Five minutes into meeting Christopher Foyle, chairman of Foyles bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, and he is stuck into a story about the time he was wrestling a shoplifter in Soho Square.
"I was very calm, very friendly, I said, 'Excuse me, I think you might have some books there you didn't pay for, would you like to come back to Foyles and we'll just discuss it?', you see. And at that point they usually come back quietly or they lash out, or run away or whatever; this chap lashed out. I remember, he kept on trying to kick me in the groin, so what I did was with one hand I held him away from me by the knot of his tie, the other hand I held him by the end of his tie. Anyway we ended up grappling and eventually I remember we were rolling around in the gutter and the next moment, I found myself being hauled to my feet by a burly policeman and he by another. The curious thing about this man was they were books on breaking codes and ciphers. It turned out he was an officer in MI5."
Read the rest of the 2007 article in The Guardian.
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