Chortlepugging
Isabel Colegate
Lady Addle Remembers Ed. Mary Dunn (Robin Clark £4.95) Lady Addle was born Lady Blanche Coot, daughter of the Seventh Earl. After a blissful childhood at Coots Balder — mar- red only by her brother Humpo's misunderstanding with the cousin who couldn't swim and her sister Mipsie's ar- chery practice which was such bad luck on the dear old Vicar — she went on to a glit- tering debut at the Ladies Ball at Brighton in 1885, a society wedding and early mar- ried life at Bengers, the Addle seat. A visit to India led to her first meeting with the celebrated Agatha Slubb-Repp who had bravely taken up the cause of the Indian women in purdah. Lady Addle, full of en- thusiasm for her new friend's scheme for teaching knitting to the Zenanas, infiltrated herself into the Zenana of the Nizam of Chortlepugger, and was unfortunately un- dressed and rubbed all over with sacred frog oil before the chief eunuch realised his mistake. Undaunted by this little con- tretemps, Lady Addle returned home for a few wild weeks' involvement in the cause of women's suffrage until the ghastly disillu- sionment when she realised that her new friend's political views were incompatible with a proper respect for the aristocracy.
Lady Addle acompanied her memories with many useful hints and homilies and altogether this little book, which first ap- peared as a contribution to Punch by Mary Dunn in the Thirties, was worth re-printing and will give pleasure to many. It arouses a certain nostalgia for the real thing, those volumes of memoirs and recollections which used to be so prevalent on the shelves of second-hand bookshops but which seem to have disappeared even from there. Where can one now come across Daisy, Princess of Pless (From My Private Diary), Daisy Countess of Fingall (Seventy Years Young) or Mrs Hwfa Williams (Jr Was Such Fun)?
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