FUEL
You can’t
start a
Fire...
….without Mark Parr. RUPERT
BATES pulls up a chair by the
hearth and listens to Lord Logs –
the man who wood be king
I was prepared for a Lord of the Rings vignette when
Frodo sets eyes on the mysterious figure of Aragorn,
with cloak and pipe, in the corner of a village tavern.
But it was not a ranger of the north I sought, but a
ranger of the woods – Lord Logs. I was not in middle-earth
but Quo Vadis. ‘Whither goest thou?’ To Soho and a
former brothel now grand restaurant dame of Dean Street.
Mark Parr does wear many cloaks – most of them green
and the back of his van is a ‘Mr Benn’s wardrobe’
depending on where his business takes him.
The nickname Lord Logs does not come from his
position as a leading woodsman in the land, cutting timber
and fashioning charcoal for the finest restaurants, festivals
and homes – knowing every nuance of each log supplied,
with the nose of a master sommelier.
No, the name has a far more prosaic origin. Returning to
East Dulwich having visited a landed estate in Kent clad in
his disguise of moleskins, check shirt, tailored waistcoat,
old Barbour and tweed flat cap and carrying a shooting
bag of receipts and driving a Volvo estate, saw him
dubbed Lord Logs.
“I enjoyed the title and – for a greater part of it, the art of
being hidden in plain view – deception, although deep in
30 | Spring 2020 | BBQ