I Drove It My Way by John Healy Read Free Book Online

whatever was it doing on the bus? It was never claimed and I’m sure it never will be.
    Crossing the Marylebone Road and continuing down Baker Street we come across a blue plaque high up on a second floor flat. It is dedicated to the talented Beatle John Lennon who lived here for a period of time. It’s a shame he ever left this flat to go to America just to get shot by a Yankee nutcase. John Lennon had a lot of lovely tunes still to write but his young life was taken away for no reason at all. Who knows what great masterpieces were lurking in the back of his mind? They were all snuffed out like the flame of a dying candle. Lennon and McCartney’s music will live on forever.
    As I continue down Baker Street I cross George Street, where I remember being called out to a television repair in the eighties. I recall that I was kneeling behind the large colour set and when I got it going, I stood up – only to see the customer standing there with his trousers dropped, enjoying himself with one hand. Now, that is a horrible sight for a working man. I looked at the screen and realised he must have been watching a blue movie the previous day when the television broke down. When I got it going the video had started automatically, the customer had gotexcited and started doing what he was doing, forgetting I was still behind the television. I ran for the door and legged it like a gazelle. I am glad to say that the company I worked for terminated his contract immediately. I can do without people like that.
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    We are now passing Selfridges where I was once hailed by the lady who starred as M in some of the James Bond films, Dame Judi Dench. She wanted to go to Sotheby’s in Bond Street. Actually there is no such place as Bond Street but there is New Bond Street and Old Bond Street. Anyway, as the cab was going down Brook Street I pointed out two joined-up houses with a plaque on the outside wall of each building. One said Jimi Hendrix had lived there, the other said George Frederick Handel once lived there (that’s the guy who wrote Messiah and the famous Water Music ). Miss Dench said that she had never noticed these plaques before, and was quite impressed.
    She then said, ‘I bet Handel is turning over in his grave at the difference in their music,’ so I thought I would try one of my cornball jokes on her. I asked her if she knew what was written on Fredrick Handel’s coffin. She said no, and I said, ‘Handle with care’. She thought it was a fairly good joke, had a little giggle and said she would use it in the future.
    I dropped this very pleasant lady outside Sotheby’s and lingered a while to see her disappear through the auction house doors. In my mind, I jokingly wondered how much she was sold for, and I laughed at my daft thought. But I am sure that she is priceless. It was lovely to have actually met one of the fictional Bond crowd in real life.
    Outside Sotheby’s there is a small Egyptian statue over the door of a lion-shaped goddess called Sekhmet, the warrior goddess and goddess of healing for Upper Egypt. The black basalt statue is about three feet tall and is the oldest outside statue in London, dating to around 1320 BC . It has been Sotheby’s muse since the1880s, when it was sold at auction for £40 but was never collected. I would like to think that the buyer is now in heaven, looking down at the statue, and wondering if it will ever be delivered up to the Pearly Gates by DHL. After all, they say they will deliver anything anywhere.
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    Another extremely old statue in London is Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment. It dates back to around 1460 BC and is covered with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. When the Needle was being installed on the Embankment in 1878, they sealed a time capsule inside its base. There are copies of daily newspapers, some cigars, a packet of hair pins, a railway ticket, cigarettes, photographs of some