London, The City
Thursday, 26 May 1955
At breakfast we always see many Middle Eastern and Asian men in British-style uniforms with red tabs on their lapels. This morning there are two Asians weighing luggage for their impending flights. The scales are in stones, not pounds. The landlady told them a stone was 20 pounds. I thought it was 14, so I butted in, stepped on the scales and got a reading somewhere around 11 stone so they were pleased that they could make the weight at the terminal. [Personal baggage had a weight limit in those days.]
Went alone to see a Mr. Eltham at the Society of Industrial Artists. He’s a very cheerful and friendly guy who tried for a half hour on the phone to connect me with some of the people I wanted to see. Mostly everyone was away for Whitsuntide holidays. [I can’t believe I thought I might get to see Ronald Searle, Edward Ardizzone, and other top dogs–what was I thinking?] Mr. Eltham arranged for me to meet Peter Kneebone, a young writer and cartoonist, at a pub in Davies Street for a drink at six. Ruth and I discover pubs and have a good lunch at the Albert, then take a circular tour of London. We see the spectacular work of Christopher Wren, who also did buildings in Boston. We are taken aback when we see the destruction of Cheapside and Soho, still plenty of rubble from the days of the Blitz. St. Mary Le Bow and others remain just a shell.
Walked through St. James Green past Buckingham Palace where we see guards stomping their heels every time they rear march. Not too impressive, mostly pimply face kids.
They don’t look anything like those 82nd Airborne troopers whom we saw every morning running in formation at Pine Camp [later Fort Drum, NY]. Had two pilsners at the Hog in the Pound looking for Peter Kneebone.
All the while he’s sitting behind us looking for us, but of course neither of us knows how to recognize the other. He finally approaches us as the obvious foreigners and we chat for some time about selling cartoons to magazines. Told him about the single page spread I did for True and the $200 I got for it. He said he only got £25 for a double-page spread in British Vogue. He’s off to Vienna and says we’ll really love France and the continent. Laments the price paid for cartoons in England not much more than it was 20 years ago. We walk and walk, looking for a place to have dinner. Settle on a greasy spoon-type Italian restaurant, where the waitress was from Florence and we all got to speak Italian. Peter had been an officer in the Royal Navy during WWII and had worked with the Italian Navy after their surrender to the Allies. Sad to say, Peter departed this life in 1990.
Comments