 A selfie with the shopkeeper-philosopher Lateef Mohammed. I don't know why it's taken me so long, but this weekend I paid my first visit to the magical Old Curiosity Shop, which - Lateef tells me - his family set up after leaving Kashmir almost ninety years ago. Photography inside the shop is discouraged, but you can see from the crowded shelves just what a treasure trove it is - from 1950s LPs to wonderful old nautical instruments, from dusty books (all now carefully conserved) to the sort of knick-knacks tourists seem to love.  The Old Curiosity Shop (aka the Kashmir Art Palace) is on Anna Salai, the wide boulevard which was once known as Mount Road. The city's leading department store, Spencer's, used to be opposite. Still close by is the Connemara, perhaps the leading hotel in what was Madras in the colonial era and certainly the best of the old-style five star hang-outs.  Lateef Mohammed explained that he had been born in Chennai - though he can still speak Kashmiri. His shop has become something of an institution. A wonderful place to browse for half-an-hour - and yes, I did buy too - though not cheap. There were several other shoppers when I popped by, and Lateef had time for them all - chatting, reminiscing, sharing a tea and showing his wares.  He had a lovely piece of ephemera from the 'Quit India' movement of 1942 - like so many of his choice items, it was strictly 'Not For Sale'. I asked if he had any other political publications or ephemera. He took out two wonderfully well-kept bound volumes of the Harijan, the weekly paper founded by Gandhi. They were from 1946-8 and so straddled the era of Partition and independence. They had once been kept at The Hindu's editorial department, just down the road. So of course I asked: how much? Five lakh (that's £5,000). I suppose that's another way of saying NFS.  I abided by all the signs requesting no photography inside the shop. But I did photograph the windows. They give you some idea of the eclectic mix, and delightful clutter, you find inside.
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 To Huddersfield yesterday - I'll explain why in a moment - and the second time of late that I've been there on a Saturday and so shopped at the excellent tat stalls in the glorious town centre open market. What you need to remember about flea markets is most of it is complete rubbish - bags of assorted screws, scruffy VHS copies of unsuccessful films, chipped coronation mugs. All those were there - plus some Northern Soul singles, a touch of militaria, and, and ... Well, look above. I was well pleased to find this - a wartime propaganda leaflet, German, and dropped over Britain, says this specialist website, in June-July 1941, when it did indeed seem that we might be losing the war, It's cleverly done - much more sophisticated than much wartime psyops material. It proclaims that German bombers and U-boats were decimating allied shipping across the Atlantic, and that as a result: 'If the war is continued until 1942, 60% of the population of Britain will starve!' 'All this means that starvation in Britain is not to be staved off. At the most it can be postponed, but whether starvation comes this year or at the beginning of next doesn't make a ha'porth of difference. Britain must starve because she is being cut off from her supplies.' Did you pause on 'ha'porth'? Half-penny-worth. It will have struck readers then as now that the Germans were going to some effort to communicate in everyday language. You do wonder how this fragile sheet of paper came to be picked up, kept (and well kept), and a lifetime later ends up on a stall at Huddersfield market. But whoever kept it safe for so many years. thank you! I don't like Nazi memorabilia at all - but this telling remnant of the most difficult days of the Second World War is a welcome addition to my collection.
And what takes me to Huddersfield? Watching Town, of course. It's an enthusiasm I share with my son. And yesterday they won 2-0 against Ipswich - thanks for asking! Huddersfield Town are currently standing third in the Championship. Third! Just one place off automatic promotion to the Premiership. And what's particularly nice about travelling by train to Huddersfield is arriving there - one of the most elegant stations around. I've seen some Parliament buildings with less grandeur.   ... or something like that.
It's just about exactly 25 years since I achieved the post I most coveted in my early career in journalism - Political Correspondent. And for the World Service, which still had its own foothold in the Lobby, its own desk in Parliament (in an overflow office known as The Dungeon, where in the evenings the smell of fried fish wafted up from the watchroom below), and its own access to the movers and shakers. This was still Thatcher's reign. Heseltine had by then stormed out of her cabinet - Lawson and Howe were still to follow. The political capital gained by her 'victories' in the South Atlantic and over Scargill's miners, and in three successive elections, was being frittered away amid a raft of party squabbles, particularly over Europe, and poor policy decisions, of which the Poll Tax was the worst. There was an incendiary air to politics - and on occasions a whiff of grapeshot on the streets. It was a truly stirring time to be a pol corr. I had come across Mrs T at a Commonwealth conference in Harare - and she seemed much more charming and relaxed than I had expected. (I could say the same for Robert Mugabe). But there was little charm in her despatch box performances. And on the one occasion I got to interview her, no charm at all. Here's what happened. Downing Street's press office, under the irascible but immensely likeable Bernard Ingham, was perpetually running feuds. After an environmental summit conference in London, No. 10 - for reasons I never uncovered - was determined to deny both BBC TV News and ITN's 'News at Ten' the big PM sit down interview which was standard fare at the close of such events. So the broadcast interviews went to Channel 4 ... and the World Service. And a callow and inexperienced World Service pol corr, who in his anxiety had perhaps over rehearsed his questions, got a rare chance to interrogate Margaret Thatcher. She sensed my nervousness - and pounced. I still haven't summoned up the courage to listen back. I remember, as the interview was spiralling out of control, staring intently at Mrs Thatcher's face and in my panic-induced reverie seeing it transform into the Gerald Scarfe caricature with the Concorde nose. When, in response to my killer question, she disdainfully replied: "I don't think you've been listening to what we've been saying", I could feel the blood freeze in my veins. It was a chastening experience. Mrs T was of course the commanding British political figure of the second half of the last century - and in terms of eminence, ranks alongside Churchill, Lloyd George, Disraeli, Gladstone and Blair as the epoch-defining Prime Ministers of modern times. This evening, I got home just as the World Service was broadcasting my half-hour obituary programme for Mrs Thatcher - first assembled a decade or so ago, and freshened up a year or two back. It brought back a host of memories. 'Love her or loathe her, no one was indifferent to Margaret Thatcher.' For many of us who spent time at Westminster - politicians and Lobby alike - it feels as if part of our past has slipped anchor. |
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