Having taken evasive action, leaving the tourists on the streets of London by escaping down a small passage, our group of seven-odd walkers end up in front of a vintage store front, 13 Masons Yard, St James. We are not off the beaten track – St James is a central district in the City of Westminster.

The place we arrive at is called The Scotch of St James; it is a club that opened on July 24, 1965. (It closed in 1980, but reopened in 2013.) Well, all this might not mean anything to you. To be quite honest, at first appearance, it did not to me either.

But this club is steeped in history. This was where, on September 24, 1966, a previously unknown American guitarist played his first gig in Great Britain. His name was James Marshall ‘Jimi’ Hendrix, who is described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music”. This is despite the fact that his career spanned only four years – and the four years started at the Scotch of St James. But this club is no one-hit wonder. Here, a certain Paul McCartney first met Stevie Wonder after the latter’s live performance on February 3, 1966.

The club was also frequented by Rod Stewart, the Who and Stevie Wonder, as well as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, to name a few. The latter two groups had their own private tables at the club. Just in case you assumed this to be a big club, it is said that, when these illustrious artistes performed there, it could accommodate only about 40 guests. But then this club was different from others as it served to provide these and other famous artistes with the opportunity to perform, to listen and to critique one another’s music. It was an escape from the fans, ironically at the centre of London, since tourists tend to ignore the fact that the City of Westminster and London are, in fact, two distinct cities.

As we take leave of the club, no more than 20-odd metres to its right, as you exit the club, is another iconic landmark, the Indica Gallery & Bookshop. Mean anything to you? This is where the Beatle, John Lennon, first met Yoko Ono and where famed rock photographer Gered Mankowitz photographed many a legendary artiste in his studio. Then there is The Scotch tucked away at the bottom of an alley which served as a prominent live venue and historically significant meeting place for London’s rock elite in the 1960s.

But such is London that, just around the corner, no more than a three-minute walk, is Mayfair, and particularly 3 Savile Row, a street that is famous for its tailors, who have been a ‘feature’ of the street since 1803. If you want to convert a home loan, you can have a suit tailored there. Customers of the ‘golden mile of tailoring’ have included Lord Nelson, Napoleon III, Winston Churchill and Prince Charles, to name a few. One of the tailors made a suit for Jack Napier, whom you may better know as the Joker, Batman’s nemesis. The Joker, the actor, that is, for which the suit was made is Jack Nicholson, who starred in the 1989 Batman movie, the first instalment of Warner Bros’ initial Batman film series. I still recall Vicki Vale saying in the movie to the Joker: “You’re insane!”, to which he responds: “I thought I was a Pisces.”

The building on 3 Savile Row is iconic, yet there is nothing that hints at its glorious past – not even a plaque. Want to guess what happened there? If it helps, the building was known as the Apple building at the time. In 1968, the building was bought for £500 000 by the Beatles – George Harrison, Lennon, McCartney and Ringo Starr – who are said to have spent the best part of 18 months living there.

On January 30, 1969, the rooftop of 3 Savile Row served as the location of the Beatles’ last concert – public concert, some might say. Apparently, the Beatles wanted a fitting conclusion for their film, Let It Be. They had contemplated a concert on an ocean liner, an old flour mill or a Roman amphitheatre in North Africa. But by that time the Beatles were hardly speaking to one another. Eventually, they decided to just have an unannounced lunchtime concert on the roof of the Apple building on that Thursday, January 30, 1969. The Beatles, along with Billy Preston on keyboard, played in the cold wind for 42 minutes, about half of which ended up in the film. At the end, Lennon leans to the camera and fittingly quips: “I’d like to say ‘thank you’ on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition!” And that was the end of the Beatles.

The film Let It Be is a 1970 documentary about the Beatles rehearsing and recording songs for their album of the same name, which had been released in January 1969. The film was released on May 20, 1970, with none of the Beatles in attendance. The film has not been officially available since the 1980s, although original and bootleg copies of home video releases still circulate. But it has yet to be released on DVD or Blu-ray.

As you read this column, UK Prime Minister Teresa May might well have invoked Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, notifying of the UK’s exit from the European Union (EU). The Council of the EU was due to meet on March 9 and 10, and it was on these days that May was expected to invoke Article 50.

Since the Brexit referendum result, the Remainers, or Remoaners, as they have come to be known, have done anything and everything in their power to either delay or undermine the Prime Minister in her attempt to leave the EU. Somehow, they do not understand, appreciate or even acknowledge the Brexit referendum result, and simply cannot let it be. ‘Let it be’ is defined as to ‘stop interfering with someone or something’.
Maybe they could do well to listen to the Beatles’ Let It Be song: “And when the broken-hearted people; Living in the world agree, There will be an answer, let it be. And though they may be parted there is; Still a chance that they will see; There will be an answer, let it be.”

I leave you with the UK Prime Minister’s words, which could easily hold true for South Africa: “But Brexit should not just prompt us to think about our new relationship with the EU. It should make us think about our role in the wider world. It should make us think of Global Britain, a country with the self-confidence and the freedom to look beyond the continent of Europe and to the economic and diplomatic opportunities of the wider world. Because we know that the referendum was not a vote to turn in ourselves, to cut ourselves off from the world. It was a vote for Britain to stand tall, to believe in ourselves, to forge an ambitious and opti- mistic new role in the world.”

What is South Africa’s Brexit strategy?