cocktail is garnished with a dry mashed potato shard and a single baked bean. This is served with mini jacket potatoes filled with a baked beans foam and sprinkled with chopped bacon dill.

It has been a complex process: some ingredients we have to cook, others we prepare but leave raw.

This is another reason why close collaboration with Carlo was so important. For example, with the traveller we bake the potato before infusion, and for the writer, which is inspired by rhubarb and custard, we have to cook the rhubarb. This takes a lot of work, but it means we don’t use artificial flavours

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55. Food

FOUR

The lover

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The traveller

Laura Shippey The head of design at Toast on cutting out pictures from The Face, the importance of feel, and the influence on her work of art and architecture

or ‘essences’ and it means the guest is tasting real British produce.

For this menu, I really wanted to go deep into the idea of food and cocktail pairing, so each of the drinks has a matching dish, created with the same care and imagination.

I have always loved food and often come to work a bit early to spend time in the kitchen with Carlo, talking about ingredients and ideas. In my opinion, to be a good bartender you have to think like a chef.

You don’t need to be able to run a kitchen, but you do need to be interested in the techniques and procedures that chefs use.

Culinary methods like sous vide and dehydration are represented here in the menu—it’s really important to me that I understand what these techniques can

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do and how they can help me create the vision I have for each cocktail.

The boundary between the bar and the kitchen has to become a little blurred.

It is an ambitious menu and it has been hard work but we are all very pleased with the results. We have tested the cocktails on a few people and the feedback has been very positive. We take our jobs very seriously here and we work very hard to give the guest the best experience they can have. But we do not forget that they are here to enjoy themselves. We definitely think this menu—baked potato cocktail and all— will bring a bit of fun to their time in the bar.

THE CHURCHILL BAR & TERRACE Hyatt Regency London—The Churchill 30 Portman Square, W1H 7BH thechurchillbar.co.uk

CIDERS 1. Maeloc Sidra Found on tap at The Globe on Lisson Grove, Maeloc hails from Spain and is named after the 6th century bishop of Bretoña, a settlement in Galicia established by British settlers. Made in a traditional manner using apples from local orchards, it has a dry, clean character.

2. Sydre Argelette Eric Bordelet We’d order this cider for the beautiful wine-like bottle alone. Indeed, Mr Bordelet is a sommelier turned cidermaker, with a commitment to reviving heirloom varieties of apples and pears. Found at The Grazing Goat, this is a beautifully balanced sparkling cider.

3. Sassy Cider Rosé This striking cider from 108 Bar has a hue similar to rosé wine, due to the use of pink-fleshed apples during production. A delicate, lowalcohol cider with a rounded finish.

4. Pilton cider Sourced Market stocks a range of this Somerset-based brewery’s ciders. Apples are sourced from surrounding orchards and turned into cider via a traditional method known as ‘keeving’. Look out for Pomme Pomme, an autumnal, bittersweet cider with quince.

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56. Food

FOOD PHILOSOPHY RAVINDER BHOGAL The owner of Jikoni on her relationship with food INTERVIEW: CLARE FINNEY

A phrase we use a lot here is ‘cooking across borders’. You look at my heritage, which is Indian, east African, Persian and British, then look at the trade routes which ran from India to Africa, India to Britain, China to Britain, the Middle East to Africa, and for me it just makes sense. Very often, when you look at a dish you’ll find it has multiple different origins. In India you have a samosa; in South Africa you have something very similar, also called a samosa; and in the Middle East you will find a sambusak. All that has come about through travel and trade.

There is no better way to be acquainted with someone’s culture than by eating their food.

We do harbour a fear of

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strangers—but as soon as you have a bowl of hummus or a pot of kimchi in front of you, you are beginning to understand something about them and how they live. Historically, Britain has been so good at adopting other people’s cultures, championing them and making them its own: the balti curry really originated in Birmingham.

This sort of inclusion is what makes Britain great.

We think that’s something worth celebrating.

When you put cultures together in a dish, you can create something greater than the sum of its parts.

I think that is exemplified perfectly by our prawn toast scotch egg. It is the love child of Chinese prawn toast and a British scotch egg—you bring these lovely, perennial favourites together to create something wonderful.

I cook this way because I am an immigrant. I have always had to adapt with every move I’ve made, with every changing landscape: settling into immigrant areas, you are exposed to other immigrant cultures.

You are influenced by what they eat, and you adapt to that to help you settle in and find a home.

Growing up I had British classics every Friday night—mum called it her ‘night off’. She thought British food was easy in comparison to Indian.

She would make the most incredible fish and chips, lacing ginger and carom seeds through the batter— she always adapted British things with unexpected nods to our culture. That has definitely inspired dishes at Jikoni, such as our scrag end pie: essentially a shepherd’s pie with black cardamom, cinnamon, chili, ginger and garlic.

Cooking is a way of storytelling. One of the dishes that proved popular here is the paneer gnudi with saag—and that came about when I saw a film about the Italian cheese industry in the early 2000s.

It was on its knees because Italians didn’t want to work in the dairy industry—the hours were too long and the pay was too low—so they started an immigration programme to get Punjabi farmers over, as Punjabis are experts with livestock.

At one point, 70 per cent of Italian cheese was being produced by Indian farmers. The paneer gnudi is my love letter to that sort of integration: fresh paneer, mixed with parmesan,

made into gnudi and served with saag, cavolo nero, pine nuts and lemon.

When Jikoni started, it was very much about my culinary heritage, but now we have grown out of toddlerhood, it is about the Jikoni family: each person who works here brings their own fragile magic, their own culinary background, their own heritage. I am a bit of a magpie, and I like to steal from anywhere and anything that tastes good and gives a peek into someone else’s lives.

Coming here from Kenya aged seven and starting school with a mother who had never made packed lunches before, I would feel so ashamed opening my lunch box of chapattis and keema reeking of garlic and cumin.

I remember that hot, hot shame, and just praying that god would throw down a ham sandwich and a packet of Hula Hoops.

Now those things that seemed so shameful back then are part of everyone’s larder. It’s so wonderful that they aren’t weird or alien any more.

JIKONI 19-21 Blandford Street, W1U 3DG jikonilondon.com

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Join us for the Marylebone Village Christmas Lights Event 13 November 2019 3–7pm Fairground Rides Santa’s Grotto Fireworks Tombola Snow Machine

Local School Choirs Hot Food Stalls Gift Shopping Ferris Wheel Special Celebrity Guest

marylebonevillage.com #MaryleboneChristmas Marylebonevillage Marylebonevillage Marylebonevllge This event is organised by The Howard de Walden Estate Teenage Cancer Trust is a registered charity: 1062559 (England & Wales): SC039757 (Scotland)

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58. Style

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59. Style

I have a particular memory of wearing the trousers my father was married in— part of a suit bought in 1969 on Carnaby Street. I would wear them with a shrunken t-shirt and Gazelles—it was the nineties!

QA LAURA SHIPPEY The head of design at Toast on cutting out pictures from The Face, the importance of feel, and the influence on her work of art and architecture INTERVIEW: JACKIE MODLINGER

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The word ‘toast’ conjures up a whole world of things: lazy Sunday mornings; breakfast in bed or at the kitchen table; a simple, quick but endlessly comforting source of sustenance, dipped into runny egg yolk, slathered with marmalade or just drenched with melting butter. It is also the perfect name for a clothing brand known for an approach to design that is simple, natural, unpretentious, comfortable and enduring.

Toast was the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo Jessica and Jamie Seaton, who met as ancient history and archaeology students at Birmingham university before moving to a remote corner in west Wales, where they started a family and— more surprisingly—a clothing line. Toast was

launched in 1997 with a debut collection of six sets of pyjamas (still a staple of the brand) and two dressing gowns, which they promoted through a graphic fold-out poster catalogue. Loungewear and knitwear followed.

