Rococo has been a much-loved feature of the Chelsea scene for the past 43 years, attracting royalty and A-listers thought its doors, as well as legions of loyal locals.

The end for a business that changed the shape of luxury chocolate has been far from sweet. In recent years, Rococo had been tarnished by the unsavoury ousting of its visionary founder Chantal Coady and then by unsuccessful re-launches. She returned briefly three years ago as Creative Director, but now the company is administration for the third time. This time, there may be no way back.

Today, Chantal has brushed off the Rococo days by re-inventing herself as The Chocolate Detective, a burgeoning business through which she curates the finest chocolate from the best producers in the world, as well as connecting directly to cocoa growers and makers at origin. 

In a timely Easter exclusive interview with The Citizen, Chantal, now 66, looks back on the care-free, glory days of the King’s Road shop and how she pioneered a whole new industry from one small shop and a bank loan underwritten by her mum…

Chantal Coady in the studio and work room at her home in Camberwell         ©Photo Rob McGibbon for The Chelsea Citizen

Chantal – 43 years and now Rococo is no more. How do you feel about it closing?

I am actually really sad to see it go. That little shop meant so much to me. It was part of my heart and soul. It was the first family I created, so it was incredibly important to me. It was also a lovely feature of the King’s Road, so it’s a great loss.

Ultimately, things did not work out so well for you with the company, so I’m surprised you feel sad about it…

Rococo was my dream and it brought so much good into my life. It is impossible not to feel something. Also, Chelsea played such a pivotal role in our success. I don’t think Rococo could have worked like it did anywhere else. Chelsea totally chimed with what I was trying to do. I tapped into the spirit of the area and all the stylish people who had been role models over the previous decades. I will always love the Chelsea vibe and what it brought to Rococo.

Rococo survived administration once before, but is this really the end now, has it gone forever?

Yes, I think it’s over now. The brand name could possibly be bought and re-branded, but the soul of what I created has gone. For me, it all changed in 2018 when an investor ripped out the bespoke interior. That was so upsetting. But I have moved on with my life now and I have been focused on a  new chocolate business for some time.

Yes – the Chocolate Detective! We will talk about that a bit later, but first can you take me back to the beginning of Rococo. How did it get going and what was Chelsea’s role in it all…

The beginning of my chocolate “journey” started with a Saturday job at Harrods when I was 19. I worked there for three years selling the best chocolate to rich people all day. Michael Caine was my first customer – he was buying a giant box of Milk Tray for his mum! 

I had a lightbulb moment one day in 1981 when I realised that customers wanted emotional engagement with chocolate. I then started creating my own ideas – designs that had stories and character, and a shop that was a theatrical backdrop. As time went by, I did a business course and set out my plans. Then my widowed mother backed me by putting the family home up for security with Barclays bank. She was really amazing and helped it all happen. Thankfully, Mum got the deeds back a few years later.

Chantal Coady on the opening day of Rococo on the King’s Road in 1983 ©Mark Ellidge

The vintage first day photo re-created 40 years later in 2023

Chantal in Rococo King’s Road in 2023 when she briefly returned as Creative Director

What are your earliest memories of setting up the business… 

I was 23 by then and had not long been out of art school. When I first visited the shop, it was trading as Crane Kalman, an art gallery that specialised in naive art. I was really taken by the space and the location, and particularly the high ceilings and original windows. I told the estate agent that I had a very serious business idea and that I was exploring multiple properties. In fact, it was the very first shop I seriously looked at. 

I remember sketching what the interior would look like with my art school friends, Frank Taylor and Kitty Arden. I had discovered someone in North London who made things out of sugar, so I commissioned her to make a chandelier as a centrepiece for the shop. Murals and trompe l’oeil were all the rage at that time, so Frank painted cherubs on the ceiling with blue sky and clouds inspired by the Birth of Venus, while Kitty helped create the scumble glazed candyfloss pink walls. 

Give us a flavour of life in Chelsea back in those early days, what was the atmosphere like, what did it mean to you

I loved Chelsea, it had the perfect mixture of bohemian chic and outright rebellion. It was still the backdrop to much of the punk fashion scene and people flocked to Sex – the fashion shop near World’s End owned by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren. That’s where you went if you wanted inspiration for clothes and accessories. So many people came to that end of the King’s Road, just to hang out and watch the parade of spectacular, interesting people. It had a real vibe. Other independent fashion designers like Anthony Price and Timney Fowler had shops there, too.

When did you know that Rococo had hit on something and was taking off? 

There was a buzz about Rococo from the start. Locals loved us and the press wrote stories. The shop was a critical success from almost the minute it opened. There was an article in the Evening Standard, then The Sunday Times wrote some features. The commercial success was much slower and involved a lot of boot strapping for years. The celebrities that come to Chelsea soon found the shop and that certainly gave us an edge.

How giving us a taster of the glamorous clients with a sweet tooth…

Famous people came in all the time. I’m quite old-fashioned and I’d hate to name-drop – but…Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett,  Tilda Swinton, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet. Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones were regulars. Young Royals told me that when they gave the Queen Rococo chocolates and that she loved them. She would instantly lock them away in a special cupboard!

The biggest business breakthrough came when we started supplying British Airways with special mini bars. Then Virgin Atlantic wanted us, as did The Conran Shop and Harvey Nicols. These were exciting times and within 10 years, we had five shops. But it was also a complicated and exhausting business.

Back in the day, what were the Chelsea places that were special to you and which local people mattered?

I quickly developed close relationships with many customers and neighbours. The owners of Chelsea Rare Books Leo and Philippa Bernard and their beautiful spaniel Tess were my first customers. Stephen King had his fantastic boutique at the end of the row, Robot shoes were next door and Gregor Schumi the hairdresser was on the other side. Local writer and food historian Alan Davidson became a great friend. I have such happy memories of Chelsea and always love going back.  

Chantal and husband James, an acupuncturist and full time Chocolate Detective partner ©Rob McGibbon

Home now is…

We [husband James and their two children in their 20s] were in Vauxhall for 40 years, but moved to Camberwell two years ago and we really love it. It feels like coming full circle. I did my A-levels at a local school and my degree at Camberwell School of Arts. The area has changed a lot, but it is still full of small independent shops, restaurants and bakeries and lots of young families. It has a lovely community atmosphere.

I appreciate that you won’t want to dwell on the bad times, but what went wrong for you with Rococo?

It is an incredibly complicated and painful story. I had taken on an investor – I don’t ever like to say his name. I foolishly believed that he would take the business forward, leaving me to concentrate on the creative side. Instead, he quickly edged me out of important decisions. All my faithful, long-term team were gradually replaced and, within two years, I was effectively out of the business. Rococo had had been valued at £10m in 2016, but by June 2019 it went into administration in debt. Oddly, that same investor was then able to buy it back at a fraction of its value – and I got absolutely nothing for a lifetime’s work.

Oh my, that sounds a total nightmare…

It was harrowing and it took me to the brink, both emotionally and financially. Losing Rococo was like watching everything I loved being thrown off a cliff. We had to sell our home of over 40 years in order to pay off all the personal guarantees to the bank and other loans.

