BOHEMIA

Website: www.thesohosociety.org.uk

The Colony Room Club

The Colony Room was a private drinking club that was opened in 1948 by Muriel Belcher, a Sephardic sapphist/ The named it in honour of her partner Carmen Smart, who was a Jamaican. Its niche was to allow people to circumvent the then current licensing laws and drink alcohol between the time when pubs were required to close in the afternoon and when they re-opened in the evening.¹ There were hundreds of other drinking clubs. It was the one that lasted the longest. Belcher did n t like serving food, therefore, drinks were not served with slices of orange or lemon.

Belcher was given to referring to men by the feminine gender. A reference to the Blitz triggered Yes. That was when we were all fighting that nasty Mrs Hitler. There was an occasion when the movie actor Peter O Toole remarked that he regarded a fellow Club member as being a particular bore. The proprietress replied that the fellow was a very brave lady during the First World War.

The club's initial clientele consisted of City types. This changed after Ms Belcher hired the painter Francis Bacon as a hostess . The Room soon became one of the principal hubs of Bohemian London. The arrangement gave the artist enough of an income so that he could devote himself to his painting. After he had become successful, he continued to patronise the Room. Following his death it was to host his wake.

On her death, Ms. Belcher left the Room to her barman Ian Ida Board, who continued to run the establishment in her robust manner of unprovoked belligerence.

From its back window there was an aerial route between in and The Groucho.

At the end of 2008 the final proprietor, Michael Wojas (1956-2010), closed the Room.

Location: 41 Dean Street, W1D 4PY (turquoise, red)

Website: wwwcolonyroom.com

¹. All-day drinking in English and Welsh pubs became legal in 1988.

Laurie Lee

As an aspiring poet Laurie Lee drank in The Room and became known there for his tight-fistedness when it came to buying drinks for other people. The journalist Jeffrey Bernard used to measure time relative to him - That was three years after Laurie Lee last bought a drink.

The writer achieved fame and fortune with the publication of his autobiographical book Cider With Rosie (1959). He moved back to his native Gloucestershire village of Slad. There, he was careful not to buy anyone a drink for two years.

Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart was the Canadian-born author of the poetic prose novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945). In the 1950s she was employed as a journalist and copywriter. She was a member of the Room. In order to dovetail the working and parental aspects of her life, she paid for her four young children by the poet George Barker - Georgina, Christopher, Sebastian, and Rose - to become members of the drinking establishment.

The Stool of The Night

On one occasion Susan Elliott, the wife of the film actor Denholm Elliott, visited The Colony Room with Bacon and his boyfriend John Edwards. The evening progressed. The painter handcuffed Mrs Elliott to a bar stool and subsequently left the premises without having released her. She returned to her home and went to bed, concealing the item of furniture on her side of the marital bedstead. The following morning her husband rose and went to work without noticing it. She got up, and, still attached to the stool, went to Bacon's studio in Reece Mews where he freed her from the encumbrance.

Location: Reece Mews, SW7 3HE (red, yellow)

The Fitzroy Tavern

The Fitzroy Coffee House opened in 1883. Four years later it became a pub under the name of The Hundred Marks. In 1919 it was renamed The Fitzroy Tavern. Under the management of the Allchild family it became one of the hubs of London's Bohemia. The Allchild's tolerance extended to allowing the Satanist Aleister Crowley to drink there. He was partial to drinking Kubla Khan No. 2, a mix of vermouth, gin, and laudanum that he had devised. Charlie Allchild was convicted of running an immoral house . The conviction was quashed, however, he had no wish to continue running The Fitzroy and therefore left.

Location: 16 Charlotte Street, W1T 2LY (orange, purple)

Novelty

The writer William Makepeace Thackeray imported the idea of Bohemia from Paris in his novel Vanity Fair (1848).

George du Maurier's novel Trilby (1894) both sparked a fashion for Bohemianism in England and prompted a style of felt hat that became known as the trilby.¹

¹. Gerald du Maurier was the first actor to play the roles of Mr Darling and Captain Hook in Peter Pan. He was the brother of Sylvia Llewellyn Davies.

David Backhouse 2024