Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By Bill Keeling, Managing Director of PrestatIt was in mid-1999, nine months after my half-brother Nick Crean and I had acquired Prestat, that I discovered the secret room. Some of the bulbs in the Piccadilly shop’s chandelier needed replacing and I was bemoaning the lack of any steps to Peggy Cramer, the manageress who had worked for Prestat for more than three decades.
‘But we have steps,’ said Peggy. ‘They’re in the basement store-room.’
‘No, Peggy,’ I replied. ‘The steps we use are borrowed from Maureen next door. I know that basement store-room backwards and there aren’t any steps down there.’
‘Yes, there are. Not in the room you first go into but the one behind.’
I frankly thought Peggy was losing her marbles. The store-room for Princes Arcade is a rabbit-warren of a space under Princes House. It would have direct access to the neighbouring Tramps nightclub were it not for the connecting doors being locked.
‘That’s the nightclub, Peggy. The door’s locked.’
‘I know the door’s locked,’ she confirmed patiently. ‘There was a flood in there a few years ago so we locked the door. But it’s our space alright. There’s all sorts in there, old packaging and the like.’
‘Old packaging!’ I cried excitedly.
‘Oh, yes, chocolate boxes that go way back. And piles of paper. That’s where the steps are. Do you want the key? And you’d better take the torch.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A secret room – at least to me – full of unknown treasures. I took the key and went down to the store-room and then across to the door which for nine months I had mistakenly assumed led to the nightclub. I thought back over the past year. I was sure that I’d heard noises emanating from behind the door: the tinkling of champagne flutes; the soft laughter of party-goers; the drifting sound of music. I turned on the torch and slipped the key into the lock...
