ABSTRACT
In the late Seventies Britain seemed, to a returning migrant, like a punch-drunk boxer in a dingy fairground. Another offered a chauffeur-driven car, with a photographer, to tour Central London’s loos. After the Sussex fellowship months we had moved, in January 1976, to a small terrace house opposite Goldsmiths’ side-door, and there passed the working week for eight and a half years. The ‘Goldsmiths’ Institute’ had been set up in 1891 by the Goldsmiths’ Company, one of the major and most respected of the mediaeval City Guilds. The company receives income from, most importantly, hallmarking silver and gold objects, and validating the currency of Britain and some other countries. It has long used much of its spare money not only for promoting education in its own crafts but more widely. Goldsmiths’ hospitality, often as casual as that of a large household where one extra mouth never makes much difference, was suspected by some and admired by others.
