Booze, bleach and bad blood: writer Iain Sinclair recounts tales of old Soho

There are few places as alluring as the rabbit hole that is ‘Old Soho.’ A gritty, artistic haven of creativity, debauchery and sexual liberation, its postcode is hazardous, yet utterly addictive — well, at least the search for it is. And that search is growing ever more difficult, because Old Soho is shrinking. In fact, much of it exists only in our imagination because the reality is we never experienced it. Not really. Not up close. The area we see fetishised by Tiktokkers smoking Marlboros in farmer’s caps disappeared long ago and today, other than a half pint at the French House, or a dance alongside Humphrey Bogart at Trisha’s, the only way in is via the legacy of the artists, writers and characters who made it.

There are names we know well — the likes of , , , and Jeffrey Bernard — and there are countless we don’t. Despite capturing the aforementioned figures in their element, immortalising them and Old Soho forevermore, is the latter. And it’s this same John Deakin who inspired writer, film-maker and social commentator Iain Sinclair’s new book, Pariah Genius, released last week alongside an exhibition of the photographer’s work at Swedenborg House in Bloomsbury, and soon to be followed by a short film premiering at the on 30 May. Part truth, part fiction and part work of psycho-geography, the book, Sinclair says, is ‘a mythology of the man rather than a straightforward biography’. The reason? For the most part, the details of Deakin’s life are a mystery. ‘I was very interested in this character, John Deakin, because he was the sort of unreliable witness to the whole [old Soho] scene and took portraits of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and captured their connection to some of the London underworld. John is really the key witness to this period. So much was being photographed by this guy and yet nobody knew too much about him.’