Martin Guthrie died in August 2012

THE stories of London’s great characters live on only for as long as we remember them, which sometimes makes Harrington worry that some of the most intriguing will soon be lost in the mists of time.

There are colourful souls who contributed to the patchwork of tales from Soho, old Piccadilly and so on, but were not famous enough for a Wikipedia entry or did not live in an era where every moment was captured by a phone photo.

Ten years after his death this month there is hardly a scrap written online, for example, about Martin Guthrie, who diligently and discreetly managed the famous Fortnum & Mason’s department store for decades. The stories he could tell if he was with us now!

An example of his enduring subtlety during a lifetime of serving the stars was recounted at his funeral by the actor Rupert Frazer – 200 people were there that day at the Church of Immaculate Conception – and involved the Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson.

“She was making a purchase and he asked for her name, even though it was obvious she knew he knew who she was,” he said.

“Malcolm didn’t bat an eyelid when she replied ‘Mrs Hodges’, and he wrote down her married name.”

Mr Frazer, who starred in Steven Spielberg’s Empire Of The Sun, had told the mourners that the pair had watched the Royal Wedding together in 1981 – Charles and Diana.

As they saw the footage of royals filing into St Paul’s Cathedral for the occasion, Mr Guthrie casually remarked: “Served him. Served her. Served him.”

Julie Andrews, Una Stubbs and even Dirk Bogarde all expected to recognise Malcom at the door when they shopped there.

He had actually trained as an actor himself: Martin Guthrie was a stage name he had chosen for himself, having been born John O’Brien in County Tipperary.

Stage fright got the better of him, however, and he eventually took his post at the shop in Piccadilly.

There he was trained up by Albert Lunn, the “senior salesman” who worked at the shop for close to a century and much more can be found written about him in social history texts; a range of biscuits was named after him.

Albert had taken a course in Pelmanism, the legend has it, to remember his VIP customers’ birthdays.

But don’t forget Martin either.

“He came to London with a view to finding another stage and Fortnum’s turned out to be that,” said his friend Dr Andrea Tanner, the store’s in-house historian.

“He liked to chew the fat with the old hams. There are some middle-aged ladies though who would never have called him Martin. He was always Mr Guthrie.”