A crisp, clear morning, bright and fresh and cold enough to make the flaunting of black anklelength crombies no burden: the perfect day for a funeral. Walking down towards Bethnal Green, through Haggerston Park and over Hackney Road, I appreciate the unnatural, expectant stillness - dispersed by the fretting of traffic that is already beginning to snag up. Outsiders, transients, put it down to road works; an extension of the tarmac hole that is London. But three helicopters to the south, somewhere over Vallance Road or Cheshire Street, that is unusual. One chopper, ferrying traumatised meat to the Royal London Hospital, we're used to that. Three choppers, catching the light, remorselessly circling the same patch, are worth remarking; an arrogant display of budget that speaks of royal visitations, the finish of the London Marathon, or John Major on walkabout, prospecting for inner-city blight. But on this unearned, mint morning, the fuss is all about real royalty, indigenous royalty: one of our local princes of darkness, a cashmere colonel, is about to be boxed.

LRB 8 June 1995 | PDF Download