Memories of Covent Garden

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32847, 22 February 1972, Page 7

Memories of Covent Garden

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KAY CHILVERS)

The window of my I bedroom looked down ion to a dark alley , but I ihad only just arrived in London and had no idea that I was occupying a box seat for the midinight performance of the Covent Garden scene. I was too excited to sleep and as the night wore on I heard the alley below slowly come to life.

Trucks began lo roar along the deserted narrow streets at the back of the Strand, and articulators from all over Europe began rolling into the most famous marketplace in the world. During the early hours of morning, men began to i hurry about with barrow . loads of fruit and vegetables. 'Trucks from Spain, the I Netherlands, Germany, and ' France brought produce harvested a few hours before I in foreign lands, and still in

perfect condition when it arrived here in the cold, foggy air of a London winter morning. Not all the transport was modern. There were tiny horses here and there, drawing up with little cartloads of tomatoes from some garden right here in England, but there seemed to be a place for everyone down in the alley. FULL-GROWN ELEPHANT A few “down and outs,” who had been huddled up against the warm-air vents from the hotel basement, came out of a side street and picked up a piece of fallen fruit from one of the barrows. Cockney voices shouted cheerful insults. Men stood warming their hands by glowing braziers, or sipped a mug of tea with gloved fingers. A little Persian cat, which lives in a flower shop at the corner, sat gently waiting for whatever interesting items of food might come her way. The usual collection of dogs of all shapes and sizes ran about busily inspecting the gutters. The whole cross-section of life in this alley is something to marvel at. The famous ballroom the Lyceum, backs on to it — not many hours before, it had been the scene of some of the finest ballroom dancing in the world. But now, right at the back door, there was a fullgrown elephant standing in. a tall green van eating cabbage leaves which someone fed it through a gap in the door. And a few hours before, Ginger Rogers had passed by, on her way home from the nightly performance of “Marne.” 8.8. C. television trucks frequently parked in this alley to film the “Come Dancing” series, and only a few yards away are the Collosseum and Sadlers Wells. The Duke of Edinburgh was here not long afterwards to help the Covent Garden cockneys celebrate the jubilee of this market place. Everything happens here. Art and affluence are mixed up nightly with homeless beggars and the nuns who give them soup and bread every morning at 1 a.m. A LONDON SMELL Engineers on night shift in the basement of the Strand Palace Hotel are keeping the central heating going. It warms not only the hotel guests in their snug beds but also these nameless people who lean gratefully against the outflow of hot air in the dingy back street.

I could not overcome the 1 temptation to get dressed,, Jand go down to see morej closely what was happening! this first night—and so I watched the banks of flowers being built just inside the huge entrance which they: call the Covered Way. The smell of hyacinths and lily-of-the-valley, mixed with the smells of fruit and vegetables, wafted through the damp, misty air creating a special aroma—a London smell. The English are often taxed with being unable to speak to anyone without formal introduction, but th.is is certainly not the case in Covent Garden. My appearance brought many friendly greetings, and much curiosity as to what I was doing there at 3 a.m. on a winter morning. 1 “Ah, come on now, ducks,” said a genial man with a face like Charles Laughton. “You’re not one of us with a tan like that. Where’re you: from now?” “Ere y’are, luv,” said another. “Take this bunch of violets with you for a keepsake.” When I said I was from New Zealand, it seemed that every man there had a brother or an uncle “out there.” They were all sure I would have met their relative because “New Zealand is only a tiny place.” SO CHEERFUL I went back to the hotel eventually, but made friends on the way with a cynical little piebald pony which had brought a cart of tomatoes to the market. He looked a little fed-up with life until someone fed him a bag of toffees, which he somehow managed to chew without getting them lodged in his teeth. I could not help wondering how it was that these Covent Garden men were all so cheerful, and full of jokes and how they seemed to have all the time in the world to be kind and thoughtful to one another, to the piebald pony, and even to me at that dismal hour. Perhaps there is something in the handling of produce which keeps people sane, healthy, and gay. When I woke up later in the day, the alley was full of smart people off to business, not stopping to smile or talk to anyone. The little Persian cat was asleep under a vase of flowers in the shop window at the corner. The elephant had gone. Ginger Rogers

would, no doubt, still be sleeping. The reality of daylight had dispersed the magic. But it seemed as if the true reality was in the nightly performance in the alley, and that daytime was only a dream.