outside can reach in and get their drinks.
The York Minster was not the only French bar in Soho. The Caves de France, (pronounced in the French manner) was opened just
after the war at 39 Dean Street by the Philippe family,
mère, père et fils
. It was on two floors, entered by a dark doorway guarded by two doormen who queried whether you were a member but never seemed
to bother much if you were not. On the ground floor was a dark low-ceilinged smoke-filled room featuring an enormously long,
American-style, high bar dimly illuminated by a string of coloured lights hanging above. Across from the bar was a row of
battered seats and some small plastic-topped drinks tables surrounded by circles of cigarette ash and dog ends. On each table
stood a jar of highly salted gherkins, designed to make the customers even thirstier. The room was decorated with wine barrels
and the walls featured some of the worst painting ever seen in Soho: semi-surrealist works by a monocled old fraud called
‘Baron von Schine’, who presided over them, night and day, frequently irritating the bartender by rearranging them. No-one
ever saw him make a sale even though a notice gave a rather suspect list of galleries in which he had exhibited.
A short flight of steps led to a small basement bar but it was the ground floor that was favoured by the Sohoites. It was
packed with regulars during the afternoon: Nina Hamnett often managed to get this far, Caitlin Thomas, usually looking for
her husband, the Roberts Colquhoun and MacBryde, the impecunious poet Paul Potts, the writers Stephen Fothergill and Gerald
Hamilton, and later Dan Farson. Julian Maclaren-Ross, after he had been banned from the Wheatsheaf, had a habitual position
at the far end of the bar beneath a particularly repellent painting of a young nymphet staring in awe at a giant snowman sitting
on a rock and brandishing a red furled umbrella. Though the owners took turns to serve behind the bar, the regular barman
was Secundo Carnera, the younger brother of Primo Carnera, the heavyweight boxer; their mother had decided on the expedient
of numbering her sons rather than finding names for them. Elaine Dundy described it in
The Old Man and Me
as ‘a sort of coal hole in the heart of Soho that is open every afternoon, a dead-ended subterranean tunnel… an atmosphere
almost solid with failure’. 14
By about 5.30, the bar had thinned out, as customers headed to other pubs and the Caves prepared itself for a more genteel
evening clientele. A palm court trio, incongruous in evening dress, mounted the bandstand and played pre-war dance numbers,
occasionally joined by Mme Hortense, theowners’ middle-aged daughter, who attempted to add class to the proceedings by singing light opera. The photographer John
Deakin often acted as an impromptu MC for these events, twirling imaginary moustaches and filling his introduction with malicious
double-entendres: ‘And now,’ followed by a roll on the drums, ‘let me present Mademoiselle Hortense, the girl…’ and he paused,
melodramatically and looked her up and down with increasing incredulity, ‘with the most incomparable voice in the world. What
you’ve done to deserve this I really don’t know.’ As she began fluttering her eyelashes and running up and down a few scales,
Deakin bowed to the audience and beat a hasty retreat. 15
Most people seemed to agree with George Melly’s description of John Deakin as ‘a vicious little drunk of such inventive malice
and implacable bitchiness that it’s surprising he didn’t choke on his own venom’; the kind of remark made by Deakin himself
on a daily basis. He is now known, not for his rudeness and acerbic personality, but for his photographs. He was a superb
portrait photographer but, unfortunately for posterity, he was careless with both prints and negatives and many have been
lost while others exist only in a folded or bent print or ripped and
The York Minster was not the only French bar in Soho. The Caves de France, (pronounced in the French manner) was opened just
after the war at 39 Dean Street by the Philippe family,
mère, père et fils
. It was on two floors, entered by a dark doorway guarded by two doormen who queried whether you were a member but never seemed
to bother much if you were not. On the ground floor was a dark low-ceilinged smoke-filled room featuring an enormously long,
American-style, high bar dimly illuminated by a string of coloured lights hanging above. Across from the bar was a row of
battered seats and some small plastic-topped drinks tables surrounded by circles of cigarette ash and dog ends. On each table
stood a jar of highly salted gherkins, designed to make the customers even thirstier. The room was decorated with wine barrels
and the walls featured some of the worst painting ever seen in Soho: semi-surrealist works by a monocled old fraud called
‘Baron von Schine’, who presided over them, night and day, frequently irritating the bartender by rearranging them. No-one
ever saw him make a sale even though a notice gave a rather suspect list of galleries in which he had exhibited.
A short flight of steps led to a small basement bar but it was the ground floor that was favoured by the Sohoites. It was
packed with regulars during the afternoon: Nina Hamnett often managed to get this far, Caitlin Thomas, usually looking for
her husband, the Roberts Colquhoun and MacBryde, the impecunious poet Paul Potts, the writers Stephen Fothergill and Gerald
Hamilton, and later Dan Farson. Julian Maclaren-Ross, after he had been banned from the Wheatsheaf, had a habitual position
at the far end of the bar beneath a particularly repellent painting of a young nymphet staring in awe at a giant snowman sitting
on a rock and brandishing a red furled umbrella. Though the owners took turns to serve behind the bar, the regular barman
was Secundo Carnera, the younger brother of Primo Carnera, the heavyweight boxer; their mother had decided on the expedient
of numbering her sons rather than finding names for them. Elaine Dundy described it in
The Old Man and Me
as ‘a sort of coal hole in the heart of Soho that is open every afternoon, a dead-ended subterranean tunnel… an atmosphere
almost solid with failure’. 14
By about 5.30, the bar had thinned out, as customers headed to other pubs and the Caves prepared itself for a more genteel
evening clientele. A palm court trio, incongruous in evening dress, mounted the bandstand and played pre-war dance numbers,
occasionally joined by Mme Hortense, theowners’ middle-aged daughter, who attempted to add class to the proceedings by singing light opera. The photographer John
Deakin often acted as an impromptu MC for these events, twirling imaginary moustaches and filling his introduction with malicious
double-entendres: ‘And now,’ followed by a roll on the drums, ‘let me present Mademoiselle Hortense, the girl…’ and he paused,
melodramatically and looked her up and down with increasing incredulity, ‘with the most incomparable voice in the world. What
you’ve done to deserve this I really don’t know.’ As she began fluttering her eyelashes and running up and down a few scales,
Deakin bowed to the audience and beat a hasty retreat. 15
Most people seemed to agree with George Melly’s description of John Deakin as ‘a vicious little drunk of such inventive malice
and implacable bitchiness that it’s surprising he didn’t choke on his own venom’; the kind of remark made by Deakin himself
on a daily basis. He is now known, not for his rudeness and acerbic personality, but for his photographs. He was a superb
portrait photographer but, unfortunately for posterity, he was careless with both prints and negatives and many have been
lost while others exist only in a folded or bent print or ripped and
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