Syrian Memoirs

Subsequent to ploughing through the various obligated day long coffee visits, constant battles with what’s ‘done’ and what’s ‘not done’ and assortment of illnesses Syria seems to supply on every visit to make it to the hairdresser to have our hair pinned, curled and hair-sprayed to within an inch of its tortured life, we are then confronted with the stalking video camera nightmare and various elbow grabbing relatives attempting to ‘marry us off’ by thrusting us in front of it. Being ‘so English’ my sister and I often find this an awkward, humiliating experience.

As a child, a Syrian wedding involves being a bridesmaid or page boy, running around the swimming pool at the reception and drinking sneaky arak under the table with the cousins. As a young adult, people size you up in a different light. There exists a perpetual fear of putting a foot wrong in the presence of gossips, and a strong sense of obligation. It is terrifying.

Memories of bustling aunties who before a party would disappear into their rooms as nanny’s, cooks and cleaning ladies, reappearing in a waft of perfume and hairspray, superhero-esque, dazzling from head to toe, is an aspect of Syrian culture that used to amaze me as a child but now haunts and installs a sense of dread in me.

My Syrian escapades began at four years old. Visits to my paternal family normally coincided with the continual stream of matrimony, always taking place in intense heated conditions of summer in the days before air conditioning. At that age I was more aware of the impact the whole experience had on the senses. Sights, sounds and smells all felt extreme, pungent and completely alien compared to life at home in England.

These childhood trips tend to merge into a blur of heat, sequins, relatives, the smell of Turkish coffee, continuous kitchen clatter of pots and pans of my grandma’s or ‘tettas’ cooking, the loud cry of passing street sellers on donkeys, dusty floors, family gatherings on the balcony in the warm evenings and being allowed to stay up late with the grown-ups, singing and belly dancing along to my uncles accordion swathed in multicoloured, sparkling tack.

Hopping on the ramshackle bus to the swimming pool and discarding objects off the balcony was the highlight of getting together with all the cousins, a common interest uniting our various languages. One unfortunate episode involved a watermelon and somebody’s open window. Well, unfortunate for them, we found it hilarious! We were also always so amused by the Syrian disregard for health and safety “he carries his life in the palm of his hand’’ and the subsequent amount of freedom we enjoyed as a result.

Unfortunately the constant heat, hoards of loud cheek pinching relatives, eternal ‘bad tummy’s’ and lack of privacy during the teenage years may have made the experience overwhelming and tiresome and induced a little Syria hating in the hearts of my sister and me.

However, now I look back with nostalgia because the end of childhood in Syria follows the realisation that much of the ample freedom once taken for granted does end quite abruptly, and that intense suffocation was simply an aspect of the overwhelming Syrian hospitality, passionate warmth, family closeness and lack of inhibition, which can be difficult for the English reserve to accommodate.

Luckily my initiation at an early age made it a little easier for me than it was for my older sister and especially my English mother who was plunged into the deep end of the system with no prior warning or expectation of what was to follow.

Maturity has taught me the benefits of being part of this wonderful culture. It only took me 25 years to admit that I am privileged to be both English and Syrian, and as a result have been allowed to experience the best of both worlds.

Hidden Gems of the West End

On tip toes peering through the glass of his shop I notice my dad hasn’t arrived yet, so, nonchalantly, I stick my earphones in to meander down the large green staircase. There I’m faced with the familiar sight of the fish filled stream of the River Tyburn running through the middle of an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ of antique shops. My iPod instantaneously lands on a piano tune and I find myself caught in a world on my own as I gaze into the cabinet display of knick knacks. Looking in at the old objects from past times, the scuffs and dents in them, each alluding to a story, the rippling piano in my ears seems to transport me into a different era.


It was early on a rainy Friday morning in London, and instead of getting off the bus at Notting Hill for my slightly mind numbing computer course, I had decided to do a bunk and stay on for a few more stops to buy my old school friend a wedding present from Selfridges down town.

But as the bus stopped outside I realised it was far too early to even consider entering the clinical branding and tight haired, imposing, painted lady land of a department store and that instead I’d far rather take the time to pay a visit to my dad at his work in Davies Street in the less aggravating , more dreamy surroundings of Gray’s Antiques Market.

Gray’s has become like a second home to me over the years. After his move from stalls in St Christopher’s place and Portabello Road, my dad was one of the first people to get a shop there when it was established by Bennie Gray in 1977. In those days he would also work as a hotel cashier to raise the investment while my first time pregnant mother would be on hand to help out in the shop and drive to collect the odd midnight auction deliveries to assist in kick starting the new business.

I have subsequently grown up surrounded by antiques and they have always had the effect of stimulating my imagination. There was the time when I held one of my dad’s antiques in my hand, a bible from the days of Chaucer, and it blew my mind. I was not only touching but could also picture a different existence so far removed from the one I have come to accept as my normality. Every antique has its own story to tell, and more importantly something to say about the way our ancestors lived, how we also should have lived if we were born at the same time. They can really help to put the things we consider important in our current world, into perspective.

When my dad arrives I sit with him in the shop. He makes me a cup of tea and offers me some peanuts in a plastic cup. While we are talking he pauses to answer the phone. He starts yelling about a post dated cheque that has been postponed. I think it might be time to leave, but this is apparently only a normal occurrence in the world of the antique dealing day, exemplary of the unpredictable income. When I ask if he would have preferred a more steady wage, before I can finish the question he bursts in with ‘NO’.

What a crazy idea.

The people in the Antiques world are interesting characters. As I’m there a few of them pass in and out, including the man my dad has just been shouting at, who seems non plussed as he helps himself to some peanuts. A friend of my dad’s, who has travelled from Syria is also there and grows excited as I talk about a new venture I’m planning, and offers his expertise to the project. His enthusiasm typifies a trait of those that enter the business.

Antiques dealers are by nature adventurous gamblers with high hopes and ambition and aren’t shy of taking risks in their lives, because the truth is sometimes they don’t know what they’re buying. They also have a bit of a romance about them as they appreciate art and craft. Unfortunately the world is also not short of its crooks, this is part of the gamble, including the fact that not every aspiring dealer becomes successful.

The younger generation start by collecting things of small value and grow from there. My dad’s first auction purchase was a collection of 3-400 books which he sold for £1 each. But, in all, the best dealers read a lot about history and art connected with the items they deal with so they can outsmart the other in recognising the value of an item. The game of wits is an aspect of his job my dad particularly enjoys!

Excitedly he tells me the story a man who outbid a representative of the Louvre at a Paris auction for an item valued at £3,000. The man had bid at £50,000 because via personal research he was the only person present who knew what it was actually worth, and sold it to the British Museum for £1,000,000 . A demonstration that even the most successful people in the game can get it wrong. It is, of course, this prospect of your average Joe landing the big fish that keeps the business alive. They all live in silent hope for that classic ‘Only Fools and Horses’ finale moment!


I enjoy chatting with the dealers but at the end of the day I had come to down town for a reason. I make my excuses and go off to choose a present for my friend. Foregoing the vast collection of vintage apparel and heading for the silver ware. I land on a 1900s silver matchbox to symbolise her new ‘match’ :) and have it engraved with their names and the date of their wedding at a niftylittle place in Bond Street tube station. When I get back to the shop the motley crew who have gathered inspect the object before announcing that I’ve got a very good deal. I feel very proud indeed, and am too beginning to appreciate the thrill of this unpredictable industry.