Tag Archives: bookseller

Hergé, Hitler, and a lifelong friend

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A FEW DAYS AGO, I posted a photograph on Facebook. It shows some books displayed on a pavement bookstall in Calcutta’s Park Street. Two of Hergé’s Tintin books were placed next to a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” (translated into English). The book by Adolf H was placed next to another book – “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham. Neither the title nor its author meant anything to me.

Seeing books by Hergé is not uncommon in India. Nor is it unusual to find copies of Hitler’s book on sale, as I have described in my book “The Hitler Lock and Other Tales of India”.

Soon after I posted the above-mentioned photograph on Facebook, my friend Andrew Sofer, whom I have known since he was born, commented on the photo as follows:
“Grandpa Ben would not be happy about his neighbor.”
I was staggered to read this. The author of “The Intelligent Investor” was Andrew’s grandfather. His book, which was displayed next to Hitler’s was first published in 1949, and still sells well.

Andrew’s father, Cyril, was born in South Africa and was one of my father’s best friends. Cyril was a Don at Queen’s College in Cambridge when he died at a young age. Our family used to visit Cyril and his family at their home in Cambridge regularly during my childhood and early teenage years. Benjamin Graham was the father of Andrew’s mother. I was unaware of Andrew’s connection with Benjamin Graham when I took the photograph of Hergé’s books juxtaposed with “Mein Kampf”.

What puzzles me is whether the close placement of the books by the three authors was random (ie accidental) ,or consciously arranged. Both Hitler and Hergé had fascist tendencies, but not Benjamin Graham. I wonder what was going through the bookseller’s mind when he arranged the books on that stall.

You will not find my book on that bookstall but you can purchase it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HITLER-LOCK-OTHER-TALES-INDIA/dp/B0CFM5JNX5/.

John Constable and a bookseller’s grave

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ST JOHN’S IS the parish church for the C of E parish of Hampstead. The present building, designed by Henry Flitcroft and John Sanderson, was dedicated in 1747. It stands on Church Row, which is lined with elegant 18th century houses and links Heath Street with Frognal.

Church Row, Hampstead, London

The church is at the northern edge of a graveyard well populated with funerary monuments, including the grave of the artist John Constable (1776-1837). This grave is in the old part of the church’s cemetery, which was hardly used after 1878, when it was officially closed. A larger, newer graveyard is on a sloping plot across Church Row and north of St John’s. This is the burial place for a host of well-known people as well as the family of Hampstead’s Pearly Kings and Queens.  

When I used to visit Hampstead in the 1960s and early 1970s, I used to ‘haunt’ a most wonderful second-hand bookshop on Perrins Lane, which leads east from Heath Street. It was owned by an old gentleman, whose name, Francis Norman, I only learnt many years after he died. Recently, I met a member of Mr Norman’s family. He told me that Mr Norman died in 1983 and is buried in the cemetery at St Johns, describing the location as: “by a wall near Harrison and the children’s playground”.

I was not sure to whom he was referring when he mentioned “Harrison”. At the church, we asked a lady about Mr Norman’s grave.  Hearing that he had died in 1983, she suggested that we looked in the newer part of the cemetery. This has a wall that borders a children’s playground. When I looked around carefully, I found  neither any monument to Harrison nor Norman’s gravestone.

On returning to the church and explaining our unsuccessful quest, the lady sent me to see another church official, who was working in an office attached to the church. This lady knew exactly where Mr Norman was buried. She took me into the older part of the cemetery and showed me the gravestones of Francis and his wife Sonia, which lie next to each other. They are next to a small wall and close to a large monument to the clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776). He was the inventor of a marine chronometer, which solved the problem of how to ascertain longitude whilst at sea. His story can be read in “Longitude” by Davina Sobell.  Norman’s grave is not far from that of John Constable.

Francis and Sonia Norman are amongst the few people buried in the old cemetery after it was closed in 1878.  My helpful informant at the church did not know why they had been interred there instead of in the newer part.

Francis Norman was a kindly, wise, and friendly fellow, who did not mind me and several of my friends spending hours in his shop, often spending very little on his extremely reasonably priced books. I have fond memories of the time that we spent in his presence, which are described in my book “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs” (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92).  So, it was with great pleasure that I met one of his family and was able to pay my respects at his grave.

Last secondhand book dealer in Hampstead

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IN THE SIXTIES, there were at least six antiquarian/second-hand bookshops in Hampstead village. Two or three of them were in Flask Walk, a quaint passageway leading northeast from Hampstead High Street. Now, there is only one in Hampstead (apart from an Oxfam bookshop), and that is Keith Fawkes’s store on Flask Walk… currently, the last of the breed.

The amiable Mr Fawkes established his shop in 1964 when there were already a few dealers of second-hand books in the village. Over the years, he has branched out into antiques and bric-a-brac whilst retaining his well-stocked bookshop. It is a treasure house of interesting books, all packed into lines of shelving separated by corridors so narrow that it is difficult for one person to squeeze past another.

Very kindly, Keith Fawkes and his bookstore manager, Sam, have agreed to display and sell a few copies of my new book about Hampstead, “Beneath a Wide Sky: Hampstead and its Environs”, which is also available from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92). While researching my book, Keith provided me with some information about another former Hampstead antiquarian bookseller, the illustrious Francis Norman, about whom I will relate more in a future post. Keith is acknowledged in my book.

So, next time that you are in Hampstead, do take a stroll along Flask Walk and look in at Keith Fawkes before having a pint in the nearby Flask pub, also mentioned in my book.