by Keith Hillman

Created on: March 03, 2011

A few years back I ran a theatre restaurant. Every day we entertained the entertainers; a place where the stars of television and film could relax and wind down after an evening treading the boards.

Ask any of my staff and they will tell you who was the greatest star. He wasn't a celebrity in the current sense of the word, but his almost daily presence at the Stage Door Bistro made more of an impression than all of the stars added together.

He was Professor Britten, a man of some seventy years who looked much older due to failing health. Whenever his taxi arrived, there was a rush to be the one to help him out of the car, and across the pavement to our door. There he would stand for a moment or two, resplendent in a double breasted Saville Row suit, a boldly striped shirt, a floppy bow tie and black and white patent leather shoes. On his head a wide brimmed black Amish hat over a fine head of silver hair which sat in curls on his collar. In his hand, an ivory topped cane. Once through the door he would make his way slowly across the room doffing his hat to each and every person he passed.

Every day he would precariously perch on stool at the bar from where he would sit and flirt with my waitresses and regale them with stories from his colourful  life. There he would sit with a bottle of fine red wine and allow me to chose whatever I felt he would enjoy that day. From his vantage point he could survey the scene and watch the comings and goings around him.

'My dear friend' he would say as I approached with his dish of the day. He always called me that.

Sometimes we would take him home. He lived in a small annex at his son's house where he spent his days surrounded by teetering towers of text books and piles of academic papers. His writings helped to teach the children who attended his beloved Montessori schools.

He was a devout Buddhist. He came to it late in life.

He died too soon - he still had so much to give. The last thing he ever said to me was 'Goodbye my dear friend'. It was just another day, I had no reason to suspect that I'd never see him again.

The following week he was buried in a cardboard coffin, on a hillside, under a tree.

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