XI. Print, pictures, wireless
STORIES
Would think, our life, our family's, was really
sort of a story, with Mammy, Daddy, Sarah
and I taking the main parts in it, any
others just extras. But I'd think, all the Kay
family, they had their story, too — for extra
there would be me only coming on to play
when my cousin had asked me in. And the same
true of the Brocklehursts. How complicated!
Was no wonder we read stories. Was a game
where there were all sorts of clues were created
and you had to find out — then there's be laughter
and contentment and joy, happy ever after.
LISTENING TO STORIES
Was strange, when Mammy read to us, you'd forget
where you were, but you wouldn't know you had till
she had stopped. Was as if the tale wouldn't let
you go on being where you were, when you were,
who you were. In the story there'd be a thrill
waiting and somehow, though not real, it would stir
you up just as if you were in the dungeon,
under the witch's spell, lost in the forest,
or tied up in the cave where the dragon
was to come back. Such a relief the youngest
son remembered the gift the old woman gave.
Nice to think that in danger you would be brave.
THE STRUWWELPETER STORIES
In the Struwwelpeter stories was Conrad
Suck-a-Thumb who would never stop: the Tailor
man soon snipped both his thumbs off. There was the bad
Harriet, always playing with matches, though
both the pussy-cats did their best to warn her.
Soon she was burned down to ashes. With his toe
out in front of him, Johnny Head-in-Air went
walking about not looking at the ground: he
fell down straight in the river. Two strong men leant
over to fish him out; far off you could see
his best writing-book floating away. Was glad
silly people got punished like that. They should.
THE ARKUBS
Every morning the News Chronicle brought me
news of the Arkubs. There was Mr. Noah,
always wanting to snooze but his wife would see
to it he didn't. Japhet was selfish, but
something always would punish him. No slower
tortoise than Oswald, and he would often shut
up his eyes, but he got there at last. When we
went to help Poland against Hitler, the bear
like a teddy-bear laughing (and called 'Happy')
all by himself was watching Punch at a fair
hitting Judy. He thought it a nasty trick.
How I laughed when he punished Punch with a stick.
YOUR HEART'S DESIRE
I so wanted to get inside the pictures
there in the Beatrix Potter books. In Gloster
there was Christmassy candlelight, the tailor's
shop casting windows on snow, mince-pies behind
doors with holly-wreaths on them. I would plot a
climb up the mountains to see what I would find
when I read Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, higher
up than where Lucie had gone, steep misty walls
over which you'd see far off your heart's desire,
hidden away, just out of sight, as if calls
that were so faint, so sweet, urged you to explore.
They had, just for you, what only you longed for.
THE EXPENSIVE FAIRY-TALE BOOKS
Auntie Hattie had lots of most expensive
fairy-tale books, illustrated by people
such as Edmund Dulac. Often she would give
me her permission. Under the thin tissue-
paper, pictures, so detailed, so colourful,
always of peacock princes and cockatoo
caliphs; khans so beturbaned and cloaked they were
silken balloons; princesses, their hair floating
out in endless wisps, never tangling, hauteur
never lost; sinister enchanters gloating
over spell-books, sparkling with crescents and stars.
Made us want to be rajahs, sultans and czars.
TWO KINDS OF FAIRY-STORY
You could read about fairies in the little
comic books Sarah had. They were only drawn
in the pictures in black and white, though middle
pages had green trees, green toadstools and sometimes
even green faces. If they were to get torn,
no one would ever mind. Mammy wouldn't read the rhymes
at the bottom: it wasn't real poetry.
Up at the Cottage, though, in a fairy book
(it was five times as big) there were huge pretty
pictures, all glossy. If you wanted to look,
you asked Auntie if you could lift the tissue
paper up. But there was no next week's issue.
FROM THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK
In the Andrew Lang Yellow Fairy Book which
we had been given by Auntie Hattie, so
very special to read, was an evil witch
down in a pond. She was a 'nixy', just dressed
in her hair and the lilies, with a halo
shining all round her head. You could see one breast.
Very lovely she was, but she trapped the poor
miller — he promised 'the youngest thing' he'd find
in his house to be rich again. He was sure
back at home some kitten would do he'd not mind
giving up, but the lovely naked woman
got his newborn child, not a little kitten.
NUMBER ONE JOY STREET
It was Number One Joy Street, another big book
there at the Cottage. All the coloured pictures
had those thick cosy lines. The nymph in the brook
didn't have clothes on. The naughty boy outside
the shop couldn't have buns; empty the fingers
rubbing his tears round, and a little girl spied
on a boy who had not been good. A smuggler
must have his head chopped off. Polly in a dream
ran on, chased by a snail. An adventurer
searched as a rich merchant in a quinquereme
for cloves, cinnamon, silk, diamond and sapphire:
you'd to 'venture' alone, saving the Empire.
THE HELPERS
Cinderella was bullied by her sisters,
but it was lucky that there came the kindly
fairy godmother. Down among the cinders
life wasn't nice, but she did disobey her
by not leaving at midnight. Of the mighty
giant young Jack managed to be the slayer
'cause the giant's wife helped him, keeping him hid
safe in the oven so he could steal away
with the hen that could lay golden eggs. To rid
princes of devils you need to pray
for a magic horse. Back at school 'Compete
on your own!' cried Plum. 'Stand on your own two feet!'
THE SCOUT AND THE CAT
When we dropped in Fridays at Auntie Eva's,
Margaret, Christine, Anne and John had a book
like a Rupert book, full of coloured pictures,
all about two friends, a scout and a black cat
just as big as him. They would tackle a crook,
find out just where he had stowed the loot and get at
it before he found out. Sometimes the scout got caught,
locked up inside a cave or in a dungeon,
but the cat knew a way that he could be brought
out again. Like the chimpanzee with Tarzan,
or Man Friday with Crusoe, he was a twin,
a strong black man who'd help his master to win.
KEEPING BETWEEN THE LINES
When I heard Mammy read When We were Very
Young, it was 'Lines and Squares' I liked best. The bears
Wouldn't get you as long as you kept steady
walking between the lines. They would pretend that
they were taking no notice of you or squares,
ready to pounce and to squeeze you to death at
the first wrong step. I would tip-toe on the
edges of pavements, pretending I was scared
of the terrible fall into the gutter,
sometimes deliberately wobbling. Some boys dared
to go biking between the tram-lines. Bad luck
if your front wheel got trapped in a groove and stuck.
THE NORSE MYTHS
Reading Norse myths you went somewhere strange, but yet
it was the north. Yggdrasil grew just like the ash
trees up Rivington. Niflheim, too, would get
misty as Winter Hill moor. Ginungagap
was the clough in Dean Wood cut deep with a slash
down in the rock from Sigmund's sword Gram. The trap
Loki laid for poor Balder, the archery contest
all the gods joined in, took place on the Recky.