Over the years, the move into fashion and lifestyle seemed a natural progression. Now, Toast is a highly influential presence in British retail with 17 UK stores, including one in Marylebone, and an aesthetic—both in the clothes and the way they are photographed and promoted—that had fed into the zeitgeist.

Throughout this journey, the brand’s original philosophy has endured.

Current CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner explains: “Toast aspires to a slower, more thoughtful way of life and we have been practising this philosophy for over 20 years now. At its heart is a commitment to supporting and sustaining traditional textile techniques and craftsmanship, collaborating with artisans from around the world to create original fabrics and handmade pieces, whether it be ikat weaving in India, indigo-dyeing in Japan or shoemaking in Northamptonshire.”

Toast—which last year was bought by Danish fashion company Bestseller—has studios in London and Swansea, and is one of the rare fashion brands with its own full pattern room, lined with calico toiles and brimming with pins, papers, chalks and spools of thread. It is in these studios that Laura Shippey, who joined Toast in 2015 as its head of

design, works her magic.

She boasts an impressive CV that spans 18 years’ experience in clothing design and childrenswear in Europe and the USA, including, most recently, eight years with J Crew, where she designed the coats worn by Sasha and Malia Obama to their father’s inauguration in 2008.

Her first “proper design job”, as she puts it, was with Margaret Howell, under whose tutelage she really honed her skills, working with some of the oldest mills and manufacturers in the country. In style and philosophy, Toast today has something of an affinity with Margaret Howell, another Marylebone stalwart.

Laura has found her role at Toast to be a perfect fit for her particular sensibilities. “There are six designers in total,” she says.

“I love the collaboration within the design team.

We all have different strengths, and it is usually in combination that great designs come about.” The Toast post appealed for its “timelessness and a certain utilitarian, practical, nature that is close to my heart”.

Those characteristics are all strongly in evidence in the brand’s latest collection, which has a strong, practical workwear slant: carpenter’s jeans, salopettes, jumpsuits.

Among the favoured fabrics of the season are needlecord, boiled wool, herringbone and velvet.

Standout styles include the knits—the colour-pop mohair Intarsia sweater, the Nordic Fair Isle yoked sweaters—as well as the Prairie dress, with its

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60. Style autumnal floral print, a navy and white handembroidered cotton canvas kimono jacket, and a folk ribbon-embroidered skirt.

My favourite accessories are Kate Sheridan’s tab bags in eco-friendly Italian vegetable-dyed leather with brass horseshoe findings, while on the home front, you’ll find pyjama-striped sheets, linen-twill throws, Ikat-print quilts, knitted wool blankets, block print or velvet cushion covers and a denim apron.

At a time when important questions are being asked of fast fashion and pile-it-high merchandise, the emphasis with all of these pieces in on quality, purity, responsible sourcing, sustainability and longevity. The clothes feel very now. The plan is that they should continue to do so for many years to come.

What was your relationship with clothes as a child?

My grandmother used to be a keen knitter and would make my sister and I matching Nordic fair isle jumpers. She had a spinning wheel for spinning her own yarn, which I found fascinating to watch her use. My mother also used to sew and taught me how to use a sewing machine when I was 12. I used to love using her old dressmaking patterns from the sixties and seventies and customising them. I would often rifle through my parents’ wardrobe and I have a particular memory of wearing the trousers my father was married in—they were half of a suit bought in 1969 on Carnaby Street and were flat-

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I want to ensure there’s a good reason for every product, that it’s comfortable, durable and beautiful, and will remain someone’s favourite for years to come fronted flares in a great heavy material. I would wear them with a shrunken t-shirt and Gazelles—it was the nineties!

How did your interest in fashion take shape?

My dad was a French teacher, so we would spend every summer in France.

During my visits, I was inspired by the way French students dressed. I was a bit of a tomboy and loved how French girls would make a baggy jumper and jeans look so stylish. I would collect French magazines like Elle, Vogue and later English magazines like ID and The Face. I would read them from cover to cover and pull out my favourite images to stick to my bedroom wall.

My wall turned into an ever-changing gallery of inspirational images.

You graduated with a BA in fashion design from Northumbria University.

What was the subject of your final degree project?

Newcastle is such a great city, I had so much fun there! My final project was studying technical sportswear and reinterpreting it into luxury fabrics and yarns.

I was fascinated by the functional detailing of closures, seaming and construction and explored and exaggerated this in woven cashmere, silk mixes and crunchy cotton.

I had a cashmere-backed Neoprene skirt with a nifty back closure that fell as a soft pleat and an over-sized seafoam-green sweater with silk bindings.

You have mentioned your “longing for a muddy path”. Were you missing

the UK, or was it a career opportunity that brought you and the family back from the USA? A bit of both! I think many people have a deep connection to the landscape they grow up in and when living abroad, there is always a pull towards those roots. When the opportunity at Toast came up, I was thrilled. It felt like it all fell into place!

Do you think you have a good sense of what women really want to wear?

When I design clothes, I am interested in how a woman feels in clothing.

Design elements such as the texture and drape of the fabric or the shape are incredibly important.

They all contribute to the wearer’s ability to feel confident, comfortable

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Who is the Toast woman?

Our customers want to feel comfortable in what they are wearing and confident in their look.

They also have a strong sense of individuality, which means they are looking for unique pieces.

Increasingly, she is also environmentally aware and wants to know where her clothes come from and how they are made.

How would you define the Toast design ethos?

Toast celebrates creativity and craft in the techniques, fabrics and yarns we use and in the lives of our customers and suppliers. I take my inspiration from all kinds of sources, but what I consistently come back to are artists, architects or creative movements such as the Bauhaus or Black Mountain College—an experimental college founded in North Carolina in 1933 by John Andrew Rice and Theodore Dreier.

My goal is also to ensure there is a good reason for every product, that it is supporting craft or traditional mills, that it is comfortable, durable and beautiful, and will remain someone’s favourite jumper, dress or coat for years to come.

What was the inspiration for the current collection?

The collection was influenced by the idea of a pioneering spirit.

A pioneer is an innovator, someone who pushes boundaries, exploring new ways of creativity, like the members of Kibbo Kift—

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I prefer a selective approach to life—finding the things that resonate with me and only keeping hold of those

a pioneering 1920s youth movement, founded after the first world war.

What are your personal favourite pieces of the season?

The embroidered kimonoshape jacket, which is hand embroidered by an Indian fair trade co-operative, making each piece unique.

We also have a handblock-print dress, printed in Jaipur by Anokhi, a print studio dedicated to reviving traditional techniques. Anokhi was founded by John and Faith Singh in 1970 and is now run by their son Priam and his wife Rachel. Over the years, it has established itself as a pioneering print studio with a large community of craftspeople, dedicated to sustaining traditional methods of making.

When it comes to your own wardrobe, are you a hoarder or a minimalist?

I prefer a selective approach to life—finding the things that resonate with me and only keeping hold of those.

Toast fits very well in Marylebone. What do you like most about the area?

Just minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street, Marylebone High Street is like a breath of fresh air. It is one of our smaller London stores, but Marylebone is always a hive of activity. Our store is a calm oasis on a busy high street. The area has a community feel and the store team know their customers by name.

TOAST 44 Marylebone High Street, W1U 5HF toa.st

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marylebonevillage.com Discover Marylebone Village

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THE LOOK

AMERICAN VINTAGE The Marylebone team at American Vintage on a comfortable combination We don’t use makeup in our campaigns. We don’t have accessories. The DNA of our brand is clean, fresh and quality. Each season has two parts: La Maison, which is our basic collection of bestsellers—the fabrics and styles we do every season— and Le Vestiaire, which this

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year is divided into three themes. There is Le Marche, or the market, which is a collection shot on Broadway Market in east London; there is In and Out; and there is Le Bus, which refers to the more metropolitan styles in our collection. It is the carefree spirit of the London adventurer, played out in a way that is a bit spontaneous, a bit unassumed.

