Underneath the Arches

Underneath the Arches I dream my dreams away…. At 2.30 on Thursday afternoons, the distinguished arts critic (and for good measure, elite Blue Badge Guide) Rick Jones sits with a London Walks sign and a pint of Greene King IPA in the courtyard of Hamilton Hall, the Wetherspoons pub beside Liverpool Street station. This is where you will find him and where the tour begins.

Hamilton Hall is the first of three pubs which you and Rick will visit on the tour. Rick explains how, forty years ago, this tour would not have been possible, why the barman’s cry ‘time, gentlemen, please!’ was once heard twice daily, what Real Ale is and how the company which owns Hamilton Hall led the way in changing pub culture in the UK.

Drink up, everyone! You will spend only twenty minutes in each pub. Rick leads you down the wild, lawless alleys of the East End. Careful! The cobbles are uneven underfoot and daylight grows dim under the overhanging eaves. You cross a four hundred year old market where the traders’ cries re-echo down the generations. Cherry ripe! Fine knacks for ladies!! Isn’t this where Jack the Ripper walked and stalked? Yes, but that’s a whole other tour.

Rick enumerates the waves of immigration – Huguenots, Chinese, Jews, Bengalis, each disembarking with the tide in the River Thames and bringing their silk-weaving skills. The raw authenticity of life here attracts artists – painters, writers, musicians. Here’s the warehouse which Dame Tracey Emin turned into a home and studio and here the birthplace of Chaim Reuben Weintrop alias Bud Flanagan the film and music hall star. Did he have a hit? I’ll say! Underneath the Arches made him a millionaire. Oxford and Cambridge graduates settled here, posed decadently and built an art gallery to educate the masses.

Here’s the second pub on the tour and here’s a piano in the corner. Have a seat and join in the chorus! Play it again, Rick… ‘The bridge down by the river with arches overhead / It’s homelike there, to me that’s where each night I lay my head: Underneath the arches…’ Any requests? Do you know ‘Let’s all go down the Strand!’? How about ‘Oh we do like to be beside the seaside!’? I love ‘Don’t dilly-dally on the way!’…. Look up the lyrics on your iphone. Here’s the landlady come to see who’s in her pub. ‘Where y’all from, dear?’

Bottoms up and down the hatch. Rick plays the final chord. We’re off, everyone, past that handsome art deco factory built by Godfrey Phillips Ltd, 1930s cigarette manufacturer, where the Victoria Palace of Varieties used to stand and where Bud Flanagan learned his craft. Rick whitters on about street art as you follow him down an alley gaudy as the Sixtine Chapel. Amazing! And all done with a spray-can. Got any Banksy? Such vibrant colours, darling! Rick does obeisance to Truman’s, once the largest brewery in the world, its ghostly redundant chimney leering over the postcode like a god. Now its halls are occupied by trendy cottage industries, fashionistas and street foodies. Here’s the curry mile! Rick negotiates a passage through the pavement hawkers offering discounts at this one’s balti house or that one’s tandoori oven.

Hallo, isn’t that the artists Gilbert and George, the East End’s most celebrated residents? Where? There. Those two gents in matching suit and tie, living sculptures, making their way to their gallery. They fell in love at art school in the sixties and have been together ever since. They made their name daubed with bronze make-up dancing robotically on a table to a recording of – Underneath the Arches!

And here’s the third pub with a joanna* by the gents. Rick bangs out the familiar intro: ‘It’s just a friendly jungle, it has an open door, a lovely spot, drop in why not, there’s always room for more! Underneath the arches…’ The pub is crowded but friendly. Have a seat – anywhere you like. Let’s sing the Cockney anthems. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner.’ ‘London Pride has been handed down to us …’ Is there a war on? Probably. Let’s do ‘White Cliffs of Dover’. Blimey is that the time? Better sign off. All together now – ‘We’ll meet again, dunno where, dunno when…’

Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night…

Rick Jones

*joanna – piano (Cockney rhyming slang)

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING

BIT OF ENGLISH UNDERSTATEMENT, THIS – RICK’S A LOT OF FUN