Folkestone: Britain’s San Francisco

A fanciful proposition?

Maybe.

Probably.

After all, there are no breathtaking bridges (unless you count the Foord Road railway viaduct), no crippling hills (no, not even the Old High Street), no $40 million properties (how much IS the Grand worth?) and no former high security prisons once claimed for Indian land sitting off the shore in Kent’s garden resort.

But, having spent a lot of time in San Francisco over the past twenty years, and written extensively about it in the past five years, I believe there are enough similarities to entitle me to suggest that it has more in common with my childhood playground, and now home, of Folkestone than one might at first think. The only differences are ones of scale and international repute.

Before I plunge into this pool of fantasy, a brief disclaimer.

The only photographs included in this piece are those of Folkestone – for a variety of reasons: 1) Many people will already be familiar with some of the sights I refer to in San Francisco; 2) If they don’t, there are probably millions of images and billions of words on the internet to fill them in, and 3) I have posted hundreds of images elsewhere on this blog and I’d be delighted if you were inspired to go hunting for them!

Back to the proposition.

Firstly, they are both marine ports with world famous stretches of water/land on their doorstep (the Golden Gate and the White Cliffs of Dover) as well as glorious bay/sea views in all directions and weathers.

The boats in Folkestone’s pretty harbour hardly match up to the million dollar vessels you will find docked in Sausalito or Tiburon across San Francisco Bay. But the scene has a timeless charm that is endlessly captivating, whether at high or low tide.

Both places teeter on the edge of their nation. Folkestone, with its proximity to mainland Europe, cemented by the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994, has long vied with neighbouring Dover for the title of “Gateway to England” (personally, I think it’s a draw), while San Francisco is on the seismically challenged tip of a vast continent.

And because of that position, they have both served as major embarcation points for their nation’s military in time of war. In the 1914-18 conflict, it is estimated that as many as eight million soldiers marched down Folkestone’s Road of Remembrance to the Harbour Station en route to the fields of Flanders and France, while in the Second World War, more than a million and a half soldiers left for the Pacific conflict from San Francisco and its neighbour on the other side of the Bay Bridge, Oakland.

“The City” (as (we) San Franciscans call it) is consistently placed high (invariably first) on culinary surveys. The Foodie Capital of the U.S.A is no idle boast. Folkestone may not have attained that elevated status (for a start it’s not in the U.S.A. but you know what I mean), but a number of fine cafes and restaurants have sprouted in the town in recent years, a visible and tasty manifestation of the regeneration, courtesy in no small part to the beneficence of Sir Roger de Haan.

Rocksalt, the seafood restaurant perched alongside the small railway bridge that separates the inner from outer harbour, has recently been named the thirtieth best in the U.K and Googies has been adjudged Restaurant of the Year in the 2016 Taste of Kent Awards.

There are a number of other quality restaurants (Copper and Spices, Blooms @1/4 and Follies are personal favourites), both in the town and dotted along the recently reopened Harbour Arm, capped by the lovely Champagne Bar at the foot of the lighthouse.

And one can’t forget, this being a seaside resort, that there are many establishments serving up fish and chips (not forgetting the mushy peas, white bread and butter and mug of tea).

Coffee culture is strong too – many shops provide coffee and cake in addition to their primary products – and there is a distinct hipster vibe about Folkestone that mirrors – on a smaller scale of course – the atmosphere in neighbourhoods like the Mission, Cole Valley and Potrero Hill on the “left coast” of America.

Any self-respecting coastal resort would not be complete without its harbourside seafood stalls selling freshly caught crab and lobster as well as cockles, whelks and prawns. Bob’s, Chummy’s and La’s are all well established and popular purveyors of the denizens of the sea. A Fisherman’s Wharf in miniature you might argue.

Home to Jack London and Dashiel Hammett, the Beat poets and the Summer of Love, inspiration for the WPA and Mission muralists, San Francisco has always had a reputation for being a town for artists, writers and musicians. After all, it provides a gorgeous natural canvas upon which to create. However, one of the consequences of astronomical rents in recent years has been to drive many artists out of the city.

In contrast, Folkestone’s star as an arts venue of international repute is rising. Every three years – the next is in 2017 – it becomes host to a prestigious arts festival (Triennial), where artists are permitted free rein about town to create public artworks (there are already twenty seven pieces on display by luminaries like Yoko Ono and Tracey Emin).

This is the most high profile manifestation of a burgeoning arts scene centred on the Creative Quarter where galleries and performance space adorn the once run down Old High Street and Tontine Street. Indeed, it is the arts that has been the fulcrum of the regeneration that has become the envy of other coastal resorts around the UK (which, admittedly, have not had the benefit of a sugar daddy like de Haan.

The City by the Bay is renowned for its year round cavalcade of neighbourhood and city wide festivals and fairs celebrating its cherished devotion to diversity, including Pride, the Haight Ashbury Street Fair, North Beach Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Folsom Street Fair.

In contrast, Folkestone’s admittedly more modest, but nonetheless impressive, calendar of annual events, notably Charivari, the Harbour Festival, Leas Village Fete, Armed Forces Day, Skabour and the Folkestone Book Festival among many others.

I cannot resist including a pet (not literally) subject of mine – gulls.

Both places boast a feisty, ravenous population, hardly surprising given their coastal position, but these, reflecting their human compatriots in each town, are genuine “characters”. The giant seagull artwork, now serving on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm as an unconventional tourist information kiosk, has become an unofficial poster boy (or is that gull?) for the town. But generally, so far, I’ve found the local birdlife noisy but reasonably friendly, especially when I cross Radnor Park of a morning when they waddle up to greet me (but don’t let me get too close).

The same cannot be said for those that begin to circle San Francisco’s (base) ball park during the late innings of a Giants game in anticipation of feasting on leftover garlic fries. Fans remaining until the end of evening games have to have their wits about them.

There is one aspect of San Francisco life that I would not want to see replicated in Folkestone. San Francisco rents and the broader cost of living are the highest in the States, due largely to the influx of tech workers from Google, Facebook and Oracle to name but a few.

Now, the Alkham Valley doesn’t have quite the same cudos as Silicon Valley (pretty as it is – Alkham not Silicon), but there are other forces at play – improved accessibility to London through the high speed rail link, continued development and gentrification and relatively cheap house prices (for now) – that increase the risk of Folkestone becoming a town split between affluent “transplants” and residents who cannot afford to live in the place they were born and brought up in.

