The Turkish Connection

We lived above our grandparents in the late 60's and early 70's. Every week when I was around 6 at the time of the first moonlanding, I used to smell the strong fumes of pipe smoking and Turkish cigarettes from downstairs as my grandfather and his work colleague, Hamdi, used to play cards on saturdays. About seven years later we moved to Golders Green, leaving my grandparents in the bottom flat. Very soon after moving in, my grandfather came to visit for the first time our new home, and just as he came to the front door, Hamdi suddenly came out of the house next door and surprised my grandfather, he didn't know he lived there. I did not know Hamdi at that time, but it later turned out that he had been a member of the folk group I play with, the Dunav Balkan Folk Group , in the late 60's around the time he was visiting my grandfather.