Part II

“I’ve no problem with plebian, but I draw the line at fast food”

DAVID KERNEK The former editor of Bath’s Evening Chronicle reveals his dislike of hen parties, fast food, and day-trip tourism

David was born in what was then – but isn’t now – a poor and bashed-about part of inner London and raised by kind adoptive parents. On leaving school at 15, he worked as a humble messenger boy in central London, and later charmed his way into the newspaper industry as a trainee journalist in Suffolk. He moved to Bath in the mid1980s as editor of the then Evening Chronicle. Now a selfunemployed freelance, he’s published Bath: Glamour & Grit, a wry look at the place in pictures and words.

Working as a reporter and editor, you sometimes get to meet people regarded – rightly or wrongly – as celebrities. My little list includes Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan – his shirt cufflinks were silver crossed guns – Henry Kissinger, Marianne Faithful, and Chris Jagger, Mick’s younger brother.

The only non-publishing work I’ve had was as a taxi driver. My first day as a reporter on a daily newspaper in Cardiff coincided with a journalists’ strike. A taxi firm needed drivers and, unwisely, took me on. The car’s gear box was broken, the steering wheel had a mind of its own, the payment meter didn’t work, and I didn’t know one end of Cardiff from the other. I lasted two days.

As a writer, the most difficult story I’ve investigated was one about, er, me. I traced and then met my birth mother, who came to England as a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938. She was at the outset not pleased to see me, but that changed quite quickly. I don’t regret a moment of what was a long, often frustrating, but ultimately successful search. We found, having been separated when I was one-week old, that we had much in common.

I live in Camden. We have excellent neighbours and views of Snow Hill – to keep me in touch with reality – and the valley. I’ve done a 2021 Camden wall calendar, with £2 from every sale going to the RUH’s Forever Friends charity. It’s better than those, cat, pony and London sights calendars.

My last meal out was a steak & kidney pie at the Saracen’s Head. I’ve no problem with plebian, but I draw the line at fast food. Bath has far too many takeaways. A summer afternoon tea in the Royal Crescent Hotel garden is always a special treat.

Lockdown 1. Much of this was spent going through the 1,000+ pictures I’ve taken in Bath from the turn of the century to 2019. Themes bubbled to the surface: the glamour, obviously, its firstclass old pubs … and the grit, which tends to be ignored: the nature of employment and the so-called night time economy, day-trip tourism, rough-sleeping, anti-social behaviour, pre-Covid store closures, and the ghastly hen parties.

The product of this labour is Bath: Glamour & Grit: Photographs 2000-2019, a warts ’n all look at the town in the round. Without a proper police station, a main Post Office that’s more than a department of WH Smith, and a concert hall, it’s not a real city is it?

In Lockdown 2, I want to develop my news and comment website, Bath Telegraph, as a platform for pricking Bath’s pretensions, and for drawing attention to what seems to be, despite the Covid-19 cataclysm, its continued yet calamitous reliance on the day-trip tourism, university education, and language school industries. Have you wondered how interested the pavementblocking packs of Euro-teens are in Roman history and 18th century English architecture? I have!

My advice for tourists is 1) See Bath Street and the Roman Baths lit up at night. 2) Get out of the centre and explore Bathwick and Widcombe, south of the river, and Lansdown and Sion Hill to the north. Exquisite Georgian architecture, and few, if any, gift shops and takeaways.

I have a sort-of Secret Bath. They’re the old, mostly very small pubs in which you’ll find as many locals as tourists. On a good day, there’ll be no tourists … just the usual suspects. I’m thinking, in alphabetical order, of the Bell, the Coeur De Lion, the Garrick’s Head, the Old Green Tree, the Raven, the Star – on the Paragon – the Salamander, Sam Weller’s, and the Volly. It’s to be hoped their character and ambience prove immune to the requirements of Covid-19 compliance. Another favourite spot is an Italian café that has coffee as good as any you’ll have in Italy. Go find it! n

Bath: Glamour & Grit: Photographs 2000-2019 by David Kernek. For further details contact kernekdavid@ gmail.com

For more: www. bathtelegraph.co.uk