There is a more substantial analysis called for here, and I may attempt it in due course. Moreover, there are other issues I might have explored – dogs and drinking spring to mind (that’s not about the bowls left outside the Leas Cliff Hall for the delectation of our canine colleagues but rather two very distinct subjects).

But, for now, there is certainly one further similarity between the two places that I must mention – I left my heart in both, in Folkestone as a ten year old gleefully gambolling (not gambling) in the rotunda and in 1995 on a fateful West Coast tour of the U.S.A.

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The Bus Came By

I blame it, of course, on Scott McKenzie.

And Alan Whicker.

Now I trust that many readers, notably those of a certain age and transatlantic disposition, will recall that Scott McKenzie was the singer who advised the world in 1967 that, if they were going to San Francisco, they should “be sure to wear some flowers in their hair”. That song alone had a searing impact on an impressionable fourteen year old boy living five and a half thousand miles away.

But Alan Whicker?

In appearance, with his English grammar school upbringing, clipped accent, Saville Row suit, slicked back hair, thick-set glasses and brisk moustache, he was the antithesis of the young people flocking to the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood at the time.

Whicker was an English journalist and broadcaster who forged a career spanning nearly sixty years until his death in 2013. His finest work was Whicker’s World which he presented for thirty years, travelling the world and commenting in an inimitable ironic fashion on society, and interviewing many prominent figures of the time, including the Sultan of Brunei, reputedly the richest man in the world at the time, the Haitian dictator, “Papa Doc” Duvalier and numerous high profile actors and aristocrats.

His stiff upper-lip style made him the affectionate butt of many comedians, none more memorably than the Monty Python team who delivered a sketch entitled Whicker’s Island, in which a succession of Whickers would walk on and off the screen uttering in his customary hushed tones, the catchphrase “here on Whicker’s Island”.

On 9^th September 1967, the day that Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Byrds headlined at the Family Dog and Fillmore Auditorium, two of the emerging and competing concert venues in San Francisco,  Whicker broadcast a programme on the BBC entitled Love Generation. The episode was groundbreaking not least for the fact that it showed scenes of drug taking, despite the corporation’s “horror” of the practice, for the first time on British television, notably in 710 Ashbury, the Grateful Dead house (Phil Lesh and Bob Weir figured prominently). In the light of the recent Mick Jagger drug bust, it was put out very late at night. Among the individuals invited to expound their hippie ideals, emerging music promoter, Chet Helms, outlined his plans for taking music and light show “happenings” to London.

It was an incisive, literate and surprisingly sympathetic piece in which Whicker spoke over footage of the large influx of youth who had hitchhiked from every state to “Hashbury”:

In the States, pot is going middle class and spreading like prohibition liquor as more and more citizens   get zonked out of their minds. The drug culture enters the blood stream of American life. Like it or not, we’re living in the stoned age.

Later he was to lament that the:

Summer of Love was a short outburst of happiness that lasted only a few months. When I returned a year later the flowers and the innocence had died.

I was, like the thousands of young people that sought escape from the drabness of middle America, inspired by the message of “tune in, turn on, drop out”, though I hadn’t the means of joining the tribes.

The broadcast also gave my first experience of the Grateful Dead in performance with a beardless Jerry Garcia taking the lead on the Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion). A song title was never more apt.

News bulletins featured scenes of Gray Line tour buses crawling down Haight Street with bemused middle aged, provincial passengers staring at the carnival on the street.

And then there was Scott McKenzie.

Another character with a splendid upper lip growth, it was his song, full title San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair), which topped the charts in the UK but not (quite) the US, that so enthralled that fourteen year old boy in what was, despite the emergence of “swinging London”, still a monochrome etched country.

I took to decorating my Beatle mop with an occasional fresh daisy or buttercup. I commandeered my mother’s chocolate and purple paisley print blouse to wear to the home games of my local football team, guaranteeing that I would be bullied as mercilessly on a Saturday afternoon on the terraces as I was already being five days a week at school.

But I didn’t care.

I was a hippie.

My home grown musical diet of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks and a dozen other pop groups began to be supplemented by the weird, thrilling sounds of San Francisco. But it would still be another three years before I could get my hands on the music of the  Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service (thank you Keith Mason wherever you are), and before I could justifiably claim to be aboard the bus – the magic, not tourist, version.

During those same three years, I became increasingly fascinated by American culture and society. My political awakening was borne more out of opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the blacks in the Deep South, and students at Berkeley and Kent State than with the Rhodesian question or devaluation of the pound in Britain. I chose American history as one of my “A levels” at school and later studied American literature at university.

Underpinning all this was the music – my adoration for the San Franciscan bands was extended to embrace the country and folk rock idioms of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Eagles and, of course, Dylan. I devoured every American film I could, especially those with a counter cultural bias like Easy Rider, Two-Lane Blacktop and Alice’s Restaurant, and read George Jackson, Angela Carter and Tom Wolfe.

Those enthusiasms have endured to this day, though it would take me another quarter of a century before I first gazed adoringly on the Golden Gate Bridge or strolled down the street that had been the epicentre of my cultural life for so long.

But that is another story.

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Haight Ashbury Photo Gallery

Readers of this blog will already be aware of my affection for the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Several articles have been devoted to its history, architecture and culture.

Following my recent trip I have revisited my collection of photographs of the neighborhood. It started off as just a series of images but I have found it hard to resist commenting on a number of them in passing.

I will start with the store in which my vacation dollars and I are most easily parted – Land of the Sun, the  best place on Haight Street for tie-dye shirts and hippie paraphernalia such as jewelry, beads, throws and other household accessories.

The other store in which I have often satisfied my craving for tie-dye is Haight Ashbury T-Shirts.  It might not be as enticing as Land of the Sun from the outside, but it is a great place to hang out in, even if it does mean you having to spend much of your time craning your neck to view the merchandise that occupies the entire ceiling space.

But it does have the added kudos of being sited at the iconic Haight  and Ashbury intersection (though not the definitive corner – that honor now goes to Ben & Jerry’s).

Haight-Ashbury is not just hippie clothing and smoke shops of course. It also boasts some of the finest Victorian architecture in the city, as illustrated by this fine pair of Queen Annes situated literally yards off the main drag.

My first port of call on hitting the ‘hood was once Positively Haight Street, a wonderful hippie-oriented store with stunning facades.

In June 2012, new owners opened Jammin on Haight on the same premises. Still dedicated to tie-dye fashion, it is undeniably a beautiful store but I haven’t yet quite warmed to it.  Much of the overtly Grateful Dead apparel and accessories – despite the sign in the window below – have gone (or do I have “two good eyes” but “still don’t see”?), and it exudes a more upmarket, well scrubbed vibe that I can’t readily relate to. The window displays, though sporting different designs, remain beautiful.

