Swan Court, home in the 1940-s to Agatha Christie and the young Margaret Thatcher, was the first modern block of flats to be built in Chelsea in the inter-war years, its uncluttered labour-saving spaces offering a new way of living to Londoners in flight from the over-stuffed opulence of Edwardian mansion flats. From 1931, when it opened, the building-s unique mix of flats, maisonettes and artists- studios attracted an eclectic following, war widows and struggling artists rubbing shoulders with film stars, famous actors and fashionable designers.
A Perch in Bohemia gives a fascinating insight into the life and work of a group of the building-s early residents, a talented, eccentric and sometimes notorious bunch of Modernist artists, actors and writers leavened with more than a dash of extremist politics. From avant-garde art to political disillusion, from free love to Fascism, their bold and sometimes controversial stories vividly bring to life the inn
