Category: London History

My Namesake Clive

Dedication page from The Cornish Fox by CHB Kitchin

You know me, if you know me at all, as Jim Preen or more fully Jim Charles Preen. But it didn’t start out that way. My parents called me, in fact Christened me, Charles Harvey Clive Preen.

I was welcomed into the arms of the Lord by a family friend; a Canon in the Church of England. Apparently, a Canon is a member of the clergy attached to the local cathedral. My not very religious parents used to refer to him as Canon Bang.

For reasons best known to them (Dad John and mum Peggy, long since deceased) they immediately dispensed with the names they’d given me and started calling me Jim. I’ve been known as Jim ever since.

During the 1990s I put in a ten-year stint with ABC News and used to travel the world on their dime. Inevitably we visited places that required visas to the extent we used to have two passports. One in use, the other on the news desk which harvested visas for the next destination. The cry would then go up: Who the hell is Charles Preen? At some point I thought this is ridiculous, I’ve been called Jim forever let’s take the plunge and change my name – so I went from Charles Harvey Clive to Jim Charles.

Sorry it’s been a bit long-winded but as you’ll see I needed to make this clear. In my mouthful of names, the one I want you to concentrate on is Clive.

My dad served throughout World War 2 in the army, progressing from 2^nd Lieutenant to Lieutenant-Colonel. For obvious reasons promotion can be rapid during a war and he saw some of the worst of it in Egypt and then fighting his way up through Italy. He was injured and remained for the rest of his life with shrapnel in his body that couldn’t be removed.

Once demobbed and having pocketed some money from his time at the front he and a friend set up a business, a lumber yard. It went bust and in short order he lost all his money. At which point and I don’t know the details, his Uncle Clive, a relatively wealthy accountant stepped in and bailed him out. My dad was eternally grateful to his uncle and added his name to mine as a token of respect.

I have since discovered Clive led an interesting life. But before we get to that I need to introduce another character to this story: CHB Kitchin. He was a novelist whose first five novels were published by Virginia Woolf’s company the Hogarth Press. His first book Streamers Waving appeared in 1925. He was a glamorous, young novelist of his day and caused something of a splash even if the books didn’t sell very well.

Lack of sales eventually prompted him to write a detective story called Death of my Aunt, which sold rather better. He went on to write four crime novels and thereafter struggled to get huge interest in his other books.

He too was a somewhat distant family friend, and we had various of his books on the shelf when I was growing up. One of which, I remember my mum telling me, was thought to poke fun at the Preen family. It was called Olive E; I’ve read it and can’t see what all the fuss was about. If you get hold of that book, and it’s by no means easy these days, you’ll see it’s dedicated to Clive Preen, as indeed are many of his other novels.

As I subsequently discovered Clive Preen was gay and he and Clifford Kitchin were lovers for many years. Kitchin might not have made much money from his books, but he was a wealthy stockbroker and as already mentioned Preen was far from poor. A degree of wealth meant they were able to conduct a discreet gay relationship for fourteen years. This ended in tragedy at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool in 1944 when Preen had a major heart attack and died. Kitchin had to pretend they were merely friends but in truth he was heartbroken.

In 1993 I went with ABC News to Liverpool to cover the burgeoning drug scene in the city. We stayed at the Adelphi Hotel. I had no idea my great uncle and namesake Clive Preen had died in the same place almost fifty years before.

If you like a novel you might want to dig out Kitchin’s best book The Auction Sale or perhaps Ten Pollitt Place. They are dated but perhaps because of the family connection I’ve become very fond of his work.

Anyway, here’s to Clive Preen my namesake, a decent man who lived a gay life when it was by no means easy to do so.

World’s Greatest City?

I went with friends to Tate Britian to see the Hurvin Anderson exhibition. The show has now closed, but it was a fine exhibition by an Anglo-Caribbean artist who was brought up in Birmingham. The pictures had a slightly evasive feel. You got the sense that the artist was not entirely comfortable as a Jamaican or as a Brit. Some of his works are very fine paintings indeed but they keep the viewer at arms-length. One of my friends, born in the UK but from an Indian family, made the point that’s how it often feels as an ex-pat. There is a persistent low level of disconnect or unease.

My family and I lived and worked in Bangkok for eight years. When our daughter reached the age of twelve, we decided to move back to London. We’d met many so-called Third Culture kids, who called their parent’s home their home even if they hardly knew it at all. It made then all somewhat rootless. We didn’t want that for our daughter.

After visiting the exhibition, we went to the cafe at the gallery and continued our conversations which soon became hijacked by the topic of London, the city where we all live. Throughout many of these posts I’ve made my love for the place very clear, so I don’t need to rehearse those arguments again.

Finishing our coffee we all walked back over Vauxhall Bridge to our homes. Later that afternoon one of them sent me the FT article which you can see above. It starts:

An evening walk through Islington with an Australian friend. He looks around at the Georgian facades, at the Lime-biking locals, and grows ruminative. “They say it’s the best city in the world …I wait for the counter-argument. … but they don’t say it enough.

So, I think we know where he stands but what I found interesting were his suggestions for the two main contenders. Perhaps because it’s the FT, a paper with more than a passing interest in money, the clue is in the name, he suggested Singapore and Dubai.

