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.

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