When Thor rode to Jotunheim on his quest
after Mjollnir, his hammer, his journey
went through Anglezarke. Dwarf smiths laboured nearby
where the smoke from the Works rose up in the sky.
SAINTS
Had a book of the saints, each with a picture.
There was St. Christopher carrying Jesus,
St. Sebastian tied up to a pillar,
stuck all with arrows — Didn't like that. The worst
was St. Anthony prodded by merciless
demons with prongs and nasty claws. They all cursed
him because he looked up seeing Christ above
touching the Sacred Heart with rays all around
it. And God had rewarded him for his love.
Praying to him was worthwhile because you found
anything that you'd lost. He'd answer your call.
Wondered how he could get around to us all.
THE JABBERWOCK
I just couldn't help looking at it. Those four
teeth in an oval mouth, like pincers they'd nip
you and trap you, while those long feathered claws
tore at your flesh. Neck like a snake and the toes
of a crocodile, tentacle-tail, the jaws
trailing two more like some nasty growths. A nose
to the top of the head, where two snail-like horns
probed like blind whips. And it floated in the air
on the wings of a giant bat, armed with thorns
ready to scratch. Just above its head, to scare
me more, under the bend of the neck, a face
with huge eyes and a grim mouth peeped out of space.
THE CHESHIRE CAT
Looking up at the Cheshire Cat you saw its
teeth. It was grinning, but because it knew that
it had got you at last. No nice kitty-kits
glared with such eyes. It was the eyes gave away
its desire to leap down, a huge savage cat,
thinking of nothing but eating you, its prey.
People smiled like that when they knew more than you,
telling you riddles that made you helpless, some joke
that would leave you a fool. They knew what was true,
what was concealed in the future. When they spoke,
all their words didn't mean what words always do.
They would watch till disaster fell upon you.
AT THE END OF ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
Was a bit at the end of Alice through the
Looking-Glass I didn't like. You had finished
all the story's adventure and you knew the
answer to Alice's question, which was 'Who
had the dream, the Red King or her?' and you wished
there was another story like that, where you
would find Alice again, but instead you read,
under some old-fashioned print, the same as in
prayer-books, what seemed a sermon: on your deathbed,
when you were old, and felt shame for all your sin,
you'd remember the happy times by the brook.
Such a bore to write that to finish his book!
'HOW THE FIRST LETTER WAS WRITTEN'
Reading 'How The First Letter was Written' in
Kipling's Just So Stories used to make me
sort of fidgety. Letters had never been
sent at all anywhere, so little Taffy's
scratchy pictures were bound after all to be
misunderstood. The Neolithic ladies,
though, all sat on the stranger man and covered
him with mud all over. He was innocent,
only trying to help. Was too bewildered.
They wouldn't listen anyway, just couldn't
change their minds, so afraid were they for their clan.
In my dreams I became that poor stranger man.
CLAPPING FOR TINKER BELL
He came forward and asked us all to begin
clapping hard. Was to show that we all believed
that the fairies were real. Didn't believe in
fairies. Tinker Bell couldn't die — she'd never
lived, was just a pretend. The stories deceived
you. Yet here was this Peter Pan, so clever,
coming out of the play — he was pretending
to us he was as real as we were, to say
she would die if we didn't all start lending
a hand. Seemed much more like we were in the play!
I felt very embarrassed, not at all sad.
When her light shone again, why did I feel glad?
EDWARD LEAR'S LIMERICKS
Edward Lear was funny. His limericks
started 'There was a Young Person of somewhere'
or 'There was an Old Man'. They'd get in a fix
always because they wanted or did something silly
or they wouldn't give up, for they didn't care
what all the townspeople or their family
thought. Were some who were saved, like the man who fell
into the broth whom a laudable cook fished
out, although with a hook. A man with a bell,
though, tried to make people come, but no one wished
to take notice. And that Old Man of the Nile,
did he really cut off his thumbs with a file?
THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLINS
If you stamp on their feet the goblins can't fight
you. They all live in the earth and are ugly,
and they always are angry and full of spite,
swearing and growling, wanting to steal and smash
all the things that the king-papa owns. Curdie
always is there to save the Princess, to dash
to her rescue, although he thinks her mistaken,
down in the mine, when an invisible thread
that her great-great-great-grandmother had given
her was the clue that was saving them. Your head
can't be trusted in every situation.
That's what trust is — a kind of botheration.
WHERE THE RAINBOW ENDS
'He cannot be bought and he shall not be sold.'
That was 'a Briton's word', and I was proud to
be a Briton, because the flag 'would enfold
us' and would help us be heroes. But this book
it had funny things in it, like the girl who
couldn't get married at all if her aunt took
her away from her school because she 'would miss
half her irregular verbs.' 'Colonial
mixture' was 'poison for traitors.' And this
was peculiar: of the 'cad who would swindle',
it said he couldn't resist bargains because,
see, 'a Jewess his great-great-grandmother was.'
THE END OF THE STORY
Although Toad couldn't keep to one thing, ending
up in a prison, all his friends got him his place
back at last. Although Tom, for his offending
that Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, came
to be covered in prickles, all his disgrace
little Miss Ellie removed with prayers. The shame
felt by Piglet at being bathed by Kanga
all went with rolling home in the dust. The Prince
couldn't marry the beautiful Rosalba,
but at the last minute he found he could, since
Fairy Blackstick allowed him. Don't ask, later,
what had happened to Grimes in Etna's crater.
TOAD'S GETTING THE HALL BACK
I was never quite sure why Toad got his hall
back. He had stolen a car, fooled the police,
driven much too fast. No weasels, none at all,
did that. The place was empty. Toad didn't seem
to appreciate it. To be left in peace,
living in rooms instead of holes — was a dream
for poor weasels who never had had the chance.
Toads were not nice. All his ancestors looked proud
in their portraits. Could tell from their haughty glance
they thought they had deserved it, were allowed
all those rooms. But old Toad should live on the dole.
Would have done him good to live in a hole.
THE MAP IN THE HOBBIT
I'd pore over the map, as an 'endpaper'
there in The Hobbit. I was searching. Something
real was hidden inside it, as if later,
earlier, somewhere in time or in space, this
land existed, exists. Just to help reading,
so it would seem, but the book, too, by precipice,
mountain, dangerous wood, had whispers and signs,
runes all engraved but invisible, hinting
that there was somewhere treasure, gold from the mines,
dragons, too, guarding it, shining and glinting
in the dark down below, even someone in
our Vale Avenue, Horwich, could somehow win.
WILLIAM AND THE PRETTY GIRLS *
William always made fun of his brother for
being a spoony where girls were concerned. He
was a spoony himself, though, with Miss Drew or
Joan, who was living next door — pinching flowers
for the teacher (he got the wrong ones for she
called guelder roses 'syringa'). Spent hours
in a search for syringa. Gave away sweets
(Joan, though, got sick on them) that he'd bought with his
precious sixpence. For him no pretty girl beats
one called Miss Cannon, 'cause he finds her a whiz
when she plays at Red Indians with him. She
knows that playing is done quite seriously.
