Saddling Mahmoud's unkinder critics have tended to maintain that its quest narrative is merely a "framing device" and that the true essence of the book is the story of Uncle Tom and the bond that existed
between him and the narrator. Memory, my memory, Mr Memory. The book is classified by the British Library, as it happens, as a memoir.
Well, perhaps.
Tom Sellars was born in 1901, in the month Queen Victoria died, so he was in his prime when The 39 Steps was released. It was a film aimed at his generation; and I first saw it, in part, through his eyes, thanks to his running commentary.
In a sense, my quest (an attempt to retrieve that which is in danger of being lost) extended to include Tom.
There was an epic stature to my Great Uncle, a quality very much above and beyond the arch comic thrills of an early Hitchcock production. He was, for instance, perhaps the only man in the world to have an international rugby stadium in his back garden, a stadium that he'd actually help build with his own bare hands.
He was, or should have been, part of the very fabric of a city and of a nation.
