The Secret Places V & VI

Two more chapters of The Secret Places (Elkin Mathews & Marrot London 1929) - a chronicle of the 'pilgrimages' of the author, Reginald Francis Foster (1896-1975), and his friend 'Longshanks' in Sussex, Kent and Surrey. See our posting of the first chapters for more on Foster and this book..

V

ADVENTURERS' INN

They refused us bread and cheese at the flaunting hotel (though I knew they had both), but told us that we might have luncheon. We left, therefore, and cast the dust of the place from off our feet, vowing never to return thither. For when a man wants bread and cheese with his ale there is nothing that is a fitting substitute.
We had to tramp five miles before we satisfied our need, and after that distance bread and cheese were not enough. But the inn, we found, provided nought else to eat, So were we punished for lack of charity towards those who scorn to provide simple fare.
A diary of vagabondage is necessarily a tale of inns, for one must eat and drink, and uncooked turnips and nuts and berries are indigestible fare.

Innkeeper John Fothergill lampooned

Found - in A Bunch of Blue Ribbons.A Volume of Cambridge Essays [Collected by I. Rose. London: Chapman & Hall, 1933] a satirical poem lampooning the celebrated innkeeper John Fothergill. Fothergill wrote a best-seller Diary of an Innkeeper and was known to Oxford students for his inn at Thame, frequented by, among others, most of the prominent members of  the Brideshead set. Oddly, he is unknown to Wikipedia but has a good entry in the DNB. His Diary was republished fairly recently by the Folio Society. A Bunch of Blue Ribbons was a sort of counter blast to a recent work Red Rags -a record of pet hatreds and aversions by bright young students at Oxford and Cambridge. This poem is in a chapter called A Sob Sister defends Oxford by Christopher Saltmarshe (a Cambridge poet also unknown to the all-knowing Wikipedia):

I am giving below a disgraceful and insulting lampoon which fell into my hands. The subject is an inn-keeper, whose name is dear to the immediate generation of Oxonians, which learnt to appreciate him as a host, an epicure and a gentleman. As an example of the depths of scurrility to which the enemies of Oxford can stoop I, as an old Cantab., believe these verses to be unparalleled.

BALLAD AGAINST BLATHERGALL

Buying a box of matches once by stealth,
I saw an inn-kepper who fame pursued,
Welcoming those who boasted height and wealth,
To the short and shabby he was merely rude.