This look is one of our trendiest, with the oversized,

relaxed fit and super-soft touch. The joggers and sweaters come in the same shade of white, and are 100 per cent polyester—but polyester of the highest quality. It is very soft, very fluid, with an almost shearling effect. The turtleneck t-shirt beneath is 100 per cent cotton. The effect is cool but very cosy.

AMERICAN VINTAGE 35 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4QA uk.americanvintage-store.com/en/

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INSIDE KNOWLEDGE

CHILDREN’S SHOES Maggie Snook of Papouelli on designing shoes specifically for kids My business partner Nicole and I started the business around our children. They were our muses.

As they grew, we grew the business, learning which designs worked best at each stage of their development.

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Steve Mellor The founder of AMP Athletic on the need for a personal touch, the benefits of small-group personal training and the joys of a calorific blowout

Children who are walking for the first time are at such a crucial stage.

The shoe has to fit well and be superflexible. When a child starts walking, we always say to wait two to four weeks, then come in and get a trainer sole. It is all about giving as much flexibility as possible, really, so they can try to stand up, hold on, and eventually make those first steps. The shoes also need to be non-slippy, and really soft.

After the age of eight, kids’ feet can grow very quickly: you can have 10-year-olds with adult sized feet, and that is a group we cater very well for.

We go up to size nine for girls and size 11 for boys, and for that age some of the boots we design we might quite like to wear ourselves! We don’t put VAT on our stock, because we’re marketing to children, but some of our shoes would easily appeal to adults.

Every child we have in the shop, we get them to walk around in their shoes. It’s important that we check their gait and ensure that the shoe is the right fit.

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We all just want to be comfortable.

The softness and floppiness of shoes and boots has become very appealing, hence this massive thing with trainers at the minute. That’s on its way out, apparently, maybe not for kids just yet, but once they fall out of favour with adults, kids will follow.

Laces tend to come into play from six years old onwards. Schools don’t tend to like it if you have laces much younger, as the teachers often have to tie them; they prefer buckles or Velcro. For those aged six and above, we have produced a range of coloured laces—they really appeal to kids who are learning to tie their laces.

When they are very, very little— one or two—you have to change kids’ shoes about every six weeks.

We do try to keep prices down as best we can for this age, for that reason— but our shoes are well made, in Europe, to the highest standards.

All our shoes are made in Europe, because that’s where the nicest leather is found. They are made in three different places—Portugal, Spain and Italy—and each country has a different strength. Spain is good with summery canvas shoes, Portugal does our school shoes and Italy does really nice leather boots—the higher end styles.

It’s not advisable to pass shoes on from child to child. Each child can have very different feet from their siblings. People ask us and, of course, I say: “Do what you like—but I couldn’t advise it for foot health.”

We sell socks and tights to go with all our shoes, and when designing I like to think what sock or tight would go in each shoe, whether it is stone or moss green or pillar box red, for example.

You don’t have to reinvent the style wheel every season with children, but I do play around with patterned fabrics, leathers and suedes.

There is a Society of Shoe Fitters, and a lovely woman visits us regularly to train new staff. She is completely obsessed with how many bones are in each foot. If you think about it, it is incredible that your feet hold all of your weight.

Walking is just a miracle. So when all those bones are growing, it is super important to wear the right shoe.

Flexibility is very much a trend— for adults as well as children.

PAPOUELLI 98 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2QA papouelli.com

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THE OUTFIT THE BEST

OF THE SEASON FROM MARYLEBONE

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Hot Lips mohair jumper Bella Freud, £350

Amelia lambskin jacket Cromford Leather Company, £1,500

Albion Cube bag Sophie Hulme, £650

Button through jumbo cord skirt Brora, £165

Twist small studs Dinny Hall, £120

Twist-front knitted headband Oliver Bonas, £18 Suede pandora boots French Sole, £200

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cologne

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68. Life

QA STEVE MELLOR The founder of AMP Athletic on the need for a personal touch, the benefits of small-group personal training and the joys of a calorific blowout INTERVIEW: JEAN-PAUL AUBIN-PARVU IMAGES: ORLANDO GILI

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Have you always been into sport and fitness?

I always loved playing sport, all kinds, though rowing became my main sport and I was constantly training for that. Just enjoying being fit and healthy led me to study sports science at university. I rowed throughout university, and continued rowing when I was working as a lecturer up at Loughborough, which is a big sports university. I worked with the sports science team there, looking after all the athletes. Many of the students are also world-class, Olympicstandard athletes. I’d seen people down in London launching various fitness and personal training businesses and thought I could take what I’d learnt from Loughborough and bring it down here.

My love of sport fed into everything. Starting a business meant there was less time to row, but I got into running and did a few marathons and ultramarathons, including the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert.

What was that business?

It was called Freedom2Train. We started off doing personal training in people’s homes and in parks across London, both one-to-one and group sessions, and were then very fortunate to take up the residency at Claridge’s five years ago.

I was looking for a space to work out of and they were looking for someone to run their gym and do the personal training for members and hotel guests, including some of the more famous people who stay at Claridge’s. Off the back of that I got approached to run a gym at a sports medicine clinic on Harley Street. And that was the first time I delivered small-group personal training, where you have four people and one coach.

The group might include an oncology patient who’s just had major surgery; a patient with a muscular skeletal injury; somebody training for a particular event; and a local who lives around the corner— so a very mixed bag of people. And those four people would all be doing different programmes.

Cutting your teeth within that environment was challenging but highly rewarding, and I worked with some great physiotherapists and sports doctors.

AMP Athletic opened in January. Why did you decide to open your own gym?

I just felt that the fitness industry lacked a high quality service. If you walk into lots of gyms the reception staff might say hello but they won’t know your name. I understand

they have thousands of members, but I didn’t want to create a gym like that. I wanted to create a smaller gym. At capacity we’ll get to about 300, 350 members. At present we’re about at 150 and we know everyone’s name, where they live, about their injuries, their lives, and we get to know them as individuals. A big thing for me is to make a gym a friendly place, but also a place where we can push people, challenge them, make them fitter than they’ve ever been and show them what they can achieve. We put a lot into making people feel welcome and special, making sure they know that we care about them.

What else is different?

At the moment there are lots of people opening HIIT studios: group classes where there might be upwards of 20 people all doing the same thing. The sessions are pay-as-you-go and it’s all about trying to make a gym look like a nightclub—pump the music out loud and stick a microphone on someone.

It’s aimed at the 20-yearold. But what happens beyond that? Where does that person go? They move round in that circle from one gym to the next and have no real loyalty. And so I thought, right, let’s start a membership gym where we can really get to know our members.

AMP Athletic is aimed at a 35-plus market, though we do have members in their twenties, and we focus on quality and on having small groups of four people rather than large groups. Everyone’s following a programme

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We feel you can coach four people as well as you can coach one—it’s as close to personal training as you can get. Certain parts of a session you can just crack on, but when you need a coach’s full attention you have it

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70. Life that’s relevant to them.

They train together but all do different exercises.

There might be a common theme, in that it could be an upper body exercise, but each person does an upper body exercise that’s relevant to them.

What is the benefit of small-group personal training?

We feel you can coach four people as well as you can coach one—it’s as close to personal training as you can get. Certain parts of a session are neither intricate nor complicated, where as soon as you’ve been shown what to do you can just crack on with it. There are then other parts of where you do need hands-on coaching, and when you need a coach’s full attention you have it.

But you don’t need it for the full 50 minutes. We can then make it more affordable because there are a few other people in the session. The average one-to-one personal training session in this area is £75 to £80. Two or three of those per week plus a gym membership is a lot of money, which not many people can afford.

We run small-group sessions on the hour every hour and you just book via an app. Our sessions are written with the input of the entire coaching team rather than just an individual trainer.

