Victor Brilliant

“And he particularly came to Camden Town in order to aim his business at the very large, very affluent families in the big houses up Camden Road up around Murray Street and Camden Square, where the gentleman would live in those houses with their carriages kept in the muse at the back, and they would walk down Camden Road to the railway station to go, to go into the, into the city. And my father took this shop actually in the station underneath the booking hall. And there was, and he opened a cylinder toilet, the, the, the station toilet saloon where gentlemen could come in, walk in, buy their tobacco and their half a dozen cigars for the day, which would go straight into the breast pocket. And they would then go into the barber saloon to have a shave and hot towels and prepare themselves to go into the city.”

“I would be put on one of the barber’s chairs with a little wooden platform across, across the arms so I could be raised up high and I would have my hair cut. And I remember, I remember the, the chap, the employee of the business, he used to cut my hair. Mr. Berman regularly used to cut my hair. He had been, he had been in an earlier life, a carpenter, and he passed me on all his old tools. So that got me interested in woodwork. But yeah, it was there, there, there was the stainless steel cabinet at the back which held all the hot towels to be slapped on after shaving. And I watched all these rituals. I don’t think much of that happens these days.”

“The front shop, which was in the in the station, was all kitted out in oak and brass with massive tobacco jars, with tobaccos from all over the world. I, I remember ‘Latke’ as one name that was inscribed on a jar, and people would buy loose tobacco, which was weighed out in beautiful brass scales on the counter. And I have those on the sideboard in my dining room at the moment”