Having detoured from my original plan and being jolly glad I had not least because I could now sit without jiggling about, I decided to stop awhile amongst the period charms of Simpsons on the Strand. As I mentioned in the previous post, Simpsons - now owned by the Savoy Group – was formally known as the Grand Cigar Divan (don’t you just love that) and stood on the site of the Fountain Tavern which had been the home of the famous literary association known as the Kit Kat Club. So next time you are nibbling delicately on the end of a finger of Kit Kat - or inserting them sideways like I sometimes do (what a child) – you can feel part of the illustrious group of men in wigs that met to further the course of the men in Whigs. I josh you not. For those of you who are not of a political history persuasion, note the difference in spelling. It is not a typo.
Now of course, you’re not allowed anymore to smoke cigars or cigarettes or any such thing on the premises which is a bit of a shame somehow. I am glad to report though that the original Divans still remain and are used everyday by ordinary bods like me and you. Infact, when I’d finished my Vodka Martini which had the kick of a dozen mules and meant I had to descend the stairway with some significant concentration and poise; I asked to see the divans and was duly shown through to the dining room. Now, I have to say I was a little disappointed. In the history it tells me that chaps who frequented the GDT (obviously having too much time on their hands) met to loll around on these divans drinking coffee, smoking cigars and playing chess. Far be it from me to stereotype but doesn’t that involved multi-tasking.....? But moving swiftly on before I get myself into trouble I would just like to make the observation that in my vocabulary at least, a divan is a bed-like thing that one lies supine upon. I had imagined that these said multi-tasking individuals of the male persuasion were somehow drinking, smoking and making complex tactical and strategic chess maneuvers all whilst lying with their feet up and having a snooze between moves. But clearly not because the divans are a seat with a perpendicular back that looks like you’d be sitting with your face in your coffee rather than with your feet up. But they are a little piece of history which I was glad to see and I made a note to come back sometime and eat in the dining room because I want to try dishes like stuffed roast suckling pig and master cook’s soup of the day which eminent patrons such as William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli and Charles Dickens may well have enjoyed and which you certainly don’t get in your local Harvester.
On the subject of a little piece of history, Simpsons has another more hidden but no less interesting piece of history. As it moved into the 20th century it continued to attract famous patrons and several novelists went on to immortalise the restaurant in their writing. E.M. Forster mentions it in Howard’s End (1910); P.G. Wodehouse in Something Fresh (1915); Arthur Conan Doyle in The Adventure of the Dying Detective (1917) and Captain W.E. John in Biggles – Air Commodore (1937). But one writer who left his mark in a much more personalised sense was George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and ardent socialist (so as an ardent social what was he doing at Simpsons on the Strand drinking coffee and smoking cigars I wonder?). Sitting at dinner in the restaurant one evening in 1917 a particularly fervent zeppelin raid put paid to a quiet evening of intellectual conversation (or at least I assume that is how it was going, he and his dinner guest may well have been coming to fisticuffs for all I know). Anyway this inconvenient hiatus forced GBS and others down into the wine cellar and whilst GBS was down there he demonstrated his gratitude for the temporary shelter by leaving a small signed inscription on one of the kitchen walls which has been carefully preserved to this day. Interested in seeing this and because the bar had cocked up my order for spring rolls, giving me spring water instead which I thought strange at the time but when you look at the price of a Vodka Martini somehow it didn’t seem impossible that you might get a spring water chaser, the staff were keen to make amends. Sensing this, I decided that it would be interesting and educational to see exactly what GBS had written and where. I was duly dispatched off with a helpful young man who took me down to the cellar but who when we got there admitted he had no idea where the artifact was. Infact until that point he didn’t even know it existed. So much for induction training at Simpsons on the Strand. After we had wandered about for a bit sticking our heads in one room or another and trying to find it with no success we asked the chef who didn’t know where it was either. Another member of staff suggested he telephone someone who he thought would know. And this person turned out to be the very manager - Stephen Busby - who had dispatched me down to the cellar with the work experience teenager in the first place (well, he might not have been on work experience but what other excuse can you find to justify him not knowing about this LITTLE PIECE OF HISTORY?}. Stephen was able to take me directly to the location of what turned out to be not only an inscription but also a rather good sketch of the bunch of people that were stuck down in the cellar on that evening in 1917. As I stood there looking at it I felt a little bolt of electricity pass through me which connected with that small group which sat in this very same place nearly one hundred years ago during the Great War. GBS survived that war and the one beyond it, living until he was 94 years old. An amazing man who left an amazing legacy of plays and journalism mainly concerned with improving the lot of the common man. And he left his signature in Simpsons on the Strand which is probably as inclusive now as it’s ever been.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 11:03PM 
