Eviction of Adam and Eve

Found in Arrows 87 (Summer 1964, edited by Roger Ebbatson) this amusing piece about Adam and Eve. The magazine was produced by Sheffield University Union and had poems articles, graphics etc., This squib was by Peter Mottley (1935-2006) who became an actor, director and playwright.

Eviction by Peter Mottley.

Dear Mr. Adam,

I am instructed by my client to serve the enclosed eviction order concerning the property you now occupy.

He feels that he is justified in this action in view of your recent behaviour, which constitutes a breach of the terms of your lease.

You will remember the Clause 4 in your lease permitted you full access to the garden on condition that you undertook 'to dress it and keep it', and that my client generously allowed you to take for your own use any of the fruits and flower which grow there. However, he specified quite plainly that you were not under any circumstances to touch the prize-winning fruit tree

Son of the Sixties

Found - in Axle, a short lived magazine, from June 1963 this amusing and intriguing portrait of a sixties type (or archetype.) It was written  by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley the editors of the magazine. These 2 men, 23 at the time, went on to become successful pop music composers - hits included Dave Dee's Xanadu..In 1970 they even wrote a song for Elvis ('I've lost you'.)The reference to 'Dexadrin' is obscure- can find no trace of such a magazine, possibly ingested rather than read...

Son of the Sixties

Build: Tall; slim; muscular without exercise. Complexion: clear; permanently bronzed without sun or Man-tan; never sweats...Seldom laughs (but rare smiles are planned and dazzling - he was born in natural fluoride area). Hair: Black; well-combed, no dressing; styling suggests but never quite descends to more obvious fashions of the day (Frost, Como, etc.) Clothes: by John Michael and Marks and Spencer. Can wear white shirt for whole week. General appearance: Air of masculine competence cunningly offset by one or two ambiguous touches (name-bracelet, St. Christopher chain, pastel denim shirt); usual expression, mixture of Come-Hither and Come-Off-It; can appear alternately boyish and authoritative, a trump combination

A Sitwell Parody

Edith Sitwell by Roger Fry

Not sure where this came from but it is most likely to be from the voluminous papers of 'Evoe' - i.e. E. V. Knox. The poem parodied Colonel Fantock (from Troy Park, Duckworth 1925) is actually one of Edith Sitwell's finest, but 'Evoe' has picked up on her and her brothers' snobbery, haughtiness and pretentions. The full  original poem can be found here. It contains some beautiful lines and has elements of tragedy, or at least pathos:

 I was a member of a family

Whose legend was of hunting -- (all the rare

And unattainable brightness of the air) --

The parody dates from the early 1950s when it seems the Sitwells had become ubiquitous in British cultural life, possibly to a slightly  annoying extent in the way that some British celebrities (with vast tribes of twitter followers) are 60 years later.

THE THREE SITWELLS EXPLAIN HOW THEY

TRIUMPHED OVER OPPOSITION.

Osbert, the Author of "England Reclaimed", begins:

To us sad children in whose veins there ran
The violet blood of the old Angevin Kings
(1154 to 1216).
So that we all had Visi-Gothic faces
And seemed unreal in theatres and places –

Edith, the Author of "Troy Park", goes on:

I was a member of the family,
And from those tombed lords we inherited
A liking for wind-music – all the rare
Impetuous rapture of the trumpet blare.
I often think that cornet players only
Know what it is to be left entirely lonely.

Sacheverell, the Author of "All Summer in a day", breaks in:

The dulness of our life was terrible.
It had the remote air of a legend
Printed beneath a faded photograph
Of some one whom we did not wish to know.

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.

The Hound of the Baskervilles - the libretto?

Found - an interesting Sherlockian letter in a collection of papers of the late 'Evoe' - the comic writer, satirist, poet  and one time editor of Punch known as E.V. Knox. It is from James Edward Holroyd* dated 23/4/1967 from 11 Heath Royal, Putney to Knox in Frognal, Hampstead. He brings attention to his (Holroyd's) letter published in that weeks New Statesman and recalls a Press Club Sherlock Holmes dinner when he had sat with 'Evoe' and Sir Sidney Roberts, another follower of what Sherlockians call 'the higher criticism.' He invites him to visit old Fleet Street haunts with him ('a glass of wine at El Vino'). The published  letter reads:

Your readers may wish to be reminded of the enchanting theory, advanced by E.V. Knox, that Conan Doyle's famous story The Hound of the Baskervilles was originally written as a libretto. In support of his claim, he quoted the following stanza :

I stooped, panting, and pressed my pistol
To the dreadful, shimmering head,
But it was useless to press the trigger,
The giant hound was dead.

