he voice was dry and academic. "Good evening, England. This
is Gillie Potter, speaking to you in English." There would
follow a dissertation on the latest happenings in the
village of Hogsnorton, and nearby Bishops Bedsocks, the
inhabitants of which included Canon Fodder, General Sir
Stimulant Maudlin-Tite, and Lord and Lady Marshmallow.
Gillie Potter made me laugh a lot, even as a child. He
would gravely inform us that "the gate at the southern end
of the town is just wide enough to allow a horse and cart
to pass through. When I was there, it was obvious that a
horse and cart had just passed through."
(I quote from memory - a memory of at least 60 years ago!)
Potter used the English language with glorious precision.
Describing the Savoy Hill premises of the BBC: "It is a
large building entirely surrounded by alleys, which enable
the officials to escape censure, and the vaudeville
artistes to escape arrest. There are two ways in: the
principal entrance is reminiscent of St Marks at Venice,
without entirely losing sight of the signal box at Chipping
Sodbury."
What follows was broadcast in the 30s. And the subject
is...
So soon as St Andrew's day is over and the Scotsman has
hung up his haggis until Hogmanay, we are, happily, at the
end of all the annual antics of our multifarious foreigners
and the natives of England can concentrate on Christmas.
With that sound sense which is born of extensive economic
experience, we English usually postpone the purchasing of
Christmas presents for our dear ones until we have some
proof positive that our 'dear ones' have done a little
present purchasing themselves; a policy largely responsible
for that rushing out after the reception by the last post
on Christmas Eve of a pair of bed socks from Aunt Bessie,
and the having hurriedly to decide between the air-gun and
the chocolate giraffe which constitute the sole remaining
stock of the only open shop.
There is, however, one important part of our English
Yuletide ritual which precludes any such closing-time
commerce; I refer to that quaint conceit which renders it
incumbent on Mr and Mrs Golightly to arrange that their
every acquaintance shall receive from them a piece of
pasteboard on which is printed a picture, a poem, and their
postal address. Hence, throughout the month of December,
the sight in our stationers' shops of crowds crouching over
Christmas cards.
Personally, I have a pronounced penchant for such only
among these productions as have been designed with some
slight regard to the fact that Christmas is a Christian
festival observed, in this country at any rate, in
mid-winter; for which reason my choice could never coincide
with that of the King of Cadonia who, I note from an
inspection of a folio of specimens forwarded at some time
to Hogsnorton by a naïve shopkeeper, once honoured his
intimates with a highly coloured seascape in the forefront
of which one single small ship is being pelted to pieces by
an absolute Armada with, beneath this one-sided onslaught,
the happy afterthought, 'Peace on Earth'. In like manner my
conception of the sacred and seasonal is not attained by
that other work of art depicting a nearly nude Negress
surveying a segment of the Sahara, chosen as a token of her
goodwill by the Princess Angelica.
It is but natural that the
predilections of the exalted should be reflected in the
likes and dislikes of those lower down the social scale and
I am, therefore, not surprised to find that Colonel and Mrs
Dammit of Dornoch have forwarded their 'Best Wishes for
this Holy Season' from beneath a flashlight photo of the
Folies Bergères, nor to learn that Mr and Mrs Walter
(Wally) Toot of Mon Repos, Canal Terrace, Little
Twittering, chose on one occasion to circulate among their
friends the pictorial representation of an uncosily large
baronial hall in the fireplace of which there is a
conflagration so fierce as to suggest an attempt to burn
down rather than to heat the chamber - all of which,
furniture and fire, would appear to be at the sole service
of two diminutive black cats.
Another school of Christmas card thought and attempt is
that which favours the affixing thereto of some foreign
body by means of a mucilage; such attachments varying from
a woollen animal with a wire tail elevated or depressed at
atmospheric dictation, to some garment of an intimate
nature which lifts to disclose a variety of views of
Ventnor.
Tokens in this style are intended primarily for those who
would wish to particularize the name of the recipient
rather than that of the sender - the chief attraction of
this genre ensampled in my tradesman's tome being obviously
destined for some person named Edward, for immediately
beneath an outsize in robins which occupies almost the
whole of a frozen fountain and directly above the shepherd
who is encouraging a homeward movement in what looks to be
a flock of mothballs, there occurs on a piece of real
Turkey twill the embossed and tinselled legend - 'Happy
Christmas to our Ted'.
Original in this as in every other matter, Lord
Marshmallow's sources of Christmas card provenance are
these very catalogues, from which he removes such specimens
as have not been marred by the printing upon them of some
of those fictitious patrician names and suburban addresses
which would have it appear that the nobility of this land
are haunting Herne Hill, crowding into Croydon, and filling
up Fulham...