One Man's London

'One Man’s London' – the idiosyncratic London guide book that won a cult following within weeks of its publication – has at last been reissued in an expanded form. This enhanced illustrated version has been published in response to demands for a reissue that began not long after its original publication. 'One Man’s London' was first published by Hutchinson in 1989, and the edition quickly sold out. Soon, second-hand copies were selling at well above the cover price and, ever since, the book has been keenly sought-after.The book’s attraction has always been its remarkable individuality and the oddities and secrets it reveals about streets every Londoner knows. It tells us of the Roman milestone that lies unmarked beside St Margaret’s, Westminster; of the oldest gas lamps in the world, which still burn along The Mall; of the inconspicuous markers that govern Royal processions; of pubs that go to Buckingham Palace for their licences; of parish marks that still designate the boundaries of old London; and of the miniature Test Match on the wall facing Australia House, among many other features in London often overlooked or ignored. In addition to describing such features, this book also explains why they are there, and their continuing significance today.The author has continued his investigations over the last two decades, and this new expanded and illustrated edition reveals many new secrets, including the ‘illegal’ lamp-posts along the Embankment; the pugilistic cherubs of Selfridge’s; why an admiral’s memorial has a Guinness bottle inside it; why there are no roads in the City of London; and the identity of the heads, each complete with collar and tie, that look down on Trafalgar Square. Arranged, as before, as a series of walks, this new edition concludes with a new, seventeenth, walk along Oxford Street that looks at the delightful statue of the ballerina Darcy Bussell, takes us to the house where William Blake ‘had interviews with angels and persons of scarcely inferior distinction’, and gives us a glimpse of the legendary Tyburn river. It ends with a close inspection of the most famous feature of Broadcasting House, suggesting strongly that the BBC thought they were commissioning one thing while the sculptor made it clear, in letters still visible, that he was giving them something else.Born in London in 1933, Norman Murphy started exploring it as a schoolboy during the War, when “the only way of finding where you were in the flattened streets was to take a bearing on the dome of St Paul’s.” Educated at Wimbledon and Oxford, he joined the Army in 1959 and successive postings to Whitehall enabled him to spend his lunchtimes exploring the alleys, courtyards, and side streets of central London, as well as conducting unofficial tours that became a feature of the Ministry of Defence. Now retired, he is the author of six books, including 'In Search of Blandings', 'One Man’s London', 'Three Wodehouse Walks', and 'A Wodehouse The World and Words of P.G. Wodehouse'.Colonel Murphy is an internationally recognised expert on the author P.G. Wodehouse, former chairman of The P G Wodehouse Society (UK), and now its Remembrancer. He has spent more than twenty years updating his 1989 book One Man’s London, and 'One Man’s Twenty Years On' brings his work firmly into the 21st century.