* [See Richmal Crompton's Just William ]
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON
The Swiss Family Robinson was swish.
Stuck on a tropical island they were. All
of the crew of the ship had been so selfish
leaving them there on the wreck, but they'd been drowned
like a punishment — still the father did call
one of the capes 'Disappointment' (he'd not found
one survivor). Was good not to crow over
them being dead like that, you knew. Every boy
was okay if he did all that his father
said — you could eat turtle eggs, really enjoy
sucking syrup from sugar cane. He'd explain
how to make a small hole so the syrup could drain.
'THE WORST ARE NO WORSE...'
Had a book about pirates, illustrated
with little pictures in black, red and green, just
those three colours enough — they imitated
all the real colours you had in the real world,
and you didn't object at all, for you must
really pretend. Whether the pirates unfurled
all the sails on their ship, or buried treasure
deep on the desert island, they excited
you as if you were there. Another pleasure,
saved to the last, was something that delighted
me too - all you did was bend, stick and snip —
how to turn an old shoe-box into a ship.
COMICS
When we did what we wanted to we read
comics. They looked like ladders sideways. We would
climb along them to discover where they led.
Mickey Mouse always won against the big jaws
in the uniform. Desperate Dan withstood
every top-hat and got the children's applause,
though his chin was unshaven. Korky the Kat
used to end up with banquets. On Mars was Ming
with a face like a fiendish aristocrat
looking green, and the girl was always losing
her skirt — well, nearly. But I was Flash's friend:
I was sure that we would get her in the end.
DESPERATE DAN
When the robbers had stolen all the jewels
out of the Duke and Duchess's mansion, they,
as they shot from the gate so fast, the noodles,
knocked over Desperate Dan. When he looked through
a long telescope, saw them down by a bay
getting a boat out. He dived into the blue
sea. The wave caught their boat and lifted it high
up where it stuck on a rock. Dan put it on
his head, carried it easily onto dry
land to the constables waiting. His face shone
when the Duke and the Duchess gave him a feast
all of turkeys, plum puddings. Ate like a beast.
RUPERT AND THE LITTLE DRAGON
In this story of Rupert was a dragon,
ever so little, but it kept starting fires
(just by accident), so the policeman,
Constable Growler, would be after him soon.
It made Rupert feel sorry, although the Squire's
haystack was ruined. Rupert got his balloon
and flew up to the mountains, but he got caught,
deep in a cave, by some outlaws. But his friend
the green dragon, so tiny, managed to thwart
them by his starting a fire! And so, in the end
all the outlaws were captured without a fight.
A relief to know starting a fire could be right!
THE COMICS IN GREEN
There were pages in comics coloured in green.
Couldn't afford to print proper colour on
all the pages with what you paid. Well, I mean,
would you pay sixpence just to get that story
of King Arthur to look more real? Avalon
looked just as wonderful in all its glory
even though all their cheeks were green, and their hair,
most of their clothes, all the shadows, the night sky
or the day one. Was funny you didn't care.
Found all the stories in green would satisfy
just as much, until you would forget your doubt
and so read on. What else could you do without?
MAYA THE BEE *
First, this Maya the Bee escapes from the hive.
All have to work there so hard, you see, so she
flew away to be free. She felt so alive
flying so high in the sunlight and sipping
lovely honey from roses, because a bee
needn't collect for the others. So, dipping
over 'glittering pools' and soaring into
'azure skies' made her 'exultant'. But she saw
a big dragonfly catch a bluebottle, chew
off his head; Tecla the Spider tried to store
her away. When she warned the hive that the bad
hornets planned to attack, the Queen was so glad.
* Waldemar Bonsels, Maya: The Adventures of a Bee, trans. Charlotte Remfry-Kidd (London: Hutchinson, 1937)
THE FREE OFFER
Mickey Mouse Weekly made children an offer.
Each week they printed vouchers in wavy green
just as if they were pounds. You had to order
it from your newsagent. When you'd saved up six,
you could buy your own cinema, with a screen,
peep-hole projection-box, and seats. To fix
it together you had to insert Tab A
into the slot marked 'A'. You made the films by
sticking comics in long rolls. A matinee
show let you read them before they reached his eye
as they passed through the screen, but it was a bore
doing that all the time. I'd read them before.
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
There was one time in Mandrake the Magician
when he had gone to another world. Lothar
went along with him on his expedition,
big, round and smiling African, so ready
to help Massa in trouble. But then Narda,
beautiful princess from Cockaigne, suddenly
disappeared. Only Mandrake could save her, for
it was the Wheel-men who had locked her away.
Had no legs, only one big wheel, but he saw
just how to trick them. He magicked a great spray
of sand, clogging the wheels. How they roared and raved
as he carried away the girl he had saved!
WIZARD, ADVENTURE, HOTSPUR
In the Wizard, Adventure and Hotspur there
were such exciting stories. Public schoolboys,
whom the headmaster thought were being unfair
sportsmen turned out to have been right all along,
and the gallant lieutenant fooled the sepoys
sent by the sultan, who had to say he was wrong
to distrust what the viceroy said. Monsters
came from the deep, but Strang the Terrible crushed
all their skulls with his muscular grip. Rustlers
thought they could steal all the steers but Dareman rushed
on his silver steed, ambushing them. Be quick
and be strong, they said, and ready with your trick.
STORIES IN THE ROVER
When he drank up the ruby liquid, the
boy grew by an inch. The 'Lord of the Tuskers' could
translate elephant language; with 'Viceroy'
(that was the hugest one) he managed to train
this rogue elephant: Viceroy made him be good,
beating him hard with a log. He tried in vain,
this deceitful old butler, to trick the nice
Eskimo boy by giving him wax fruit to
eat, but Pesky enjoyed them so. In a trice
Lieutenant Breeze tricked the Black Sapper: he threw
the extinguisher at him. So say the books:
best to be one step ahead of nasty crooks.
BORROWING HERBERT'S WIZARDS
Herbert Stamford, his mother would buy him more
comics, Adventures and Wizards than ours could.
He was kind, though, and lent them you, piles galore
so you could follow a story all the way through.
It was wonderful taking a stack of good
Wizards back home. All the weekend you just knew
you'd be having such fun, reading favourites
first, like the stories of Strang the Terrible,
and the ones that were not next, like chocolates
first and then toffee. But when the last castle
had been stormed, you were left with a nasty taste,
just as if it had all been a terrible waste.
THE CRISIS
It was silly to talk of an 'Italian
Empire'. That Signor Mussolini ought to
leave poor Haile Selassie alone. 'German
Empire' was just as silly. Had some desert
somewhere, but would be better in red. All through
Africa red parts were joined. Our cabinet
told Herr Hitler to stop. There was a cartoon
showing how Germany and Austria were
like a wolf with the Czechs in their jaws, but soon
Germans would think what happened in the year
1918. Biggles could beat to bits those Nazis,
and Dick Hannay had tricked those jews and gipsies.
