Archive

Living in London

December 5, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

“London is the safest city on Earth for a single woman,” said the wisdom of my life living there on my own. That was some years ago and I wonder now as I sit to write to you here in London today, if London is still so safe. Those were the days, as they say, and I know that is often a fallacy, a disrespect almost, of this present day but let us have fun with the not-all-that-long-ago past.   

What was basically a generous one main room with a small hallway, off which were a kitchen and a tiny but adequate bathroom was home to me and not a rental either, for a mortgage on the seven thousand pounds price, it was easily affordable and made it my own home. This accommodation was located in the “lower ground floor” of an extremely elegant and historical building on Chelsea Embankment. Lord Weidenfeld lived upstairs.

I had purchased material from Liberty’s and had it made into curtains for the one large window in the main room, overlooking a garden of sorts and the chimney pots on neighbouring buildings. The same beautiful fabric was a fitted cover for the bed with cushions to match.

From this ostensibly wealthy base, I launched myself happily to the Canadian High Commission, in Grosvenor Square, where I had a job in the finance department. Life seemed so easy then: after a summer working as a tour guide, running busloads of British tourists from London to Venice via Germany and Austria, a two-week tour there and back,  my stint was done.  So, I  walked into our government’s building and said quite simply to the receptionist that I was a Canadian living in London and wondered if I could get a job there. As luck would have it, I could!

The small flat, as apartments are called in Britain, was conveniently close to the King’s Road Chelsea, a commercial street laden with choices as to shopping and dining. My favourite amongst them, my local, we could say was the Boozy Rouge Wine Bar, a place for decent food, good to great wine and pleasant company. That stool did not actually have my name on it but it was where I placed myself a couple of times a week to give accent to a solo life.

There were plenty of really good conversations at that bar, about philosophy and history – touching on politics but without contention, only exchanges of ideas – things to learn. It really is fun to just talk with another person – frequently men – when the waft of sex is not in the air, is left ignored. Then, the conversation can flow and everyone can relax. I loved London for that freedom and have rarely experienced it anywhere else.

There was a bar in the High Commission too. I found it by accident when I wondered what was behind a large door. I opened it to discover a bar with a smiling chap standing behind it, waving me in. He explained this was the Men’s Mess, as the Commission is at base, a military stronghold and the Mess is not generally open to civilians or non-Canadians. There were exceptions to this naturally. in a community such as the High Commission. Then, he invited me to be me to be one of the exceptions.

That was fun too – evenings of dancing and laughter. Staff from the building, members of the military.  Evenings that did not run late and had no strings attached. There were rumours of secrets; yet, closely guarded with no expectation of release.

I met Pierre Trudeau at the High Commission at a reception to which all the Canadians, I guess, were invited. He was charming and humorous in the moment, taking my hand, smiling into my eyes, as though it was the pleasure he claimed it to be. No credit to me but he was a valuable representative of this country, by and large, highly regarded by national leaders everywhere.

Living in London was wonderful in those days, with friends I had met over the time, many of whom are still my friends and the pleasure to see them again during our brief stay here cannot be overstated. London is heavy, though; it is very big, noisy, at the time rather dirty from all the traffic. Every once in a long while, on my own, I would take a train from Victoria Station to the ferry from Dover, thence to a harbour town just north of Calais. There was a charming restaurant with a few rooms upstairs, where brightly flowered wallpaper ran across the ceiling.

Because the French consider being a waiter as an honourable, important career, not necessarily a stopgap, the single gentleman caring for his patrons was both very efficient and sweetly attentive. There I was treated to a meal of memory of fresh fish, salad, a cheese course, wine to suit, which I never poured for myself. There was never a time when it occurred to me to ask someone else to join me.

An overnight stop in a quiet coastal place in France, which is so very different from Britain, a walk up the hill to the fort perhaps,  a coffee and a bit of lunch, and finally the ferry back across the Chanel – felt like a month really, such was the contrast.

Readers Comments (0)