Nazrulla Khan, the Shahzada of Afghanistan, was met by a 100-man guard of honour at Bank Top station. Along with 100,000 others, including the Duke and Duchess of York, he was visiting the week-long Royal Agricultural Society show at Hummersknott.
The Shahzada, the 20-year-old heir to the Afghan throne, the Kotwal of Kabul and the Nakim Bashi stayed at Polam Hall, but as it had recently been turned into a girls’ school, incense had to be burned throughout to remove the ‘female pollution’.
The Shahzada came with cases of oranges, sacks of rice and live sheep and chickens, which were slaughtered and cooked on a specially-constructed stove – it is said that you can still see the scorch marks on the wooden floor beneath the carpet in Polam library.
The next morning, as the Shahzada departed, he breezily inquired if he could buy Polam. At Hummersknott, he strolled around the butter-making and poultry-dressing displays, and then returned with his colourful entourage to Bank Top for the evening train to London. ‘Some were wearing turbans and others caps of astrachan,’ said the Echo. ‘One had a bright green cloth edged with red lovingly tucked under his arm; another carried a prosaic portmanteau; a third had a mysterious bundle enclosed in a white cloth and a fourth, umbrella in hand, had a few gay blossoms beneath his fingers.’
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 2004)