WHAT BOOKS DID
Reading Swallows and Amazons made the lake
Coniston Water. After Puck of Pook's Hill
all the Rivington avenues became fake
Roman roads. Errol Flynn playing Robin Hood
playing Edmond Wright playing Errol Flynn, Will
Scarlet and Little John were roaming Sherwood
Forest near Bolton. Naked little boys danced
At the Back of the North Wind hidden among
prickly gorse bushes where a goddess entranced
them quite invisibly. And Biggles had slung
out the villain from England. He was Edmond
really. England, as well, really was England.
AUNTIE HATTIE'S BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Auntie Hattie would recommend a book, say,
Vanity Fair, The Return of the Native,
or The Mill on the Floss ; then, another day,
she would remind me again, and Mammy would
join in, singing their praises. But, defensive,
secretive, I would nod, but knowing I could
never read them now she'd recommended them.
They grew so huge in their length, so dull in their
words, so grown-up, so serious. Such boredom
seemed to await me for sure. I didn't care
what was said. So they stayed in obscurity.
Was it Auntie or my immaturity?
FROM THE ARTHUR RANSOME BOOKS
I made maps like the end-papers of Arthur
Ransome books. Winter Hill became 'Mozambique
Territory'; Grandmother's cottage became 'Centre
K2'; Bungalow Grounds, 'The Forbidden Wood'.
All the shapes were distorted like an antique
map. The edges were vague. Dates and crossed swords stood
where our blood had not yet been shed. Secret trails
were shown publicly. To find the treasure hoards
you consulted the legend. Although the scales
were all wrong, we explorers would fight towards
the unknown, sweating, cursing, our clothing torn,
never leaving the place where we had been born.
PIGEON POST
Didn't see when I read Pigeon Post what it was
all about. Blindly we saw Winter Hill as 'High
Topps', the lead mines as gold ones. It was because
Nancy and John and the rest had explored all
over moorland and heath that we could espy
villains afar off where none were, we would crawl
on the burnt peat in Lancashire and Lakeland
both at the same time, and wish there was a cave
we could hide in. Our lakes were in his legend.
But why playing with fire should turn out to save
you, why villain at last turned out to be friend,
why the map led to him — why, that was 'the end'.
A BOOK AT CHRISTMAS
What was it about Arthur Ransome books?
There it was, lying in Tyson's, Missee Lee.
Was the latest. You wouldn't think that its looks
mattered, but neat in its jacket, all among
crackers, tinsel and toys, with all those drawings
comic-like, colouring it, your eyes were stung
into gazing and guessing. Was wonderful
thinking of all the adventures inside, that
were about to be lived in your mind. Simple
paper and cardboard, just some woodpulp made flat
with some speckles of black print on it contained
such a secret delight that no one explained.
THE M. E. ATKINSON BOOKS
In the M. E. Atkinson books you'd 'A1'
holidays, Prep school forgotten, relations
of the sort who could pay for a cruise, such fun
playing cricket (you won at the last minute!),
and you got into such fearful situations,
but, 'strangely calm', Anne did win you a respite
in the end, like the peat fire that nearly set
fire to the caravan, but, unloaded in
time, dear Pegasus (pony) was able to get
it free of the ditch. Louts that thought they would win
put to flight by the Rover Scouts. Such sunny
days, set up by the aunt who had some money.
THE FAR-DISTANT OXUS
In The Far-Distant Oxus all their fathers
worked in the colonies. They went to public
school, were able to ride ponies, liked Sanders
of the River, built pioneer huts, had dogs
that were loyal and barked at the lads too thick
to see foals must be rescued, went floating logs
down the stream, called all places Persian names from
'Sohrab and Rustum'. The hero was a stranger —
with a wonderful horse — daring and handsome,
secret about his name, an alien ranger
of the hills. Bridget dreamt (she couldn't refuse)
of a brown Burmese boy who spat on her shoes.
WRITING A BOOK
When The Far-Distant Oxus came out, began
writing an Arthur Ransome book myself, like
Hull and Whitlock did. No alien Turkestan
stirred my own fantasy. It was in Horwich
there was something made breast-like Rivington Pike
into the centre of Neverland. Would switch
the real place to a magical one. Writing
made a pretend-world. You made-believe. So page
after foolscap page, it was so exciting
trying to find it. Couldn't know to engage
with a reader's own fantasy, need a trap
and a switch and a map. He must wear foolscap.
CLUES
When I read Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot,
sometimes the criminals were as good at clues
as the clever detective was. Was to throw
anyone off the track by telling a tale
of their own. In 'The Red-Headed League' they use
bogus advertisements, a sort of false trail
just to get a man out of his shop. In the
ABC Murders, in order to murder
someone named with a C, they try to pin the
blame on a madman who was going further
through the alphabet one by one. Couldn't fail.
Good detectives, though, see the tale in the tale.
PLOTS
In the Agatha Christie Styles book, Poirot
proves that the husband had a good alibi
and that someone had framed him. The clues don't show
clearly who'd done it. The reader is stupid,
just like Hastings, and jumps to conclusions. I
didn't feel stupid, though, as Poirot undid
all the threads, knew the candle-grease had been dropped
only by someone guilty of another
minor thing altogether, until he stopped
Inspector Japp in his tracks. The murderer
after all was the husband. No more concealment.
Could he then start again, prove he wasn't?
DEFEATING A HEADACHE
With my chest primed with eucalyptus, I would
lie ill in bed, nose tingling with its incense,
and a headache hard-pressing me. Least I could
read and I found reading a book helped me to
put it out of my mind, a sort of pretence
played with attention. All the time that I knew
I was reading those nudgy thumps over my
eyes kept on bothering me, but no sooner
had the story begun to tie and untie
there in that wonderful no-space with schooner,
biplane, galleon, time-machine, adventure and crime,
that old headache was lost in empty no-time.
CHANCE CONCATENATION
Drink of lime juice, a headache, an aspirin, and
Agatha Christie's book The Mysterious
Affair at Styles, a deal table, and my hand
clamped to my head as I sat in the kitchen —
why these welded together, fortuitous
link without motive save the hammering din
of the headache that Poirot and Hastings could
deaden a while? What motive in them that eased
some anxiety? What sedative withstood
throbbings of pain, what assuagings of guilt appeased
some unconscious misgiving? I still make use
of whodunits like that, and, too, drink lime juice.
'THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO'
Right away with a sharp stone he began to
work at the mortar around the staple that
held the ring. No — he chose at once to file through
what was the rustiest link in the iron chain
round his middle. Or, no — up on his jester's hat,
pinning a lover's pledge he'd managed to gain
from his mistress, a metal brooch he could use,
bending it cleverly, to winkle away
at the padlock. Or perhaps Montresor's ruse
hadn't come off 'cause he'd been wearing in play
a stiff suit. — he slipped free. No chance of dying!
