On the day of the Lord Mayor’s Show last month, we took a circuitous route to the Forum, the party’s thumping epicentre. As we walked along Bethel Street, we stumbled across the Old Skating Rink, a barn of building set back from the road. Liam was curious.

Let’s take a look inside.

So we did and this is what we found.

Built for roller skating in 1876, the listed building is now an Aladdin’s cave of oriental rugs, textiles, traditional and antique furniture, ceramics, wood carvings, accessories and decorative objects – all directly imported from Asian regions extending from Anatolia to Java. Part-shop, part-museum, the owner, Country and Eastern, is doing its bit to help to keep traditional skills alive by supporting the South Asian Decorative Arts and Crafts Collection (SADACC) Trust.

Liam bought me a little brass cow bell. I placed it by the side of the bed. Now I can ring for service.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as a publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

12 thoughts on “Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum”

  6. I dunno what impresses me more–that there was a rollerskating rink built in 1876, that the building is still standing, or that it’s now housing all that beautiful impressive home decor (you add panache to those red vases, btw.) 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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