Books & Poetry

I was going to choose the Queen, but Craig Brown got there first. So I’ve chosen Peter Ackroyd instead. I thought ‘London: The Biography’ was fantastic and I quoted from it unashamedly for a sort of alternative bus tour of London I did some years ago, produced by a design and communications company called Jam for Channel 4. I love that first chapter where he talks about what London is made of and how the stone in Trafalgar Square is thousands of years old. I love his novels and his life of Thomas More too, though I must admit I haven’t read ‘Hawksmoor’ yet. Feature continues

I went to see him speak once, during the Clerkenwell Architecture Festival. He likes a drink, doesn’t he? He had a very large glass of red wine in his hand. And yet he’s so prolific! A prolific polymath! I don’t know how he does it.

He knows a lot about architecture. He has to – to write about London is to write about architecture, about buildings. At the festival he was really talking about his bit of London, which is Spitalfields. He had lots of interesting things to say about how it’s always been a hotbed of political intrigue and creativity. Now there are lots of charities based there, like Survival.

No matter how long you’ve lived in London, Ackroyd tells you something new about it. I live in Belgravia now, but I used to live in Clerkenwell, until last May. I’ve written books about lofts and the use of former industrial spaces as flats. I imagine he’s a bit sniffy about those sorts of conversions, but there’s a kind of sympathetic archaeology involved – a way of getting at the past through the present. I remember when I first met my husband about 15 years ago he lived in Shad Thames, and what was lovely was to walk though Shad Thames on a summer’s day. The air was heavy with spices that were being stored in the warehouses nearby. I realised a few years ago that that’s all gone now, but it was an amazing sensual insight while it lasted.

I did meet Ackroyd once, briefly. A quick introduction and handshake. There wasn’t time to chat – which is just as well as I’d have been incredibly intimidated by him. You know how you are when you meet your heroes? ‘Hello, I’m incredibly stupid and you’re incredibly clever. I’ll just shut up.’ Did he have any concept of what I did? No! No, no, no. I don’t think he’d have been in the least bit impressed.

I ran away to London when I was 17. Do I think people are nostalgic for the London they first encountered? Maybe. But I’m not! It was pretty grim, as you can imagine. I love London now – living in Belgravia, though, who wouldn’t? It’s so convenient, plus there’s no litter, no gangs of feral children tearing round.

Ackroyd has a parallel career as a television presenter and did a series for the BBC based on his London book. He’s an acquired taste on TV, rather like my dear friend Peter York. You think Ackroyd looks a bit startled? Yes. Actually, the last time I saw him he looked like he’d just fallen out of the French House and happened to find a camera pointing at him.

He worked at the Spectator during the 1970s. I like the Spectator, though less so now. It’s become a bit girly. It makes me think of the recent Fortnum & Mason revamp, which I don’t like at all. Culturally, Fortnum’s has gone to the dogs. It’s like any other shop now. You can only get the paper bags up to A4 size and then you’re into plastic. Not nice.

But I digress…

Peter Ackroyd
1949 Born in London on October 5.
1969 Graduates from Cambridge with a double first in English.
1973 Publishes first volume of poetry, 'London Lickpenny'.
1976 Publishes first novel, 'The Great Fire of London'.
1987 'Chatterton' is shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
2000 Publishes 'London: The Biography'.
2007 Scores another bestseller with 'Thames: Sacred River'.