Still Life With Matches: Fanny's Bistro

Although I have an extreme reluctance to throw anything away, it is still surprising that this book of matches has survived over 45 years. I suspect that none of the matches is capable of ignition.

It dates back to grammar school days and marks what I think was my first ever excursion to London. A decade or so later I was to have a job in the West End in a building annexed to Broadcasting House and was used to regularly seeing famous faces, but at the time the mere possibility of seeing someone who was on television was quite exciting. Fanny was Fanny Cradock, still the world's most fearsome TV chef. Terrifying and formidable as she could be, she was a mere pussycat compared to some of the dragons I had been taught by at junior school and grammar school.

One exception to this was Miss Walsh, the art teacher who had organized this railway trip to London as a day off school for me and a handful of school friends from the fifth or sixth form, I forget exactly which, but it must have been around 1964 or 1965. Its purpose was to visit some of the many modern art galleries that flourished around W.1 and it must have been quite an eye opener to me as I went on to art school and art college. I do remember some of the galleries and the pop art and kinetic art and other discoveries made that day, and I think we may also have visited the Tate Gallery, later to become a favourite haunt.

We had lunch at Fanny's Bistro, and that was a new concept to me. There was nothing like it in Sutton Coldfield, where we lived, and it seemed terribly metropolitan and sophisticated, but no, we did not actually see Fanny Cradock.

L.
8.4.2011

Consecutive Blip #373 (#372 has yet to be posted as I am working my way through 164 images taken on 6.4.2011 in a variety of locations and have also yet to choose the single image to summarize it all. It's sunny, and I'm going to play outside.)

Still Life Series

One Year Ago: Blossom (a rather poor picture)