5 Gledhow
Gardens London SW7
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
I had just
arrived in London and fancied the Earls Court/South
Kensington area so I answered an advert for a
room to rent in Gledhow Gardens. The advert had
said 5.30 and it was now 6.00 pm. I was just
about to leave when the next door opened at
number 5 and a young man came out asking what I
was doing outside his door!
‘Room hunting.’ was my reply.
Surprisingly he had a bed sit on the first floor
and offered to show me immediately.
It was a converted bay window with a distressed
carpet, a single bed and a red and shocking pink
Casa Pupo rug.
I moved in the next day and discovered Peter, the
head tenant, was a porter at Bonhams. He would
buy things at auction and resell. Peter sold me a
large sepia framed Victorian print for £1
telling me he had paid 25p.
I peeled back the carpet to reveal old mosaic
tiles.
I had a fabulous floor and a sunny bay window
hived off from the large sweeping staircase by a
false wall.
My flat mates were posh Olivia Crabtree, of the
ginger beer family, Penny who shortly was getting
married to a resident of Hong Kong to be replaced
by journalist Dutch Eliane who had holes in her
sweater.
I loved the area. It was close to the Paris
Pullman cinema and the famous coffeehouse ‘The
Troubadour’ where jazz was played and was a
cultural hub. The coffee I recall was dreadful
but the atmosphere with farm equipment hanging
from the ceiling was very bohemian. Needless to
say I was a regular. I even met my boyfriend
Anglo-French Philippe Amos.
I lived at there for about a year. Eliane, who
had become my friend, surprised me by inviting me
to her wedding in The Hague. She was marrying an
American diplomat and was to be given away by her
father, the Managing Director of Shell no less.
So she wasn’t the poor girl with holes in
her sweater but a rich girl who was having a gap
year in London and slumming it!
The wedding in The Hague was at their country
estate. All the young men at the wedding had been
educated at Harrow and spoke impeccable English.
I stayed with the Dutch Ambassador of the
Antilles and his wife who loaned me a necklace
that I wore across my forehead. I had bought a
brown and pink floral sari in Park Lane for the
occasion. I had been taught how to wear it by an
Indian colleague at Global where I worked.
Her friends whisked me off to Amsterdam to stay
for the weekend. I discovered it was the flat of
the son of the owner of Heineken beer.
On the way back at Schiphol airport the flight
was delayed and I got picked up by a Jewish
industrialist, Mario Cohen from Buenos Aires. We
had lunch together and he gave me his card in BA
and told me to look him up should I come to BA. I
did!
Written
in Nightingale 16/11/24
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