Fortunato went on trying and trying.
READER RESPONSE
When we drove into Malham and climbed the rocks,
thought it was Harthover Fell and I looked for
the steep vale where young Tom had seen the fox
but, though it seemed somewhere, just beyond
that last summit perhaps, it wasn't there. Or
in Grandad's wood, had some wizard waved a wand,
made his castle invisible? On Morecambe
Bay in the marshes, was it Guy Mannering
riding nearer to Ellangowan or some
county landowner taking the air? Reading,
they said, broadened your mind, but it wasn't fair,
for it made you go looking for things not there.
THE LAND
When you read in a William book or saw Will
Hay films or looked through a Rupert book, behind
the adventures would be a lovely green hill,
all the cottages thatched, all the fires so bright,
all the woods full of birds. The sky you would find
always was blue with the clouds fluffily white;
sort of told you the villains were in the wrong
place and would make a mistake. Some magical
trick or masterly trap before very long
fooled them because they were greedy or boastful,
and the sunshine would shine on throughout the year
and that land was the same one as where we were.
'UNCLE JOE' * (FROM THE STORY, 'A WEED',
BY HENRY WILLIAMSON)
In this story the hero was a weed, a
dock. Once a seed fell behind an old scraper
and began, very slowly, to grow. Feeder
roots went out under the cobbles and a shoot
started up to the light, but all its labour
served it for nothing. Couldn't get at the root
the old man, Uncle Joe, but he cut its stem
spring after spring. At last he used paraffin,
so it nearly did die, like the birds — knocked them
out of their nests with a pole. When he was in
his grave, seeds from the dock fell on it — a boy'd
used the dock as a sword. It was not destroyed.
* Yosif Dzhugashvili
SALAR THE SALMON
Used to wonder, if I turned into Salar,
how it would feel. It would be lovely to swim
with the currents and through them as if water
had to adapt to me. That's what streamlining
lets a fish do. He keeps so smooth and so slim
waterfalls fall under him as he's flying
up to higher things. Downstream he overtakes
rapids and leaves them behind. Where currents twist
unexpectedly, he untwists them and shakes
free, cocking snooks with his tail. Where waves resist,
he turn backward to forward. How I admired
him when I stood cold, clumsy, dripping, and tired.
FROM 'THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF'
In a picture The Just So Stories had, saw
trees by a long straight avenue receding
in the distance, black, leafless trees. When you draw
lines in perspective they shrink like that, but meet
in a point. Couldn't see where this was leading.
Rivington avenues, wherever your feet
took you, stretched up ahead towards somewhere far
off out of sight. Thomas Hardy drew a road
with the trees as a tunnel, and Hobbema
painted an avenue, and there at the node
you just couldn't be sure what awaited you.
Knew that there was an end that I must pursue.
READING 'MARTIN PIPPIN IN THE APPLE ORCHARD'
Mammy read to us sometimes from a story
called Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard.
In it one of the pictures was all ghostly
moonlight, and standing by a pond a woman
without clothes on was beckoning him forward
over to where she was. Her hair, all shaken
by the wind, didn't cover her breasts. I knew
she'd like him in her arms next to them. Mammy
always laid down her little finger and drew
it very quickly across, as if softly
brushing off from the page a money-spider,
but I knew it was really to hide her.
THE NAKED WOMAN IN 'THE WATER BABIES'
I would secretly gaze at that picture that
filled up a whole page in The Water Babies
where the woman was swimming bare. She looked at
you with a strange look, as if she was saying
'I'm not naughty like this.' But real ladies
always were twitching their skirts down, obeying
what the priest said they should. Even in the book
she kept her arms so you couldn't see her tits
and her tweens, but it made you more keen to look.
Ladies were funny like that. Was it those bits
weren't so nice but they cheated you with their screens?
But I wanted to see her tits and her tweens.
NAKED
We had seen in The Water Babies how Tom
lost his clothes in the stream, and swam with nothing
on, in perfect and pure abandon, freed from
his filth. Then in The Jungle Book how naked
Mowgli was, like an animal, but a king
or an emperor. Adam and Eve would shed
both their fig-leaves, they told us. That afternoon
in the wood two boy-heroes hid to ungird
limbs as Greeks. Sweaty clothes were a cocoon
cast away for delicate freshness. A turd
he picked up on a stick, and ruined our game,
for with it he chased me. I panted in shame.
THE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN BOOKS
Mammy read us the Christopher Robin books.
Something always went wrong but it was funny —
you knew nothing would happen. For Pooh it looks
bad and he's worried and he misspells and gets
it all wrong. In the end, though, always he's happy,
pots of honey around him. They were pets
really, Christopher Robin turning up to
set it all right again. And I loved those tall
pine trees. Nice to have sandy holes just for you
there, with those cosy pots stored away. You'd call
on your friends in the day and you'd all begin
play, and, when the sun set, you could go back in.
THE LOST WORLD
Had the name of my uncle — Malone — and even
same first initial, so I was him easily,
and the tale showed that being a gentleman
meant, as his Gladys had said, having 'looked death
in the face', 'done great deeds' and 'fought doughtily
out in the jungle to almost your last breath'
so that she could be proud of you and other
women would envy her. And you befriended
the Professor they thought was as mad as a
hatter and proved them all wrong, 'cause it ended
with the great pterodactyl flying about
in Queen's Hall. And his Gladys then couldn't doubt.
BULLDOG DRUMMOND
You saw even Jack Hulbert wanted to be
acting the hero of Sapper's books, Bulldog
Drummond. A captain, 'late of the Loamshires', he
hadn't a job, but could afford a servant.
Was a Black Gang that killed Red swine and would flog
Hebrews unconscious, and, although he didn't
like the Jews (who were mean), you couldn't let crooks
flog them like that (though they really deserved it).
Had to get at the villain — in all the books
it was an evil foreigner. Bulldog's grit
won him through. But he shouldn't have pushed the crook
in the acid bath. Couldn't reread that book.
WIRELESS WORLD
There was one magazine Daddy got, Wireless
World, full of pictures of valves and condensers,
plugs and coils, 'push-pull' amplifiers — cactus-
like, crowded batches on boxes, and polished
walnut cabinets containing loudspeakers.
Each week the stories: the French schoolboy who wished
to get examination questions, who hid
wires and a microphone in the staff-room. Each
week the broadcasts, from Riga, Warsaw, Madrid,
Paris, Berlin. The Hitler Youth songs could reach
us. Herr Jänisch, announcer, who spoke so slow,
never made a mistake, nor let feeling show.
MEN ONLY
Called Men Only it was, but we all looked at
it, Mammy too. There were funny jokes in it,
like that girl from Hawaii who said, 'Oh drat,
that's the last straw!' — that was all of her skirt she
had on. But in the photographs they would sit
so very serious as if they would be
told off should someone see them. Mammy, laughing,
said naughty men liked to look at them. Were you
naughty looking or naughty before looking?