I once sang (I use the word advisedly) the Grateful Dead song, Ripple, with a young busker on that corner above. I often wonder whether he was still able to eat that evening.

Though I have not had cause to visit these establishments much, here are some more colorful shopfronts.

Although I’ve still not managed to beat the lines at the legendary Pork Store Café, the following have provided hearty sustenance over the years. And we will get to eat at Cha Cha Cha one day too!

Familiar and long gone (but not forgotten) look out on you every few yards along Haight Street.

No photo gallery of the Haight would be complete without a full frontal view of 710 Ashbury, the Grateful Dead’s home between 1966 and 1968.

Back to Positively Haight Street, once the retail king of the neighborhood for an unreconstituted Deadhead.

With every visit to San Francisco I learn of the demise of more quality neighborhood bookstores. Even since my last trip less than a year ago, Badger Books in Bernal Heights and Phoenix Books in Noe Valley, the latter replaced by an inferior alternative, have closed. I was shocked also to find that Aardvaark Books on Church and Market had been remodeled as a secondhand store.

It is reassuring, therefore, to find that Booksmith on Haight Street appears to be flourishing. I continue to make my small contribution to its future.

Curiuously, in view of my love for the music that originally flowed out of San Francisco music scene in the late sixties and early seventies, I have never got excited about the prospect of visiting the massive Amoeba Music.

It might just be the sheer scale of the place and the fact that it occupies a single floor that disconcerts me. I am, or rather was, accustomed to the stores (Virgin, Tower, HMV) back in the UK  that occupied several tiers which made it easier to find what you were looking for.

Or it may be the legacy of my first visit when I was told rather aggressively that I had to leave the small bag I was carrying at the entrance. I understand that theft may be an issue, but I form an aversion immediately to any establishment that tells me at the front door that I am not to be trusted. I may be naive but this struck me as especially disappointing  on the street where the concepts of love and peace were once so trumpeted.

I haven’t been confronted recently but I still find it difficult to cope with the size of, and lack of warmth in, the store. But that’s as much my problem as theirs. As it happens, I am not a great fan either of Rasputin Music which has recently been providing competition for Amoeba on the street.

I will finish where I started – with the Land of the Sun store and its reference to the familiar Grateful Dead lyric from Truckin’ of “What a long strange trip it’s been”.

There are many other places, events and photographs that I could have included, some of which I have paid tribute to in previous posts, but I am conscious that this post will already have tried your patience.

Many will accuse me of having a romanticized, tourist’s – or even dippy hippie’s – view of the modern day Haight, and claim that what echoes there are of the Summer of Love are slight and inauthentic; that, effectively, it is no more than an open air museum (the number of tour buses that still crawl along the street might reinforce that argument).

I don’t presume to know whether there is any vestige of truth in that or not. What I do know is that, amid the upscale stores and expensive accommodation (the Haight boasts more single millionaires (283) than any other San Francisco neighborhood), it still means something valuable and relevant for many people – those who lived through the sixties and those who are their grandchildren. You only need to walk the area during the annual street fair or 4/20 festivities to recognize that.

May the trip continue to be long and strange!

 

 

 

 

 

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A First Time Visitor’s Guide to San Francisco

I am regularly asked by friends, personally and on social media sites, for advice on what are the best things to see and do on their upcoming,  and invariably first, trip to San Francisco. Rather than continue to respond on a one to one basis, I have listed below my current recommendations so that anyone can refer to them when they need to.

I should stress that the selections below reflect my personal views, though I have still included other celebrated attractions that would not necessarily be on my list if I only had a few days in the city. But the focus is on the first time visitor.

I must put my prejudices aside for this exercise! They are arranged in  no particular order.

1. Golden Gate Bridge

• Drive it and take in the views from Vista Point, but much more spectacularly, the Marin Headlands (below), which you access by going under the road just after the end of the bridge;

• Note that you have to register in advance for the toll (credit card is charged when you return to city);
• While you’re there, pop into Sausalito only a few miles away for lunch or coffee and fine views of the city;
• Walk it or bike it too for more wonderful photo opportunities;
• If you can, approach it by walking along the Marina, past Fort Mason, from Fisherman’s Wharf – it’s quite a trek and usually very bracing, but it affords great views of the bridge and Alcatraz.

2.  Golden Gate Park

• Two splendid museums: the California Academy of Sciences and the modern art de Young Museum;
• Japanese Tea Garden (it may be twee but it is set in lovely grounds and provides tasty oriental teas and snacks in the café);

• Stow Lake (lovely to walk round, grab a hot dog at the boat house or book a pedal boat);

• Visit the moving National AIDS Memorial Grove and the steamy Conservatory of Flowers;
• The buffalo paddock (the creatures are rather shy) and the Dutch Windmill are also worth exploring at the other end of the park.

3. Ferry Building

• Fantastic selection of indoor food and gift stores, and the sixth best Farmers’ Market in the world (according to a recent survey) outside on certain days;

• Nice bookshop and great wine bar.

4. Cliff House

• Drive or take the 38 bus from downtown to cean Beach for two fine restaurants with stunning views over the Pacific;
• Stroll along the beach for miles;
• explore the remains of Adolph Sutro’s great public baths and watch the sea birds on Seal Rock;

• Take the short walk to the western end of Golden Gate Park.

5. Chinatown

• Witness the largest Chinese community outside Asia going about their daily business;
• Grant Avenue is best for gifts whilst Stockton contains the markets at which the Chinese women shop for produce not seen anywhere else!;

• You must eat here at least once during your stay – I recommend the Great Eastern, after all the Obamas eat there, and the R & G Lounge;
• Don’t forget the side streets too with their views of the Bay Bridge and Financial District – and the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory!

