Denizens of bohemian Notting Hill, including writers Tim Lott and Rachel Johnson, gathered at the Travel Bookshop in Blenheim Crescent to celebrate the relaunch of Inside Notting Hill. The first edition was published in 2001 – two years after Richard Curtis’s eponymous film, which some blame for the recent influx of Cameroon Tories.
Author Sarah Anderson, founder of the Travel Bookshop where Hugh Grant’s character works in the film, remembers the launch of the book in New York, which happened to be on 11 September 2001.
“About 12 people came,†she says. “Somehow Notting Hill seemed very far away and irrelevant.â€
Co-author Miranda Davies recalls buying a house in St Luke’s Mews in the 1970s, the same road where Paula Yates lived and died: “It had squatters in, that the estate agents were frightened of, so they would only show people round after 3pm, once they had got up. The squatters were, in fact, members of heavy metal band Motorhead. We bought it for £10,000.â€
Evening Standard 22/06/07
Elisa Segrave and Michael Horovitz
Marie-Pierre Moine, Lalage Percival and Richard Compton-Miller
