A Forgotten Novel From The Era Of The Bright Young Things
Published By The Fortune Press
A BOOK REVIEW BY WILIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT
“Love is an indecent sport”
“ Woman is the Huntress, and Man the Quarry”
Book Title : Shepherd Market by Leslie Roberts
Shepherd Market : Late 1930s
“ Shepherd Market” -the title of the book and its setting- is an enclave between London’s Piccadilly and Curzon Street once known as being a part of the early to- mid 20th century’s extraordinary low-life corner of Mayfair hosting a smattering of cheap lodgings in a space inhabited by criminals, spivs, prostitutes and theatrical bohemians.
The book was banned as “Indecent” in Ireland, but praised by several British and overseas critics as a first novel by a new author, a Nottinghamshire-London journalist, Leslie Roberts.
The Author’s style is neat, humorous (often campy), but he offers a good mix of maverick characters and wit on par with Evelyn Waugh’s “Vile Bodies” and the mad hatters in Nancy Mitford’s romp “ In The Pursuit of Love”. It’s an easy read and a novel overlooked featuring a few lost lambs of both the black and white wool type in the pre –WW2 London Town and in the aftermath of the extravagances of the era of the Bright Young People Brigade.
A rollicking, riotous, ridiculous tale, quick paced throughout in a story about a young man, Paul Onion who has ambitions to escape municipal mediocrity and establish a name for himself as a writer and a poet.
Apparently fatherless, Paul’s mother, a self-made woman, is his inspiration, as indeed is the Author’s mother is his own spark, with a book dedication
“For Her Pluck and Understanding And Naughty Sense of Humour”
The fictional Paul’s mother’s death frees up the cantankerous youth from a likely life to come in chains and dead end jobs in the dreary coalpolis of Maidensmeadow, this being somewhere in the Midlands.
The early part of the book describes the famous Nottingham Goose Fair, a target for quaint description by J B Priestley as “ a crushing mass of gaping and sweating humanity".
Paul Onion is glad to escape this hell hole. A bright lad, handsome, hugely opinionated, famed for winning a high school scholarship; he wont be humoured or dictated to or be bogged down by lesser mortals and realises his only chance of progressing to any height is to move away from his barren roots and in so doing changes his surname to the more romantic “ Lovelace” out of affection for a Cavalier poet.
Paul is soon catapulted into the wicked streets of London where he has to grow up fast and furious and stays just well enough off from the proceeds of his mother estate to survive all kinds of goodies, baddies, charlatans and creeps in a roll out of some dangerous power games, human and inhuman.
There’s a swirl of irritation and even sadness as Paul often proves an irksome prude, nervous of sex, a stubborn fellow, but often more canny than naive, and frequently thankless when matched in a strange coupling cum-affair with a gloriously well written character, an actress- dancer, a kept woman, a fearless soul, constantly citing humorous aphorisms in much the same style as movie legand Mae West. She is named Desiree, and occupies one of the flats at Mayfair Mews in Shepherd Market, with a maid and a sweet little dog called “ Pompey the Little”.
This is hardly a fine romance but they are locked together by fate. Yet, Paul insists from the word go of sleeping at a nearby hotel and Desiree merely dubs him her protege, but they are clearly matched by the stars, bounce well off each other and their love-hate topsy-turvy flings and adventures occupy most of the rest of the storyline.
There is a galaxy of supporting characters, mainly from Desiree’s madcap stable of stage struck friends and plenty of fiends too, including her Sugar Daddy, Sessel Cloud, a rich, witty playwright “who breeds decadent notions” and “ who is seldom sane by daylight”. Sylvia Moon a blonde “whose eye brows were arched in perpetual perplexity” who is engaged to Eric “ Lousy” Lancaster, a friend of Sessel Cloud “who keeps love birds and writes”. There’s also Lesbia Capricorn ( as the name suggests of curious sexual tastes /gender, an exotic dancer, the star of a show called “ London Lies”, written by Sessel. The “Vile cigar smoking Capricorn” is always on the “whore path”.
Some of these people have charm, some are entirely odious, all are in constant chaos but they do amuse and keep the humour and perversions flowing with dramas and tears aplenty.
Look out for Denise Villers “God What Legs! Like a War Horse”, for a male ballet star named Stallion who danced for the Csar of Russia, and Earl Gay of Rape Royal in Sussex “a facetious old troll.”
There’s a celebration of Old London past decades, of the famous Lyons Corner House and nights spent at the “ Curse of Ten” “ a cellar masquerading as a palace, the most expensive rendezvous in Clarage’s Street” and endless Night Clubs, all hourly expecting a Police raid to descend.
The book unscrambles the tangled relationship between the would be hero, Paul and the manic neurotic heroine, Desiree and the story endures well into a series of skimpy follies and dangerous frolics in London and Paris.
There are all the thrills and spills of the London Season, of car racing pranks around the metropolis’ hot spots and well known locations, in Desiree’s Silver Pelican, grand drink sex, and drug parties given by a mysterious Mrs Thursday , wife of the saintly Charles and “ whose daughter Lucy is mated with a title”.
Later there’s a well written floral description of going by ferryboat from England to France and of the splendid sights of Gay Paris with hotel keepers like Madame Poiret who is foolish enough to stand up to challenge Desiree.
The physiological underbelly of the story is of Paul Lovelace’s life and moral development from boyhood into manhood and lessons to be learned of a youth seeking out fame and fortune, it is a worth while read for adults.
From a witty, clever writer, good with dialogue.
Leslie Roberts (1905-66) : One of the Brighton Belles.
Copies of “Shepherd Market" are available from the reviewer and on ebay for £60 ( elsewhere e.g. abe books more than double this price}
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204833631773
EMAIL WILLIAM CROSS
williecross@aol.com
