This newspaper sometimes gets accused of London bias and the implication of the Observer Magazine cover story of 13 May 1990 (‘Neighbours: when the famous live next door’) is that no one outside of London has a famous neighbour. ‘Some residents of the capital’s plushest postcodes give the lowdown on their highbrow neighbours.’ It’s all a little bit Hello! magazine.
First, Lady Wynne-Jones, Chelsea Embankment resident (who was ‘cut off by her family when she joined the Labour party’) talks about being at odds with her neighbours, and admits: ‘I’ve always been a nuisance, but you can’t get anything done unless you are’, likening herself to other Chelsea ‘rebels with a social cause’ Sylvia Pankhurst, George Eliot and Lloyd George.
Within a week of moving in, she was fighting. ‘John Betjeman started me off – they were going to build skyscrapers all around Wren’s Royal Hospital. We won the battle and, as honorary secretary to the Friends of Chelsea, I have campaigned ever since.’
‘I know of the famous names, but they are not of my world,’ she says, adding that ‘Ingrid Channon and I fox hunted together when we both lived in Hampshire as young girls.’ Perhaps to dish some dirt, she reveals: ‘I have seen [Ingrid’s husband] Paul Channon’s legs when he plays tennis – they are thick and ugly.’
Nicholas Monson writes about Fentiman Road in Vauxhall (‘the street in south London’ apparently), and recounts the tale of how a barmaid at the Fentiman Arms gave the former chancellor Geoffrey Howe ‘an ear-bashing when he didn’t have enough cash to pay for his drinks’.
And even one of the most famous Manchester United players ever to have lived is claimed for the capital. ‘Oakley Street, Chelsea has a quixotic mix of folk including former Chelsea star George Best.’ Chelsea star? They wish.