How did you manage to bounce back?

I am a positive person and I was determined not to be beaten. I had to dig very deep to find my inner strength, my family and friends were amazing with their support. During lockdown in 2020, I suddenly started making chocolate again at home and then a friend offered me a small commercial kitchen at the London Sketch Club in Chelsea. The stress of losing Rococo ebbed away and then I had the idea for the Chocolate Detective.

Returning to my core love was completely healing and quite magical. I feel that I am a better and stronger person as a result of all that happened. In a funny way, I don’t regret any of it. These days I find joy in the simple things in life.  

Rococo fan illustrator Quentin Blake designed the Chocolate Detective’s logo as a favour

Applause! Who and what is the Chocolate Detective?

I am the Detective! I have drawn on decades of experience to seek out the world’s finest chocolate makers and connect them to chocolate lovers. I part own an organic cocoa farm on the island of Grenada, so I really can trace right back to the source, as well as supporting a radical new chocolate business model. I have developed several recipes of my own and I curate a range of birds eggs, working with the hugely talented illustrator Madeline Floyd, as well ass old favourites, such as Provencal almonds and orange sticks. All the designs are fun, as well as delicious. It all very much chimes back to the creativity of Rococo. We also have a super new line for Easter that was featured in the Daily Telegraph recently, which is based on a character called the Country Bunny who delivers the eggs.

Easter bunnies from the Chocolate Detective

How has the Detective been doing?

It has been amazing. The artist Quentin Blake, who loved Rococo, created my logo as a favour and many of my old customers throughout the Rococo days have been coming back to me, which is deeply touching. I almost wept one day when we got a huge order from a loyal buyer from the Rococo years.

What are your plans for the business?

I want the Chocolate Detective to lead the way for best practice in the chocolate industry, so that the farmers who grow the cocoa benefit directly from their hard work. Plus, I want to help people to enjoy the world’s best chocolate. After-all, it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Since we – that’s basically just James and me! – started, our revenue has effectively doubled every year and our products are now being sold in over 300 retailers across the UK and America. We aim to continue scaling the business through distribution partners, as well as direct to customers and B2B. We are most definitely not looking for investors! We are growing it organically, rather than taking loans, which was the undoing of Rococo. I’ve yet to hear a good story about venture capitalists, often men in suits with lots of spreadsheets, who just don’t understand what is at the heart of a business.

Would you like to wind back the clock fully and have a shop for the Chocolate Detective on the King’s Road?  Now, that would be, um, a sweet irony…  

Ha! Can you imagine it! Yes, that would be nice. Who knows – anything is possible. We do have stockists in Chelsea – like Designers Guild and Love My Human Townhouse. Retail can be nightmare, but it would be fun to go back to where it all started. Maybe we can begin with a pop up shop. If one of the big local landlords has an empty space that they need to brighten up…

Chantal Coady’s Chelsea Go-Tos 

My go-to for eating out – Mona Lisa or Anna Hough’s Myrtle if I am feeling flush  

My go-to for for drinks – The Surprise or Beaufort House 

My go-to for shopping – I still love to wander around Peter Jones 

My go-to for staying over – Are you serious, have you seen the prices of hotel? I will get the bus home, but I can dream about 31 Cadogan Gardens 

My go-to for a cultural fix – The Royal Court Theatre or the V&A

My secret tip for Chelsea – the Moravian  Burial Ground – a historic bit of land that was once a part of Thomas Moore’s property, and reputedly is where Christian the lion used to take his daily exercise in the 1960s – its not open very often – get there if you can!

My go-to event – Chelsea Physic Garden Christmas Fair 

Your dream home in Chelsea? There’s a particularly beautiful house in Swan Walk owned by a very well known man who made his fortune in private equity, not chocolate!

Visit the Chocolate Detective at www.chocolatedetective.co.uk

An exclusive Easter offer to Citizen readers – for anyone who fondly remembers the old Rococo shop, and for those discovering the Chocolate Detective for the first time – Chantal Coady is pleased to offer complimentary shipping on all orders over £40, until midnight on 31st March. Use Code: chelseacitizen

A family affair: Chantal and husband James with their daughter Millie at the Chocolate Detective stall at the Physic Garden Christmas Fair in 2023

VERY late Breaking News: A Kensington man fell over, The Citizen can be the last to reveal.

The 60-year-old stumbler – who has publicly fat-shamed himself repeatedly for “carrying excess timber” – tripped on a small step and landed like the proverbial “sack of spuds”.

The unremarkable incident (280,000 people fall each year – 767 per day – and need hospital treatment in the UK) took place in a bar at the Four Seasons hotel in Mayfair, some distance (1.49 miles) from the Royal Borough.

Unreliable sources claim that a group of Chelsea football fans witnessed the fall and started chanting “She fell over. She fell over”.

The fans of the club – which is located in Fulham SW6, not Chelsea – were at the five star hotel’s bar still celebrating last year’s Club World Cup victory, fearing that it could be Chelsea’s last trophy before all its players are sold to foreign investors who do not even live locally.

The ‘Fall Guy’s’ identity was later revealed on the “Information Superhighway” to be a popular and argumentative “YouTuber” working under the stage name of “Piers Morgan”. 

Mr Pughe-Morgan’s ‘Uncensored’ entertainment channel on the ‘Information Superhighway’

After checking the electoral register – not easy, given the disruption to council services since the “cyber attack” – The Citizen has confirmed that the local resident who took a tumble is Mr Piers Pughe-Morgan.

Further research reveals that Mr Pughe-Morgan is lauded across the Royal Borough for keenly supporting local establishments, such as the Earl’s Court Road branch of Greggs, Spanish eatery Cambio de Tercio, on Old Brompton Road, and The Scarsdale pub, off Edwardes Square, where he hosts an annual drinking competition for 200 of his closest friends as a fundraiser to pay Christmas bonuses for bar staff.

Following his trip, Mr Pughe-Morgan elected to take a chauffeured fancy car back to the safety of the Royal Borough, rather than an ambulance. Bucking emergency tradition again, Mr Pughe-Morgan avoided Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, on Fulham Road, due to the worry that an NHS establishment would mean being “left to writhe in agony on a trolley in a corridor for days on end”. 

The Citizen has never received reports of such difficulties facing patients at C&W, which is known as an exemplary destination for professional care, kindness and cleanliness. It also has some nice fishtanks and a super piano in the reception area. Furthermore, it organises some spectacular charity events – including jumping off buildings, not least by our heroic Mayor Cllr Tom “Fearless” Bennett.

Mr Pughe-Morgan was delivered smoothly to the “Private Urgent Care Centre” at Cromwell Hospital, on Cromwell Road, Earl’s Court, where the patient’s vital signs of credit rating and private health insurance were assessed before any treatment was dispensed.

