Sign in  |  Register

The New Criterion

America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life
- Harry Mount, the London Telegraph
Subscribe Now and get unlimited access

Letters

June 1997

Backbenchers & youthquakers

by Mordecai Richler

On the London scene

Flicker … whirr … Move it along, Granddad, you’re getting in the way of The Scene! The London Scene, that is! From Soho to Notting Hill, from Camberwell to Camden Town, the capital city of Dear Old Blighty pulses anew with the good vibrations of an epic-scale youthquake!
—Vanity Fair, March 1997

I first settled in London in 1950 at a time when the rubble left over from the Blitz was still in evidence here and there. Food and clothing rationing were still intact. Dowdiness was the rule. But the admirable new National Health Service was working to just about everybody’s satisfaction, and I never once encountered a beggar on the streets. In 1957, along came the Suez crisis. I attended a protest rally in Trafalgar Square and joined the march on Downing Street. A French Communist had instructed us in how to cope with the police on horseback, the so-cal ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first

Mordecai Richler


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 June 1997, on page 39

Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/backbenchesyouthquakes-richler-3314
rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend


The New Criterion

By the author

Peddler's diary

by Mordecai Richler

On the author’s recent book tour

You might also enjoy

Most popular

view more >

download
first delivery

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

New from The New Criterion:
40 page special issue
on our conference

"Free speech in
an age of Jihad"

Events

November 09 2009

YOUNG FRIENDS: Tour of an important contemporary art collection


November 24 2009

OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading


December 02 2009

Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading

Webcasts

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 3
"The State and the Threat to Democracy" by Jeremy Black and "The Paradox of the Intellectual and the Future of Capitalism" by Tim Congdon, Recorded on 9/25/2009


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 2
"Nice 'N' Easy: The Age of Micro Tyranny" by Mark Steyn, Recorded on 9/25/2009

Weblog