The last time I saw David Eli Rapoport was the last day of my whole life, my life as a whole man. He was leaving the house with his precious Guadagnini in its battered case and a wedge of toast sticking out of his mouth when, on a premonitory impulse, I called out after him. ‘Dovidl,’ I cried, using our boyhood diminutive, ‘are you going to be OK? Do you want me to come along?’

‘No need,’ he mumbled, through a splutter of toast. ‘It’s only an acoustic rehearsal. Won’t take more than twenty minutes.’ And off he hunched into the taxi-cab he had kept growling for half an hour, his black hair glistening in the May sunlight, his Modigliani face tilted upwards to receive its meagre warmth.

It was the morning of his début, an event so momentous that it was the talk of the cultural hemisphere. Telegraphists batted word of it back and forth across the Atlantic. Radio comedians worked it into their routines (‘He plays the violin so ruddy well, he can play it Bach to front’). Touts were offering unobtainable consumer goods (‘Six pairs of nylons, guv, a lovely Havana cigar?’) in exchange for a sought-after ticket. The News Chronicle switchboard was jammed for two days after running a competition with a pair of front-row seats as first prize.

The début of this handsome young violinist [warned a Daily Herald editorial] is threatening to overshadow next month’s buck-you-up Festival of Britain with its striking new concert hall and fun for all the family. The government may think it knows how to put a smile on our faces after years of rationing and austerity, but it takes more than a Royal Festival Hall and a Sky Pylon to inflame the popular imagination. It takes something no government can ever legislate for – it takes a touch of genius.

Eli Rapoport has already been acclaimed by the musical world as the brightest star to appear since the war. He may just be the first of a new British breed of brilliant virtuosos who will go out and conquer the world with flair rather than force of arms. What a boost it would be for our weary people if he turned out to be the first hero of a new era – an age that will put an end to war.

The making of this modern hero had been devised, with military precision and media marksmanship, by the unflappable Mortimer Simmonds. Machiavellian to his bootstraps, he had to break one of his own strict rules to get the campaign off the ground. ‘David,’ he mused one evening at dinner, ‘we may need to make a cosmetic change to your name. Nothing radical, just a modest adjustment.’

‘What do you have in mind, Mr Simmonds?’ said Dovidl warily.