http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/bernard_kops.jpg

^  Bernard Kops around '63.

"So I came into my kingdom of Soho where I could be as mad as I wanted... in a cafe called The Alex I wrote the day away... The bums of Soho became my family, the cafe my womb. There has been an attempt to romanticise the bohemian past of London and though it sheltered me I found it largely terrifying and sordid... Tearaways, layabouts, lesbians, queers, mysteries and hangers-on. We just sat in the cafe waiting, waiting for another day to kill itself ... the regulars included the would-be poets, the sad girls... kinky men searching for kinky love... I was particularly interested in a man with mauve hair who spoke very beautifully and always wore the same upholstered smile..."

( ^  The World Is A Wedding.)