Sister Morphine: Mr Pughe-Morgan stoically settles in to hospital life       ©PiersMorgan/Instagram

Double Thumbs Up: Mr Pughe-Morgan in his suite with a telly at the Cromwell Hospital            ©PiersMorgan/Instagram

Within moments of being X-rayed, it was revealed that Mr Pughe-Morgan had fallen so heavily – “excess timber”? – that he had broken the upper part of his left femur bone and required a bit of a hip transplant.

The new hip was successfully inserted and was immediately given its own Instagram account. The unwanted old bone was transferred for examination at the Natural History Museum, on Exhibition Road, Kensington, which currently has some terrific exhibitions, including Space: Could life exist beyond Chelsea.

Mr Pughe-Morgan’s old hip was examined by the NHM’s leading paleontologist, Professor Ross Keller, who told friends: “This fossil will be treasured forever and serve as an illustration for how Man struggled to walk the Earth in the 21st century.”

The Chelsea Citizen is delighted to report that Mr Pughe-Morgan is now back at his home on REDACTED RDEACTED, Kensington, where he is being cared for by his long-suffering wife, author Mrs Celia Walden, who will have new a book out to promote – just as soon as she has finished the “bloody thing”.

Mr Pughe-Morgan refused to comment to The Citizen directly, but we understand that he is recovering well. Hip hip hooray.

Piers Pughe-Morgan – UNCENSORED – in Hippier Times

Following the falling over ‘Slight Surprise News’, The Chelsea Citizen delved into the McArchive and discovered a remarkable set of exclusive photographs. 

These were taken during what can now be called ‘The Novelty Boxer Shorts Tour – Tenerife 1987′. The other man in the photos has not yet been positively identified, but may well be The Citizen’s Editor.

Patriot Game: Lying in the sun in the 1980s was a carefree and common occurrence                              ©Photo: Rob McGibbon/The Chelsea Citizen.com

A demonstration of precocious self-love with a lip-smacking choice of underwear     ©Photo: Rob McGibbon/The Chelsea Citizen. com

Tucking In: The fashion to “tuck in” clothing into boxer shorts was a la mode in ’87                     ©Photo: Rob McGibbon/The Chelsea Citizen. com

Bowled Over: Mr Pughe-Morgan plays crown bowls in “£ & $” sign boxers.    ©Photo: Rob McGibbon/The Chelsea Citizen.com

What the Tuck: Another fine display of “tucking in” haute couture, paired with classic “holiday hat” ensemble        ©Photo: Rob McGibbon/The Chelsea Citizen.com

Novelty Boxer Boys: Shameless display of Union Flag & “Gangster Men” unterhausen. Oh my!

New publicity photo released of Unidentified Man

All My Yesterdays: This photo positively identifies Rob McGibbon as the way he would still like to look. Oh my indeed!

“I’m very happy to finish at the top,” he told The Citizen, settling into a quiet upstairs room with the relaxed air of a man who has finally found peace with a difficult decision. “I’ll be 70 in January, so I think it’s time for me to go.”

When Garnier opened Le Colombier in 1998 in Dovehouse Street, tucked just off Chelsea Square, he imagined a classic neighbourhood French restaurant — good food, great wines, and a commitment to hospitality that felt deeply old-world. What he built was far more than that: a loyal community eatery anchored by impeccable cooking and one of the finest wine cellars in London.

The secret to its longevity, he says, has always been the people.

“I’ve had a good team for many, many years,” he smiles. “My manager Olivier has been with me 33 years. Two head chefs for over 17 years, my sous chef for 20. The secret of a good restaurant is to keep your staff.”

Garnier is quick to underline that it is his customers and their loyalty that has been at the heart of Le Colombier’s success. “It’s a club,” he explains. “Everyone knows each other. They create the atmosphere. I just make sure that the menu and wine list are right for them — simple and good. It doesn’t need to be fancy. A great dover sole, a fine fillet steak. Do the classic dishes well, with the best produce and ingredients. My role has been to be the chef d’orchestre – the conductor.  It is a role I have loved.”

Everything about Le Colombier was reassuringly analogue, right down to the reservations, which has given it a timeless, relaxed edge.

“You can’t book online. You have to ring us,” Garnier says proudly. “So straight away, there’s a connection. We know your table, your favourite dishes. We have two customers who come five days a week for lunch. They probably spend around £170 every day.”

That intimacy is partly why news of its demise was greeted in Chelsea with all the disappointment of a sunken soufflé.

“Customers were devastated,” he admits. “Some even offered finance — a lot of finance to help me start a new restaurant. I could have raised £5 million. Everybody wanted Le Colombier to carry on.”

Surely he was tempted?

“No,” he says firmly. “If I’d been 10 or 15 years younger, definitely. But not now.”

Upstairs in the private dining room of Le Colombier ©Rob McGibbon

Garnier’s fondest memory involves one of the most influential restaurant reviewers of the 1990s. In 1999, AA Gill’s glowing Sunday Times write-up (see below) catapulted Le Colombier into the spotlight — so much so that even Gill struggled to get a table.

“His secretary called to book sometime after the review was published and I said, ‘I’m sorry, but we have no tables — and it’s all his fault!’” Garnier recalls, laughing. “Of course, we managed to find him a table. His review puts us on the map and changed everything very quickly.”

Garnier’s own journey to Chelsea began in Angers, in France’s Loire Valley, where he grew up in a family of restaurateurs. He arrived in London as a commis waiter, impressed his bosses, rose swiftly, completed national service in France, then returned to manage some of the capital’s smartest dining rooms before striking out on his own.

Le Colombier translates as “the dovehouse” and is named after a chic street on the Left Bank of Paris, where Garnier was walking one day as he pondered his new venture. The street sign was indeed “a sign”! The restaurant has consumed his life, but there has long been tension with the property’s landlord. 

After 15 years of rent reviews, two court cases, and a failed attempt to buy the lease in an auction, Garnier has been forced to step away. There were rumblings of a local campaign to save the restaurant, but he dismisses them. “It’s settled now. It’s done. Finished.”  He will receive a reasonable “goodbye” settlement from the landlord, but that fee is nothing when you consider that the business would be worth more than £5m if he owned the lease.

The “closed” sign will go up for good on December 31st and the site is destined to become a coffee shop, with offices or flats on the upper floors. Ever since the closure was announced, the restaurant has been fully booked for lunch and dinner, and is now the hottest booking to get in Chelsea. Each sitting, Garnier says, has a wonderful “end of days” party atmosphere. Le grand farewell.

Top table. Didier in a prized corner window table  ©Rob McGibbon

So how does a man who has spent a lifetime on his feet — sometimes 95 hours a week — adjust to life without the constant hum of a dining room?

“I want to travel,” he says. “Europe, India, Egypt. I want to read more. I want to spend quality time with my girlfriend and my mother and take things easy. ”

He also plans to continue judging restaurant competitions and position himself further as an expert of the restaurant world. He also has thoughts about writing a book. But mostly, he’s looking forward to relaxing. Is he relieved?

Didier pauses: “Now,” he nods quietly, “yes I am.”

All photos © Rob McGibbon

In more recent years, he has enjoyed an altogether calmer existence and has reinvented himself as an author. First came his 2018 memoir The Bootle Boy* and now he has published his debut novel, a thriller called Dying Days, which is set in the world of – you guessed it – newspapers.

