Villiers Street

If you’re not a Londoner then you need to know this connects the Strand with Northumberland Avenue via Embankment Place. If you want a quiz question then answer this: which of those is not to be found on a monopoly board? 

My personal connections with this area are many and various. My father was often to be found in smoke filled rooms at the nearby Charing Cross Hotel, stuck in all night negotiating sessions as a trade unionist in the 1970s. He occasionally used the betting shop in Villiers street and had a good eye for the occasional winner. It was whilst walking through Embankment Place that TSM and I first heard of the shocking death of John Smith in 1994. This allowed Tony Blair to become Labour leader and three years later, prime minister. The well known Gordon’s Wine Bar is on the corner with Watergate Place and has been serving drinks there since 1890. It is in the basement of Kipling House where Rudyard Kipling lived and wrote whilst looking out over the Thames.

We crossed Trafalgar Square to visit the Garrick Theatre where we were seeing the stage play adapted from Maggie O’Farrel’s Hamnet. This was first class, in fact TSM even cried it was that emotionally powerful. Excellent staging and acting and a very good adaptation by Lolita Chakrabati. 

Before all this we had collected our Christmas food from M&S and paid a visit to The Yoga Mama who had TSM’s brother down to lunch. Good to catch up.

Good day.