These days, Charles Pooter, the City clerk and narrator of George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody (1892) — the enduring comedy of hum-drum middle-class, late-19th-century life — could never afford to rent (or buy) his six-bedroom house, The Laurels, in Brickfield Terrace, Holloway. The Pooters of this world fled north London a long time ago, driven to the commuter belt by soaring property prices. However big the collapse of the housing market, the Pooters could not possibly buy their way back to those comfortable years of meat teas, live-in maids, and champagne from Jackson Frères at three and six a bottle.
In the City these days, even a head clerk like Mr Pooter couldn’t expect to earn much more than £40,000; in the book, he gets into a terrible state when he loses £20 in shares in Parachikka Chlorates. Holloway is now banker land — even post-Lehmans, you won’t get into The Laurels for much under £1 million.
The Pooters may have left, but The Laurels survives.
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