Our palms crossed fleetingly once before, at a News International Christmas party** back in the early 1990s – a time when newspapers threw open bar parties for 300 thirsty hacks. The fortunes of newspapers have been up-ended so much since then that these days those journalists would be lucky to get a Greggs sausage roll in a doorway for a Christmas knees up.

In contrast, Hinton has survived pretty well and has floated through multiple storms with debonair aplomb (call up the cuts). Now 81, he beams in to Citizen HQ via Zoom from his flat in Belgravia, where he rests his Gandalf-white locks and beard when he’s not conjuring up word wizardry in his other homes on the Upper East Side and the Hudson Valley.

Our necessarily speedy chat skipped through various subjects – writing, rejection, Rupert, the News of the World, and, of course, Chelsea. The full interview may be broadcast on CCTV – The Citizen’s forthcoming YouTube channel – in the New Year, but for now, here are some excerpts…

Meeting of minds: The newspaper proprietor and rising media tycoon and the humble self-published author

Life as a lonely writer after being a high-flying media player

“Frankly, when you’re not in a full-time job, you need something to absorb you. I wrote a memoir which absorbed me for a few years. And after that, I just wanted to try fiction. I’m not expecting to be earning my living from it. I’m not expecting to be John Grisham or anything else. But it was simply a pleasure, an obsession.

“I just enjoyed sitting down with a blank piece of paper, as well as being scared by it, knowing that I could do anything I wanted, and having that freedom to sit there and create these characters, some of which would be recognisable, some of which aren’t. I enjoyed making fiction out of my experiences. I love sitting in a room on my own.

“As a kid, and as a journalist, I always wanted to be a war correspondent, but after some experience in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, I found out very quickly that it wasn’t for me. Then I got posted to New York by the company [News Corp], and I got sucked into management, which took over my life.

“When I wrote Bootle Boy, my biggest fear was for people to think it’s crap, badly written. But I think it got well received and I felt the confidence of it, so I started doing fiction. The whole thing absorbed me for about two years.

“I don’t miss the attention [of life in the media] or the characters I met. I was at the last News Corp party, but I don’t miss that life because I never really believed it. I didn’t really believe that when I was having a drink with Tony Blair or Gordon Brown that they actually liked me. I was someone that they needed to get along with.”

The pain of rejection and the joy of self-publishing

“I had a very good agent, who had given me some help on the book [Dying Days]. At the end of it, she was so enthusiastic, so certain it was going to work, that she said to me, ‘We’ll be drinking champagne by Christmas. I’m going to send it to 30 editors in New York, 30 editors in London, and I’m going to give them ten days to make bids’.

“I thought, Well, this is going to be an easy win, a slam dunk. She’d been a publisher of thrillers and had become an agent and she had no doubt at all. I thought, She ought to know. And there were NO bids! I got lots of letters complaining that the main character [veteran newspaper reporter Dan Brasher] was a misogynist and that it was all too male orientated. It just didn’t click.

‘It was crushing. I suppose I’ve got the kind of personality that is fuelled by other people’s approval. That’s a confession to make. So when I found myself so widely disapproved, I completely lost confidence in whether I could keep doing it.

“I sort of licked my wounds for a bit, and then Kath [his wife] said, ‘You know it’s good. Spend a few months going over it and then let’s get it published whichever way we can and see what happens’. And that’s what we did and I loved the entire experience. [He self-published through Whitefox]

“The reviews couldn’t really be better. From the FT to the Daily Mirror, they’ve all said things that were very nice, so the book is clearly worth publishing. And I have already had a couple of approaches from production companies, but I’m not holding out much hope of getting a movie deal.”

 On his current relationship with Rupert Murdoch

“It’s fine. I don’t see him an awful lot. I’ve seen him twice in the past year, I guess, and occasionally have an email with him.

“I said in the memoir that he could be both wonderful and very, very difficult. His enemies are divided into two regiments. There are those people he thwarted in business – the TV people, Hollywood people, in newspapers, the guys in his youth in Australia.

“Then there are those who don’t like his politics. Those are the two fronts that he has had to face. Frankly, I don’t like a lot of his politics either. I’m not nearly so conservative as he has become. But I do think that his whinging enemies have got nothing to blame but their own lethargy or lack of imagination.

“I think he just worked hard. He is smart. He had massive energy, which a lot of smart, successful people have and he also had big balls. He was very brave. And he had a restlessness, always looking for the next big chance.

“It’s funny because I was never actually afraid of Rupert. I had an old news editor called Ken Donlan. I don’t know if you ever came across him. He terrified me as a boss. I would actually do relaxation lessons if I was calling in from out of town, or from another country, before calling because I was so afraid. With Rupert, I never felt like that. I was always wary, that he was very powerful, but I was never really afraid of him. It was a different kind of thing.”

Closing the News of the World and the phone hacking scandal

“There was regret about it [inside News Corps about closing NoW]. It shouldn’t have been closed. It was a mistake. I’ve got a character in the book [that’ll be Dying Days, folks] who says it was an appalling paper, in his view, but it was so weak-kneed to have closed it down. But, they did, and that’s history.

“If you think of what’s happened since, in particular, the disclosures. That chap who’s making a fortune [David Sherborne], he said that the wrong-doing at the Mirror Group makes what happened at the News of the World look like a Sunday picnic, or something like that.

“It’s always difficult to talk about this, because you feel as if I’m making excuses, because I’m not. It [phone hacking] should not have happened, it was bad, it was hurtful. It was dreadful.

“It was a terrible thing that happened. I’ve got no personal sense of guilt over it or culpability over it. I’ve never felt that. In fact, of all the people that were called to Leveson, they never even called me. I mean, everyone – from Piers Morgan to David Cameron to John Major – I was never even called. So, you know, it was just a terrible, distressing thing for the company to have to go through. And it damaged it a lot.”

Was there a cover up at the News of the World?

“Well, there was no cover up that I was responsible for. I mean, you know, clearly, when it was all happening, people weren’t so forthcoming as they ought to be. I’m not even going to address it because I didn’t cover anything up.

“Essentially, the activity that was happening was being covered up – but a corporate cover up? Remember, I was running the Wall Street Journal for four years when all this began to blow up. So whether there were other cover ups, I don’t know. There was talk of emails being destroyed and everything else, but I don’t know.”

A ritual on every return to London is a curry in Chelsea

“We have a flat in Belgravia for when we’re in London – which is about half the year – so we’re just a short walk from Sloane Square. I first encountered Chelsea in the mid-sixties when I arrived from Adelaide, a city that was trapped in the past compared to London.

“Back then, Time magazine did a cover on “Swinging London” and described the King’s Road as if it were some kind of new Mecca. All the fashions and the swagger – and the shortness of the skirts – bowled me over. I dreamed of living there, but the economics of life as a hard-up 21-year-old reporter banished me to a far away basement flat in Teddington.

