"I used to sit on his knee, he used to put me on his knee, I was very young I don't think I was a day over 5. He used to read Persian poetry to me, and Arabic prose. And I didn't understand what he was talking about. I never bothered I just used to fall asleep on his lap. He always wore this fez and he always wore a frock coat with an asrtrakhan collar [a fur, usually black or grey, made of the closely curled wool of lambs from Astrakhan, a city in southeast Russia] and he used to sort of always have his monkey with him. Tied to his wrist it would sit on his shoulder and it wore a fez as well! And he used to take it to the museum, wherever he went the marmoset was with him. He was a man who believed in following the dictates of his heart, no matter what, he was known as a poor man's lawyer and he helped all the poor flower women in Liverpool because they used to want paternity orders because they were all having illegitimate children all over the place and so he used to get these paternity orders and try to track down the fathers to make them pay so they all loved him because he always used to come up with the goods!."
Interact is your section. Join in the community - send in your own articles, chat, and tell us what the word 'heritage' means in your part of the country.
Print this page