I’ve worked in both cities and the idea that either could ever become the greatest city in the world seems fanciful. Dubai is endless roads through a desert with each skyrise madder and more ugly than the last. Of course, their tourist trade has been decapitated on account of President Trump’s special military operation in Iran and the subsequent drone attacks on US allies in the region. As to Singapore, in many ways it’s a beautiful place, but small and has more banking culture than indigenous culture. To anyone who has lived out east it’s ‘Asia Lite’ not the full fat version as experienced in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.

It’s hard to argue with the FT writer when he says this: A city has to be rich for centuries, not decades, to accrue the sheer quantity of stuff that makes it the best, or at least most complete. Live in one, and the notion of western decline can feel abstract and remote.

I remember when first moving to Bangkok and going to their National Gallery, without wishing to be unkind the was no picture of world class importance. Don’t get me wrong I loved living in Thailand, which is stuffed full of intriguing local culture, but the world’s greatest city? Not by a mile.

I always used to say that New York was my other favourite city, but like many I wouldn’t choose to visit there now on account of the present administration. How do you make an enemy of Canada for goodness sake? So, for now it’s London, but hang on what about Paris? I leave it to you to decide.

Suiting The Beatles

Dougie Millings made suits for the Beatles, in fact he made every suit featured in the Fab Four’s films: ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’ Last night I met Gordon Millings, Dougie’s son, who gave a talk about those fab days and showed us the original patterns created for the Beatles’ outfits.

Gordon Millings, Guy Hills of Dashing Tweeds and bespoke cutter Dan MacAngus

Gordon, born in 1945, was three years younger that Paul and almost the same age as George. His Dad’s shop was on Old Compton Street in Soho, two doors down from the 2i’s Coffee Bar. The 2i’s was a famous music venue in its day and can claim to be the birthplace of British rock & roll. A young Cliff Richard got his start there as did the Shadows, Adam Faith, Joe Brown and Johnny Kidd.

When these singers started to rake in some teen-generated cash they wandered over to Dougie’s to get suited and booted. Cliff was the first to do this and started sporting Millings’ clobber on the box.

Word made its way to Liverpool and Brian Epstein brought Gerry and The Pacemakers down for a fitting. Brian told Dougie the next time he was in town, he was bringing a new band. The Beatles showed up with quiffs and leathers but left with a set of collarless Nehru-style jackets.

At the time Gordon was training as a cutter at Huntsman on Saville Row. He used to pop back to his Dad’s shop at lunchtime to help him out. Once the Beatles became famous, Millings had to move to bigger premises and employed around eight tailors to meet demand. Back then a bespoke Saville Row suit cost £35, today you’re looking at £5,000 or more.

Last night’s talk took place at Dashing Tweeds who have taken the original designs and created new suits according the Beatles’ patterns. There’s a cape jacket which can be seen on the Help! album cover, a collarless jacket and a Teddy Boy style jacket which was worn by Lennon at the London Palladium.

On a final note, Keith Moon was also a customer and was buried in one of Dougie’s dark blue suits. Trouble was, as Gordon told me last night, he had forgotten to pay.

Blue plaque special

Ronnie Scott gets a gong

It was bucketing down; more like an Asian monsoon than gentle British rain. Appropriate, I suppose, as there were a hundred of us gathered in Chinatown getting soaked. Suddenly a saxophonist stuck his head out of an upstairs window and started to play.

English Heritage were honouring the old jazzer, Ronnie Scott, with a blue plaque at the location of his original club on Gerrard Street. The weather was not playing along.

On the plaque Ronnie is cited as jazz musician and raconteur. His gags were legendary: ‘I love this club, it’s just like home: filthy and full of strangers.’ Or how about: ‘You don’t seem very impressed. Why don’t you all hold hands and see if you can contact the living?……It’s the first time I’ve seen dead people smoke.

The club was located on Gerrard Street from 1959 until 1965 and was an attempt to emulate the smoky jazz clubs of New York. They presented many famous musicians there: Zoot Sims, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz and Ben Webster.

Of course, these names will mean nothing to many people so how about Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison and Prince who’ve all appeared at the club where it now resides on Frith Street.

Simon Cooke, the MD at the club, who’s a mate of mine said: “Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has led the way in British Jazz for 60 years through its innovative programming and championing of the music and musicians. An English Heritage Blue Plaque is a fine acknowledgement of the contribution that Ronnie Scott himself made to the British Jazz scene.” He also said a lot of stuff that was entirely unprintable.

I should declare an interest here and that interest is I love jazz and have been going to the club since the late 70’s. In fact, I was there last night to see the mighty Mingus Big Band.

Coincidently I was also there the night Ronnie died on 23^rd December 1996. George Melly was appearing as he did for years over the Christmas period and rather bizarrely, said nothing about Ronnie’s passing.

But back to happier matters, as the rain beat down the saxophonist (Alex Garnett, part of the club’s house band) played Ronnie Scott’s own saxophone to wild and wet applause as Ronnie’s widow Mary looked on.

Ronnie’s is a London treasure; a fantastic venue presenting wonderful musicians and for a jazz club even the food is pretty good. Make sure you get along there sometime soon.