The Surrender of Silence: A Memoir of Ironfoot Jack, King of the Bohemians

"He gained the moniker ‘Ironfoot Jack’ because he had a terrible accident and one of his legs became shorter than the other. They made him an iron shoe that was attached to his foot, so he could get around—hence the name. Like Nina Hamnett he was dismissed by the younger generation that took over Bohemia in the 1950s. In his book, Soho in the Fifties, Daniel Farson portrayed Jack as a wannabe and a wastrel, but he wasn’t that at all. He was known as the King of Bohemia and he did lots of interesting wacky things. He was also a very early proponent of mail-order scams. He would put adverts in the newspapers saying, ‘Secure everything with this amazing invention. Send in 10 shillings today and you’ll receive this life changing invention.’ He’d then send people a length of string by return post. At one time he ran a French restaurant in Soho although it had no cook or even a kitchen. People would come in and be given this wonderful menu by Ironfoot Jack with all these exotic dishes on it in French. But, no matter what they ordered, it wasn’t available until they got down poisson et pommes frites —fish and chips. By this time the diners were so exhausted and hungry that they’d just say, “Yes, yes, we’ll have poisson et pommes frites .” Ironfoot Jack would then send a boy round the corner to the chip shop for some fish’n’chips. He’d put them on a plate and serve them and charge an exorbitant price for it. The restaurant had no running water either, so he had to send the plates out to be washed again afterwards. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Before the war he’d ran the infamous Caravan Club in Endell Street, which was raided by police. People smoked marijuana there and there was lots of cross dressing and scantily clad dancers. It became a huge cause célèbre when he was taken to court over the alleged debauchery at the club. It was covered extensively in the press and, on the day of the court’s verdict, there were hundreds of people milling outside the courtroom to offer him their support. He became quite a mover and shaker in the bohemian world. After the war, he lost all his money and was having to hustle for cash. He’s a fascinating character. There was a young man called Colin Wilson, who’d come to London and was living in a tent in one of the parks. During the day, he’d go to the British Library to research his book, The Outsider . He spent a lot of time hanging around in cafés and in one of these cafés he met Ironfoot Jack, who often attended with Quentin Crisp. Colin Wilson was absolutely fascinated by Jack and persuaded him to have his portrait painted. Jack dictated his memoir during these portrait sittings. Colin Wilson was convinced that Jack’s memoir was going to be a bestseller. Colin’s book, The Outsider, had been published to much acclaim and he was one of the leaders of this generation of ‘Angry Young Men’. But, in the end, he couldn’t find a publisher. Ironfoot Jack died and Colin’s career moved on. He shelved the manuscript, thinking he’d get back round to getting it published at some point. But the manuscript disappeared into his paperwork. Although Jack appears in Colin’s cult classic autobiographical novel, Adrift in Soho , it wasn’t until after Colin’s death when his papers were being archived at the University of Nottingham, that Colin’s biographer and friend, Colin Stanley, discovered the manuscript. He realized what he’d stumbled upon and decided to publish it. The manuscript lay dormant and forgotten for over half a century. It wasn’t published until two years ago. That anecdote was repeated over and over again in bars all round Soho. When Daniel Farson mentions it in one of his books, he talks about it as a fable, a myth. He doesn’t attribute it to Ironfoot Jack. The whole story about who did it and how it happened had all got lost in the mists of time. One of the great difficulties of trying to write historical books about bohemia is getting to the bottom of all the barroom talk to find out who did what and whether it really happened or not. For instance, it seems very unlikely that Dylan Thomas did throw up on the floor of The Colony Room Club. He was trying to overturn the restrictions of British society. What’s very interesting about this period is that people romanticise gypsies. The artist Augustus John would travel long distances on horseback with a caravan in tow. So, rather like the Arts and Crafts movement harking back to a period before the Industrial Revolution, these bohemians wanted to live in a world that was free of restrictions, free from what they saw as the hypocrisy of the church, the state and the law. The whole point of Jack calling it the Caravan Club was to give it a sense that this was something that was moving, part of a travelling nomadic group that didn’t belong anywhere and didn’t have any roots. The romantic notion of the gypsy is of someone who lives on the margins of society and the state and doesn’t follow the rules. The Outsider was a potent symbol for them in a repressed post-Edwardian England. One can see the attraction of Jack for Colin Wilson."