0012 Ego Takes The Stage

It’s a lovely old-fashioned tea-room in one of those rare up-town hotels that’s still a family concern; well-run, staff been there for years; prices reasonable. In fact the whole enterprise is civilised. Even media types for whom it stood in angry youth as all they affected to despise, rather like it now. It’s full though admirably leisurely every afternoon – all friendly chatter, silver-plate and fancy cakes. It stands for exactly what it is, now rare – a tea-room. Those who visit regularly wear the faintest sense of self-congratulation. There was one at every major London corner not so long ago. Yesterday, suddenly, an intrusion: onto the dais where a pianist plays from four to five of a weekend afternoon, a studenty-dressed chap launched himself with a rant, which seemed to take in everything from coffee and class to human rights. Conversation dwindled; out-of-towners up for supper and a show judged it perhaps as experimental afternoon theatre put on by an ill-advised management; (the tea-dances there, long gone) : some of the younger media types barracked him; the rest of us listened politely, before he was removed. Conversation picked up slowly, then became more stimulated; some of us remembered the bombings only just up the road. On the more senior tables, his performance was compared unfavourably with what we used to hear in ’68. More hot water was called for; it seemed to have made us thirstier. It was, altogether a very English occasion. A pity John Betjeman or Alan Bennett couldn’t have been there. When we left, the cloakroom attendants looked friendlier, as if the tips were a little larger today. And departing visitors smiled at one another. We had shared an occasion in central London, and lived to tell the tale at home.