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The Boys

1 week ago | the-fence.com | Leo Robson

An extract from Leo Robson’s forthcoming novel. Johnny, 30 and bored, recalls the appearance of his half-brother and his half-brother’s girlfriend. In the mornings Lawrence and Emily would cross the hall and tickle me awake, then he would disappear to make breakfast – a full English, adapted to accommodate the household rule about pork products. ‘Has to be full English,’ he would say, ‘what else?’ It seemed not to be a rhetorical question.
Borstal Boys

2 weeks ago | the-fence.com | Georgia Brown

A personal history of the borstal in Britain: a century of incarcerated children. The last time I saw my dad, we were looking through old photographs. In one sits a small, dark-haired boy staring gleefully at the camera. His smile is cheeky and wide, his little hands folded neatly over one another. Four years after this photo was captured, in 1973, my dad was taken from his parents and siblings and forced to live in a dark, stark building near the banks of the River Medway.
Gaming the System

2 months ago | the-fence.com | Michael Holden

If irony – of a kind – is the layering of comedy and tragedy, there are some places in London where it becomes fully three-dimensional. I arrived early, because Monopoly Lifesized tickets come by email with a stern warning about lateness. As I walked toward Tottenham Court Road, I passed the furniture store, Heal’s – beds costing £10,089 – and the myriad of tents outside it – £40 from Argos – a few doors down, and considered the changing and recurring fortunes of this patch of London.
Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House

Jan 29, 2025 | the-fence.com | Gary Grimes

Our writer, a lonely tweenager in rural Ireland, took to his computer and found new galaxies of possibilities – on a Big Brother forum. Walking through central London in early October, I was stopped in my tracks by a billboard that read, ‘Big Brother – The Ultimate Social Experiment’.
Speaking in Small Tongues

Jan 23, 2025 | the-fence.com | Miles Ellingham |Cormac Kehoe

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel? ‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’John 16:33In the spring of 1974, an 18-year-old Justin Welby decided to climb Mount Kenya. He’d arrived in Africa following a turbulent year at Eton.
Brick by Brick

Jan 16, 2025 | the-fence.com | Henry Wismayer

A celebration of an establishment in deepest south London with a tricksy landlord and a never-changing clientele. An ode, then, to the beauty of the mediocre pub. One morning last month, after dropping my kids at school, I bumped into the local publican in the corner shop. He looked pallid and put-upon, which wasn’t unusual, though he said hello with his usual Geordie bounce, and headed straight for the beer fridge. It was 9am.
A Professional Service

Nov 25, 2024 | the-fence.com | Fergus Butler-Gallie

A visit to the oldest undertakers in London, who have been in operation since the Battle of Trafalgar. ‘There’s a lot that can be blamed on David Bowie.’ Tom France speaks with an accent so distinctly Lahn-dan that I am absolutely prepared to believe him on this. But Tom doesn’t detail the other things that might be blamed on Bowie. While those rumours about underage groupies might be on his agenda, Tom is interested in only one area of Bowie’s cultural legacy: the no-frills funeral.
Empty Orchestra

Oct 31, 2024 | the-fence.com | Lucas Oakeley |Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell

A short story in a pub. Deep breath now. Don’t move a muscle. Four glasses float by your head and you don’t quite know how the man caressing them like bowling pins in his wide hands hasn’t managed to spill a drop. You’d have been impressed at the dexterity of his movement – which was deft, almost Biles-like – if he hadn’t looked down the front of your top as he pliéd by. There was a hush before the music. Before the band really started to blow.
Chef Bites Back: TopJaw

Oct 24, 2024 | the-fence.com | Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell |John Banville

Our anonymous restaurateur returns to turn the tables on the critics. I look down at my phone and a video of Michel Roux Junior standing in the street pops up. He’s next to a handsome blonde presenter, and without introduction, a microphone is shoved in his face. The question, ‘Best restaurant in London?’ is asked in an affected husky voice. For a moment I wondered how I might answer that question if asked by Jesse Burgess.
The More People Feel, the More They Buy

Oct 22, 2024 | the-fence.com | Clive Martin |Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell

Adding up the value of advertising. I’m in a draughty old warehouse just off Brick Lane, wearing a lanyard, sipping on a can of blackberry & açaí-flavoured Tenzing, while Ferne McCann from The Only Way Is Essex leads a ‘breathwork session’ for an audience entirely comprised of chief marketing executives, global account managers, senior creative leads and heads of innovation (EMEA region).