6. North Beach

• Traditionally the Italian quarter adjacent to Chinatown;
• Plenty of excellent cafés and restaurants – Trieste the most famous but Tosca, Greco and Puccini are really good too;
• We have enjoyed meals at the North Beach restaurant, Calzone, Sotto Mare, Firenze at Night and others;
• Rest awhile at Washington Square Park watching the dogs and their humans at play under the shadow of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul;

• Have a glass or two at the Vesuvio Café, our favourite bar – historic haunt of the Beats, e.g. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, in the fifties and sixties;
• Peruse the unique shelves of the City Lights Bookstore, one of the most famous in the world, opposite Vesuvio;

• On the opposite corner on Columbus, Broadway is the home to many of San Francisco’s more famous fleshpots;
• Reserve seats in advance for Beach Blanket Babylon, another thing you really should do – but best to book in advance

7. Palace of Fine Arts

• The only remaining building from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition celebrating the resurrection of San Francisco from the Earthquake and Fire of nine years before;
• Beautiful classical structure with a tranquil swan-filed lagoon attached;

8. Haight-Ashbury

• Whether you’re an old hippie (like me) or not, it’s a fascinating place with lots of “head” shops, stores selling retro clothes, good cafés, a massive record shop (Amoeba) and not a few “characters”;
• Close to Golden Gate Park, it is possible to visit both on the same day.

9. Alcatraz

• It may be touristy but no visit to the city is complete without a visit to the most feared federal penitentiary of them all;
• It is very popular so you should book in advance, preferably before you travel;
• The day tour is good but the evening (sunset) one is even better!

10. Bay Cruise

• Enjoy an hour or two on the bay, remembering to take suncream, as much for the wind as the sun;
• Stop off at Sausalito for a drink and a promenade, or even go on to Angel Island and Tuburon;
• The Rocket Boat is tremendous fun, though not for the faint- hearted!

11. Castro

• Ground zero for San Francisco’s large gay and lesbian community, rainbow flags are fluttering everywhere;
• Good shops and bars;

• It boasts a great movie house, the Castro Theatre, with its own wurlitzer;  if you can, book tickets for a film. You might even get lucky and be able to participate in a sing-a-long version of either The Sound of Music, Grease or The Wizard of Oz.

12. Alamo Square

• Position yourself to take the perfect picture of the famous Painted Ladies Victorian houses with the modern city looming behind.

13.  Mission

• Boisterous, funky, and, at night, edgy Latino and Hispanic neighbourhood;
• Great for cheap clothing and inexpensive Central and South American food;
• Take the pilgrimage to the original Mission Dolores church where it all started;
• But a picnic for Dolores Park and savour the great views, not only of the city but also of your fellow humans (some of which may be naked – you have been warned!).

14. Coit Tower

• Fire nozzle shaped monument provided for the city by Lillian Hitchcock Coit in honour of the brave firefighters of the Earthquake and Fire of 1906;
• Take in the wonderful views over the bay, including Alcatraz;
• See and hear the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill (though they do frequent other parts of the city too now);

• Climb up at least one set of steps – there are several to choose from, including those that run past beautiful urban gardens.

15.  Twin Peaks

• The most visited spot for panoramic views of the city, though there are others e.g. Bernal Heights just as good in my opinion.

16. Civic Center

• Home to magnificent City Hall and several other public buildings, including the symphony/opera and library;
• Good, cheap farmer’s market on Wednesdays.

17. Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39

• The most popular tourist spots on the bay, not my favourite but you cannot deny that it is a place of fun and energy;
• See,  listen and laugh at the crazy sea lions on Pier 39;

• Wander round the myriad of gift shops for presents for those back home;
• Sample seafood at the many restaurants and wharfside stalls – we have eaten well at the Franciscan, Neptune’s Palace and McKormick & Kuleto’s;    
• The Hard Rock is here too if that is more your scene;
• The Gold Dust Lounge, relocated from Union Square, is a good watering hole with live music;
• The Musée Mecanique (vintage amusement arcade) and Hyde Street Pier (collection of classic ships), are two of the best deals, not only on the waterfront, but in the whole of the city; 

• Beware the World Famous Bushman!

18. Union Square

• San Francisco’s “modern” shopping heart is very popular with tourists and locals alike, though I use it more as a thoroughfare from Market to Chinatown and North Beach;

• There are a number of good diners and grills in the vicinity, including John’s Grill, Tadich Grill and Daily Grill;
• It borders both the Tenderloin and Civic Center, so don’t be surprised by the number of homeless people, some of which may approach you for money.

19. Bay Bridge

• Many, including my wife, prefer this to the Golden Gate Bridge and love driving on both its upper and lower decks;

• The new span that replaced the old one destroyed by 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake has recently opened and is stunning;
• It is spectacularly lit up at night.

20. MUNI

• San Francisco’s public transit system is loved and hated at the same time by both locals and visitors;
• The cable cars are not merely tourist toys, many locals use them too, and you must ride them;

• The lines may be long but it’s well worth the wait – hurtling down Nob or Russian Hill is a thrilling experience;
• The historic F Streetcar that runs along Market and the Embarcadero from the Castro is charming if uncomfortable. Don’t expect, however, to get anywhere quickly;

• All human life is there on the buses!

21. Sports

• Candlestick Park, home of the 49ers, is one of the most famous football stadia in America, and the 49ers won’t be there much longer, so get there quick!
• Even if it is baseball close season, take the tour of the Giant’s home, AT & T Park, dubbed the most beautiful sports stadium in America with wonderful views over the bay;

• You can get your (ice) hockey fix too by taking the train from the Caltrain station at 4^th and King to San Jose where the Sharks will be waiting to entertain you.

This is not an exhaustive list and I have not even mentioned the many day trips out of the city that can be made, for example to Napa, Muir Woods, Berkeley, Monterey and Carmel. But I think what I have included will keep any first time visitor occupied for a couple of weeks at least!

I would be happy to answer any questions arising from this post.

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Still Letting The Freak Flag Fly

Nearly half a century after a procession along the same street proclaimed its demise, I can confirm that reports of the death of the hippie have been greatly exaggerated, at least if events at yesterday’s 36th annual Haight Ashbury Street Fair were anything to go by.

Baby boomers in tie-dye mingled contentedly with Mission families, young Goths and not a few bewildered tourists to create a relaxed, celebratory atmosphere along half a dozen blocks crammed with stalls selling the usual hippie fare – clothing, bags and jewelry, peace badges, organic juice and vegetarian burritos. Music from every era since the Haight’s “heady” days of the sixties spilled out from retail and residential properties alike.

The street was closed to traffic from Masonic to Stanyan to make way for stages from which a succession of bands played throughout the afternoon.

Our day had begun with a J Church MUNI ride to the intersection with Duboce, from where we cut through the doggie paradise that is Duboce Park before taking the short hike up from the Lower Haight.

Fortified with ferocious coffees from the People’s Café adjacent to the Masonic stage, we ambled up and down the street for the next few hours, stopping at either end to enjoy the non-stop live music.

