London Calling

AFTER THE IRA ended its war, I watched the Last Night Of The Proms, that great musical celebration of all things British past and present. Well, more past than present, since the Empire is gone.

This time around, I felt completely different. Before the war, I watched it as an inferior, despite my protestations otherwise. I was a citizen of Northern Ireland, subject to them, and within the North was a second-class citizen, to whom they were indifferent. During the war, I was watching the enemy, though that sense of admiration was there for the better qualities of the old adversary. When the war ended I was watching, with renewed curiosity, and warmth, an old neighbour with whom I am now on relatively civil and equal terms.

The music and songs of the Proms, like Britain or no, are marvellous. It came rolling out of the television screen, pompous, conceited, superior, splendid, redolent of greatness. It would be a dull heart that did not resonate to the sounds of Empire: ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Jerusalem’, ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’. I loved every one of them and sang along.

The thing is, you’d miss it – the opportunity to go over there and spread your wings a bit. I had hardly set foot in London, decades ago, than I went straight round to the Royal Albert Hall, queued, paid my few shillings and sat my bum on the red plush seats in the Gods. It was grand beyond the imagination. The National Concert Hall in Dublin is a shack by comparison.

That does not matter – render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and they come rushing over to this island when they want to enjoy rock and roll, or a drink in civilised company, or a breath of fresh air under the high skies where the grass is green and the walls are hand-cut from stone. The one thing they can’t do over here, which we can do over there, is escape from it all. You can’t run away to Athlone to start a whole new life. You can run and hide and have a good time in London. Long may that tradition continue. Up Britain!

YOUTHFUL IMPRESSION

I’ve had lovely times there and benefited much from being reared under the British system in Northern Ireland (give or take a few progroms, thousands of deaths and life under an armed regime that depended for its existence on repressive emergency powers that were the envy of those who maintained apartheid in South Africa.) This columnist’s health and education are the envy of Southern-reared hacks, thanks to the British welfare state in which I grew up.

It was, and will be again – now that we’re no longer under suspicion – lovely to go to England once more. I’ll remember till I die the first sight of London, as the plane came in, and the city’s lights spread below like a vast amber necklace. That sight is so commonplace now, in the age of universal jet travel, that one must reach for futuristic comparisons to recapture the wonder of it. Do you remember the space machine, lights flashing, landing on earth in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001? That’s how it felt to land in London in 1961.

After a night spent with the statutory Irish relative, I secured within 24 hours a bed-sitter in Earl’s Court and a job in the city centre, in Liberty’s, off Piccadilly Circus, which is the equivalent of Brown Thomas, only twenty times as big. They used to pay us luncheon vouchers as well as wages. Bread with jam on it, was my youthful impression of this new-found wealth . . .

The very first place I visited was Foyle’s bookstore, in The Strand I think it was, to spend a token won at school. Then followed enchanting nights at the theatre, concert halls and dives in Soho. London is one of the biggest, more intimate, enchanting cities in the world. The streets were smoky and full of excitement. I used to ride round in the Tube, underground, gazing at the names of the stations, real now, that were once just stops on the Monopoly board.

It’s all before me once more, without fear, resentment, angst or bitterness, and closer than ever before, with cheap travel on boats, buses and planes. Dull would she be of soul who could pass by such majesty. (The Cockneys are charming too and the greasy-spoon cafés are like none other on earth.) London, here I come again.