“Time magazine also mentioned the best places to go, so I went to the Guys `n’ Dolls coffee shop because Mick Jagger had been there and I remember standing outside the La Reve restaurant because it was the haunt of people like Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, and Jean Shrimpton. I think it became a Starbucks.

“As a young reporter, I remember knocking a couple of times on Mick Jagger’s door in Cheyne Walk for reasons I forget, and getting no answer.

I remember realising how the other half lived in high society London, doorstepping some weddings at Chelsea Town Hall and seeing dozens of unsmiling chauffeurs leaning on Rolls-Royces, dragging on cigarettes.

“I kept coming back to Chelsea over the years. There was a Mexican restaurant near Sloane Square where I discovered the joys of tequila, salt, and a bite of lime. And then, of course, the Chelsea Potter pub.

“Living nearby means that I visit all the time. The King’s Road doesn’t have quite the mad buzz of the Sixties, but Peter Jones has survived it all, and it is still packed with good places to eat or drink coffee. We are regulars at the Saturday market in Duke of York Square and we’ve discovered the best Indian restaurant in London — Kahani, which is hidden away in a basement in Wilbraham Place by Cadogan Hall. When we fly back from abroad, we always have our first meal there. It’s a ritual.”[Cue free poppadoms for the Hintons]

*The Bootle Boy – an untidy life in news: A hugely enjoyable memoir that tells of an incredible ascent to the heights of media power. Full of fascinating details and wry asides about life inside the court to The Sun King.

The disappointing downside is that the book withers at the critical juncture – the eruption of the phone hacking scandal. It races through that period in 50 measly, carefully worded pages (383-433). It’s a bit like the memoir of a man who was on the bridge of the Titanic when it hit a piece of ice, who writes all about his upbringing and early life as a sailor, then skips across the accident at sea by referring to newspaper reports.

Volume 2 of The Bootle Boy (The Upper East Side & Belgravia Boy?) could begin with the metaphorical media bomb [P.382, for enthusiasts] going off after that Burford Priory party – and end with the fictional bomb detonating at Chatstone House.

Just saying!

 Buy The Bootle Boy HERE 

What the critics say about Dying Days

‘HOLD THE FRONT PAGE, HINTON’S DEBUT THRILLER IS A BELTER’ – DAILY EXPRESS

‘A THRILLING TALE… CRAMMED WITH INSIDER KNOWLEDGE AND TOLD WITH VERVE’ – DAILY MAIL

‘A BRILLIANTLY FEASIBLE AND GRIPPING THRILLER ABOUT POWER, CORRUPTION AND LIES AMONG THE GLOBAL ELITE’ – DAILY MIRROR

‘A MUST-READ’ — FINANCIAL TIMES

‘SUSPENSEFUL AND WELL-PLOTTED” — SUNDAY TIMES, BEST THRILLERS OF THE YEARS SO FAR

‘AMAZING… AN ORIGINAL STORY TOLD WITH FRIGHTENING CONVICTION BY A DAMN GOOD WRITER COULD IT HAPPEN? – JEFFREY ARCHER

‘A WONDERFULLY FAST-MOVING, TENSE STORY THAT TWISTS AND TURNS THROUGH A MAZE OF LOVE, HATE AND SACRIFICE’ – WILLIAM SHAWCROSS

‘A BREATHTAKING NOVEL OF TREACHERY, MAYHEM AND CORPSES LITTERING THE WORLD OF NEWSPAPERS – WHO’D HAVE GUESSED? – MICHAEL DOBBS

 ‘A PROMISING START FOR A YOUNG DEBUT NOVELIST’ – THE CHELSEA CITZEN

Wolfman in darker times before seeing the light

**Behind the scenes “Enthusiasts Only” extra…

RM: Les, you won’t remember, but we met once…

LH: I can’t. I mean, I recognise your face really well, but I don’t remember when we met.

RM: It was at a News International Christmas party in the 90s.

LH: Oh, well, that’s a long time ago.

RM: Neil Wallis introduced us.

LH: Oh dear, Neil! Are you in touch with him still? I kept in touch with him for a long while because he went through a lot of strife, and in the end, I’ve lost touch. Now everyone tells me he’s found God and his life has changed quite a bit. Good luck to him.

RM: … and good luck to God!

Now 79, Felicity first moved to Chelsea in the mid-1960s. She’s not quite sure which year because, she admits, she’s “bloody useless on dates and stuff”. After spending her childhood on the road in India acting in her parents’ Shakespeare touring company, Chelsea became her first real home town and she has lived here pretty much ever since, by way of short stays in Shepperton, Putney, Fulham and Maida Vale.

For this piece, we chatted in the living room of her exquisite Chelsea house. It is light and homely and lacking in any pretension, or modernisation. There’s no iceberg basement dig out here, with their signature spa and cinema. High ceilings (14ft?), soft neutral furniture, splashes of bright colour, Indian artwork on the walls. She moved here in 1993, and Chelsea has become her permanent home and a dearly loved location.

Our full conversation may run as a podcast, just as soon as The Chelsea Citizen’s YouTube channel (CCTV. Tah ting) is launched. Until then, here are some key extracts about Felicity’s sixty years of the good life in Chelsea.

Felicity opens tonight in the late Tom Stoppard’s play Indian Ink at Hampstead Theatre. On until 31st January. Book HERE

“The flat was teeny and had nothing in it, but I thought I’d died and gone to heaven”

‘I never had anywhere that I could say, That’s mine, I’m closing the door and you can’t come in. There was never a key to a house or anything. We were always on the move in India throughout my childhood. My home was a hotel, or a room in someone’s house, or a space on the floor of a train. Then I moved to England when I was about 17, and I stayed in little digs. I think my first place was a terrible little rat hole in Earl’s Court. I just got the cheapest I could.

‘I stayed once with a very posh, sweet gay friend of mine in his amazingly gorgeous, antique-filled flat in Knightsbridge. Then he had another house in Shepherd Market by the Curzon, where I used to get picked up regularly. I didn’t know it was a pick-up street. I just thought, they’re very annoying, these old men that keep coming up and saying, “Would you like a drink?” I said, No, thank you.

‘Then eventually, I got a few jobs, and I rented a one-bedroom, teeny flat in Swan Court by Albert Bridge for very little money. It cost eight pounds (per week), I think. It was on the fourth floor, overlooking the river. I rented it from an actress for about a year because she went to America to try and get a job. I’ve forgotten her name! She was quite well known. She was in films. I’d met her on the circuit. I was just at the beginning of working as an actress, so she let it to me for hardly anything.

‘The flat had nothing at all, except a little fridge and a big, ornate, gilt mirror and a single mattress on the floor, and that was it. These were the hippie times. I just loved it. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I’ve never been so happy. A year later, she decided not to come back, and she sold it to me. I thought it was a fortune, but it was for nothing, and that was my Chelsea base for about four years.

‘My sister (Jennifer) also had a flat in Swan Court and, in the end, my mother had a flat there as well. So there were three flats that we had at various times over the years. Sybil Thorndike lived there at the time and so did the great theatre critic – you know. Oh what’s-his-name? I can’t bloody remember that either!’ (It was Harold Hobson. Here to help).

