I’ve never before begun a blog post with a photograph. But there’s a first for everything in life…and this photo encapsulates everything I’m feeling currently about lockdown - bewilderment, sadness, emptiness and - above all - a strange sense of disbelief.
Old Compton Street, in London’s Soho district was - before Corona - one of the liveliest parts of central London.
I’ve been coming here since I was knee high - my father grew up here, ran his family business here, his brother and sister have spent their lives here (and happily so). Many a happy school holiday I spent here, roaming the streets with him and my sisters.
And Old Compton Street is one of my favourite streets in the entire area.
It’s the street in which I ate cheap dinners at the Pollo Bar with university friends, when we had lots of time but no money.
It’s the place where I hung out with my first boyfriend. devouring cream cakes and coffee at the Patisserie Valerie, on rainy winter afternoons.
Old Compton Street runs through the heart of Soho, where here I drank Long Island Iced Teas with gay pals on late nights, in trashy bars where you could dance to disco and look at pretty boys.
Soho is where I’ve dined with the love of my life at the Dean Street Townhouse, drunk thermo-nuclear daqaris at the Blind Pig Speakeasy and sat, watching the world go by, with a frothy cappuccino at Dean Street’s Bar Italia.
Soho has an energy and a vibe like nowhere else in this city. I could walk its streets for hours, lost in thought, and feel content. It’s the place I come to where I’m down and need a quick ‘pick me up’ because it always cheers my soul. It’s the neighbourhood that - in many ways - keeps me in love with London, because of its small, independent stores, odd collection of locals, comfortable gay vibe and close proximity to the British Museum and National Gallery (two of my favourite places to wile away an afternoon).
Soho is now silent.
Its streets are practically deserted. A myriad of cafes, restaurants and bars are shuttered and, in many cases, boarded up giving off an air of abandonment.
Much like Oxford Street, Carnaby Street and Regent Street, it has an forlorn air to it. It’s utterly deserted - the odd cyclist, the woman walking her dog, the guy with the camera, taking the obligatory ‘lockdown’ photos…I can count them on one hand as I walk along.
I am mesmerised . I hear birds chirping. Two or three lone voices from afar. The whir of the wheels as a cyclist bikes by. In a neighbourhood where you often can’t hear yourself think, this in itself is quite astonishing.
I wander from one street to the next, gazing at the closed shutters and ‘Sorry - due to Covid 19 we have had to close” signs. At the moment, I’m hearing much about how wonderful it is to be able to experience silence in London - that Corona has given us clean air, quiet moments, the peace to think.
But at this very moment I want none of these things. I want voices, laughter, car honking, motorbike revving…I want espresso and pizza and a cocktail in Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. I want to meander the streets late at night and watch life unfolding for the thousands of people who walk its pavements.
And this I cannot have.
Where has my Soho gone? And will it ever return?