Jay is "Mr Knife"; he is certainly amongst the most fascinating people we have ever met. He has a shop at 47 Blandford Street in London, another in Ladbroke Grove, West London, and is opening a third in Soho, in London's West End, heart of the restaurant district, where a hundred pounds for a good knife isn't really a lot of money.

What is so interesting is that there are so many people prepared to pay a hundred pounds , and much more. While I was interviewing Jay, and Nedra was taking notes, we were constantly interrupted by people coming into the shop, locals, folk from Italy, Poland, and elsewhere, all of whom walked out with one or more knives.

Jay put it this way: "The knife pre-dates the wheel. If there is no knife – no civilisation. Water, fire, knife. You have to have these three things to survive. Civilization without a knife is not civilisation. A knife is man's first tool. If you don't have something to cut with, you cannot live."

I hadn't looked it this way before. No wonder why a knife had such an emotional affect, had such an emotional hold. I don't exactly collect knives, but I seem to have a lot of them. There's my Lakota Fin Wing, a beautiful American, made in Japan. I love holding it; it fits into my hand, my fingers clutching the hard wood sculptured handle, the blade shorter than the handle. You can get a good grip on it. You can see yourself skinning a deer with it. But I don't use it for that. It has never been with me on any hunting expedition, never even used it to skin a rabbit. Instead, it sits on my desk, in its leather sheath, near my computer, near my Buck. Every now and again, I take it out and hold it. It feels good in my hand. I wouldn't dream of taking it out and using it; I wouldn't want to alter its pristine condition. I wouldn't want to risk losing it. Maybe I'll buy another one, just like it, to actually use. Thank you, Jay, you've set me free, explained a lot of things. Knives are part of what we are, what we do. You can't escape it. Why try?

"The French have an old tradition," Jay said, "for making what they call shepherd's knives. When a boy is thirteen he is given a folding knife as a baptism thing, which he carries the rest of his life. His parents give it to him. Because of the French way of life – he will take out lunch – bread, wine, cheese and sausage, and he will take out his pocket knife – and there they go – the French way of living. A knife is very important to them – they have a long history of making good knives."

Jay said that the Americans have an old sporting knife culture, and he held Buck in high regard. Some of the best hunting knives are Swedish. England used to have a lot of knife makers in Sheffield, but they are mostly gone now. Jay has 42 blacksmiths in Japan with whom he works, and he said their fishing knives are very good.

Jay, initially from India, was sent to boarding school in England, age nine. He didn't hate it, and seemed to get along quite satisfactorily. He then moved on to Dulwich College, and finally to the London School of Economics, where he spent two years, deciding that reality was outside, and not within their hallowed walls. Reality was a stall in Portobello Market, where he sold children's clothes. He then moved up to a shop, and ultimately had twenty nine shops. He sold out to a major retailer, which made him into a very well-off person, with both money and leisure. He left England to tour the world, went to work in a friend's restaurant in France, stayed there two and a half months, moved on to Italy, the Middle East, Spain, all without pay, just for the opportunity to learn.

Jay went to Japan for six months, and stayed ten years. He worked at making knives for seven years, two years learning how to sharpen them, and one year using them. When he came back, he opened his first shop.

Obviously, Jay, "Mr Knife," has a golden touch.

e-mail is general@jkcl.co.uk

Their website is: www.japaneseknifecompany.com

© Sidney Du Broff 2010