The Richard Spooner Column: Fleet Street - not as we knew it�
Please indulge me because I thought I would take the liberty of wallowing in a little personal nostalgia for today 's column.
Given my great age (239 next birthday, since you ask), much has happened during my lifetime, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
Anyway, the other day I found myself in parish where I worked a few years ago and I must say Fleet Street is not the place it used to be.
It is now reminiscent, I discovered, of a deserted Wild West town with tumbleweed blowing down the hill towards St. Paul 's Cathedral.
Apart from one or two clues, you would never know that this was once the epicentre of national newspaper production in Britain. In fact, most regional newspapers had offices in or near Fleet Street.
It all started well before my time when Fleet Street was established as a thoroughfare by the Romans and so named because the River Fleet runs under it into the Thames. William Caxton 's apprentice, Wynkyn de Worde, set up a printing shop near Shoe Lane in about 1500 and the rest is history.
It thrived as the newspaper industry grew into the hot metal behemoth of modern times until Rupert Murdoch decided to close the offices of the Sun and the News of the World in 1986 and move to new premises in Wapping, East London.
Most of the journalists had been taken into his confidence but for the printers, or inkies as they were known, it came as a surprise when they turned up for work to find the doors locked.
Rough justice probably, but many felt it was nothing less than they deserved, having for a long time caused disruption which temporary closed newspapers when they felt their restrictive practices had been breached or were not earning enough money, already massively more than the journalists.
Murdoch 's action started a stampede as newspapers fled to all corners of London, myself with the Evening Standard along with the Daily Mail to Kensington.
So what is left? Nothing, frankly, apart from the old Daily Telegraph and Daily Express front edifices, which are listed buildings. Behind them the scruffy offices where the hacks and advertising personnel worked are now apartments and the basements, which housed presses that thundered through the night, are now largely filled in.
The saddest sight for me was of the Daily Express building, from where the Standard was produced. Only the name on the front gives a clue to its former life and the reception area is screened from public view.
That is a great shame because it is one of the finest examples of art deco architecture in the world.
And, even more devastating, our old pub, the aptly-named Popinjay, at the foot of the building, is now Boots the Chemist. Aptly named because Popinjay is the name of a vain or conceited person, especially one who dresses and behaves extravagantly, rather like the parrot of the same name. The place was full of such characters every night, including a Daily Express hack who went under the name of the Prince of Darkness and wore a cape which he would dramatically toss over his shoulder as he departed the bar eventually.
The Printer 's Devil hostelry is also no more and the famous Tipperary seems to have an uncertain future with its doors firmly shuttered. The sign on it says “The oldest Irish pub in London ”. No mention of its rich newspaper heritage.
Other drinking haunts have survived - just. El Vino was empty when myself and a former female colleague walked through its famous portals. I only mention this because for years, women journalists knew their place at El Vino. They were banished to a back room away from the bar, where they waited patiently for table service. Thankfully, all this changed in November, 1982, when solicitor Tess Gill and journalist Anna Coote struck a blow for equality by winning their case against El Vino in the Court of Appeal.
Maybe, one day, someone will create a museum to the history of Fleet Street. But knowing the trade as I do, I suspect it will be treated with a shrug of the shoulders with an acceptance that time always moves on�
JL