But do you also offer oneto-one personal training?

Yes, some people just want it. At the moment we have people doing it that have had a history of a particular injury.

They might do one or two sessions a week as well

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We like to think that we bridge that gap between the medical world and the normal gym world, and we get lots of referrals from physios, sports doctors, surgeons and so on. Many of them also train here

as a small group. It just depends on the individual.

What does AMP stand for?

The ‘A’ is for athletic, so it’s not focussing on one component of fitness, but encapsulates them all, and it’s also an aspirational word. If someone tells you that you look athletic, it’s a massive compliment and is also achievable. The

‘M’ stands for medical.

We like to think that we bridge that gap between the medical world and the normal gym world, and we get lots of referrals from physios, sports doctors, surgeons and so on. Many of them also train here and know that a lot of thought goes into what we do. When their patient is getting towards the end of their rehab they can hand

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A big thing for me is to make a gym a friendly place, but also a place where we can push people, challenge them, make them fitter than they’ve ever been and show them what they can achieve

off to us and we can make that patient stronger, using really good principles of exercise. And ‘P’ is for performance. You might have some sort of goal and we will change your training to suit whatever that goal may be. We like to encourage people to have those goals and have actually organised events for members to work towards, for example, the

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Yorkshire Three Peaks in October.

Are you a fan of wearable technology?

Wearables are fantastic and we are very lucky to have a great relationship with Apple.

Fundamentally we are a human business— we want to have that human interaction, that connection with people—

but technology supports what we do. We use the Myzone heart rate monitor to help personalise coaching. Each member receives a Myzone belt, so when they come to the gym we can see their heart rate up on a big TV screen. We can see if they’re working either too hard or not hard enough. Myzone sets a target for everyone and rewards you with points: the higher your heart rate, the more points you earn. We use it as a way to measure success in someone and also as a way to motivate people.

Like lots of wearable technology, you find that people get really into it. We even have leader boards and hold competitions.

Who are your coaches?

We are a team of six.

Everyone has a BSc in sports science and some of us also have an MSc, but we all have very different professional backgrounds.

Mine is in performance sport and then in the clinical world. My head coach Matt comes from a sports injury background, working with physios and sports doctors to try to get people pain free and moving. And then we’ve got Steve—we call him Flash— who was a professional basketball player. Jake is Canadian and a former professional ice hockey player. Tash, who recently joined the team, worked in women’s football for a long time but has also delivered personal training to employees at Google’s in-house gym. And we’ve just been joined by a guy called Niall, who has come on board after completing his MSc.

How often do you train?

Doing this has taken over so much of my time, but I try to train at least three times a week and would love to do more. This gym was built and designed with me as a consumer in mind. I’ve been a member of loads of different gyms and there are always things I’d want located in certain places to make it easy to do a session, rather than having to walk upstairs, then downstairs, then over to the other side of the gym to do the next exercise. AMP Athletic has been carefully designed so that you have everything you need right around you.

Do you allow yourself the occasional calorific blowout?

Yes, definitely. I’m very fortunate to live in Marylebone where there are so many wonderful restaurants, pubs and bars.

We don’t believe in this idea of green juices and being whiter than white in terms of our approach to health. Many people enjoy eating out. We don’t demonise that. If that’s what you like doing then go and enjoy some good food and good wine. And we certainly do. But it’s all about that balance—just trying to make sure that within your week you also have some good exercise.

And is there one local restaurant that you simply can’t resist?

La Brasseria on the corner of Devonshire Street and Marylebone High Street, but I also like a good pub as well. And there are loads of those here in Marylebone.

AMP ATHLETIC 14a Beaumont Mews, W1G 6EQ amp.fit

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INSIDE KNOWLEDGE

fruity, floral scents such as some in our Les Belles Matières collection, or the American market liking cleaner scents such as Manon, but often it’s true. You might also find different tastes within the same country, depending on the region or time of the year. We do have global bestsellers, though, such as Ernesto and Abd El Kader, which buck any of these trends. These considerations are not part of our decision-making process; we are better at proposing unusual experiences than trying to stay ahead of certain trends.

HOME FRAGRANCES Julien Pruvost, director of Cire Trudron, on the art of creating and choosing home fragrances INTERVIEW: CLARE FINNEY

As Cire Trudon has such a long and varied heritage, we usually tend to work from historical figures or places that have a historical association.

Take the Cyrnos candle, for example: Cyrnos was the ancient Greek name for Corsica. When Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, commissioned a villa in the southeast of France, on Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, she called it Villa Cyrnos— Corsica was her late husband’s grandfather’s birthplace. To make this fragrance, we imagined how the gardens of her Mediterranean villa must have smelled at that time.

Our most iconic example would be the Solis Rex candle, inspired by Louis XIV and the wood floor of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. We sent the

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The Solis Rex candle was inspired by Louis XIV and the wood floor of the Hall of Mirrors. We sent the perfumer off to Versailles to literally smell the floor and then recreate the scent

perfumer off to Versailles to literally smell the floor and then recreate the scent.

We use different approaches to our home and fine fragrances. The home fragrance is much more traditional and its DNA has a definite nod to the past, whereas the fine fragrance line is much more modern. There is no official method to creating

them, though, and any honest fragrance brand manager will tell you that it all happens thanks to the perfumers behind each creation. I give them direction, but they are the ones that transform experience into scent.

We work directly with French product designer Pauline Deltour on the bottles. The home and fine fragrance bottles are linked through mild cues—the structure of the names, the ribbed glass caps, and so on.

Different countries migrate towards different scents. It’s quite obvious when you travel to the Middle East or Asia, for example. Being in the business, it feels like quite a cliché to talk about the Asian market liking lighter,

If people are on a tight schedule, they should trust their first impressions of a fragrance. If they have more time, then their first impression should be considered but they should also think about the occasion: the intended user, the place it will be set in, the time of the year.

We offer a unique scent palette mostly composed of high-grade naturals, which is rather rare in the realm of home fragrances. I also believe that we offer one of the best burn qualities on the market, leaving little or no residue and emitting very little soot. Every element of the product that remains is worth keeping too—the box, the vessel.

Clients love the magic of our heritage. It is the stories within the scents that give them their particular je ne sais quoi.

CIRE TRUDON 36 Chiltern Street, W1U 7QJ trudon.com

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FIVE CHAIRS

Clockwise from top left: DAX plastic armchair The Conran Shop, £615 Another chair Another Country, £495 Heatherfield chair Anthropologie, £1,198 Wedge chair Designers Guild, from £1,175 Trombone chair Caravane, £390 plus fabric

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QA MS EKPEMI IRUNE The ear, nose and throat, head and neck, and thyroid surgeon at The London Clinic’s Head and Neck Rapid Diagnostic Clinic on treating dysphonia, a common but littleunderstood voice symptom INTERVIEW: VIEL RICHARDSON PORTRAIT: CHRISTOPHER L PROCTOR

What is dysphonia?

The voice is produced by the larynx, sometimes called the voice-box, and dysphonia is an overarching term used to describe abnormality in how the voice sounds. It is a symptom rather than a diagnosis: it could be a functional dysphonia caused by how the person is using their voice, a structural abnormality like a growth on the voice box, a temporary infection, or a more serious disease.

What kind of changes to the voice does it encapsulate?

The voice becoming gruff or sounding hoarse, suddenly becoming significantly lower in register, or rapidly losing power and becoming weaker than usual. What should raise alarm bells are unexpected changes in your voice that are not resolved after three to six weeks—that is when you should be going to see your GP, who will probably refer you to a head and neck surgeon to investigate further.

Where is the larynx and how does it work?

It sits about half way down the neck. It is a tubular structure surrounded by muscles. The vocal cords, the real instrument in the voice box, are fine, slim structures reminiscent of the weft you get on a violin or cello bow. Air coming up from the chest passes through two vocal cords, causing the fibres to vibrate. The sound this vibration generates is modulated and refined using the mouth and tongue to create speech.

