David Parkin takes a stroll down memory lane in London

I SPENT a couple of days in London at the start of the week and unlike my recent trips, the weather wasn’t grey and wet.

The sun shone like it supposed to in spring and I felt distinctly over-dressed in flannel trousers, jacket, V-neck jumper and wool tie.

Mind you, if I choose to dress for a trip to our capital city like I’m in a cameo role in the Christmas special of All Creatures Great and Small, I probably deserve all I get.

The weather was so pleasant that I walked around London rather than jumping on the tube.

The hotel I was staying in was in Victoria on Vauxhall Bridge Road and from my bedroom I could look out at the rooftops of Pimlico and the striking Westminster Cathedral, built of brick in a neo-Byzantine style (according to Wikipedia).

I realised that the hotel was situated almost exactly opposite the office where I was based when I lived and worked in London in the late 1990s.

The Press Association building at 292 Vauxhall Bridge Road seemed very modern and sophisticated at the time.

It has since been knocked down and replaced with a glass-fronted hotel while the kiosk where I stopped for my morning coffee and toast (I didn’t arrive at work until 10am because I was working as the London Editor for a morning newspaper, the Cardiff-based Western Mail) is now a kebab shop.

From the hotel I walked across Victoria and traversed Buckingham Palace, thronged with pre-Covid numbers of tourists.

As the Welsh national newspaper’s ‘man in London’ I used to get some interesting and exciting invitations and one was to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

I didn’t know anyone and didn’t have a clue why any any of the guests there had been invited and so I ended up wandering around the gardens of the monarch’s London residence.

With sunglasses on and my brick-like mobile phone bulging in the inside breast pocket of my suit, I imagined I looked like a member of the security team guarding the late Queen.

On reflection, what I actually looked like was a rather callow journalist in an ill-fitting suit with no one to talk to.

From Buck House I strolled through the verdant sun-dappled Green Park towards St James’s.

Where else in the world can you see a trooper in scarlet tunic and bearskin walking home from work?

My favourite street in London is Jermyn Street and it was bustling with activity with hedge fund managers sipping drinks at pavement restaurants and suited young men congregating for beers on the pavement of pubs on the streets running off it.

Every smartly-dressed individual who walked by looked like they had a story to tell and I was torn between people-watching and seeking inspiration from the windows of the menswear shops that line Jermyn Street like elegant dominoes.

Then I strolled past the statue of Beau Brummel, seen as the patron saint of well dressed men, up Princes Arcade and into the courtyard of the Royal Academy where I saw the arresting and fascinating sculpture in the photograph above.

It is called The First Supper and was created last year by Tavares Strachan.

Crafted in bronze, black patina and gold leaf, the sculpture “celebrates the act of sharing a meal” and features 12 historically significant activists, writers, musicians, explorers and political leaders from the continent of Africa and its diasporas including Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie as well as the sculptor himself.

It was a nice bit of culture interspersed into my aimless wanderings trying to get inspiration for a gift for my wife’s birthday next week.

OK, I accept, looking in the windows of the boutiques on Jermyn Street and Savile Row probably didn’t provide any inspirational ideas.

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THE following morning I was up with the lark to head to Farringdon for a breakfast event featuring three speakers who are experts in AI.

That’s short for artificial intelligence, not what my Mum’s friend Di first thought it meant - artificial insemination.

That gave us all a laugh when she told us, but probably not Di’s daughter, who heads up generative AI for a major UK corporate.

The event was held in the Butchers’ Hall livery company near Smithfield Market and I immediately started looking for a bust of celebrated Yorkshire butcher David Lishman.

Well, if Jermyn Street’s got Beau Brummel, the Butchers’ Hall should have Ilkley’s finest master of meat.

My guest at the event was Claire Holt, who I’ve spent time working with at events this year and who has embraced AI with a zeal I definitely can’t match.

I was hoping she would be able to explain to me what the speakers were on about.

It was good to hear that her late father, the award-winning Harrogate seafood supplier Chris Ramus, was also a fan of David Lishman.

Perhaps we should crowd fund a bust of David carrying a platter of his finest sausages and pies.

:::

I READ recently that Peter Banks, the long-serving managing director of Rudding Park Hotel, has “retired”.

I put the word in quote marks because knowing Peter, he might have stepped down from the role running the award-winning Harrogate hotel, but he won’t pack work in completely.

I bet he’ll be in demand as a consultant as he’s a respected figure in the hospitality industry.

I first met him years ago when we played together in a Leeds Chamber of Commerce golf day at Sandmoor Golf Club.

He was entertaining and forthright with his opinions and he later proved to be a superb panellist when I ran an event for financial recruitment company Headstar on the business of leisure and hospitality.

Peter was happy to tackle the issues that his industry wrestles with - recruitment, skills and the lack of a work ethic in some young people today.

I also have Peter to thank for saving me from potentially one of the most embarrassing moments of my career.

When I was at TheBusinessDesk.com we were media partner for the annual charity Firecracker Ball held at Rudding Park Hotel.

I invited some key clients and contacts on our table and as I sat looking at the assembled movers and shakers around the table I had a text from a couple who were running late.

It was then that I realised I had invited 10 guests on the table but hadn’t included my self and my guest.

I’d got 12 people on a table of 10!

I could feel cold sweat running down my back under my dinner jacket.

I made my way from our table at the far end of the marquee to the entrance where I saw Peter Banks standing.

I sheepishly explained my predicament: I had the head of one of the biggest accountancy firms in Yorkshire and his wife arriving soon with nowhere to sit.

Peter nodded calmly, told me not to worry and said he would sort things out.

By the time I got back to my table, there were two extra chairs and two table settings neatly laid out like they had been there all evening.

I had Peter to thank for saving me from humiliation.

And I committed to learning to count to 10 in future.

Have a great weekend.

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