Icon: more forays from M. de B'Argain
 Alain de B'Argain

Shop talk with
Alain de B'Argain


M. de B'Argain is drawn to the lights and baths (sic) of Queensway, London

QUEENSWAY, THAT OVERLOOKED avenue of London exotica wedged between Bayswater Road and nowhere in particular has always been a place of contrasts.

There’s an ice-skating rink at one end and the Turkish baths of Porchester at the other. It was where in the Sixties I got hot, sweaty and over-excited as I courted the Brunette. Sometimes we’d even make it to Porchester Baths.

Although Starbucks et al have done their bit to strip the area’s identity, there is still contrast to be had in its two charity shops. One, run by the Notting Hill Housing Trust, sells clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in the boutiques across the road. The other, Trinity Hospice Charity Shop, has the look and feel of a boot sale.

After some tumult, I dragged the Brunette inside Trinity’s where I managed to lose her sulking presence amid Himalayan piles of jumpers, books and kitchenware.

Despite the chaos my eyes were immediately drawn to the perfect form of dear, dear Joanna Lumley on the cover of a New Avengers video cassette. Is there a more desirable and vivacious woman on the planet? I think not, and £1.50 bought me 100 VHS minutes with this perfect creature.

From behind a tower of old towels I could hear the Brunette harrumphing, so I bought her a loving token: a stylish pair of transparent plastic sunglasses, behind which she could hide her wrath. “Oh look darling, they make you look like Purdy!” I proffered.

The brunetteFor the main dish I fancied something oriental, but feared I would find Lt. Gen. CK Kapur’s Chinese Military Modernisation heavy on the stomach, and the head. Instead, my favourite old soak Keith Floyd came to the rescue with Thai Spicy Duck and Mongolian Fish Hotpot in his Best of Floyd compendium (in paperback, quite thin).

I moved on to find the Brunette perusing The Joy of Sex at the back of the shop. We furtively thumbed through the pages to check the book's condition. Clearly many strangers' sweaty thumbs had fumbled this way before. The rough sketches of a Neanderthal social worker doing implausible things to a pretty secretary were as unsettling as ever. My hint that the best thing to do with this calibre of instruction would be to stick the pages together. Alas it fell on deaf ears.

Not wanting to end our visit on a tawdry note, we turned to a place where the sun shines in even the murkiest of charity shops: the LP box. Sure enough, salvation jumped out. Unusually, it was not Geoff Love & His Orchestra, but something even sunnier: Vacaciones en Mallorca by Spanish beat group Los Macovals.

As we picked out the vinyl, counter assistant Pru (for surely that was her name) gave me a knowing wink. Was it the sizzling Macovals or the book at the back of the shop?

I suggested the Brunette and I debate the object of Pru's affections at the Turkish baths, but before I knew it we were indulging in the Joy of Starbucks, greedily licking at our Caramel Macchiatos, and pondering if we’d lost our identities more than Queensway.

Next month: Devon

Trinity Hospice: in their own words
Trinity Hospice: in their own words
www.trinityhospice.org.uk provides care for people with advanced illnesses within their homes or at the hospice. At Trinity we passionately believe that people who use our services should be able to live their lives in the way they choose. Our aim is to enable them to make the decisions that are right for them and to support them in achieving the best possible quality of life. Everyone is treated with the greatest respect and dignity. They receive the treatment and support they require however long it is needed, absolutely free of charge. Trinity also provides bereavement counselling for people close to patients and comprehensive education and training programmes for health and social care professionals. We offer our services to a population of ¾ million people in central and southwest London and support over 2,000 people a year. Trinity Hospice is a registered charity (number 1013945). This financial year we must raise close to £7.6m, around a third of which comes from the NHS. For the remainder we rely on donations and support from organisations and individuals, particularly those within the local community. Over 500 volunteers help us in a variety of ways: on the wards, in the offices or shops and fundraising. We were founded in 1891 and are the oldest hospice in the UK.
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