I miss caramel sweets, oldfashioned lemonade, horse-drawn carriages decorated for feast days, the market gardens full of cos lettuces, the days when no one walked through Beyoglu without a tie, the way people smiled in greeting at complete strangers, and the beauty of Cahide Sonku as a young girl. Every time I hear clear sound coming out of a radio I have repaired, the past seems to come alive again. It happens every time. That is the joy I get out of it. Perhaps I am deluding myself, but what is that to anyone else!'

As he talked his tired eyes shone with memories of the past: the days when dolphins wintered in the Golden Horn and snow lay knee deep in the streets; spring months when the lindens, judas trees, clematis and basil bloomed luxuriantly in the large gardens around the old houses; Greek girls with pearly complexions walking along the seashore, and clumsy rowing boats with peeling paint crisscrossing the waterway between Fener and Kasimpasa.

He recalls evenings at Kilburnu Café on the edge of the water between the two quays, its coloured lights glittering and gramophone music playing out onto the shimmering sea, which echoed to the faint sounds of oldfashioned Turkish songs.He sighed sadly. 'The Golden Horn was not stagnant and polluted like it is now, when people turn their heads away as they cross it. The finest mussels and red mullet were caught here. And in my youth a girl's parents would ask if a prospective son-in-law had a radio before they would consent to the marriage.'

In Balat's heyday there were large Greek and Jewish communities in this area. At the Byzantine Agora Tavern the customers would sit at wooden tables drinking the so-called 'blood wine' with meze and listening to the music of Hamiyet Yuceses.

The brass door knockers were brightly polished, the Jewish tradesmen looked out from their shops with smiles, and geraniums and four-o'clock flowers adorned the balconies.
That was a time when the family wireless set had pride of place in the house.
A damp chill filled the air of the shop. Nusret Berisa got back to work on the radio, whose brand-name had long since broken off. The silence was suddenly broken by a strange crackling sound, and the dark tuning panel shone green. A presenter's voice resounded through the workshop: 'Now we present folksongs and folkdance tunes...'
Nusret Berisa's face lit up with the joy of bringing the dead radio alive again. He hurriedly sat down, his fingers trembling slightly. As if revealing a secret he had kept to himself for years, he confided: 'I am seeking the past, the radios are just an excuse.'

Selahattin Ayyildiz is a journalist.