Just about every day for the past 49 years Andrew and I have been using a sharp, sturdy German steel kitchen knife that Andrew bought in London in 1971 on my first return trip after our family had immigrated to the U.S., and our first trip to England together. It’s also possible that he acquired it on our second trip, in 1973, when I spent my junior year of college in London and Andrew joined me there for the first term; even so, that would make it 47 years old. It’s no oil painting—the handle is getting worn and the blade has seen better days—but it still performs yeoman service. The oldest of all our knives, it’s my favorite by far.
Back in the 1970s Tottenham Court Road between the Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road tube stations was full of shops that sold radio, hi-fi, camera and other electronic equipment and components, army surplus, furniture, and commercial supplies of every imaginable kind. This video, shot in the late seventies, gives you a good idea of what it was like. Further on, going down toward Leicester Square, it turns into Charing Cross Road, which was lined with bookshops of every kind, small specialist and second-hand ones as well as Foyles, a veritable department store for books. The one end was heaven to Andrew, the other heaven to me. (So many small independent bookshops have closed since then, it’s heartbreaking. Foyles is still there, in name at least, although it moved from its original flagship building to premises next-door in 2014 and was bought by Waterstones in 2018.)

Berkeley cinema building, Tottenham Court Road. Note the radio and camera shops. The UFO club where Pink Floyd played was in the basement in the 1960s for a while. (Fitzrovian News)
It was in one of those shops on Tottenham Court Road that Andrew bought two large steel knives. One of them was a regular household kitchen knife, while the other was an outsize implement, something that a master chef or even a butcher might wield and certainly too large for me to handle comfortably. We had the bigger one for years, but it remained pristine because we hardly ever had occasion to use it. Then at some point quite recently we lost track of it altogether, but we didn’t fret about it. It was the smaller one that was our mainstay.
You must understand that this purchase was a rare one for Andrew. He doesn’t like to spend money unnecessarily, but he does know a good thing when he sees it. Something about the quality of these knives must have impressed him, because he made the investment and carried them home with great satisfaction. I wouldn’t have dreamt of asking how much he paid for them.
Another thing you need to understand, especially if you have done all your flying since September 11th, 2001, is what air travel was like back in the 1970s, before the days of hijackings and suicide attacks. Heading back to the U.S. with our suitcases packed to the gills, me with my books, vintage clothing from Petticoat Lane, English sweets, Marmite, and Sainsbury’s best sausages (for Mum from Auntie Bette), Andrew with Colman’s mustard and his precious kitchen knives, the train to Heathrow Airport was late and by the time we arrived we had missed the last boarding call. I remember literally running through check-in and the security station, holding out our boarding passes and passports as we raced by and explaining, between gasps for air. that we were in danger of missing our flight. No one stopped us, they just waved us through. And at least one of those seriously sharp German steel kitchen knives was in our carry-on luggage.
I’m not a knife expert or aficionado, but I believe our old knife is made of carbon steel, because its sharp blade holds its edge and rusts if it’s not cleaned and dried immediately after use. I checked once when the logo stamped into the metal was already worn but not as worn as it is now, and think that it was made by J.A. Henckels, a company founded in 1731 and still in business, based in Solingen, Germany.

One can just see a faint impression of the brand.
Some 35 years ago when we were living on the farm in Winchendon, Maureen’s dear mother Eleanor was visiting and, as was her hard-working nature, giving our kitchen a vigorous and much-needed cleaning and then moving out into the yard. While using the knife to pry up dandelions from our lawn, she accidentally snapped off the end of it. However, Andrew filed it smooth and I’ve forgotten what it looked like before, because now it looks like a small cleaver and has gained an even better balance.
Cleave is one of those words that can mean itself and its opposite (also known as an autoantonym— see TMA #183). It means to split or to cut apart (as with a cleaver, a large hatchet-like knife) and it also means to stick together, as when two people cleave to each other in marriage. Cleaving something with the grain, as one does to a log, can split it just right so that it falls cleanly in two. Cleaving to a dear one means sticking to that person through thick and thin. Somehow our old kitchen knife welds both meanings into one.