TWO flights up the narrow stone steps of the Xinhua book store in central Beijing yesterday people crowded round a special counter in the political books section. A dozen assistants working flat out could barely cope. "We couldn't even leave for lunch," said one. "We were afraid people would just steal what we are selling."

Since Saturday afternoon, the counter has been a sales point for official posters, books, metal plaques and some four dozen different glossy photographs of Deng Xiaoping, China's former patriarch who died last Wednesday aged 92 and who was cremated yesterday in Beijing prior to his official funeral service today.

Buyers were snapping up especially, for about a pound each, big posters of the elderly patriarch, his slightly crooked teeth showing in a benign smile. There was also a steady demand for metal desk memorials with the words in Chinese and English "Our General Designer, Comrade Xiaoping Deng".

Less than a week after his death, a cult of personality is being fostered around the last great revolutionary figure of the century, who ruled China for 18 years and who is credited with launching its pro market reforms.

Some of the older customers told the assistants that they wanted to "invite" a portrait of Deng Xiaoping into their home, rather than to "buy" his picture. This type of reverential language - used by Chinese people when buying a kitchen god for their houses - has only been used before in connection with modern China's legendary political figures, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.

It is nevertheless a centrally planned elevation to culthood. A seemingly inexhaustible supply of Deng materials has been made available to the state run book stores all over China. The floor in the Xinhua book shop was piled high with new cartons of political memorabilia.

AND many of the customers were from factories, offices and schools, which means Deng's broad, smiling face is going to become an official icon in communal halls.

An old man walking away with half a dozen posters wrapped in pink paper said he had been sent to buy them by Middle School No 2. "Deng was a great leader," he said. "He saved us from poverty." One of three young teenagers in the queue said: "I saw a documentary about Deng Xiaoping on television and I think he is a historical figure." A well groomed man remarked, "lots of people benefited from Deng's get rich policies."

Not everyone reveres the supreme leader. There is some resentment of the growth of a wealthy class - and unemployment - under his reforms. A slogan was painted on a wall in a Beijing district at the weekend, according to one source, saying "Deng created two Chinas, one rich, one poor" - a play on the words Deng popularised for the incorporation of Hong Kong, "one China, two systems".

Encouraging people to put Deng on a pedestal serves two purposes for the Communist party. It symbolises continuity of popular mandate for a part now lacking any great national figure with revolutionary credentials, and it makes an idol of a controversial leader, who might otherwise attract posthumous criticism for his use of the army to crush pro democracy student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

"The political atmosphere is not ripe yet for the raising of the Tiananmen issue," said a Chinese businessman who was a student at the time. Even so, the funeral has been carefully managed. No unauthorised displays of mourning have been allowed in case a "mixture of feeling" finds expression.

It was also a money making enterprise of which Deng would have approved. The People's Art Publishing House had printed just over one million Deng posters, and orders kept coming in, Xinhua said. Shanghai's bookshops sold 80,000 Deng posters - yesterday. And in Tiananmen Square itself, boxed souvenir sets of a tiepin, necklace and badge, all stamped with an almost gleeful Deng, were selling fast.

THERE was a heavy police presence on the main avenues of Beijing yesterday as the funeral cortege bearing the body of Deng drove at walking pace to Beijing's Babaoshan cemetery for cremation, a distance of less than two miles. Forces in provincial cities are also on the alert in Chengdu in the south west 25 troop carriers arrived in the city centre, though the atmosphere was relaxed, a witness said.

A minibus with black tinted windows and bedecked with white carnations and yellow mourning ribbons carried Deng's body at a stately pace on its last journey. "Shed hot tears for Comrade Xiaoping," was written on a banner held by official mourners outside the military hospital where Deng's body has lain since he died at his home near Tiananmen Square.

As the bus, followed by black official sedans, moved along a city centre boulevard, people lined the pavements and climbed on to rooftops and lamp posts for a better view. Most remained expressionless. A few grieved. Hundreds of workers gathered outside the cemetery, many of them bused from a nearby steel works.

Workers have been told to report to their places of employment as usual today. There they will gather to watch the 10 a.m. memorial service on television.

In the lobbies of big hotels, the usual ensembles played sombre music. Public musical entertainment has been banned during the sixday mourning period which ends today.

In China's only Irish bar, O'Malley's in Shanghai, even the background music has been switched off in keeping with a city order, a spokesman said yesterday.

The supreme leader's successor, President Jiang Zemin, who has promised to keep China on the road of economic reform, has not interrupted his official schedule, including meeting foreign leaders, during the mourning period.

"The message coming down to the people is your business is doing business, our business is looking after the funeral," said the Chinese businessman.