Walking through Soho I am very pleased to spot the old facade of 'The Hobbit' - the newsagent on Wardour Street that closed a few years ago. I remember it with more modern signage, but I vastly prefer this version, which smacks of the 1970s, and has been hidden under more up-to-date layers for years. Only to come to light in this most recent renovation.
I'm a sucker for any of this sort of thing. I like ghost signs - painted on the sides of buildings back in the thirties, and so worn they're barely visible. Or when you're decorating and you find wallpaper strata, revealing decades of design choices. But I like shop fronts best - mainly because they are so well-preserved behind new frontages. I love that they've been sitting there, quietly dormant as years come and go outside.
Marks left behind and forgotten. In my old Muswell Hill flat, just outside the back door, carved deep in the brick work, were several sets of initials and the date 1963. Who put them there? Why? And were they wearing flowers in their hair? How many other people wondered these things, in the decades before I lived in the flat? Were they wearing loon pants? Satin trousers? Ra-ra skirts? Thinking about this gives me a strange feeling. Like cheese jaw.
Feel the urge to carve a message somewhere. Not just on the internet.
Off to find a penknife.
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