Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin
strolling round Soho in 1977
I.
There are several reasons why I love this photo.
For one thing, it features two of my favourite people: Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg; the English rose and French homme de génie, in London for the UK opening of Je t'aime moi non plus (1976), a film written, directed, and scored by the latter and starring the former as a love-starved, rather vulnerable and androgynous-looking young woman called Johnny [1].
And, for another, it affords us a glimpse of a lost world: for not only are Birkin and Gainsbourg now no longer with us, but the Soho they stroll through has also disappeared (or been significantly transformed by gentrification).
II.
Taken on Broadwick Street in the spring of 1977, at the north end of Berwick Street Market, where Jane has been buying the apples she carries in her new straw basket, one can see the Blue Posts pub in the background, next to the ladies dress shop, Hilda.
The former is still there, nearly fifty years later - just as it was there fifty years earlier - styling itself now as a proper London boozer, complete with a tiled exterior, carpeted floor, and banquette seats. Smokers are now legally required to stand outside, but dogs are more than welcome inside [2].
The latter, however, is sadly not still there - and I'm guessing the little Jewish woman who owned and gave her name to the shop is also dead and buried (though I'd be pleased to discover otherwise).
Back in the day, Berwick Street was as much known for its dress makers, tailors and fabric shops as it was for its fresh fruit and veg market and I was once told that many of the local prostitutes would buy their undergarments from Hilda, or purchase items for clients who liked to experiment with transvestism (and as many of Hilda's pieces were one-offs they always looked special) [3].
III.
I have a personal reason to remember Hilda, because, a decade or so after this photo was taken, I
began working in the first floor rooms she rented out and which served
as the office of Red Moon; a tiny business established by an old hippie
called Bob Moon, selling all manner of rock and pop merchandising (from
badges, patches, and belt buckles, to postcards, calendars, and
T-shirts).
Readers might also be interested to know that on the second floor, worked an old Hungarian seamstress who used to
make shirts for various stars of film and TV at that time, such as the
Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane.
And next door to Hilda's - although unfortunately not captured on the photo reproduced here - was a
traditional fish 'n' chip shop above which was (an equally traditional)
walk-up, where a young model called Monica would entertain gentlemen
callers [3].
I'm not sure these days gone by can best be described as happy, but Gainsbourg was right, I think, to describe the London he knew and loved at this time as the most exotic city on earth.
Notes
[1] The film is a sexually explicit story of a love triangle involving Birkin's character and two gay garbage truck drivers, Krassky and Padovan (played by Joe Dallesandro and Hugues Quester respectively). Released in France in March 1976, the film received poor reviews and was branded by some critics as
immoral. Having said that, François Truffaut - one of the founders of the cinematic French New Wave - praised the movie.
Readers who wish to know more might be interested in a text by Jack Sargeant, the British writer who specialises in cult, underground, and/or independent films, entitled 'Hot, Hard Cocks and Tight, Tight Unlubricated Assholes: Transgression, Sexual Ambiguity and "Perverse" Pleasures in Serge Gainsbourg's Je t’aime moi non plus', in Senses of Cinema, Issue 30 (February, 2004): click here.
[2] The Blue Posts, 22, Berwick Street, Soho, London W1: visit their website by clicking here.
[3] A Soho walk-up is a small studio flat used by a female sex worker for the purposes of prostitution. The flats, located on the upper floors of buildings above shops and other businesses, are accessed by a staircase from a door on the street. No appointment is necessary (i.e., they operate on a first served first come basis).
Walk-ups, which were characteristic of the sex industry in Soho in the 1960s, '70s, and 80's, have since rapidly disappeared like so much else in the 21st-century.
Bonus: click here to watch the official trailer to a restored and re-released (2019) version of Gainsbourg's film Je t'aime moi non plus.