Why did I like looking? Was I naughty too?
But the serious lady didn't much mind
if you looked a long time at her nice behind.
THE NUDE GIRL IN LILLIPUT
Walter then sang, 'She's gone astray!' and I
capped it with 'Went on her polyandrous way!'
And he laughed with a knowing look. I knew why.
Meant he had seen the nude girl in Lilliput
who was walking with sort of a cheeky sway
careless in open shocking daylight, barefoot
through the grass. And I blushed and I laughed, caught out.
Proved I'd remembered her, that she'd stuck in my
mind, that that's how I wanted her, all without
clothes, and I'd dreamed of her since. But I laughed. I
couldn't help but remember the caption they'd
used. But Walter had too! We were both outplayed.
SCIENCE FICTION
After Mickey Mouse Weekly, took a science
paper for boys, full of diagrams. I read
all through the articles: learned about conductance,
inductance, where all the wires should be soldered.
Read the serials too, of the octoped
metal inhabitants of Mars, a hazard
for the spacemen out of the Gloria
Mundi, their rocket. The same story was in
Horwich library, but the boy was made a
girl. I was shocked when he pulled off her satin
brassiere. Spoiled the plot. Rather they'd found her
with the monsters with their tentacles round her.
ARTHUR MEE'S CHILDREN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA
Arthur Mee made an encyclopedia
all of us liked, even though it said teachers,
governesses, and your father and mother,
they would approve of it. Liked the pictures — scenes
of big battles, and planets. In the chapters
stories and history, dinosaurs, machines,
tricks: the monkey that went round, holding on tight,
facing you, round a barrel-organ — Did you go right
round him or not? In every story there must
be a trick, but the Willow Pattern couple,
though they tricked their way out, ended in trouble.
ROMANTIC MOUNTAINS
Oh, the grandeur of hills was human grandeur.
Summits became gigantic with your success,
let you bestow the scope of panorama,
burgeoning fancy of cloud, surprise of mist,
the cliff's decision, on yourself, turn voiceless
solitudes into echoing, prejudiced,
vast, obsequious senates whose presences
raised you and praised you as one of the elect,
let you both in storms and in silences,
blessed with the blue sky, with winds chastised and checked,
reach your mountain achievement, Oh, to compete
(prostituting the beauty) on your own two feet!
FIRST SIGHT OF TRYFAN
Oh, that first sight of Tryfan! As we cycled
through on the road from Capel Curig on our
new adventure together, I was startled —
out from behind a spur, my freewheeling now
sailed a huge peak, so black and huge, with power
monstrous with shattered, massive, barbaric brow.
All the stories of Hannays, the memoirs of
Smythes, and the legends of Odins and trolls rang
in this triple-topped Tryfan, in couloirs of
darkness, on ledges of challenge. How it sang
with the myth! To untangle that, enable
the same wonder anew in a fresh fable?
ALL THE WORLD OVER *
When you looked at the pictures of those foreign
lands, you'd imagine you could be there too
by the igloo or wigwam, Alpine mountain,
palm tree, Venetian canal, German Christmas
tree or Japanese cherry-tree. And then you
somehow were there. Was not like the atlas
or the geography book — though they were the same
lands, yet you knew that they weren't. They were different
places, not like the real ones, although the name
worked just as well. Nowhere else did a distant
white volcano lie under so blue a sky,
or a pyramid rise from the sands so high.
*Drawings by Edith Farmiloe, verses by E. V. Lucas
(London: Edwin Dalton, 1908)
ALL THE WORLD OVER II
In that All the World Over book each verse
told you about all the people who lived there,
and the pictures showed children. There was a nurse
there in the Paris park, a sad gipsy maid,
and a young man who pulled a rickshaw, but where
grown-ups should be were mostly children, who played
them — the Eastenders' procession for the Queen's
Diamond Jubilee, and one gave a speech
to some tribesmen, one showed off his gun, and scenes
where a young boy was proudly the best — to teach
you. In Ireland the boy told two girls to go:
what the title 'Eviction' meant, I don't know.
IMAGINARY LANDS
There were lands in the books. The chequerboard plain
in the Tenniel Alice — how I would like
to go down there and cross it! As to a pane
I was drawn close. An engraving's lines
in a geography book showed me a Klondyke
of gold mountains or silver in Argentines
that no photograph ever filled out as I
did those scratchily gray, those blurringly dull
prints on time-brittled pages. I couldn't deny
myself what I had seen. Real lands annul
the permission to journey like that. To pass
through the page was to go through the Looking-Glass.
AMERICA
Seemed American places were somehow not
real, though my cousin Alban had been born there
in Detroit. In Chicago people got shot.
Gangsters with tommy-guns fought with the G-Men.
Couldn't see Al Capone on a tram. Somewhere
far in Kentucky L'il Abner's strength of ten
men would rescue his girl with her dress always
torn. In New York, the Katzenjammer Kids
avoid trouble in dustbins, but who would raise
skyscrapers here in Horwich? And then, how could
you go riding far west setting out from school?
You would only end up there in Liverpool.
ROLLING UP YOUR SLEEVES
In the Sunday Express they had a picture
showing the way you should roll up your shirt-sleeves.
It was drawn out so neatly. Was a number
marking each fold with a clear explanation
of why each one, they said, sort of 'interleaves',
locks itself firmly in place, 'in its station',
when it's hidden inside. Showed the other hand
skilfully turning and packing. Said the shirt-
sleeves would stay where they were, like slaves, would 'withstand
even the toughest of work'. You could 'exert
yourself just as you wished'. But who wants to learn
to do that? Enough to do having to earn.
NOT DEFENDING JAMES JOYCE
I'd discovered James Joyce, fascinated, not,
though, understanding, confused by the shiftings
of the style made in Ulysses, but I'd got
locked to the Portrait, my Catholic world now
in a strange state of upset. There were such stings
piercing from every page, it wouldn't allow
me to stay as I was, such gaps in the cloud
giving me prospects of inward life I could
but acknowledge. 'James Joyce? Shouldn't be allowed!'
This from her Irish mother. 'He can't be good —
he puts toilets in books!' I got such a glance.
Didn't know what to say. Would love lose its chance?
OUR BEST PAINTING
Our best painting downstairs was a real water-
colour: a pillar with a cross with a roof
all of slates, each a different shade. Nearer
to the pictures you saw all the fat splodges
that the painter had done. Was a sort of proof
that it was genuine. He had used dodges
so you'd think there were slates and a cross. below,
sitting on steps at the bottom were people
but close up, they were smears, but you couldn't know
when you were standing away. Was a puzzle,
'cause the real people, they'd also be a blur.
