Windsor Castle (Notting Hill)

Mary Poppins

I’ve always been a martyr to wind.

One minute there I am, starching my smalls and looking forward to a nice nip of gin, the next it’s all rumbling jumbling down below and I know I’m in for a bumpy ride.

Before I’ve got chance to ram a few essentials into a carpet bag and grab a brolly, my pantaloons start billowing, huge gusts gather up round my crinolines and “whoooosh” I’m off. It clears the cobwebs I can tell you, but a girl’s got her pride and heading up into the stratosphere with your legs engulfed in a hefty cumulus congestus is no way for a woman of my stature to ride.

Not only that, but they’re devils for procedure down at the agency, and defying gravity (I try to avoid the phrase “self- levitation” as it tends to overexcite those of a religious bent ) isn’t considered a key competency when it comes to childcare.

Anyway, I digress. So I’m experiencing one of my turns, floating along on a jet stream wondering if I dare chance running a brush through my bun, when at last I begin my descent. A tad disorientated, as I sink I collide with a couple of pesky pigeons trying to get their beaks around the Battenburg I keep hidden in the lower calf region of my stockings.

Now I’ve never taken to that “feed the birds” codswallop and luckily I’d indulged in an extra layer of Clingfilm to ward off intruders, so before they’d so much as perched themselves over the concealed layer of marzipan the pilfering pests were soon suffocating in their own pigeon-y vomit. A messy incident, but unavoidable, and not without its advantages - if there’s one thing that dreary dirge has taught me it’s that pigeons mean London and that, without a doubt, was where I was heading.

Touching down always plays havoc with my bunions, so when I skimmed above the crazy-paving framing a rather spiky looking lean-to and landed on the sunroof of an oatmeal soft-top my blouson ruffled with the tiniest frisson of relief. So this was it. My next gig. A suburban semi in South Ken.

Now, if you think looking after other peoples’ kids is easy, think again and an SW postcode didn’t bode well. But “a spoonful of sugar” has always been my motto (it just so happens my sugar comes in the fermented form) so I decided on a quick detour, straightened my pinny and pointed my brolly in the direction of the nearest public house.

Call me old-fashioned but there’s nothing quite like a good chimney. The minute I clap sight on a soaring hot stack spewing smoke I get a shivering sensation running all the way up my stockings. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Dick!”. But you’d be wrong. Old Van Dyke-y with his sooty breeches and ever-probing brush has never been anything but a face-blackened blot on my normally pristine landscape. His extraordinary vowel shifts and hazardous displays of rooftop dancing almost put me off chimneys for life.

I say “almost”, for I’ve made it a policy never to permit a man (let alone a ruddy-faced Yank masquerading as a Cockney) to interfere with my private inklings. So when I spotted the bulging brick erections protruding out of the Windsor Castle I knew I’d found my watering hole. . “Spit spot, Mary” I thought, “you deserve a treat old girl” and in I went.

Nursing my gin, I squeezed into one of hostelry’s pleasingly straight-backed, firm, wooden settles, as close to the chimney breast as my complexion would allow (red cheeks are only acceptable on clowns or naughty children), I mused upon my surroundings and fellow drinkers. It appeared a popular establishment and rightly so, for it was indeed quaint. Space was, however, sorely lacking and, adjusting my neck to accommodate the low ceiling, I couldn’t help but observe a somewhat unhealthy proliferation of… bodily contact taking place throughout the premises. There also seemed to be rather a lot of filthy Yanks taking photographs of the ceiling.

I’ve habitually found candlelight, and for that matter alcohol, to be flattering on the features, but for one rather surly looking specimen lurking in the corner it seemed to being having the opposite effect. It might have been the heat, but the gentleman appeared to be turning a nasty shade of asparagus green, right in front of my eyes. Blinking always helps focus the mind and refresh the vision so I pressed my eyelids together in quick succession hoping to obtain some clarity on the situation. Eyeballs fully cleansed I peered, once again, from under the rim of my hat. This time not only was he distinctly pine-coloured but his eyebrows seemed to be sprouting recklessly from beneath his heavy fringe and, if I wasn’t mistaken, his clothing was stretching in a somewhat ungainly manner.

Glaring at me, wholly inappropriately I might add, it was then that two of the buttons on his already stretched shirt popped off and landed in his beverage, resulting in unnecessary spillage on the exquisitely polished floorboards and an equally unnecessary exposure of chest hair. I afforded myself the luxury of more blinking, which only seemed to result in increased attention from the extraordinary, green hulk of a creature.

He began to stagger over. “Spit spot Mary! He’s heading your way old girl”. Taking this as my cue to leave, I extracted my brolly and was making a beeline for the powder room when I was unexpectedly floored by one of the pub’s many, hitherto unassuming, period features - a recklessly low, oak partition separating me and the facilities. Now, it’s here that things get hazy. I awoke, seemingly encased in wood panelling. I thought my end had come until a gruff voice began to echoing in my ears…

“Drink?” it growled. Then more insistently… “DRINK!”

I panicked. I was thirsty… but the cat had got my tongue. What was a girl in such a predicament to order? It was then I remembered Papa Poppins’ final words. In desperation I stuttered and, like dearest (drunken) Papa, my mind began ranging from one alcoholic beverage to another…

“SuperCarlingFruiliLimeyExportAleand…oooooh - Schnapps!”

“What?” he boomed.

“SuperCarlingFruiliLimeyExportAleand…oooooh - Schnapps!”

“One Schnapps for the lady” he rasped. “And make mine a Crème de Menthe.”

Mary Poppins’ rating for The Windsor Castle – 8 / 10

Fiona McSweeney

• View by pub
• View by reviewer
• View by place

• Natural Selection,..

  “,….. Why didn’t they live to be 100?Huh? Well, they woz running round all day, hunting mammoths, eating berries,..rumping their little hearts out. No boozing or smoking. They must have been fit as fiddles. Yer Neanderthalls……….I’ll tell you why, it’s … Continue reading →