“We were all broke, but being broke in the 1960s was not as hard as it is now for young people”

‘I was a young, mostly out of work, impoverished actress, but Chelsea in the 1960s was the most buzzy, fun, comfortable, easy place. It was just heaven on earth. It was full of students, full of old-age pensioners, full of a complete mixture, but it was also a residential place. There weren’t any big shops. I think Boots was probably the biggest, and that was tiny (maybe she means Woolworths, which was on the King’s Road, opposite Duke of York Square in the 60s). There was Russell and Bromley, and that was terribly posh.

‘There was the art shop, a hardware store, a butcher off Swan Walk. Flood Street had pubs, and there were wine shops where you could go in and ask for a glass of wine. I mean, all that was very new. Then on the weekends, you’d get the superstars, like Twiggy, and the models walking up and down, and sports cars. It was a really fun place to be. It was absolutely buzzy.

‘We’d go to the pizza shop on Flood Street, and a pub on the corner, which isn’t there anymore. I’d eat at the Chelsea Kitchen and Stock Pot because you could go and get a meal for nothing, and you knew you wouldn’t be hungry when you came out. There was usually somebody you knew in there, because we were all in the same boat. You had one meal and a glass of water, or a cup of tea. And it was fun, it was lovely. Most actors were broke, but having no money was not as bad as it is now for people. I think the young people now need more just to be broke!

‘After I got married (to Drew Henley in 1968), we lived in Shepperton and then in Putney. When I divorced Drew, I had a flat in Rivermead Court near the Hurlingham Club in Fulham. After that, I went to Warwick Avenue to live, and then I came back to Chelsea. I rented this house at first and then I bought it privately from the owner.’

“Chelsea Green is still like a little traditional village with the butcher, the baker, the grocer and the candlestick maker”

‘Chelsea has got busier over the years, and the shops have got bigger, but it still has the little individual eccentricities that you expect in a small town or a village. Luckily, this sort of thing is working beautifully in Chelsea Green and it is thriving. The council built the little fountain and some new seats a while ago, and it all works beautifully.

‘They haven’t been able to build those horrible flats (at Sutton Dwellings). It still has a fishmonger (Rex Goldsmith at The Chelsea Fishmonger). You ask him, and he will tell you how to cook something, and you have a conversation. That’s just how it should be. You’re not standing there going Ping at some machine. In a supermarket, you just go Ping, Ping, Ping all the time. I mean, the poor people working there all day long, their little brains are being pinged out of any kind of sense.

‘There, there’s the best greengrocer in the world – Andreas. I go there all the time. There’s no plastic, it’s all paper, they care. Andreas has every single thing you can imagine, and one apple from there is nicer than two from anywhere else.

‘Then you’ve got the dry cleaners, and Birley Bakery, which is amazing and always completely full. Then you’ve got a little coffee shop called Finns, where everything is completely homemade. I often get a takeaway meal for dinner, which is always totally delicious.

‘Chelsea Green isn’t the cheapest area in the world, but in order to survive in that spot, they have to be a little more expensive. But at least they are there in a combination that serves the community. You know –  chemist, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. They’re all wonderful.’

“Ebi the chemist runs the most invaluable establishment for the community. Everyone talks to him. He holds all the secrets of Chelsea!”

‘There is so much I love about Chelsea. Green and Stone – I have used them for yonks. I was always in there when they were on the King’s Road and I still go to the Fulham Road shop. All the art stuff for my grandkids was bought there, and all the artwork in the house was framed by them. Wonderful people – and they have the best selection of cards. It’s just a beautiful place to visit and be inspired.

‘Then there is Ebi, who has been the I.T. Lloyds chemist on the King’s Road for 30-odd years. He is Muslim and has a multi-cultural staff of wonderful people. Ebi is the star of Chelsea. People quietly talk to him about medical conditions and life. He is funny and wise. He holds all the secrets of Chelsea! I’m sure that if you mention him to anyone in Chelsea, they will know Ebi. He got an OBE and with good reason. He and his staff run the most invaluable local establishment.

‘Near there is Chelsea Food Fayre (Londis), which is run by an Indian family and has everything from newspapers, to butter and booze, to tape measures and shirt buttons, and is open all hours. I have needed them for more emergencies than I can remember.

‘John Sandoe is the best book shop in the world. The knowledge and experience of the staff are extraordinary. I went in a while ago and told them a line from a book, but I didn’t know the title, and they found it for me in a flash! There are piles of exciting books stacked everywhere, with students and all kinds of people browsing and reading. Such a wonderful place for words.

‘There are so many fabulous places to eat out in Chelsea. Michael and I used to go to La Famiglia every week and I still love it. Spaghetti vongole for me and lots of wine. Then there is Riccardo’s and La Delizia for pizza. Colbert on Sloane Square is always fun. Michael Winner took us to Daphne’s a few times, which was hilarious. He was such a character.’

Rob McGibbon interviews Felicity Kendal at Cadogan Hall in 2012                  Photo © Hattie Miles

“The house is too big for me, and I will move at some point. I will probably stay in Chelsea. We shall see…”

 ‘Not all things have changed for the better in Chelsea. I have noticed how many homes are empty these days. I walk my dog, Rufus, at night, and you’d be hard pushed to find a light on in some streets. There’s nobody in them at night – unless they go to bed very, very early! It’s terrible because it means people aren’t living in an area. It’s just so sad that these beautiful homes are not used. It is pure extravagance and profit-making. What if half of Chelsea was owned by people who didn’t live here? It will be dead.

‘I would change the fact that there are so many big empty houses. I don’t know how to change that. It is crazy because it’s a waste. I hope the council can do something. My big worry is how the younger people will ever be able to afford to live here.

‘Crime has definitely got worse around here. There are muggings and phone snatches, and it is appalling. Within three days, I saw three snatches of phones. One on the King’s Road, one by Draycott Avenue and another one in Sloane Square.

‘I was walking Rufus one evening, and three bikes went on the pavement, smashed a car window, and then somebody screamed. It was sort of boom, boom, boom, and it was over. They got the phone and something else.

‘I was just parking near Draycott Avenue the next day, and there was a young lady walking. Again, three or four push bikes surrounded her. It was like Spaghetti Junction. She gave a shout, and I thought, this can’t happen, so I banged on the horn like an idiot and started shouting. They got so far, they threw it down, and she got her phone back!

‘Whatever changes have happened, I still love living in Chelsea. This house has been a very kind house and a very easy one. I don’t know what’s going to happen to it eventually. It’s too big for me, and I’m not sure the family want to take it on.

‘When the time is right, I will move. I think that I have one more gorgeous place to live in. There’s something about staying in the same place too long that doesn’t sit well with me, and I have been here a long time. Chelsea is special, so I will probably stay in the area, maybe somewhere by the river, somewhere with skies and less traffic! I don’t know yet…’

All Cadogan Hall photos ©Hattie Miles 

Kalou, who won the Champions League and the Double during six stand-out years at Chelsea, returns to The Bridge this weekend to play in the Chelsea Legends charity match.