No wonder that on another occasion Holmes remarked : "Cut out the poetry, Watson".

Evoe's original piece A Ramble in Dartmoor published in Punch 21/1/1948 also quotes these lines of 'found poetry' from The Hound of the Baskervilles:

The night was clear and fine above us
The stars shone cold and bright,
While a half moon bathed the whole scene
In a  soft uncertain light..

He concludes 'I can only hope that we may one-day discover the manuscript of the original poem, ballad, or libretto from which the story has been reduced down into workaday prose.'

*Editor of Seventeen Steps to 221B: A Sherlockian Collection by English Writers and Baker Street By-Ways. 

The MP’s Chart 1964 (Andrew Roth)

The left leaning American-born political satirist Andrew Roth (1919 – 2010) produced these handy guides to the Commons personnel from 1955 and this particular issue, which seems to have been hurriedly hammered out on an electric typewriter (it is full of typos) is interesting in that it includes the first long-term Labour cabinet for over a decade and also a few MPs who became prominent in subsequent Tory administrations and who ended up being elevated to the Upper House. It also has something to say on a certain recently departed former PM, then a little known Tory backbencher of some 5 years standing.

Andrew Roth

Under Political Outlook Margaret Thatcher is described as an 'Able, RIGHT-leaning, suburban, SEMI-LOYALIST.' Under Occupation she is a 'Barrister (taxes); ex-chemical research' and under Traits she is 'intelligent, charming, with a strong will.'

As for Mrs T’s fellow Tory MP, Edward Heath, Roth is spot on. He is described as an 'ambitious, dedicated, pro-European contender' whose traits include being ‘plump, tough, voluble' and an organist.

Labour’s new Defence Minister Denis Healey, a friend of Heath’s at Oxford, is identified by Roth as having similar characteristics. He too is 'Tought'(sic) but 'CENTRE- RIGHT and an 'intellectual politico.' He is also, rather surprisingly, described as a ‘journalist and broadcaster ‘. But Roth, like everyone else, cannot ignore the physical feature of his 'bushy brows' and ‘ruddy’ complexion. In  personality he is  'truculent and aloof.'

Two other Tories, with contumelious and geographical associations with Denis, are also colourfully described by Roth. Under 'traits' Commons newbie Geoffrey Howe has this entry: 'chubby; specs; dark wavy hair', while Sir Keith Joseph, Bt is 'nervy, dynamic, pleasant; Jewish.'

But perhaps the most fascinating entry is the one for Enoch Powell (incidentally, pronounced to rhyme with how, not Poe, despite what some argue ) whose parents, according to Roth were both 'Welsh teachers'. Four years before the infamous  Rivers of Blood speech, the former professor of Ancient Greek is described as an 'Adam Smith-style crusading rightist', which is an inaccurate assessment of Powell’s economic philosophy. On the professor’s traits, however, Roth is bang-on: 'tortured; tough; pale; moustache'. [R.H.]

The Individualists (E.V. Knox)

 A satirical piece by E.V. Know ('Evoe' - see earlier entries on him.) Probably never published and it feels unfinished, or at least unrevised. It has a '1984' feeling and also may be mocking Mosleyites who were still around after the war.

                               
A CHARTER OF FREEDOM
 The sound of the rhythmic tramping of many feet aroused me from my day-dreams. I hurried to the window and there, with swinging arms and muscles firm, they strode. The gaze of every marcher was glued firmly to the back of the neck of the marcher in front, and every leg was lifted with the precision of an automaton till the foot was a yard or more from the ground.

  Each, in his left hand, carried a stick or an umbrella, and on that day of slushy pavements and lowering skies the spectacle was one to fill the heart with enthusiasm. Old men were amongst them, veterans of bygone campaigns, grizzled and tanned by wind and sun, pale-faced youngsters of the later levies, gaunt women with steely eyes, and maidens lovely as a rose in June.

  I knew them. They were marching to Trafalgar Square. They were the serried armies of the Individualists. High above them floated the purple banner embroidered with gold and bearing the motto of the Order, "All for one, and one for all." Perfectly disciplined, they divided into companies, wheeled, halted, turned and faced the plinth. The startled pigeons scattered upwards, the lions lay unmoved. The masked leader arose, and the vast multitude, at the word of command, gave him the Salute of Freedom, in which the right arm is lifted to the level of the shoulder, with the palm of the hand held vertical, and then brought suddenly backwards and pressed over the lower portion of the face.