Cannabis and BBQ fumes combined to assail the senses, though we managed to resist the giant Polish sausages, grilled chicken and corn that screamed “eat me” every few yards. We finally succumbed, however, to the deep fried Eastern European Jewish inspired potato and spinach knishs – classic, delicious street food.

For refreshment, we escaped to the chilled haven that is Café Cole for apple and carrot and orange juices. And later in the afternoon we dove into Happy Donuts for a coffee and apple turnover – well, it was one of the few places where we could get a seat!   

I began this piece by declaring that the hippie was still alive and there was plenty of evidence on show that the fashion and values of its “Haightday”, endured.

Credit for the wholly unthreatening atmosphere must go in part to the not inconsiderable but, nonetheless, unobtrusive police and festival security presence. The SFPD even manned its own stall at which were sold baseball caps and other merchandise. The only occasion we observed them being called into action was when they calmly confiscated a bottle of beer masquerading as a brown paper bag.

The absence of alcohol contributed to the lack of aggression. There were, inevitably, some characters under the influence of drugs – after all, this was probably, notwithstanding the security operation, the best day of the year for panhandling – but they posed no threat to others’ enjoyment. And yes, I was asked at one point whether I needed any “good dope or LSD”! 

The bands were uniformly excellent and enthusiastically received. Baby and the Luvies (above), winners of the Battle of the Bands competition that had predated the fair, rocked the Stanyan stage, but it was, understandably, the headline act, San Francisco based Pamela Parker (below) and her band who really got the crowd going.

The only disappointing aspect of the day was the weather. Sunny intervals had been forecast for the afternoon, but the entire event took place under grey skies and in a fine mizzle. But it did nothing to lessen people’s spirits.

It seems any day we are in San Francisco, we are touched by the Giants, even when we had not intended to be. Resolving to warm up with a hot chocolate on our return to the apartment we stopped at the Squat and Gobble on Fillmore just as Sergio Romo was closing out a 6-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix to win the series.

Icing on the funnel cake!

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It’s A Life

Born in October 1952 on the day tea rationing ended in Britain (good timing that, given my mother’s obsession – and subsequently mine – with the brew) and, as an only child, I enjoyed a happy childhood, revolving mainly around football and cricket.  I had the good fortune of growing up during the sixties, the music of which provided a thrilling soundtrack to my that period.

I attained a BA (Honours) in English and European Literature at Essex University, writing my dissertation on the novel At Swim-Two-Birds by Irish novelist and journalist Flann O’Brien.  This was followed by studying towards an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature at Leeds, majoring on James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and W.B.Yeats, including writing a treatise on the novels of Patrick Kavanagh (The Green Fool and Tarry Flynn).

Eventually, I exchanged academia – via portering in a major department store and “making” sultana cookies and other exotic (for the time) biscuits – for the last refuge of the modern scoundrel and joined the UK civil service in March 1980.  I subsequently spent 29 years in the Department for Work and Pensions and its many antecedents, latterly in human resources and diversity before poaching early retirement in March 2009.

My interest in the subject led me to undertake a Level 3 BTEC Advanced Certificate in Travel and Tourism via home learning.  I completed the course in December 2010, achieving a Distinction in all three elements – understanding the travel and tourism industry, tourist destinations and tour operations.  My ambition now is to concentrate on writing and, hopefully, to publish on a regular basis.  I have been focusing principally on my passions of San Francisco, cricket and travel, though I am not able to resist on pontificating on life in general from time to time.

This blog has now been active for nearly two and a half years. But I want to do more than that. At present, I am in the final throes of co-writing a book on the centenary of Kent County Cricket Club’s fourth County Championship title in eight years, and future writing projects include a series of short stories based in San Francisco and an expansion of our U.S. road trip diary of September / October last year.

Aside from the above topics, my other serious interests are walking, skiing, baseball (a fan from afar of the San Francisco Giants), association football (a life long fan of Gillingham), music (principally folk, blues, country and West Coast rock borne of the original Summer of Love in 1967), going to the theatre and eating out.

I feel extremely grateful to have the health and energy to pursue all of those interests, as I am also for the support and encouragement of my wonderful wife Janet whom I married in Vegas on Halloween 2009 after 27 years together (that makes it 31 now!).

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Sami Sunchild: An Enduring and Endearing San Francisco Icon

Any visitor to San Francisco who still hankers for the Summer of Love might seek some solace in the Red Victorian bed and breakfast on Haight Street, between Belvedere and Cole.

The Jefferson Hotel, as it was  originally known, was opened in 1904 as a resting place for visitors to the newly opened Golden Gate Park, but had its name changed to Jeffrey-Haight in that momentous year of 1967.

Ten years later it was bought by a 52 year old Washington state born doctor in Transformational Art and Societal Change, Sami Sunchild, who immediately set about painting its façade red with 9 other trim colours and renaming it the Red Victorian (though the building is Edwardian of course). Her aim since then has been for the “Red Vic” to embody the ideals that, if only briefly, pervaded the Haight a decade before her arrival – peace, concern for the environment, a sense of community and social justice.

From here Sunchild runs her myriad operations – the non-profit making Peaceful World Foundation, the Peaceful World Center, the Peaceful World Café, the Living Peace Museum and the Peace Arts Gallery, which contains her own bright and colourful artwork in the form of t-shirts, postcards, posters, peace buttons and mugs, available for purchase in the adjoining gift shop.

Every Sunday morning, from 9.00 to 10.30, or as long as its participants want it to last, Sunchild holds “World Conversations” or “conversation cafés”, which “bring people together to talk about topics that matter in their own lives and in the world as a whole”. These are seen as an “opportunity for San Franciscans and travelers alike to get together and share stories of our lives and the lessons we’ve learned, make new friendships and engage in open dialogue”.

In addition to these semi-formal events, guests are encouraged to engage in conversation with the owner and each other over breakfast, whilst passers by are welcome to “drop in” for a chat at any time.

Sunchild, who has travelled extensively, including the Polynesian Islands and much of Europe and North Africa, hopes through her work to build “a global network of travelers and conversationalists committed to doing good for the world and each other”.

Back in the sixties the rooms in the hotel served as “crash pads”, containing Indian bedspreads and other hippie paraphenalia, and accommodated as many occupants as could be crammed in! Using what she calls “Transformational Interior Design”, which enhances the consciousness of her guests, Sunchild has restored it to the state where it now boasts 18 guest rooms, each of which has been designed and decorated by her with an specific theme, such as the Japanese Tea Garden, Flower Child, Redwood Forest and, of course, the Summer of Love (complete with Grateful Dead posters!).

