The French House, Soho

[1][6][7] After the fall of France during the Second World War, General Charles de Gaulle escaped to London where he formed the Free French Forces.

Brendan Behan wrote large portions of The Quare Fellow there, and Dylan Thomas once left the manuscript of Under Milk Wood under his chair.

[1][7][8][9][10][11] Clive Jennings says of regular clientele such as Jeffrey Bernard that "the lethal triangle of The French, The Coach & Horses and The Colony were the staging points of the Dean Street shuffle, with occasional forays into other joints such as The Gargoyle or the Mandrake ...

[12] When still called York Minster, Raymond Postgate included it in the first volume of his Good Food Guide, 1951-52, with this entry: "Outside, this looks like an ordinary pub; inside it becomes the 'Maison Berlemont,' a French auberge with shelves full of Pernod, Byrrh, Amer Picon, Suze, Cap Corse, Mandarin, and so on.

[1] In recent years, landlady Lesley Lewis has encouraged Soho photographers to exhibit in the pub with regular contributions from John Claridge, William Corbett, Carla Borel and Peter Clark; and members of illustrators' collective, Le Gun.

For me, it was the one place in Soho that still held its Bohemian character, where people truly chose to share time and conversation, and I became aware that many I had once chinked glasses with were no longer around.