Neither painter nor me saw them as they were.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL PICTURE-BOOK
Had a book at the age of six about all
peoples wherever they lived, a big broad book,
bigger sideways. Had a lot of drawings with small
figures, all doing the things people did in
that particular country, so you could look,
learn and remember. Eskimos in bearskin
who were fishing in holes; the Dutchmen skated;
Spanish girls danced to tambourines; the Chinese
had trained cormorants, only cultivated
rice. All these peoples who were found overseas
did quaint things that a picture showed — only we
didn't do things like that for people to see.
THE PICTURES IN PETER PAN
When you looked at the pictures in Peter Pan,
where they were coloured, you saw brown lines round all
of the people and things. Closer, and you began
seeing that nothing was really real. The head
of the dog was all patches of paint; the tall
fireguard was just lines that didn't meet, instead
of the wires that ours had; on the tree each twig
showed where the brush had been touching; and waves were
a blue jigsaw, and woods just a lot of big
rulers on end; anything far off, a blur
where the paint had all run. But, like the print, you
couldn't stop yourself seeing what you thought true.
REAL PICTURES
When the lights from the shops in Winter Hey Lane
shone on the snow, it was like the picture shown
in The Tailor of Gloucester. In every pane
mock frost inside and real frost out. The orchard
at the farm on a cold autumn day, when blown
hard under cloudy sky, would take me northward
to the picture where young Diamond turned his back
to North Wind, leaves overtaking him. Alice
at the top of a little hill saw the black-
and-white chessboard laid out and I couldn't miss
the excitement of seeing it from the top
of a hill up at Hurst, coloured crop by crop.
THE DRAWINGS IN THE CHILDREN'S BOOKS
All those artists who drew in the children's books,
I'd see a different strange world in each. For C.
Walter Hodges, the lines swayed and curled, the brooks,
trees, rocks and mountains seemed to flow in splendour
round the knights and their pennants, on a live sea
galleons bulged heraldic sails, his pen a
wand revealing a magic land. There would be
Tenniel, each of his glimpses with edges
blurred, with fine-drawn lines criss-crossed, of shadowy
autumnal woods. But Hodges drew hedges
in his own way, not Tenniel's. And how could
they be ordinary trees in a different wood?
HEATH ROBINSON
The Heath Robinson drawings were funny. There'd
be a relieved-looking Scotsman who, when he
found the boat had gone down, wasn't at all scared:
he blew his bagpipes up and floated about
on Loch Lomond. The people could be
quite safe on thin ice because the roundabout
that went over their heads dangled them all on
strings. For those people afraid to dive, you
sat on a spring, pushed a knob which pulled upon
levers that popped a balloon and the air blew
in a trumpet and knocked a wedge that contrived
to release the big spring. You found you had dived.
VICTORIAN ENGRAVINGS
Those Victorian engravings in the book
Daddy had bought about the world, why were they
so much better than photographs? I would look
long at the storm one and felt the clouds and rain
were more frightening than real ones. It was the gray
little lines, dark shadows. I would search again
and again, wishing I could be there. A Scott
novel, St. Ronan's Well, had a picture, showed
a great glen and a castle, a village, plot
half in the shade with haystacks. Was there a road
up there high to that mist-hidden cataract?
Any path to that peak in fiction, as fact?
THE VERMEER-EREN
Saw the Studio magazine a lot. Lent
out a whole year's issues at the Library.
Was amazed at the ways you could represent
things in the world: the egg-tempera paintings,
exact, solid, and detailed, of feathery
fernfronds in dim museumy light; veilings
of wild twilight cloud, water-colour hinted,
faintly half-brushed over a reflecting lake.
One Vermeer took my eye, bread and wine tinted,
gilded with light as Christ broke it. Was a fake,
a Van Megeeren forgery. Still conscious
of that gold-edged bread as miraculous.
JOHN SELL COTMAN'S GRETA BRIDGE
When I took out this Studio, I found on
one page a water-colour by Cotman. It
was of 'Greta Bridge', peaceful on a bygone
afternoon, sun hidden for a time by grey
high cloud. Blue, and white cumulus had lit
faintly and far a glimpse of a hill's inlay
of green pasture and moor, but around the bridge,
set with parabolas poised over the still
river, light was subdued. Boulders and autumn foliage
both lay in dulled and multiple hues. My will
was to be that one farmer there with his cow
by the water, alone. I didn't know how.
OUR CHINESE EMBROIDERY
On the wall of their bedroom was a Chinese
piece of embroidery, behind glass as in
a museum. Pale green the background, a frieze
sewn all in silk, of red and blue birds, glossy
in their glowing and curving, the thread so thin
light ran along it, a spider's line. A mossy
plumpness filled out their bodies that perkily
perched on the spiralling boughs or flew nowhere
just as fast as they could. One bird jerkily
fell, though, its wing crumpled up. I didn't care
to see why a bird shining up in the sky
with its colours as fine as the rest should die.
TOYTOWN
I preferred Auntie Doris in the Toytown
series as Larry the Lamb, but we liked all
of them. Always in plots something upside-down
happened. When The Magician lost all his spells
to the Highwayman, it was no use to call
Ernest the Policeman. Toby the Dog tells
how he hoodwinked the Highwayman, making him
think that a spell had made him invisible.
Told him, 'Go up to Ernest and knock the brim
down of his hat onto his nose!' A puzzle
in the story made sure Larry always won.
They'd avoid getting blamed, whatever they'd done.
THE REVEREND BRAMWELL EVENS' SERMONS FROM NATURE
I liked Romany. We'd turn on the Northern
Children's Hour. Auntie Muriel, Auntie Doris —
in his 'vardo' they went. Wasn't a lesson.
Always were stories because the animals
were so clever at tricks, and he would notice
why and just how they did it. Take the weasels:
there was Nick who would throw up a leaf and catch
it, sort of 'entertainment' he said, but it brought
down a bird, much too curious. And to hatch
eggs in too high, too open a nest, it caught
at the eye of the jay, Raffles. And the use?
Why — the stupid young thrush wouldn't 'reproduce'.
THE MYSTERIOUS CHANG YEE
When The Children's Hour had that good serial
all about nasty Chang Yee, with that music
called 'March Mobilization', and imperial
heroes who tricked all the slitty-eyed villains,
then both Daddy and I would be double-quick
switching it on. So exciting how Britain's
clever officers got out of all his traps,
for he would always miss something just because
he was thinking of something else and our chaps
knew it. I wondered, though, what the reason was
such a serial like that one would satisfy —
we both knew we must listen, but not just why.
'THE SCENERY WAS BETTER'
Of a letter to Uncle Mac he said that
one of his young listeners preferred the L.
du Garde Peach plays on history to plays at
theatres: gave as her reason, 'The scenery
was much better.' Couldn't have put it as well.
How I agreed! Didn't strike me as funny
that your seeing what happened in your own head,
just as you heard it, was much more exciting.
All the places, the story, the hope, the dread,
all were together inside you, uniting
all your life to a tale, like a secret game.
All the flats on a stage tried to do the same.
