Amy Winehouse and the big smoke………

Last week we headed down to London to see the sights. We took a tour Bus around the City which worked out quite good value for money. For £27 we hopped on & off the bus for 2 full days and the price also included a boat trip down the Thames & Walking tours. We spent a day in Camden town which is my favourite place to be, and ticked all the hot spots off our list.

Lego shop

My partner Mark has always been a big Amy Winehouse fan, so we went in search of her statue in Camden Town. We managed to walk past it three times and then realised it was a life size statue therefore not that easy to spot, she looked like she was milling in with the market sellers.

We also tracked down two of Amy’s favourite bars where she first started out, Jazz After Dark in Soho and The Jazz club in Camden Town. Sam Shaker who owns the Jazz After Dark club bought it off Bob Marley’s family and turned it into a small restaurant and then eventually a Live Jazz music venue. This is where a young 16 year old Amy turned up one night and asked to sing with the band which was playing, the rest is obviously history.

Sam was a great guy and told us all about the early years of Amy playing in his bar and how he introduced her to Pete Doherty, she also wrote one of her famous hits ‘Back to Black’ in the bar, and even shared a few beers there with Tony Bennett.

being an artist Sam has painted 50 portraits of Amy over the years, he has sold most of them, but had a few left. As we had recently decorated our lounge we treated ourselves to a picture we liked and now have it hanging to remind us of a great time.