Mike Vickers' Blog

Radio 4 – A nice wee programme today Thursday 22 April 2013 at 11am on FinchleyStrasse ie Finchley Road.

Why did it appeal to me? because my Cousin used to live in Swiss Cottage in Fairfax Road just off the Finchley Road.  I spent much of my teens visiting London and staying with her and I dossed done when I took up my first job in Slough.

To the programme – it was all about the Jewish émigrés from Vienna who escaped from the Nazis and how they frequented the Cosmo café – just like they did in Vienna, and John Barnes (a John Lewis shop) was the main shopping attraction and how the Finchley Road had an avenue of trees down the centre until modernity bulldozed then away when the Finchley Road had become the main artery into London from the North.

If you move fast you can hear the programme at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s09k1

And you might enjoy a piece by Dannie Abse writing about his early days at the Cosmo café and the Everyman in Hampstead.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9mEaq9FJWnIC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=cosmo+cafe+finchley+road&source=bl&ots=F3pxRJeeSd&sig=w8QbmNyImeq_-TGcAKNNytgfpeg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3RZ1UbKpH4TFswbYqYHICg&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cosmo%20cafe%20finchley%20road&f=false