“Let’s meet at The Queen’s Head,” my drinking buddy said. He referred NOT to the pub up Stockwell Road; rather, the new mural on the alley wall next the M&S. “Ten minutes.”
I agreed and wished him a belated Happy Birthday. “I brought you something delightful to eat from The Jolly Farmer’s,” which also referred not to a pub but an actual Jolly Farmer whose speciality produce business I consulted on back in the summer.
I turned the corner and spotted my pal on his bike at the other end, near the SW9. We headed toward one another and, as I crossed in front of the painting of Mrs. Z, he ducked his head down and said, “once more around the block,” as he rode past. I took a few more steps, looked back, and saw him getting a quick interview from some Police Community Liason Officers. I pulled a map of the area out of my pocket and studied it, like the confused, white-guy-down-here-visiting-just-after-work-from-the-University-of-Oxford that I could plausibly be.
Meeting again on the next street, he said the stop-and-search has been a pain in the ass for someone as well-known in the neighbourhood as himself. A kid got stabbed about a half mile south of here a week ago and that was the 5th stabbing murder in London in a week so the coppers have been especially thick, lately. We decided to meet up again next time I visited, “but, before we go…”.
“Yes?” he interrupted.
I wiggled a bottle of fungus at him. “Do you think you can get these someplace safe without another run-in with The Man?”
He smiled broadly and handed me a lump of something fragrant he had under his collar. “I’ll do my best, bruh. You be careful with that, too.” I pointed at my map and asked where Ferndale Road was with an earnest voice and a wide-eyed, tourist’s smile. Chuckling, he said, “maybe the cops are the LEAST of your worries.”
“Alrighty, then…you owe me a story once you’ve tried those on for size.” We went on our respective ways.
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Tucked away a few streets west of The Queen’s Head (the pub up Stockwell Road, not the Beyonce mural) you’ll find — as I did, thanks to my white-boy-lost-in-Brixton/cloak-of-invisibility map — the Marquis of Lorne. It is a gorgeous old boozer full of not-so-gorgeous old booze hounds (ah, but that’s not fair, as there is something spectacular in their solitary concentration on the glass before them).
The Marquis of Lorne is named for the kid that eventually became the 9th Duke of Argyll. When his father (the 8th DoA) ascended, he was made the MoL. He was married to Princess Louise, the namesake of another pub that I’ve had shortlisted for nearly ten years now and still have failed to visit (despite steering others to it on a regular basis). I see a trip to Holborn in my near future.
Endless British Pub Crawl (Part 3) 