Internet reviews of the Red Vic reveal that Sunchild’s enterprise excites strong emotions.  Many celebrate it for its living embodiment of the hippie ideals espoused in the time when Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick were residents of the area.  Staff are universally regarded as friendly and helpful, and words such as “quirky”, “quaint”, “funky” and “eccentric” are regularly uttered with a smile by visitors and residents alike.

Others complain, however, about a dark, dreary, rundown feel, and lament the lack of private bathrooms in most of the rooms, though those that there are, both private and shared, are beautifully decorated.  Radios, TVs, refrigerators and ice machines, staples of a more conventional modern hotel, are conspicuous by their absence.  Wireless connection can also be unreliable. And the verdict on the food and drink available in the café is similarly mixed.

On my previous visit (preparing this article has refuelled my desire to go again on my upcoming trip), I found the people welcoming, if, perhaps, a little earnest, and  the coffee and vegetarian sandwiches wholesome.

So if you want to get a glimpse, warts and all, of what it might have been like to stay in the neighbourhood in those “heady” days, this is as close as you are likely to come in modern day San Francisco.  Moreover, if you want to understand what makes a historic part of the city tick, a visit to Sami Sunchild’s Red Victorian is essential.

And when you do, pay heed to the words of Sunchild’s When you travel:

When you travel take peacemaking, friendship, learning, and listening as your sacred, God given duty. Refuse to carry with you an empty head or an empty heart. Give thanks for every human encounter,  every bird, animal, every plant that shares this gorgeous planet. Thank them, talk to them, nourish them. Let no greed or selfish thoughts distract you. Let no anger, anxiety, or bitterness accompany you.

Travel unencumbered by too much stuff or by too many pre-conceived ideas. Enter every new encounter with gratitude for another opportunity to learn and listen. To be the happiest and best travel ambassador on earth.

Affirm the natural ability to balance out the injustices of the world. Know that hate crimes will cease when we listen to each other, when selfishness and envy are replaced with compassion and even enemies become friends. Hold in you mind a vision of a peaceful world where travelers are the sowers and seeds of joy!

This message emanates from one of the more than 50 Peace Posters that Sunchild has designed and created and which can be found at www.peacearts.com .

Finally, I am extremely grateful that Sami has taken the time and trouble to proofread this post and given her personal blessing to its contents.

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Haight Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour

We were stood on the corner of Waller and Stanyan, alongside the McDonald’s parking lot and opposite the historic Stanyan Park Hotel. It was 10.20 on a sunny if cool Saturday morning in April. The shops in Haight Street a block away were drowsily coming to life, and a gaggle of skateboarders and assorted “heads” were making their way over to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park to hang out for the day.

After ten years of inexplicable resistance, we had finally decided to give the Haight-Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour a try. Having read our e-mail confirmation carefully we were confident that we were at the appointed meeting place. But the time was beginning to concern us. Whilst both our e-mail and the official website had expressly stated that the tour began at 10.30am, we had collected a leaflet the previous day quoting 9.30am.

As 10.25, 10.30 and 10.35 passed without anyone joining us, we began to speculate on what might have happened. Was it really a 9.30 start and we were horribly late? Had the tour been cancelled because we were the only participants (and if so why hadn’t we been informed)? Or was the guide merely delayed? I rang the telephone number quoted on the e mail with no success.

As frustration turned to irritation at 10.40, a balding, middle-aged man approached us and enquired whether we were on the tour. He had received a telephone call to say that the guide was running late due to a burst water main near her flat.  A Kentuckian, he was accompanied by his 20 year old daughter, as well as his son and his girlfriend, both of whom were studying at San Francisco State University.

Five minutes later our ears were assailed by a cheery “good morning” emanating from behind us on Waller Street. On turning around we were greeted by a diminutive woman dressed from head to toe in black, apart from the psychedelic leggings flashing intermittently from beneath her huge coat, shuffling towards us. This was Izu, our guide for the next two and a half hours. My heart soared (I may have been alone in this reaction) – here was someone who had palpably lived and breathed the hippie dream in the sixties and, equally importantly, was still doing.  This was going to be fun – and I was not to be disappointed.

Having made her apologies, referring, not for the only time, to “hippie time”, she squealed with delight at the sight of my Grateful Dead “Steal Your Face” t-shirt. We were instant soul mates and, given my familiarity with the history and music of the era, she regularly sought my input, which, whilst being very gratifying personally, might have annoyed the remainder of the group who weren’t as well informed beforehand. The son’s girlfriend spent most of the morning hiding behind his back and when gently challenged on this by Izu, insisted that she was not feeling well. I’m not convinced she wasn’t just a tad intimidated by Izu’s earnest, energetic approach.

Izu’s credentials to conduct this tour were impeccable. She  had lived in the Haight for a month during the Summer of Love, and despite returning home to New York immediately thereafter, had been resident in the neighbourhood for many years.

One of her most endearing traits was that she had retained her broad New York accent which, incongruous though it might seem, gave an added charm and piquancy to her feast of anecdotes. I particularly delighted in her repeated pronounciation of Haight-Ashberry, proclaimed in a manner that could be heard from several blocks in any direction. 

Armed with our free gift of a Haight-Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour button badge we set off down Waller Street, pausing at the SFFD’s Fire Station 12 which, uniquely, carries the Grateful Dead “Steal Your Face” logo on its engines. We learned too about the Human Be-In, the influx of young people from all over the United States and the invaluable social service provided by both the Diggers and the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic.

Whilst we stopped at properties that had been lived in by such counterculture luminaries as Janis Joplin (several), Country Joe and the Fish and Jimi Hendrix, as well as Charles Manson, the highlight for me was the Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury. Now, I have stood outside this pad many times but, with Izu at my side, I didn’t feel as uncomfortable, as much of a stalker, as I had done before. It helped that Izu knew both the current tenants and their neighbours – well, actually, she appeared to know everybody in the vicinity! We barely passed a shop, café or homeless center without her stopping to hail its occupants.

Whilst I went along with every photo opportunity arranged by Izu, I did draw the line at taking one of the Haight-Ashbury sign – been there, done that, not cool. I think we fell out briefly at that point!

Many San Francisco walks are more like hikes, especially when they involve negotiating its unforbidding hills, but this one is leisurely and laid-back. We barely walked more than 100 yards before Izu asked us to gather round to listen to her stories, not only of the music scene but also the general history of the Haight. She was aided by a canvas shopping bag, from which she intermittently plucked vintage photographs.