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What causes dysphonia?

It can occur for many reasons. If you have had a cold, cough or sore throat and have been run down, the symptoms are likely to be due to a viral or bacterial infection—with a bit of time, good hydration and perhaps some over-thecounter medication to help with the symptoms, the voice should return to normal. It can also be caused by laryngitis—a very specific condition where the vocal cords in the throat become swollen, often associated with a sore throat—or gastric reflux, where acid comes up from the stomach into the throat.

Another problem can be overuse of the voice or not using the voice properly— for example, if you have been at a party or event and have been using your voice exuberantly, you may tire out your larynx, which will take time to recover. The voice box works through the synchronised movement of a group of muscles, and if that synchronisation is out of balance through poor use or fatigue, that can alter the voice. Dysphonia can also be a sign that a vocal cord has become paralysed. Most seriously, it can be one of the first symptoms of throat cancer.

Can you expand on vocal cord paralysis?

This is when a vocal cord loses the ability to move.

There are a number of reasons this can occur, but the crucial thing is that once a vocal cord is paralysed it’s unlikely to recover. That means we have to implement procedures to augment the vocal cord. Your vocal cords need to meet in the mid-line like two hands

clapping to work properly.

But if one is paralysed, the other can’t move across enough to reach it. What we can do is inject the paralysed vocal cord with a substance that makes it get larger, occupying enough space so the healthy cord can meet it. It is a very effective treatment.

Can there be congenital issues with the larynx?

The major one is congenital laryngeal atresia, where the larynx does not open during development, so you are effectively born without a voice box. There is also congenital subglottic stenosis—a narrowing of the lower part of the airway.

This reduces the amount of air flowing through the voice box, so the patient cannot generate much sound.

Is there anything you can do for an underdeveloped larynx?

If someone has a narrowing of the lower airway, surgical reconstruction can help.

A specialist can make a little window in the narrowed section and replace that with a bit of rib cartilage.

What you are doing is restoring the natural airflow to create a voice.

If the procedure takes place when the child is still young, the cartilage grows with them, making an excellent repair. But it is not just about the voice—when the child is very young it can be about helping them with breathing difficulties.

If the voice box or vocal cords have not developed at all, we are not in a situation where voice box transplants are possible. In patients that have undergone surgical removal of their voice box, also known as

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What should raise alarm bells are unexpected changes in your voice that are not resolved after three to six weeks—that is when you should be going to see your GP

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76. Health a laryngectomy, we can undertake a procedure known as surgical voice restoration.

What does that involve?

The technique is based on the fact that the sounds that the larynx generates are refined into speech mainly by the mouth and tongue.

What we do is create a small hole between the back of the airway and the oesophagus. That allows air to flow directly into the upper oesophagus and the mouth. By moving the tongue, sound can be generated. It is a different quality of voice, but the interesting thing is in patients where the larynx has had to be removed, they still sound like themselves after the procedure. That is because the structures they used to refine their original voice are still the same, bringing the same qualities to the new voice.

The other thing we can do is develop an oesophageal voice. This uses something like the burping process to produce air movement.

Patients can be taught how to control that action to produce speech. It’s a lot more refined than it might at first sound and for the group of people where you have to remove the larynx and for whom the small puncture is not possible, this is a way of giving them back the ability to speak.

Why would you remove the larynx?

This can be necessary if we are treating throat cancer. A big part of treating cancer is survivorship, which is about getting the patient to see life after their cancer treatment.

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Giving the patient the ability to speak after the treatment is hugely beneficial psychologically.

The state of mind is so important when it comes to the completeness of a patient’s recovery

Giving the patient the ability to speak after the treatment is hugely beneficial psychologically. The state of mind is so important when it comes to the completeness of a patient’s recovery.

We often hear about singers suffering from vocal cord nodules.

What are they?

These are little pea-like structures that grow on the vocal cords. They tend to grow in areas where maximum sound is generated, altering the ability to create a pure voice, and that can be extremely serious for professional singers.

What can you do to help?

Well-developed nodules need to be surgically removed, preferably with a laser. One real issue is that nodules can return after being removed and each procedure to remove them is associated with the risk of scarring. This is reduced greatly by technique, technology and teamwork—an experienced surgeon using a laser, working alongside speech therapists. If you need multiple procedures, it could lead to you having long-term problems with the voice.

What happens when a patient first comes in?

That depends on the nature of the problem. However, the most important thing is to be able to get a really good view of your voice box.

We have a very high quality ENT endoscopic stack in The London Clinic, which allows us to have a good look using very high resolution imagery.

So, visual inspection is a key part of diagnosis?

Absolutely. We have access to other techniques like biopsies, but dysphonic patients often have structural or functional, problems and being able to inspect the area in detail is crucial. For example, there is a technique called stroboscopy. For this, you use a specially equipped endoscope to film the vocal cords in action. You can record the airwaves moving along the fibres of the vocal cords and then watch individual waves in slow motion as they travel. We can also use a fine flexible endoscope to examine the rest of the larynx and its surrounding structures, such as the mouth and throat, while checking that the muscles necessary for voicing are working in harmony. These are just two techniques that are hugely helpful both in diagnosis and management of voice problems.

It seems that dealing with dysphonia can be complex.

Absolutely, dealing with the voice is a multidisciplinary activity. At The London Clinic’s Head and Neck Rapid Diagnostic Clinic, we work with excellent speech therapists and clinical

nurse specialists as well as a team of ENT consultants.

What can people do to avoid voice problems?

Lifestyle choices can have a real impact on voice health: things like keeping hydrated and managing your lifestyle to reduce gastric reflux. You should have your last meal two to three hours before going to bed so that the stomach empties of acid. Of course, smoking cessation and reducing or cutting out alcohol are very helpful.

Learning to use the voice well is also very important.

If you sing professionally, you should see a speech therapist. They are phenomenal at teaching people to really understand how their voice works. They can teach you how to look after your voice so you can get the very best out of it over the long term. Anyone who uses their voice a lot, such as teachers and actors, can benefit from this.

What should we do if we think we have dysphonia?

If you are having a problem, it is very important not to just power through. You need to rest the voice—true ‘voice rest’, meaning not speaking at all. Whispering actually puts a greater strain on the vocal cords than normal speech. If you have to say something, speak at a normal vocal level and be as brief as possible. In most cases, with the right care it will resolve itself, but if it has not after six weeks you should go to your GP or come to the Head and Neck Rapid Diagnostic Clinic to get it investigated.

THE LONDON CLINIC 22 Devonshire Place, W1G 6JA thelondonclinic.co.uk

26/09/2019 09:18

10

London’s Leading Ear Care & Wax Removal Clinic

Est.1964

% OF F *

The production of wax is completely natural. However, if left to accumulate over time, it can become impacted and obstruct your ear canal which can affect your hearing. There is no proven way to prevent wax and we strongly advise against using ear buds. However, regular professional maintenance is recommended.

At Cubex, we use a safe and pain free technique called Microsuction. It involves the use of a binocular microscope providing a magnified view of the ear canal. This allows us to use a fine low pressure suction to safely remove ear wax, debris & foreign bodies.

The session also includes a full outer and middle ear health check.

Ear Care & Microsuction is carried out onsite at our New Cavendish Street premises by appointment only

Ear Health Check & Wax Removal

Ear Health Check & Foreign Body Removal

85

100

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Monday to Friday from 9am – 6pm

Book Your Appointment Today CLEAN

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* Only for residents and employees of Marylebone ** Except bank holidays

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78. Health

SCAR WARS

Is there anything that can be done to aid the progress of a scar?

Early scar management is really important. It is vital that you keep the scar hydrated—something simple and bland like aqueous cream or an ordinary moisturiser will do just fine. Lots of scar treatment creams claim to improve scar maturation, but the ones that have been shown to be effective are silicone creams, products like Dermatix or Kelo-Cote.

