A gem of a book

How lucky am I? For just 10 pence in a charity shop I have picked up this little gem of a book! First published in 1951, although my edition is dated 1963, it might as well have been the dark ages when you read it and make comparisons to modern day life. This really was another world. The review by the newspapers on the back page says :

'Where to buy foxes' masks, bagpipes or skeletons; where to see action painting or stock car racing; how much it costs to hire a barrel organ.
These are the off-beat scraps of information in which London Night and Day specialises.Here is the sixth edition, still illustrated by Osbert
Lancaster, still packing into a small space a heap of out-of-the-way London lore. It will continue to tease the knowing and to titillate the smart.(Why should female skeletons be scarcer?)'

For those that want to know how to hire a barrel organ here are the details. I wonder if Mr Tomasso is still in business....

The final review is one from Vogue magazine. It is very short but very sweet:

' ''London Night and Day'', the Architectural Press's guide for tourists and locals, among the wittiest, prettiest and most knowledgable of its kind, informal yet immensely suave, like Sherlock Holmes in his dressing gown.'

I seem to have a 'thing' about the 1950's. I love the illustrations in this book and shall now settle down to pick little jewels from it over a cup of tea!