The tour culminated in a visit to the recently opened Haight Ashbury Museum of Psychedelic Art and History, a center designed to showcase the arts, music and creativity of the era. Depending upon your point of view, it was either impossibly cluttered or incredibly comprehensive. Izu alerted us to historic posters, photographs and newspaper extracts from the hippie Haight.

The slogan of the museum is The Hippies Were Right!, a mantra repeated by Izu throughout the tour. As the (larger) badges extolling this theory illustrated, this relates to concern for the environment, emphasis on organic products, peace and love rather than war, sustainable housing and fuel efficiency, and, capping it all, “more fun and less unnecessary work”. I for one find it hard to argue with any of that.

The tour ended with heartfelt hugs outside the museum and clichéd, but utterly necessary, poses for the cameras.

In summary, this was a relaxing and thoroughly entertaining walk. In fact, the word “walk” doesn’t adequately describe it. It was a “show” in which Izu, in her inimitably animated, slightly wacky style, conveyed a vast amount of information and observation on both what was arguably the neighbourhood’s golden era and how those ideals are being implemented today.

Anyone who is deterred by the prospect of becoming preached at on the virtues of free love and rampant drug taking should really not be worried. Whilst Izu, inevitably, relates stories of excessive LSD, marijuana and heroin usage, she takes every opportunity to explain her vehement opposition to drugs. Nor does she gloss over the many unsavoury elements of the period.

So go with an open mind and you will be rewarded. But first listen to some live Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane whilst you are searching for that old kaftan, transfer a few flowers from your garden to your hair, throw on any piece of jewellery you can find, get on the bus and make your way up to the corner of Waller and Stanyan on a Tuesday or Saturday at 10.30am (yes, that’s 10.30am hippie time).

And remember…………….the Hippies Were Right!

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What No Golden Gate Bridge or Cable Car?

Only after we returned from our latest trip to San Francisco did it occur to me that, during the ten night stay, we had neither visited such perennial favourites as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts or Alamo Square, nor taken a single ride on a cable car.

How can you travel nearly 6,000 miles to one of the most popular cities on earth and not take in its most iconic locations I hear you say? Surely, you are missing out on the greatest experiences it has to offer?

That is not, however, the way I see it. Rather than accept that this represents poor planning and an opportunity missed, I rather view it as a sign of our growing maturity as visitors to San Francisco. The fact is that we no longer feel the need to tick off as many of the guidebook recommendations as possible, tiring us out unnecessarily in the process.

The nature of our time spent there is increasingly taking on a different, more relaxed, you might even call it ordinary, tenor, one that more closely mirrors that of how we live at home.   Being in San Francisco has become such a familiar and regular part of our lives, somewhere we visit more often even than the places we love in our own country, that it has assumed that status of our second home, and, therefore, somewhere we neither  have to pretend to be what we are not, nor have to do what we feel we ought to do.

Choosing to stay some distance from the tourist enclaves of Union Square or Fisherman’s Wharf, as we did in Noe Valley this year, allows us to do as much, or as little, as we feel on any given day.

If all we want to do is to hang out at the apartment in the morning, watching the Bay Area news on TV whilst catching up on household chores, before strolling out to a neighbourhood café for lunch, followed by gift and food shopping and then returning to the apartment for a glass or two of wine on the outside private deck whilst watching the world go by, then so be it. We then might eat in in the evening – or we might try out one of the local restaurants. Or we might decide to take the metro downtown and eat in Chinatown or North Beach.

The point is that we are at liberty to do as we wish, not as we feel we ought to do to make the most of the trip and the not inconsiderable expense. Of course, it has been the happy conversion from hotel to apartment living over the past three years that has enabled us to do this.

And if it sounds to you that living in San Francisco has become less exciting for us, even routine, even a chore, then you could not be further from the truth. Whilst I can comfortably claim that we now feel at home in the city and, for myself in particular, probably did so before I ever visited it, I am tempted to suggest even that we have become, in a small way, San Franciscans, interested in its politics (with a small “p”), culture and, undeniably, its sport – just as we do at home.

And remember – those wonderful attractions are still a short drive or a bus or taxi ride away.

Nor is it the case that we no longer go sightseeing – far from it. On our recent trip we may have bypassed some of the more renowned locations, but we made a conscious effort to sample new, and nearly new, experiences, some of which were long overdue. These included a tour of City Hall, exploring Nob Hill, the Castro and Hyde Street Pier in depth, reliving the Summer of Love on the Flower Power Walking Tour, sunbathing in Dolores Park, and spending an afternoon in the excellent California Palace of the Legion of Honour.

Attending two Giants games at AT & T Park and a thrilling Elvis Costello concert at the Warfield, as well as eating out at more traditional restaurants such as John’s Grill (in the Maltese Falcon room) and the Daily Grill (Lefty O’Doul’s was too busy) added real richness to our stay.

And we still found time to take in several of our favourite spots – Golden Gate Park, including the Japanese Tea Garden and Stow Lake, Sunday brunch at the Cliff House, dinner at the North Beach Restaurant, Beach Blanket Babylon, Haight-Ashbury, the Ferry Building and the depressingly under threat Gold Dust Lounge.  And, of course, a spot of DSW shoe shopping for my wife in Union Square – now, heretically, resident in the former Border’s bookstore (the shoe shop, that is, not my wife – though she might like to be).

Having read the above, perhaps the vacation wasn’t quite as relaxing as I first thought!

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Love and Haight in the City of Saint Francis

Anyone with the merest acquaintance with this blog will observe a strong bias towards the city of San Francisco in it. If the heading of “A Golden Gate State of Mind” and accompanying photograph did not immediately give it away, the preponderance of posts on the city certainly will.

So what, you ask, is the attraction of what San Francisco based Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “this far-out city on the left side of the world” to a cricket loving, warm beer drinking Englishman?

Well, that is a very good question (I do wish you hadn’t asked it).  It’s not sufficient to say it is because I “love” it.  After all, there are many things that I love – my wife, my father, my football team, my favourite rock band, skiing, fish and chips, and the BBC Breakfast presenter, Susanna Reid (I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell my wife about that one) – the list goes on.

But “love” – like “great” – is an overused – or rather over abused – word today. In fact, I may have proved this conclusively in the preceding paragraph. Everyone will have places that they “love”, whether it be Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York or even Leysdown-on-Sea. Few of us would deny “loving” their favourite holiday haunts, particularly if they return to them time and again.