Many scars don’t make pigment, which is the skin’s defence against ultraviolet light, so cover them with sunblock if they’re exposed. If you go into the sun unprotected, your scar will burn and redden, but because there are no nerve endings you won’t feel any discomfort.

Prof David Dunaway, plastic and reconstructive surgeon at The London Scar Clinic, on the treatment of scars INTERVIEW: MARK RIDDAWAY

What is a scar?

It is the body’s way of healing an injury. New blood vessels grow into the damaged area to provide the energy to make new tissue—that’s why new scars appear red. Then, gradually, new collagen gets laid down, and that’s what gives the scar its strength. If this happens in an organised way, the scar ends up looking very similar to normal skin. But often either the blood vessels don’t go away when they’ve done their job, so the scar remains red, or an excess of collagen means it becomes raised and lumpy—we call that a hypertrophic scar.

If you don’t make enough collagen, the scar ends up wide, thin and a little papery—these are called atrophic scars.

What determines scar quality?

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Surgical wounds, which are very cleanly incised, make the best scars, whereas severe abrasions, lacerations or burns tend to make worse quality scars. Another major factor is skin type: if you’re dark skinned, you’re more likely to get hypertrophic or keloid scars—a severe form of hypertrophic scar—whereas pale skin is more likely to get scars that remain red or become stretched and atrophic.

Wounds in areas where the skin is under a lot of tension tend to make worse scars. Luckily, this means that scars on the face tend to heal better than most other parts of the body.

The very worst areas are the shoulders and the front of the chest. Also, skin has a natural grain to it, and if the wound is lined up with that grain, you get a better quality scar.

How do you treat scars?

There are many different approaches, depending upon the nature of the scars and what the patient’s main concerns are. These are usually about appearance, but they can also be about function: some scars feel tight and uncomfortable, are tethered to deeper structures, or restrict the movement of joints.

If it’s a small scar, we might excise it by surgically removing it and replacing it with a neater surgical wound, or if you have scars that cover a much wider area, we may consider skin grafting, or a technique called tissue expansion.

Laser treatments are the most common approach to changing the surface colour and texture of scars: if the scar is very red, we might use something called a pulsed dye laser, which will make it paler; if there’s an

irregular surface, we can use a CO2 laser to resurface it; and there are different lasers that deal with fibrous tissue and tethering. A lot of the scars we see are hypertrophic or keloid, and in some cases we can inject steroids into the scar, which help to dissolve away excess scar tissue.

What are the most exciting developments in the field?

Something that is starting to come onto the market is 5FU (fluorouracil), which is a chemotherapy agent that can be injected into really bad scars, causing the fibrous tissue to be reduced. Another promising development is the use of lasers to drill tiny holes into the scar while you apply medication on the surface, which introduces the treatment into the scar itself. Then there are products made from your own blood—platelet-rich plasma, for example, which when injected into scars can change their characteristics.

How important is it to address the psychological impact of scarring?

It’s essential, but often it’s a bit neglected. We have psychiatrists and psychologists who work with us, and everyone who comes to the clinic is guided to reflect on how the scarring affects their life. Sadly, it’s not always possible to fully treat scars, so you do see people who are seeking more and more treatments when actually the best way of helping them is to encourage them to understand and think about their scars in a more positive way.

THE LONDON SCAR CLINIC 152 Harley Street, W1G 7LH 152harleystreet.com

26/09/2019 09:18

0174_M

L EA D I N G CO N S U LTAN TS, COM PASSI O N ATE CAR E, TRA DI TI O N AL VALU ES From the moment you set foot in The London Clinic, you are entering a charitable hospital that is dedicated to putting patients first, advancing healthcare, and setting the standards for the end-to-end patient experience in private medical care.

For more information, please contact us on internationaloffice@thelondonclinic.co.uk | 0208 108 9622 | thelondonclinic.co.uk

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80. Space We take no commission whatsoever; we always pass any discount on to the landlord.

ASK THE EXPERTS Julia Garber, head of residential lettings at RIB, on navigating the complex world of lettings management INTERVIEW: ELLIE COSTIGAN

Several new laws pertaining to lettings have been introduced recently. Which are most pertinent?

There have been around 15 pieces of legislation over the past two to three years.

The Fitness for Human Habitation Act (2018) allows tenants to take direct legal action, so they no longer need to go to the local authority first. It covers 29 areas, including damp and mould, excess cold or heat, crowding and space, and structural elements. Those all seem like obvious things, but often landlords overlook problems because they’re not necessarily dangerous or urgent. As an agent, we do a thorough check and report back to the landlord to remind them of anything they need to fix.

The Tenant Fee Act, which came in this year,

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requires us to draw up a brand new tenancy agreement in line with recent changes whenever there is a renewal. We must also refund any deposit money that exceeds the new maximum permitted amount. It can be an involved process: we have to make sure that the contracts are signed, get hold of the bank details of the tenant, then refund them.

Sometimes there’s more than one tenant—we have to ensure everybody agrees on the new contract and the amount being refunded to each. There’s a lot of admin.

What other duties are required of agents?

We take care of all thirdparty referencing and there are a number of money laundering checks we have to do, on both landlords and tenants. If

money comes in that’s not in the name of the tenant, we must query it and ask for verification. We are also required to do rent checks within 28 days of a tenant moving in. This can cause complications: if, for example, a group of students make an offer on a property and two are here but one is abroad, they can’t complete until the third tenant arrives. Otherwise, we have to take that tenant off the contract, wait until they arrive, then put them back on.

It is also important that your energy performance certificate (EPC) is up to date and valid. We audit anyone with an EPC below an E, even if we don’t manage the property. We also arrange any cleaners and contractors, as well as negotiate deals and discounts for our clients.

What are the main benefits of allowing an estate agent to manage your property?

Management of a property is intense. Trying to protect the landlord’s interests while keeping the tenant happy is a tricky balancing act. An agent offers peace of mind—you’re not having to check that every clause is covered in the contract.

Also, we can make sure the client continues to be compliant with every change that is relevant to them. There are a lot of different fines—sometimes prison sentences—for not doing so. Ultimately, we could save you a lot of time and money. Besides, it’s good business practise: if you look after your property, you’ll get good tenants.

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How do we ensure our agent is trustworthy?

It definitely pays to know your agent is following a code of conduct—to know that they have the required expertise, knowledge and will give good advice.

RIB is a member of the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), SafeAgent, NAEA Propertymark and the Guild of Lettings and Management. Plus, we’ve been around since 1962 and we’re multi-faceted— we deal with lettings, property management, investment, acquisitions, surveying, accounting— so there’s a big pool of knowledge and experience to drawn on.

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ROBERT IRVING BURNS 23-24 Margaret Street, W1W 8LF rib.co.uk

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Preside MJ Proof 02 18_03_14.pdf

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You can tell our buildings from those managed by our competitors

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Preside Residential block & estate management

Celebrating 30 years experience & local knowledge acquired from operating in West One

Preside, One Hinde Street, Marylebone, London W1U 2AY

www.preside.co.uk T: 020 7224 0011 E: info@preside.co.uk

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82. Space insurance and I was a claims manager at a highly regarded broker, so I know about the insurance side of things. I also studied law and I’ve kept up with that—I’m not a lawyer, but you need to know how to read a lease properly, for example. The amount of people who believe they can, when they can’t, is shocking!

QA CHRIS HARNIMAN The owner of property management company Preside on the sector’s problem with inexperience, the unique challenges of medical properties and the application of proptech INTERVIEW: ELLIE COSTIGAN PORTRAIT: JOSEPH FOX

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How did Preside start?

In1983, I set up an accountancy practice specialising in forensic investigation and financial management for international companies that were buying into the UK and required an independent financial controller.