He will head to Chelsea’s training ground today at Cobham, Surrey, for a session to prepare to tackle old adversaries Liverpool to raise money for the Chelsea Foundation and the Chelsea Players’ Trust.

Kalou, who is from Ivory Coast, will gather in Cobham with a stellar line up of other former players, including John Terry, Marcel Desailley, Gianfranco Zola, Joe Cole, Diego Costa, John Obi Mikel, Claude Makelele and Eden Hazard. Roberto di Mateo will manage the team.

Kalou, now aged 40 and retired from football, sat down to talk to The Chelsea Citizen ahead of the big match. He was in London earlier in the week to launch Oumé, a new chocolate and lifestyle brand named after his home town in Africa. He said:

‘I am so excited to be going back to Chelsea and to play at The Bridge again. My time at Chelsea was very special to me. It is the place that made me a man.

‘I don’t actually miss playing football because I can still play with my friends in the park, but I really miss everything to do with the game – being with the players, the dressing room, the fans, travelling, team meetings. I miss all of that.  Playing in the Legends match means that I get to re-live those times again.

‘I am really looking forward to the coach journey from The Chelsea Harbour hotel. I know every inch of the place because I stayed there so much. The journey is only 10 minutes to the ground, but I remember going from there to play in big games and it felt like 10 hours. The tension on the bus was so much that you could hear a pin drop. You see the fans and hear them cheering, then you see the stadium. It is a very special  journey to make.’

Kalou says that he is still fit enough to play, but admits that he has lost some of the speed that made him a lethal winger. ‘I am not as fast as I used to be –  but I am still faster than John Obi Mikel!’ he joked.

He is also certain of a Chelsea victory against their old rivals Liverpool. ‘We always beat Liverpool! This is a charity match, but it is still important to win. I predict that we will win – and that John Obi will score his first goal for Chelsea!’

The full interview with Salomon Kalou talking about all things Chelsea and his dreams for his Oumé brand will be on Citizen Fame as soon as possible. 

The first bars of Oumé chocolate  ©RMc/TCC

Where is home now for you now?

I now live in Oxford, with my wife Dee, our son Rafe – when he’s not at university – and our Irish terrier, Cody. It’s lovely, quiet, and rather studious.

When did your Chelsea story begin?

In the 1950s, I had a long trek to get to school from South London to Hammersmith, and the bus used to take me along the King’s Road. It was so different from the dull suburban area I came from, and I fell in love with it.

Media legend John Simpson                        Photo: @John Simpson for The Chelsea Citizen

When did you first move here and where did you live?

I first rented, then bought a flat overlooking the Physic Garden in 1997, and moved from there to a delightful house in Paultons Square. The back wall of our garden was part of the wall Sir Thomas More built round his orchard — the place where Henry VIII used to walk with his arm round More’s neck. Guess what happened to the neck.

Can you recall what you paid for that first property?

I forget what I paid in rent, but it would be amazingly low by today’s standards. I think I paid £150,000 for the flat.

What do you think makes Chelsea special?

For me, it has always had a whiff of the Sixties, and although the bohemians have been driven out by the grotesque prices, it’s managed to cling on to that arty, raffish atmosphere. I later found that my great-grandmother, Lela Cody, ran the Queen’s Head pub in Tryon Street with her husband — until the day in 1895 when she saw Samuel Franklin Cody riding down the King’s Road in his Texas buskins. She fell violently in love with him on the spot, and ran off with him to America, taking three of her four children with her. In 1909 Lela became the first woman to go up in an aeroplane anywhere in the world. She went up with Cody in 1909, who made the first powered flight in the UK the previous year.

Samuel Franklin Cody

The Queen’s Head, long gone now and recently replaced by flats and The Chalk pub

What were some of your go-to essential places whilst living in Chelsea?

My father’s glamorous Swedish girlfriend discovered the Chelsea Kitchen on the King’s Road and we used eat there a lot. Long gone, now, of course. I joined the Chelsea Arts Club in 1984, and that’s really the heart of Chelsea for me. Latterly, I used to write my newspaper articles and books in Bluebird, and my wife and son and I would eat regularly at Choy’s (also now gone). I used to buy my notebooks, pens and pencils from Green and Stone. The Surprise was my pub of choice, but I also spent time in The Phoenix. And there was an Argentinian steak house in the Farmer’s Market where we took people, if we didn’t want to eat at home. And, of course, I got all my medicines from Ebi’s chemist shop on the King’s Road.

Ebi’s chemist on the King’s Road

The Surprise

You have a long association with Chelsea Old Church. I remember seeing you in the pews for the Sunday morning Family Service many years ago – with your young son dressed as Spider-Man! What is your attachment to the church?

I knew and loved two vicars there – Peter Elvy and his successor David Reindorp. Peter baptised our son in 2006, and we held the funeral service for my beloved mother-in-law there two years later. I took Rafe to the children’s service every week, and he used to try to catch the Mars bars that both Peter and then David threw to kids who answered questions about the Bible correctly.

When Peter retired, he asked me to read from the Old Testament. The second reading was to come from the wonderful, far-sighted, big-shouldered Earl Cadogan — the previous Earl, now sadly dead. The Bible I read from was so big that when I finished reading, I struggled to turn the pages to the part which the Earl had to read, and eventually I abandoned the effort and went and sat down. He was a lot bigger than me, and even he had a problem turning the pages.

Afterwards he cornered me, and grabbed me by the lapel and growled something I couldn’t understand. I thought he was bawling me out — but finally I realised he was saying that we were both wearing suits in Prince of Wales check, and people would think it was some kind of uniform. His suit probably cost ten times what I’d paid for mine.

I sense that Old Church is still quite a special place for you…

I adored sitting in Old Church, thinking about all the people who’d brought their fears and problems with them over the ages: More, walking down the aisle holding up the cross, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Parr sitting there, the future Elizabeth I. Then there was John Donne preaching the funeral sermon for the most beautiful woman in England, Magdalene Herbert – her son, George Herbert, working out his poems in his head. And I came to realise that all my fears and worries, which often seemed so overwhelming, weren’t really as important as they seemed to be.

You are President of the Chelsea Society. How did that come about and what does that role mean to you?

It’s one of the things I’m proudest of, and I manage to get it into a surprisingly large number of conversations. I do, however, feel like an absentee, and I’m always hoping to find a place to rent in Chelsea. If you hear of anything affordable, please let me know (though I won’t hold my breath!).

You are coming back to Old Church for the book festival. Can you tell us about the event and what we can expect?

My event is really just going to be me talking about my weird life and one or two of the things I’ve been so hugely privileged to see during my 60 years as a reporter at the BBC — plus the leaders and lunatics I have interviewed.

Why did you leave Chelsea?

We had a new boss from the outside who didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me. I resisted, and eventually won, but living in Chelsea was no longer possible. Sadly. I really miss being able to walk to the Chelsea Arts Club and stagger home, and I miss Sundays at Old Church.

I very much enjoy Unspun World. If you had to deliver some serious “spin” to encourage people to tune in, what would you say?

