About Maxine Morse

A Born and Bred Londoner

I’m a born and bred Londoner who has always had a magnificent obsession for the city.

Childhood in a Victorian Pharmacy

My father had a Victorian pharmacy just round the corner from Buckingham Palace. His customers were the landed gentry of Belgravia and then the Royal Family…he held Royal Warrants for the Queen and the Prince of Wales. He used to bottle his own medicines and make lotions on a burner in the dispensary (the Queen apparently loved his hand cream which he called Madame Dupré)

Our London Life

My mother, harassed with four kids, had some great ideas for keeping us occupied. We fed the ducks on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, we had a weekly outing to the Natural History Museum, Science Museum and V&A and made an annual nocturnal pilgrimage to to see the Christmas Lights and Harrods Christmas windows.

Sometimes, as a special treat, she took us to a big department store for orange squash and a plate of biscuits on a paper doily – all the traditional favourites like bourbon biscuits, cloying custard creams and jammy dodgers .

Or we were sent round the corner, to see if we could make the Buckingham Palace guards on sentry duty smile or laugh. When I wasn’t helping my dad in the pharmacy, I was sent out on the top of a double decker bus with a 25p Red Rover ticket which gave me unlimited travel all round the capital, spotting and spying things. You wouldn’t let a nine year old do that now!
London’s Regents Street Top Sight

Working at 12 in Oxford Street

At twelve years old, I had my first Saturday job which was working as a restaurant seater in DH Evans, a big department store, on Oxford Street.

My job was to show customers to their seats in the upstairs dining room. I was considered “management” so I was entitled to any dish off the menu for lunch. As a scrawny kid, I used to walk along the chef’s pass deciding what to eat. Then at precisely 11am, I sat down in the restaurant at a table with a white, starched, linen table cloth and silver, scuffed, heavy, hotel cutlery. The menu had all the traditional English specials like fish and chips, and steak and kidney pie but my favourite was the mixed grill – steak, mushrooms, lamb chops, kidneys, a fried egg, chips and peas.

Onwards and Upwards at Dickins and Jones, Biba and the Portobello Road

I progressed in my Saturday jobs to being a senior employee of the Dickins and Jones coffee shop where I learned to make a tray of six open sandwiches in five minutes…and if the butter is soft I can still do this today!

I worked in Biba, in it’s black and gold splendour which gave me a love of 1920s luxe and glam. The store was a wonder to behold and I kitted out my university wardrobe there with felt feather hats and orange feathers, leopard print fur coats, flounced skirts and wrap tops.

And I made some serious money with a vintage clothes stall on the Portobello Road.

Rediscovering London

Half a century later, exhausted after taking care of cranky, elderly parents, a procession of deaths and a fast paced IT consulting career, I retired. And I started to rediscover the London of my 1960s childhood. But this time it was different…I had the internet, and I was able to unearth all sorts of hidden gems…deals, cocktails, piano players, hotel foyers, and many, many splendiferous things. I’m looking forward to showing you around my world.

Expect to be entertained and informed about London’s top sights, restaurants and bars.