Old Compton Street, by Zekria Ibrahimi

• LESLIE Hardcastle’s letter (Take the continental road to al fresco dining in Soho, August 6), is only a diversion from the crucial and ugly problem of the potential faceless corporate destruction of Soho.

Soho seems to me to be about freedom of expression, and the primacy of art – of love, you could say – above the grey concerns of the account book.

Soho is where big corporations now are scheming to locate, pushing out small local businesses, eliminating the urge to culture under the jackboot of commerce.

I recall, many difficult years ago, visiting an artist’s studio on Charing Cross Road. The painter concerned said that the “pink pound”, the gay presence, appeared to have cleaned up and to have revitalised Soho.

Who would vote for a Soho without art, without the film world, without small outlets selling everything from groovy T-shirts to items you could describe as being “honest about the flesh”?

I suppose some of the self-righteous tendency would condemn Soho as sleazy and subversive.

The true enemy are the anonymous multi-nationals who would want to bulldoze Soho as a “shrine to Aphrodite”.

I saw your photo of what looked like Old Compton Street. Here’s one of my own Soho sketches (above).

ZEKRIA IBRAHIMI
Mackenzie Close, W12