During the financial troubles of 2008, a number of the major property management firms started getting rid of their older, more expensive staff and bringing in younger teams. The minute you take away people who are experienced and know how things work and replace them with people who don’t, that’s when the trouble starts. This, coupled with the fact that in property management most companies don’t have qualified accounting staff, meant we were getting a lot of business referred to us as fraud cases, when in reality it was mostly errors that led to discrepancies in the accounts. It’s all very well having a bookkeeper, but you also need staff who can deal with accounting procedures and abnormalities. When you don’t have qualified staff, that becomes a real difficulty. It was the influx of this sort of business that

led to us starting Preside in 2009.

What are the key services you offer?

The key to our business is the fact that we now offer a complete service. Here, at 1 Hinde Street, we have an accounting practice and a property management team, including chartered surveyors, a lawyer, and an insurance team, which deals with both placing of insurance and claims mediation. Everything is in one place, which means costs are reduced. It also makes everything swifter and easier to handle and more transparent.

Has your role evolved?

At the start, I was involved in everything day to day.

My everyday role has changed so that I am now more closely involved with investigative work, including attendance at court and tribunals.

I still go to meet clients, though, because I think it’s important that they see who is leading our team.

When meeting with a new client, a property manager and I will usually attend to discuss all professional aspects of managing their property.

I was at Lloyd’s many years ago dealing with

Who are your clients?

We were very fortunate that one of the large freehold groups in the UK latched on to us within the first 12 months of operating, which has led to us working on properties within The Howard de Walden Estate. We are able to work well with the Estate team, in the handling of accounting inquiries and the provision of legal documentation.

We also work with The Portman Estate, The Grosvenor Estate, Right to Manage companies and residential management companies.

We are currently gearing up for new business, having recently employed a full time chartered surveyor experienced in commercial property, as well as medical property, with which I have been involved for 20 years.

Does dealing with the medical market require specialist knowledge?

It does. There are some differences that you wouldn’t think of if you weren’t in the know— simple things, such as how people move around areas when they’re not properly clothed. It doesn’t occur in usual residential or commercial property

26/09/2019 09:18

83. Space management but in a medical premises, there are a lot of important considerations that maybe aren’t always obvious.

This year, new legislation came in that meant quite a lot of the rules that have been in place for some time when it comes to residential property—control of client monies in trust accounts, adequate

recording of monies received and expended, agreement in advance of fees payable, and more— have now been brought in for commercial property management. There are people in properties who are not even aware of these rules and they’ve certainly not been adopted throughout. It makes sense for us to expand our offering to medical: it’s on

Marylebone is very different to the rest of Greater London and requires a different approach. Often, people outside the area have little awareness of what to expect when dealing with property here

our patch and we have the knowledge.

How else is the company developing?

We will shortly be teaming up with a prop-tech group. We want to see our buildings provided with on-site technical analysis of problems, which can then be transferred to us immediately together with recommendations as to how to deal with the issue. This is all about communication—the speed with which we can determine the cause of a problem and identify a remedy, which can then be implemented with minimal delay.

Does working and living in the area for as long as you have give you an advantage?

There’s absolutely no question that it does.

Marylebone is quite different to much of central London and requires a somewhat different approach. Often, people outside the area have little awareness of what to expect when dealing with property here.

I have a lot of respect for The Howard de Walden Estate. I remember a good number of years ago, McDonald’s wanted to have a unit on Marylebone Lane. They outbid everyone by far, but Howard de Walden just said no. It was the signal that the Estate really can affect the comfort and wellbeing of those living and working in the area.

The Estate has stuck to its guns and is still getting it right.

PRESIDE 1 Hinde Street, W1U 2AY preside.co.uk

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26/09/2019 09:18

Mark Nash Associate Director mark.nash@sandfords.com

213-215 Gloucester Place Regent’s Park London NW1 6BU T: 020 7223 9988 E: sales@sandfords.com

MJ Oct 19 p86-87 Sandfords.indd 1

CAMBRIDGE GATE REGENT’S PARK, NW1

LEASEHOLD PRICE ON APPLICATION

An elegant, three bedroom, apartment with lots of outside space and magnificent views of Regent’s Park located in one of the most exclusive addresses in the Crown Estate.

Arranged over three floors, the accommodation comprises a stunning 26ft reception room with access onto a balcony that overlooks the park, a spacious dining room leading onto a large terrace, a master bedroom with a dressing room and an en suite shower, a further double bedroom with en suite shower and a balcony, a third bedroom leading onto another large terrace, a family bathroom, a kitchen and a utility room. Further benefits include ample storage, partial air-conditioning, under floor heating, a lift, 24 hour porters, forecourt parking for one car and a single garage. Cambridge Gate benefits from an unequalled location on the outer circle of Regent’s Park, close to the amenities of Marylebone High Street and Great Portland Street Underground Station (Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines).

23/09/2019 14:58:06

sandfords.com

Michelle Sharma Head of Lettings michelle.sharma@sandfords.com

213-215 Gloucester Place Regent’s Park London NW1 6BU T: 020 7223 9988 E: sales@sandfords.com

MONTAGU SQUARE LONDON, W1

ÂŁ1,100 PER WEEK FURNISHED

Sandfords are thrilled to offer this stunning two bed, two bathroom apartment situated on the raised ground floor of an imposing Georgian Town House located within the prestigious Montagu Square.

The property offers two double bedrooms, one large master bedroom with fitted wardrobes and a beautiful en suite bathroom. Doors open out onto a private balcony which looks out onto a private, quiet mews. The second bedroom is a good size and could be used as a fully functioning bedroom or a study. The large reception offers high ceilings and a beautiful bay window making the room exceptionally bright. The property further benefits from a fully fitted modern kitchen and a well proportioned family bathroom. Offered fully furnished. Access to the private gardens within the square.

The property is furnished to an extremely high standard, in excellent condition and boasts many period features throughout. Montagu Square is one of the most desirable garden squares in central London. It is a 6 minute walk to Oxford Street which offers an extensive array of shops. EPC Rating E.

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www.rib.co.uk

CUMBERLAND MANSIONS MARYLEBONE W1

£1600 Per Week

PORTLAND PLACE MARYLEBONE W1

£620 Per Week

A recently refurbished, three double bedroom, three bathroom apartment situated on the fourth floor (with lift) of this beautifully maintained, portered block in Marylebone.

Available furnished.

A two bedroom apartment with excellent storage, set within this secure building within easy walking distance to Oxford Circus transport links and the open spaces of Regent’s Park.

DEVONSHIRE PLACE MARYLEBONE W1

DEVONSHIRE PLACE MARYLEBONE W1

£1800 Per Week

An impressive, penthouse apartment set over two floors with direct lift access and private roof terrace in this fabulous location just moments from Marylebone High Street and the open spaces of Regent’s Park.

An extremely spacious two bedroom apartment situated on the top floor (4th) with direct lift access, located a short distance from Marylebone High Street and short walk to Baker Street station and the open spaces of Regent’s Park.

For all enquiries please contact us on 020 7927 0612 Or email us at lettings@rib.co.uk MJ Oct 19 p88-89 RIB & Mcglashans.indd 1

£740 Per Week

23-24 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8LF

24/09/2019 11:10:59

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Executive Property Specialists 020 7486 6711

sales@mcglashans.co.uk / lettings @mcglashans.co.uk

Bryanston Mews West, Marylebone W1 £1,175pw / £5,092pm Nutford Place, Marylebone W1 £1,600pw / £6,933pm A super ground and first floor three bedroom maisonette. Living/dining A stylish and spacious lateral fourth floor flat (with lift). Living/dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (1 en suite), guest cloakroom, 2 room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (2 en suite), lift, EPC Rating D patios, EPC Rating C

Weymouth Street, Marylebone W1 £1,975pw / £8,558pm A stunning penthouse apartment, on the 5th floor of a portered block.

