Fridays will never be the same without Ian Carmichael....

For quite a few years I've been a regular at the Angel Friday Flea Market. It almost became part of my routine on a Friday morning to go there. I've probably mentioned it in a few posts before now and certainly used to give it a regular plug in my Courier Tonbridge Community Life column. My most memorable visit was the time when I picked up a 2,000 year old Roman coin, with the head of Emperor Augustus still clearly visible. I think I paid £3 for it. The great thing about visiting the Flea Market is that you never know what to expect there so it becomes almost like a drug. You know that most weeks you won't find much at all, but every so often you get a real high when you discover some object (or book) that you just have to have. One person I did always expect to see there was a real old gent called Ian Carmichael (please forgive me if the spelling is wrong I always did have a problem with that name for some obscure reason.) Every week I'd spot Ian, husband of Sue the organiser of the market, usually sitting down at the first table inside the main door. He often had an interesting array of items on his stall, antique bottle openers and cork screws, old name plates, playing cards, pen knives and more often than not books. In fact as I got to know Ian better over the last five or six years I discovered that he was also a bookseller on the quiet and had attended many local book fairs in his time; not that far back he used to organise one in Tonbridge which became the Sevenoaks book fair. So Ian and I had something in common, we both loved selling, buying and collecting books and I had gone on to organise the Tonbridge Book Fair, which Ian started to regularly attend. He very rarely directly paid for his stall preferring instead to wait until I was tempted to buy some of his excellent books by way of a barter deal against the cost of the stall. Ian became the only exhibitor at my fair who I, in effect, had to pay to be there! We had some great conversations over the years, usually about books and book people but often about just life in general. I didn't know him beyond that so I can't really say that I was a great frend of his but what I do know is that when I heard this morning that he'd passed away after apparently having recovered from a heart attack and stroke some months ago, I felt shocked and rather tearful. I think if the news of anyone's death has that kind of an effect on you then he must have touched me and become part of my life. I'm sure that what I feel today is nothing when compared to the grief of Sue and his family but Ian mate, if your listening, I'll miss seeing your warm friendly face and our little chats. Fridays won't be the same without you....