It’s Easter so sunny side up, happy bunnies and bonnets from the Big Fug, where supposedly Spring is sprung. Admittedly last week I actually fell asleep in the sun in the extensive back spread of Casa Levi, so I’m hoping the global fry up the Brits know as Summer is following fast in the wake of golden daffodils (Wordsworth must have been colour blind as well as tedious, because these blooms of Dutch provenance have always looked yellow to me).

Besides this unusual sighting of Phoebus’ golden orb (you feel old Wadswaddle had the monopoly on lyrics?) another recent Fuggy incident caused my grim Winter mask to slip into a rictus of a smile. I had spent some four days trashing as in clearing out the former apartment of Maitre Levi, my dear old dad who as we Fuggers put it popped his clogs and passed out or into the great rum shop of the Elysian Fields or Valhalla or wherever it is agnostic Jews play for eternity, back in January.

My final stint in this apartment in the same Bayswater Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners referred to affectionately as the Water, was a weird brew of nostalgia mixed in with an almost demonic delight at pelting out china and items of furniture I’d secretly loathed for years. Sorry about that Pa.

In true Dickensian fashion—or is it merely postmod Brit brutality which seems to be the metro mode of the second millennium—the landlord of the same apartment had been foresighted enough in the midst of my grief to send me a solicitor’s letter, demanding the return of keys and the hand over of completely empty apartment, despite the fact that the rent had been paid up to March 23.

So see me covered in dust and the detritus of nearly 40 years of occupancy and memories, coughing my way through Knightsbridge last Wednesday, bearing the keys back to the rapacious landlord (who can now flog the apartment for a cool half million quid minimum) all of a week early. Not only did I look stink, I was feeling stinker and ready to give the landlord the benefit of my 15 years and more intensive research into cussin’ Creole style.

On a corner by Knightsbridge underground station hard by Harrods, the emporium of the rich and famous, I glimpsed a distinguished head of silvery hair, mounted atop a navy blazer and grey flannels that would have done a gent from the shires proud. Except el hombre was no retired chicken farmer nor even a city slicker.

Wiping the dust from my eyes, my double take assured me that indeed this model of sartorial elegance not to say panache was none other than former Trini prime minister Basdeo Panday.

Unable to resist, I introduced myself, dustily well aware that celebs in the Big Fug are just as likely to swing a laptop in your face as to deign to reply. The Silver Fox scrutinised my dust mask carefully, searching for distinguishing marks or even something he might recognise. “No sir,” I grovelled “We have not been formerly introduced and you don’t know me from Peter O’Connor or Colm Imbert. I’m merely a humble hack scrunting for material to put into my SG column.”

For a man who used to fulminate against the jammette of St Vincent Street on a regular basis, the old Bas swallowed the information well, beaming with all the warmth of a Caribbean sun. He was charming, witty and most approachable. He was in town for his daughter’s graduation, she’d just been called to the English bar (unfortunately not a pub but a place where Brit lawyers gather to plan the pillage of their clients).

Warming to his theme, Bas explained this was his second daughter who’d been called to the bar and that he was thinking of opening up a law practice back home called Panday, and Panday. Congratulating him both on his daughters’ success and his plans for the family business I suggested that when I return on my next fact-finding mission to Trinidad, he might like to call me to the bar, any bar, although the Brooklyn in Woodbrook is my chamber of choice. Here’s to P, P and P. Take a drink for dat.