Martin Chandler |
Having scratched the floor of Nauman Niaz’s stunning private museum in my earlier submit, a return go to is lengthy overdue. However this time there shall be little speak of cricket. The bibliography of our nice recreation is one thing I do know quite a bit about, and whereas my information of different features of cricketana is extra rudimentary, it’s nonetheless a topic I perceive.
Nauman’s museum comprises round 7,000 cricket books, so he and I may speak for hours with out me having to stray exterior my consolation zone, however that does not change the truth that his library totals round 19,000 gadgets, so there’s nonetheless a lot to be taught.
However first, a number of insights into Nauman. His tutorial achievements alone are exceptional. He began his training at St Mary’s Academy in Rawalpindi earlier than transferring to the well-known Aitchison School in Lahore.
From there Nauman did his first diploma, again in Rawalpindi on the Rawalpindi Medical School, earlier than spreading his wings and gaining additional levels from the Royal School of Physicians in London, Edinburgh, Eire and Glasgow, a PhD from the College of Western Australia and a postdoctoral diploma from the College of Oxford. Mixed together with his stellar careers in medication and journalism/broadcasting, I wasn’t shocked to be taught that Nauman is a person who lives on three hours of sleep an evening!
Regardless of the calls for positioned on him by his career, Nauman has nonetheless had loads of time to pursue his ardour for cricket and his overarching need to attach with the previous, significantly 18th and nineteenth century Britain .
Nauman additionally acknowledges that he owes a major debt to his origins. His late father was Lieutenant Normal Hamid Niaz of the Pakistan Military, so there’s warrior blood in him. Though Nauman’s father was not a collector as such, he did move on to Nauman numerous gadgets which might be a part of his assortment at this time, not least two signed Cupboard playing cards of Abraham Lincoln that had been introduced to Hamid throughout a visit to america. US.
So what are Nauman’s non-cricket bibliographical passions? A lot and diverse is the brief reply, and each fiction and non-fiction are effectively represented in his assortment.
Charles Dickens is among the best-known names in English literature and has revealed 15 novels. Nauman’s assortment comprises copies of all of them, 9 second, second editions and 6 first, together with a replica of Oliver Twist signed by Dickens.
A more moderen space of fertile floor for collectors is the so-called ‘trendy firsts’. Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels are as collectible as any. There are 13 of all of them and Nauman has signed all of them, in fact with the unique mud jackets.
Shifting on to non-fiction Nauman is a superb Winston Churchill fanatic, and his assortment homes a replica of every of Churchill’s 72 revealed works, all first editions and about half of them signed. Not essentially essentially the most beneficial, however maybe essentially the most fascinating is his signed set of the principle six volumes Historical past of the Second World Battle.
A very fascinating merchandise within the Niaz assortment is a replica of Gandhi’s eight-volume assortment of his personal writings. That is in fact a primary version (1953), one of many components of which is signed. Particular sufficient, however a restricted version was additionally revealed in South Africa, sure in material from Gandhi’s dhoti, a standard garment for male Hindus, and Nauman’s copies are from that version.
I vividly bear in mind, as a ten-year-old, sitting with my father as he watched a tv information program in regards to the demise of Bertrand Russell, and my father explaining to me that Russell was a person of highly effective mind, before everything a thinker and mathematician. , who had simply handed away on the age of 97.
Later in life I started to know extra about Russell, whose bibliography is big. His best-known work is A Historical past of Western Philosophy, first revealed in 1945. Nauman has a signed first version of it within the unique mud jacket, and the identical is true of a lot of Russell’s different books. However his prized possessions in that a part of his museum are the three volumes of Principia Arithmetica, revealed between 1910 and 1913 and naturally signed by the writer.
However what’s the one factor that Nauman does not have, however that he wish to possess greater than something? The reply to that’s William Shakespeare’s signature. It does not shock me that the Bard’s signature could be costly, however till Nauman wistfully defined the scenario to me, I hadn’t realized that solely six examples had been identified. 5 of those are owned by British establishments, and the only real privately owned instance final modified palms in 2006, for the small sum of $4,600,000.
Buying a Shakespeare may subsequently show problematic, so in my opinion Nauman would do effectively to stay to some different ambitions, the comparatively straightforward ones of a full set of ambitions. Clarifying in its unique state, or the larger problem of including the opposite fourteen editions to its at present considerably lonely copy of Britcher’s scores, however that brings us again to cricket, and a subject for one more day, however for now an extra number of photographs from the gathering…
Martin had the pleasure of chatting with Nauman Niaz once more, and for as soon as there wasn’t an excessive amount of cricket speak