Unspun World is my brainchild, and I love it dearly. It’s done on an absolute shoestring, with only three of us on the editorial side. With the whole, marvellous range of BBC correspondents round the world to call on, we provide what I think is a Rolls-Royce look at this crazy world of ours for BBC Two, the News Channel and BBC World Service. It is quite weird, knowing we get an audience of around 300 million in Britain and around the world for our efforts. Now I’ve taken on another task, presenting a look back at the week on Friday nights on the News Channel. At the age of 81, I think I’m working harder, but more enjoyably, than I’ve ever worked before.

John Simpson will give an Author’s Talk at The Chelsea Book Festival at Petyt Hall, 6.45-8.30pm, on Saturday, 27th September. For tickets, visit here…

Unspun World with John Simpson is broadcast on the BBC at varying times. Scheduling details can be found here. And all episodes can be found on the iPlayer here

Jenkins will present a lecture at the Chelsea History Festival entitled ‘A History of British Architecture: Who is to blame?’. He will reveal the hidden narratives behind the facades of some of Britain’s most ionic buildings and promises to “demystify the language of architecture”. 

What, if any, is your connection with Chelsea and your understanding of it?

I have visited Chelsea very often over many years. I regard Chelsea and Hampstead as the two definitive, village-like places left in the capital – and I wouldn’t dream of choosing between them! I lived in Hampstead for a while, but never Chelsea. 

I think Chelsea is a superb survival of what London used to be like long ago. It has managed to survive very well and remarkably untouched by the 20th century. The only sadness about Chelsea now is depopulation. It’s a place that is half empty most of the time. When I go for walks in Chelsea, I just feel I’m walking down empty streets. Apart from the King’s Road and around Chelsea Green it feels that there’s no actual life. I don’t know what can be done about it, but I think it’s a real problem for London at the moment. I live in a part of Kensington which is almost as deserted.  

How do you explain the ’de-population’?

It’s full of second-homes – it’s as simple as that. Foreign buyers have bought up property and they don’t live in them all the time. Where I live, we’re surrounded by people who come occasionally, but don’t live here. Sadly, that’s in the character of attractive, prosperous parts of most cities.

What should be done to stop neighbourhoods like Chelsea and Kensington from being hollowed out?

Whether you can ban it, I really don’t know. I don’t think you can. I’d love to know if anyone has an idea what you might do. I worry about it a lot – not least because I am a second-home owner, too [Jenkins, who’s father was Welsh, has a house in the village in mid-Wales where he was brought up]. It’s a sign of being reasonably well off that you can afford to have two houses. For the residents of both the places where you may have homes, it is sad that their streets are empty most of the time. It’s a conundrum and a problem. Airbnb is having a lot to do with it.  

What would you do?

In Wales, we now pay two-and-a-half times council tax on the house. It is astronomically expensive to keep, but I regard it as worth it because we love living there. But I’m acutely aware of the fact that the other people in the fishing village where we live, do not like the fact that our quite substantial property in the middle of the village is empty most of the year. I get my family to use it a lot, but it is still empty much of the time. The village is being taken over by Airbnb.

Do you feel bad about having a second home in that village?

I don’t feel bad because I have been there all my life and my parents are buried there. I mean, we’re very much a part of the village. We’ve always lived in that area.

Where do you head to in Chelsea?

We often go down to the market at Duke of York Square. I’ve always liked the King’s Road. It’s a very lively place. The place still has a certain amount of vitality to it, more so theses days. Chelsea is a very interesting place because it goes from Sloane Square, where you really feel you’re in central London, down to World’s End, where you feel you’re in a sort of suburbia. Chelsea has the finest stretch of river in London along Cheyne Walk. And I like the area around Chelsea Green, which is still a bit of a village.  

How long have you been in Kensington?

I’ve have lived here twice, since the 1960s. I lived  just off Kensington High Street when I came out for university. A big gang of us were in a rented flat in Abingdon Road. I have lived in all different parts of London ever since, but I have never actually lived in Chelsea. I moved back to Kensington in 2008 to a house not far from the High Street.

Do you see a comparison with Chelsea was Kensington?  

They have always been two very distinct areas. When they were merged in 1964 or 65, there was some resentment in Kensington that it was being associated with this rather roughish, student, artistic place called Chelsea. I think the tables are slightly turned now. I think Kensington now is as much more associated with North Kensington, whereas Chelsea has got more and more expensive and more cosmopolitan.

Do you ever see yourself living in Chelsea, or are you a Kensington lad through and through?

I think I’m a Londoner. I’ve always lived somewhere in London. I’ve always regarded walking down King’s Road as an important part of being a Londoner. I always preferred it to Carnaby Street, which is more downmarket. The survival of Chelsea is really quite remarkable. The subtle differences between, for example, the King’s Road, Fulham Road, and Old Brompton Road, are remarkable. Only the peopele that live there really understand the nuances of village life.

What is your earliest memory of coming to Chelsea?  

It was in the 60s. There was a club called The Pheasantry. Is that still there?

Yes. It’s actually a Pizza Express now…

Oh God! There we are. Certainly, I can remember in my youth going to the Pheasantry Club, which was quite exciting. I was 18, 19, or 20. I also used to go to the Royal Court theatre quite a lot. The Royal Court really was a very important theatre in those times. It was the radical theatre and was one of the reasons for Chelsea’s slightly raffish, artistic appeal. I think Chelsea’s now become certainly more prim and posh.

I ran a campaign to stop a huge tower of apartments from being built by Battersea Bridge and you wrote a great article in support of it – Thank you! What do you think of the appetite for building these luxury towers?

I just find towers in London completely out of kilter with the city. They are all monsters, but the battle has been lost and I find it completely tragic. You cannot look out of Primrose Hill over London and not see these dotted towers here and there, serving no purpose at all, except to make some money. They’ve been allowed to go up anywhere. I think it’s just a tragedy, there’s no question about it. But all power to your arm for stopping that tower in Battersea.

What can we expect from your lecture at the History Festival?

It is an illustrated lecture of changes in style in British buildings over the centuries. The bones of it are about what happened since the Second World War, when modernism came into British style and what it did to Britain – and how modernism got so many things wrong. I will refer directly to the scale of the disaster with the building of giant estates during the postwar years across the poorer parts of London, from which we have never recovered. I will also refer to tower blocks and how they have been built wherever a developer wanted one. This has not been repeated in any other city in the world and it has been a disaster. 

One last question – You have to move to Chelsea or Kensington, which will it be?

I think Chelsea is a nicer place. Chelsea’s got class. I mean, I love Kensington, I’m very happy living there, but I regard Chelsea – along with Hampstead – as one of the loveliest places in London. I hear that a nice house in Old Church Street has just been sold…

Actually, it’s called The Old Rectory and it’s still on the market. You could probably get for about £250 million…

Fine. I’ll take that one!

Simon Jenkins will be appearing at the National Army Museum for the Chelsea History Festival on Sunday, 28th September, 6.30-7.30pm. Tickets – £15. To book, visit here