Not the former England footballer but the former department store next to Finchley Road tube. John Barnes was a rambling, old fashioned store with a wonderful food hall in the basement. It was the hub of the Viennese Jewish community who’d fled the Nazis and settled around West Hampstead and Swiss Cottage. As a child, I was fascinated by these gentle, cultured but often sorrowful people. Some lived in the elegant 1930s apartment block above the store which, as you approached on the top of the No.13 bus, looked just like an ocean liner. Jewish musicians would then clamber on with their cellos and trombones to go and play at Wigmore Hall and it all seemed terribly exotic. The ground floor of John Barnes is now a Waitrose and those old residents have died off. But still, whenever I go there, this tune will start playing in my head.
I’ve always loved John Barnes.

- Bob Dylan win...14th Oct 2016
- "More for you...13th Oct 2016
- To the Soho e...11th Oct 2016
- Brian Blessed...9th Oct 2016
- I always love...8th Oct 2016
- It wasn't jus...6th Oct 2016
- Misandry.4th Oct 2016
- It's 5777.2nd Oct 2016
- Didn't you th...1st Oct 2016
- Greed is the ...27th Sep 2016
- We've now off...24th Sep 2016
- Have they fin...18th Sep 2016
- Oh Lucky Man.15th Sep 2016
- The tube was ...13th Sep 2016
- My stag night.12th Sep 2016 prev next