So I think you deserve a more substantial explanation than that. After all, it took me nearly 43 years to finally feast my hungry eyes on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, even though I had venerated the city from afar for nearly three decades before that. So what do I find so special about it now?

Before I answer it – and I’m not prevaricating, honest – I think it is worth considering what it is about a place that makes us become attached to it. After all, isn’t it nothing more nor less than a collection of natural features and man-made buildings?

I suppose that many of us, including myself, claim that we “love” the place in which we were born and / or raised. It is this emotional attachment, linked to childhood memories, that, I believe, is the crucial factor here. And the acknowledgement of that attachment may not manifest itself without the aid of age and distance.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “there’s no place like home” may be cliches but they still have a sturdy ring of truth. James Joyce – that incomparable chronicler of place – could not, as he himself admitted, have written so profoundly or entertainingly about Dublin had he stayed there instead of leaving it to work and live in Trieste, Zurich and Paris.

My last post (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/walking-with-our-mutual-friend/) conveys my affection for my own home town of Rochester in Kent, and an earlier one (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/to-my-home-county/) describes the pride I have in being a Man of Kent, a grateful product of its rich embrace of coast and countryside.

So our attachment to place begins, as with so many of our passions, with our childhood experiences.

But I digress. We’re not in Kent(as) anymore, Toto. You want to read about why I “love” San Francisco. Well, I presume you still do or you would have given up by now. So here goes.

I could cite the stunning beauty of the bay and its glittering “bracelet of bridges”, the gorgeous skies, the cute, clanking cable cars, the abundance of fresh seafood in its classy restaurants, the diversity of its music and theatre scene, the richness of its ethnic neighbourhoods, the thrilling exploits of the Giants and 49ers, and, of course, its renowned tolerance and reputation as a haven for the otherwise discarded and disaffected – all of these are part of it.

However, thousands of other visitors have been equally captivated by most, if not all, of these qualities. It is not for nothing that many leave their heart in San Francisco.  But their “love” is invariably on loan, perhaps until the next trip or another geographical gigolo snatches their affection. Mine is permanent, organic, forever.  

So what is it about this place that has lured this individual into spending what time he can’t reside in it dreaming and writing about it?  Why has this place gotten hold of my heart” where other cities I delight in visiting, such as Venice, Florence, Barcelona, Dublin and New York have not? And why, with relatively little time left, and  just as I am about to resolve to go somewhere else, does it sing its siren (or is that sea lion) songs to me, steering my boat back into the dock of the bay?

For much of my life it was a platonic, long distance affair.  It started with the Summer of Love (1967) when San Francisco snared the imagination of many people across the globe, including one 14 year old English schoolboy an entire continent and ocean away. Intrigued by the love and peace mantra, he was inspired by Scott McKenzie and the Flowerpot Men to commit fashion suicide by wearing paisley shirts and, on at least one occasion, flowers (almost certainly plastic) in his hair, to football matches that year – fortunately, it pre-dated the skinhead era or he may not have been given such an easy ride!

Three years later, the music of the Bay Area, in the form of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service began to fill my head. “Everyone’s favourite city” had become the epicentre of my cultural universe. However, another two and a half decades passed before I set foot on San Francisco’s ever shifting soil.

And, for me, Haight-Ashbury, from whence that dazzling music came, still represents, more than any other location in the city, MY San Francisco, and where I gravitate to on every trip, however short. Free concerts by the Dead on flat bed trucks in the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, tie-dye shirts and the pungent waft of marijuana smoke remain enduring images of that time.

And there is just enough of that atmosphere – at stores like Positively Haight Street, Haight-Ashbury T-shirts and Pipe Dreams, as well as Sami Sunchild’s Red Victorian (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/great-san-franciscan-characters-14-sami-sunchild/) – to keep me enthused as I saunter down Haight Street today.

That is not to say that other parts – the Tenderloin and Civic Center no less than the trendy neighbourhoods and tourist honeypots – are not equally “real” embodiments of the modern city, all too real some might say. Though I embrace them all, the Haight remains the heart of my San Franciscan experience. Its only failing is that it does not aford bay views!  Or does it? I really must check on my next trip!

Another earlier post (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/my-san-francisco-top-ten/) summarises those parts of the city that captivate me most, so I will not bore you by repeating them here.

It’s not just the physical sights and sounds that appeal, but the literature (Armistead Maupin, Jack Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Dashiel Hammett, Jack London) and history (the Barbary Coast, the earthquake and Great Fire, the cultural movements of the fifties and sixties) that fascinate me too.  And has there been a better chronicler of a city anywhere than Herb Caen(www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/great-san-franciscan-characters-6-herb-caen/), renowned columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle?

Indeed, it was Caen who wrote half a century ago in one of his many ruminations on what made a San Franciscan:

I don’t think that place of origin or number of years on the scene have anything to do with it really. There are newcomers who become San Franciscans overnight – delighted with and interested in the city’s traditions and history. They can see the Ferry Building for what it represents (not for what it is), they are fascinated with the sagas of Sharons, Ralstons, Floods and Crockers, they savor the uniqueness of cable car and foghorn. By the same token, I know natives who will never be San Franciscans if they outlive Methusalah. To them a cable car is a traffic obstruction, the fog is something that keeps them from getting a tan, and Los Angeles is where they really know how to Get Things Done.

I like to think that I fit into Caen’s San Francisco “newcomer” category, though I’ll settle for being the “sophisticated tourist” who is “charmed and fascinated” by the city.

I have used the word “home” in a number of features on San Francisco, and that, I think, is the key here. That is not to say that it replaces the town in which I was born and raised – though, equally, it might – but rather that the city engenders those same feelings, not just of comfort and security but also of confidence and pride that allows me to engage with it on all levels. Venice and New York do not. Nor even does “dear, dirty Dublin”, despite my Irish ancestry.

Back where we started then.

And my wife and I have deliberately fostered this feeling in recent years where, by staying in apartments in different neighbourhoods – Hayes Valley and North of the Panhandle, and for our upcoming (ninth) visit, Noe Valley – we aim to “live like locals”, whilst continuing to take in the traditional tourist sights too (our stays are still too short to omit them, even if we wanted to). It is another of San Francisco’s virtues that we can do both.

How many of us can say that anywhere, at least beyond the place in which we live, that we can call it “home”?

Do you have any place that exercises that same grip on you?

I’ll end with Herb Caen again:

thank God or Allah or whoever it was that blessed this small, special, annoying, irresistible place at the tip of a peninsula and the end of the world.

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