The Hope and Anchor

When my wife and I traveled to London in 2004 we stayed in our daughter Neith’s vacant flat in Islington. Neith and her partner Steve met us at Heathrow and took us directly to the flat. Steve had to go back to work. Judith and I dropped our luggage, looked around the place once and started out on a tour of Islington with Neith as our guide. We walked west on St. Paul’s Road and south on Upper Street. The west corner of Upper Street and Islington Park Street was dominated by a mammoth four-story brick edifice. White lettering on the black marquee read, “Hope & Anchor.” The women turned down my invitation for a drink but I was ready for a beer.

A grey haze of cigarette smoke floated, slowly swirling, filling the murky barroom like a dense cloud. Thick hardwood timbers embraced the place in their time-darkened arms. A few people sat at tables, drinking and talking. Five locals stood at the bar, laughing and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. I bellied up to the bar. A young blonde woman asked me in an Eastern-European accent, “Vhat vould you like?” I studied the long row of pump handles. “Stella Artois,” I said.

“Ah. A Canadian,” the guy at the other end of the bar called out. “Close,” I said. “Alaskan.” “A Yank!” shouted a man behind me. I turned to see a dapper older man sitting at a table—tweed suit, tie, vest and highly polished shoes--not a hair out of place. “I fuckin’ ‘ate fuckin’ Yanks!” The men at the bar laughed. “That’s Old Bill,” one fellow chuckled. “He fuckin’ ‘ates Yanks,” another howled. The other men burst into laughter. “He’s ‘armless,” one of them smiled. “He don’t really bite,” said another.

That is how I was inducted into the fellowship of the Hope and Anchor. For the next four and a half months it would be my home away from home. That may be why my wife calls it the Hopeless Wanker. Although Judith and I have spent more than two years of the past two decades living in London, this was the first time I had been accepted into the community of a “local”. While this is not the equivalent of an American being knighted, it’ll do.