Open living/dining/kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, lifts, parking, portered block, EPC Rating D

Crawford Street, Marylebone W1 £675 pw / £2,925pm A newly refurbished apartment. Living/dining room, kitchen, bedroom with en suite bathroom, guest cloakroom, lift, 24hr porter, private south facing roof terrace, gym, EPC Rating C

£830pw / £3,596.67pm Beverston Mews, Marylebone W1 £1,375pw / £5,958.33pm Robert Adam Street, Marylebone W1 A modern 2 bedroom flat. Living/dining room, eat in kitchen, 2 bedrooms, A charming newly refurbished mews house in a gated development.

Living/dining room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (1 en suite), study 2 bathrooms (1 en suite), terrace, EPC Rating C EPC Rating D

107 Crawford Street, London W1H 2JA

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For Tenancy Info please refer to the website

www.mcglashans.co.uk

26/09/2019 10:55:33

Beautifullly presented apartment Chiltern Street, W1U Bond Street Underground Station: 0.3 miles A contemporary apartment in a charming red brick mansion block. Reception/dining room, kitchen, master bedroom with en suite shower room, 2 further bedrooms, shower room. EPC = F Leasehold, approximately 126 years remaining | 940 sq ft | Guide ÂŁ1.395 million Claire Reynolds Savills Marylebone Residential sales 020 3527 0400 creynolds@savills.com

MJ 19 p90-91 Journal Savills & September Druce.indd 160919.indd 1 FPOct Marylebone 58

23/09/2019 14:55:23 17/09/2019 17:01

York Street, London W1 A Beautiful Five Bedroom Freehold Georgian Townhouse

This exceptional Freehold house, with a westerly aspect, is finished to a very high standard and benefits from five bedrooms, sumptuous entertaining rooms, a cinema room, gymnasium, wine cellar and private patio garden. A truly fabulous home with high ceilings and period features, a five minute walk from Marylebone High Street and Regent’s Park.

ACCOMMODATION & AMENITIES Entrance Hall * Drawing Room * Reception * Dining Room * Kitchen * Cinema Room * Terrace * Master Bedroom Suite with Ensuite Bathroom & Dressing Room * 2nd Bedroom with Ensuite * 2 Further Bedrooms * Family Bathroom * 5th Bedroom with Ensuite * Study * Wine Cellar * Bike Store * Utility Room * Shower Room * Gym

Freehold RESIDENTIAL SALES, LETTINGS AND PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

17:01

MJ Oct 19 p90-91 Savills & Druce.indd 2

£6,250,000 STC

DRUCE

PRIME RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY

w1lettings@druce.com druce.com 020 7935 6535 23/09/2019 14:56:03

PORTMAN ESTATE PROPERTY ADVERT APRIL 2018.indd 2

26/03/2018 18:02:00

THE PORTMAN ESTATE HAS MORE THAN 500 PROPERTIES, FROM COMPACT STUDIO FLATS TO ELEGANT GEORGIAN TOWNHOUSES For enquires please call 020 7563 1400 or email info@portmanestate.co.uk www. portmanestate.co.uk

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Sophisticated, spacious & light.

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Mansfield Street, Marylebone W1 No. 2 Mansfield Street is an exclusive mansion block with porter close to the green open spaces of Regent's Park. It has a team of porters who operate 24 hours a day to ensure an extremely well run and secure building, creating a very private and luxurious atmosphere.

• • • •

Ali Mathews looks forward to helping you. ali.mathews@knightfrank.com 020 3544 0655

Beautifully presented throughout Penthouse with a large rooftop terrace Located in one of Marylebone's most desirable buildings Approximately 1200sq ft (111.5sq m)

Guide price

£3,295,000

Leasehold: approximately 130 years remaining knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.

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23/09/2019 14:56:58

Perfectly positioned within sought-after Marylebone Village.

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One Seymour Street, Marylebone W1 Ideally located within The Portman Estate, this brand new development has been finished to exacting standards throughout and encompasses contemporary living within moments of all Marylebone has to offer.

• • • •

Daniel Sugarman looks forward to helping you. daniel.sugarman@knightfrank.com 020 3544 0655

Benefits from a modern, open plan layout Bright & spacious interior Excellent concierge service in the building Approximately 851 sq ft (71 sq m)

Guide price

£2,050,000

Leasehold: approximately 124 years remaining knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.

MJ Oct 19 p 92-95 Knight Frank.indd 2

23/09/2019 14:56:59

Stylish living in a soughtafter mansion block.

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Montagu Mansions, Marylebone W1 A contemporary apartment in a much desired red brick mansion block in the heart of Marylebone. This bright, spacious, second floor apartment has recently been refurbished to high standards and boasts high ceilings.

• • • •

Ali Mathews looks forward to helping you. ali.mathews@knightfrank.com 020 3544 0655

Modern open plan living Large windows provide plenty of natural light 2 bedrooms each with built-in storage Wine cellar

Guide price

£2,500,000

Share of Freehold knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.

MJ Oct 19 p 92-95 Knight Frank.indd 3

23/09/2019 14:57:00

Perfectly positioned in the heart of Fitzrovia.

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Armitage Apartments, Fitzrovia W1 A superb second floor apartment for sale within a new development in Great Portland Street. The flat is conveniently located close to Baker Street and Oxford Street offering great transport links and a multitude of shops, bars, cafes and restaurants nearby.

• • • •

Daniel Sugarman looks forward to helping you. daniel.sugarman@knightfrank.com 020 3544 0655

Contemporary open plan living Ample windows allowing an abundance of natural light Residents gym & sauna in the building Approximately 807 sq ft (75 sq m)

£1,200,000 knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.

MJ Oct 19 p 92-95 Knight Frank.indd 4

23/09/2019 14:57:01

30 Years Experience in Marylebone Village

JJ&Co Jeremy James and Company Jeremy James and Company WIMPOLE MEWS, MARYLEBONE VILLAGE, LONDON W1

A unique opportunity to acquire a mews house in the heart of Marylebone Village.

This house has an area of approximately 1,060 sq ft (98.4 sq m) arranged over three floors. Recently redecorated the house has the added benefit of a terrace and garage. The first floor comprises of two double bedrooms one with en suite bathroom, second bathroom. The second floor offers ample living space with access to the kitchen and terrace.

Part Secondary Glazed.

Wimpole Mews is situated in the heart of Marylebone Village, within easy walking distance to Marylebone High Street.

Bond Street, Oxford Circus Underground Stations together with access to the A40/M40 are within close proximity.

LEASEHOLD: £2,250,000

HARLEY PLACE, MARYLEBONE VILLAGE, LONDON W1 A fabulous furnished two bedroom mews property located in a cul de sac moments away from the shopping facilities of Marylebone High Street.

It benefits from high ceilings, garage and a beautiful private garden. The accommodation comprises of entrance hall, reception room, two bedrooms, bathroom, shower room, cloakroom, study and a kitchen.

Bond Street, Oxford Circus underground stations together with access to the A40/M40 are within close proximity. The open spaces of Regent’s Park are also nearby.

Rent includes heating and hot water Please see website for full details £1,350 PER WEEK

+44 (0) 20 7486 4111 MJ Oct 19 p96 Jeremy James.indd 1

www.jeremy-james.co.uk

jjandco@jeremy-james.co.uk 23/09/2019 15:25:16

carterjonas.co.uk

MONTAGU SQUARE W1

£1,450 pw/£6,283.33 pcm

This recently refurbished three bedroom apartment is on the 1st and 2nd floors of this lovely period building and features a gorgeous reception room with high ceilings overlooking the pretty garden square.

1 reception room • 3 bedrooms • 2 bathrooms • Flat/apartment • First floor • Unfurnished • EPC rating C

Marylebone & Regents Park 020 7299 2447 david.ornsby@carterjonas.co.uk