A childhood memoir of life before polio, and immediately after, and my magical childhood adventures in and out of a wheelchair
Mr Russell
Next door to our restaurant was a vacant 'lock up' shop. It belonged to Mr White (father of Croyse). He let it out to a Mr Russell who proceeded to open it up as a cockle and whelk stall. Up until that moment my parents were the only people on Herne Bay seafront selling cockles, whelks, mussels, jellied eels, and other seafood. And there was very little they could do about it. It made up about 20% of our takings!
Mr Russell came in to introduce himself. I remember them giving Mr Russell a frosty reception. But they gritted their teeth and got on with the selling of excellent fish and chips and occasionally… CURRY!
In those days it would be served with boiled potatoes, peas AND boiled rice. We had been brought up to eat all manner of things, influenced mainly by my father whose Jewish father had taught them all (the Bura brothers and sisters) to eat things like, for example, chopped chicken livers fried together with onions and eggs. But curry? Oh, I could eat it for breakfast, dinner, and tea and any other time. You see, in those days (the 50's) Indian restaurants were only in places like London, and then they were few and far between. But then we would cook the curry with sultanas. Yet where authentic Madras Indian curry was concerned never would you cook fruit in a curry. In chutneys served with the curry, yes.
But I digress. Mr Russell was POTTY about my mother's curries. However I think perhaps at this point I should paint a picture of Mr Russell. He was of average height and always wore a suit that was hand made in London's West End. He would wear that suit at all times. When he was dressing crabs, he would wear it. When he was shelling whelks, he would wear it. When he and Jock, his driver, went up to London to Billingsgate Fish Market, he would wear it. When he picked his nose and wiped the contents down the front of his suit, he would continue to wear it. He wore it until the front of his suit was so encrusted that he would have a new one made and start the process all over again.
He wore glasses, and he had a very rubbery nose. I believe he was a boxer in his younger days. When his glasses reached a certain point on the bridge of his nose he would push them up and finish the gesture with a violent rubbing of his nose which sent his 'hooter' into a kind of spasm that seemed to go on for ever.
He would order the curry in advance, say for about 1 PM. He would come into the restaurant slavering. He would sit down and slaver. When the steaming pile of curried beef, peas, potatoes, and boiled rice would be served he would, thinking no one was watching, slip his false teeth out and put them in his trouser pocket. Not into a hanky but direct from mouth to pocket and proceed to engulf the curry with great delight and huge gusto!
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