Four years ago, the long and winding road finally ended up in Savile Row. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the final Beatles concert on the roof of No 3, my good friend David Rosen, of Pilcher Hershman (“space agent, not estate agent,” he’ll say, just in case you didn’t know), had successfully lobbied Westminster Council to erect a blue plaque. And so at 8am on April 5, myself, Bill Nighy, the filmmaker Mark Baxter and a bunch of other Beatles nuts turned up to see it installed. We hadn’t come to see the oracle at Delphi, but rather a bloke up a stepladder with a hammer, attaching bronze, stone and lead to brick.
London is now being littered with similar blue plaques, commemorating everything from Jimi Hendrix’s flat next to Claridge’s to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust photo session in Heddon Street (soon to be turned into a more extravagant Bowie Valhalla by the Crown Estate). Equally, there are dedicatory frisbees acknowledging Bob Marley (Neasden), the Small Faces (Carnaby Street), Pink Floyd (Regent Street), Spandau Ballet (outside the old Blitz club in Great Queen Street) and many more. Just a few weeks ago Pop Art pioneer Pauline Boty was commemorated with a blue plaque for her contribution to the Sixties British art movement (about bloody time!), and during Pride, Sadiq Khan announced five new rainbow plaques celebrating significant people, places and moments in LGBTQI+ history (Beautiful Thing in Greenwich, the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre in Peckham, Jackie Forster in Westminster, the London Lighthouse in Ladbroke Grove, and Section 28 in Haringey).