THE FUNNY SONGS
With Geraldo, Jack Hylton, Roy Fox, Henry
Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra were
very funny men always sang a funny
song. Although some of the soppy songs were nice
like that one Mammy said was special for her
('Tea for two', when honeymoons were paradise)
there was always for children and other folk
ever such jolly songs like 'Mo-la-fa-la-
kee! Why doan she likee tomaytoes?' A joke
sometimes was nonsense. You could become a star
singing gobbledygook. Laughed loud as we could
at the song, but I couldn't see why we should.
THE LOVE-BUG
There was Ambrose. His orchestra played spiffing
music. The melodies jumped about, never
going where you expected, always missing
beats and then picking them up again. A man
with a foreign voice sang funny and clever
songs like one about the Love-Bug who can
make you 'sing and shout', that's 'if you don't watch out'.
Everyone laughed. The Love-Bug would make you
sing all nonsense like 'Hi-de-hi!' Was no doubt
love-bugs could sting you real hard, make you 'feel blue'
though the Wedding-march played. Heard it again
on the Third, knowing I've sung, and shouted in pain.
THE LOVE SONGS
All the love songs the dance bands played sang about
falling in love. You would know when it happened,
they all said, and there couldn't be any doubt.
You would be helpless. There you'd be one day quite
safe, but then you'd be entrapped in a second.
All you could think of would be holding her tight
while the moonbeams were shining up in the sky,
for every bird had its mate, every fish had
a wish. Lots of them, though, said that, by and by
you'd take a tumble and stumble. You'd feel sad
'cause the girl who had captured your heart would go.
Wondered why they were singing about it, though.
CHARLIE KUNZ
You'd hear Charlie Kunz playing with the dance bands.
He was a pianist: when the saxophones
stopped, you'd hear him come in, tinkling around,
but the best was the way, while you'd hear Lew Stone's
band keeping strict to the beat, he wasn't bound
by it, always. it seemed, missing it, jumping
somewhere you didn't expect, but then you'd find
he was back with the beat after all, thumping
it as proof he was there. You couldn't bind
him. Was like he was joking, laughing, playing.
Was obeying a law by disobeying.
JOYCE GRENFELL
I loved Joyce Grenfell. Moved about so gawkily —
looked like she couldn't control where she wanted
to go, though she tried to walk jauntily.
Ended up putting more bend in a turn than
she meant. Filled all the silence with a crowded
room of her nursery children. You began
hearing voices that weren't, saw actions without
eyes. Was as if your mind was in another
place and time. All those children were there about
you, making trouble. Somehow you were teacher
and those children yourself, you were laughing so.
It was such a relief not to be them though.
'HERE IS AN S.O.S. MESSAGE FOR ...'
'Here is an S.O.S. message...' It was always
someone 'last heard of'. Over the microphone
on most nights you would hear one, and the same phrase
came like a chant at church. Who could they be these
strange 'last-heard-ofs'? How could they have left their own
town and their family? Now 'cause some disease
or an accident struck at some relation,
sister or brother, mother, father, a wife
or a husband, they had to come back, hasten
home where they never had been for all their life
over years. Would be terribly sad and strange
as they came at the last after time and change.
IN TOWN TONIGHT!
I liked In Town Tonight!Heard the 'Lovely sweet
vi'lets!', the motor-horns and the newsboy, you
knew that somebody famous would come to meet
us in the studio, Will Hay or Amy
Johnson, say, or Sir Malcolm Campbell. You knew
would be a winner or a star, some brainy
man. inventor or writer, or some sportsman,
special like Gordon Richards. Was because we
were all talking about them, we would listen.
They all had done what we wanted to. We'd see
how to do it ourselves — then we could begin.
What a pity that only a few could win.
MONDAY NIGHT AT EIGHT
On the National Programme on Monday night
Mammy would always switch on Monday Night at
Eight. We enjoyed it, too. Was good 'cause you might
hear a comedian and then a song, and then
Puzzle Corner came on, not too hard, so that
children could guess sometimes. But the best was when
the inspector called Hornleigh solved his puzzles.
Point about puzzles was you hadn't to look
in the obvious way — that only muzzles
you and you can't reach the way out. When he took
up a different view, it showed he could prove
all the guilty were innocent, in one move.
ITMA
Itma nights had us caught. 'Can I do you now,
sir?'...'This is Funf speaking!' — the catch-phrases were
so amazingly funny, didn't know how,
but, if you said one, the laughing spread like fire
and you couldn't stop. Other people would stir
you into laughing again, your one desire
to be aching and flapping about as you did
when you heard it at eight. You were staggering
round like somebody drunk, even if you knew
Piggy had just come in. You'd see him smiling
and you knew you were safe for once. Being fools
was one way you'd escape the net of the rules.
THE CATCH-PHRASES
They were funny-peculiar, all the catch-
phrases. Were funny ha-ha, of course. The way
we all used them, the grown-ups too. You could match
words with another no matter whether he
was a stranger or not. If you heard him say,
'After you, Claud!' you were quick to disagree
with 'No, after you, Cecil!' You both would grin,
friends because being friends in the war was nice.
Could send all the Fifth Column back to Berlin,
stupid as Funf on the phone telling us twice
over who he was. Helped us to keep on track
in both sorrow and joy: 'I go! I come back!'
ON A CATCH-PHRASE OF SANDY POWELL'S
On the wireless you'd hear Sandy Powell make
everyone laugh. 'Can you 'ear mi, Mother?'
he would shout through the microphone. Shouldn't break
off in that way in the middle of what you
were performing. You have to be another
person when acting. The play wouldn't seem true
if you waved to your parents and said 'Hello!'
just when, as Wizard, you had to be angry —
and they knew all the same. You even could show,
doing some special thing, walking like Daddy,
say, you knew they were there, and they knew you knew,
and you knew that they knew you knew. That was true!
'SAM SMALL '
Stanley Holloway used to recite 'Sam Small'.
Was a soldier at sentry duty one day.
Held his musket in front of him. But then all
rule was upset, 'cause a sergeant knocked it down
as he passed, but he shouted, "Out o' my way!
Pick up tha musket!" But Sam Small, with a frown,
said, "But tha knocked it dahn, so tha pick it up!"
Wouldn't obey 'cause he thought he was quite right.
A lieutenant joined in: "No! Tha pick it up!"
Then came a captain, a major. Sam stood tight.
But at last came the Duke of Wellington. Then
why does Sam just give in? Should say "No!" again!
SUMMER AFTERNOONS ON THE 'NATIONAL PROGRAMME'
There's the kitchen door open — it's summer now,
holiday afternoon, not at school at two,
and the sunlight's so bright on the floor, the dark so
dark in the living-room where the radio's
on — 'Alberto Campoli will now play you
Beethoven's Minuet in G'; or tangos
jingle-jangle from Troise and his Mandoliers;
medleys from shows like The Maid of the Mountains
that 'were specially arranged for the listener's ears
by Mantovani himself.' The hot day spins
the sweet thé dansant sentimentality
with my English, unheard, nationality.