A letter to Britannia
STRIX
Dear Madam, .
You owe this letter to a new penny, which was included in the change I received from a subor- dinate of the Postmaster-General. There is a kind of warm lustre about a new penny. Many of these coins of the realm must have passed, some of them in mint condition, through my pockets during the last half-century and more; but for one reason or another have not for a long time examined any of them closely.
When however I saw this sort of hunter's moon glowing on my dressing-table, I was sud- denly reminded of the first penny I ever earned. That, too, was a new, resplendent coin; I won it for learning by heart and reciting correctly to our governess the names of all the English counties. The date on the penny must have been 1912, or thereabouts. It goes without sayi that I familiarised myself closely with the d-s 'is of my prize, including the mysterious runes sur- rounding the head of GEORGIVS V-DES GRA : BRITS: OMN : REX FID : DEF : IND: 154P:. knew what an imp was and some cousins lad a dog called Rex, but I could think of no reason why his name should appear on a penny, and anyhow what did all the rest of the mambo- jumbo mean? I felt much more at home with your side of the coin, which was entirely free from galling reminders that, however briskly I could enumerate the English counties, I was not as yet fully sophisticated; and from that day to this, when invited to predict which way up a tossed coin will come down, I have consistently called Tails. Sometimes, you will be pleased to hear, I have been proved correct.
I hope you will not take it amiss if I say that I was slightly surprised—as well, of course, as delighted—to find that you were still at your post. I had half expected that you would have been superseded, long ere now, by a teehno- logical symbol, by some less imperious, more allusive emblem, designed perhaps by Lord Snowdon. But no! There you are, still sitting on an invisible rock, still immune from that dis- tressing and almost universal complaint, still clutching your trident and that cartwheel of a shield. You haven't ...
Hold on! I was going to say that you hadn't
changed at all since we first met; but you have. Research among my life's savings in the vaults of Strix Hall reveals that in 1937 (or it may have been the previous year. I cannot say for certain; 1936 was a lean time in Loamshire) you were given a new look. A lighthouse appeared on the horizon behind you, at what may, since you appear to be left-handed, be roughly de- scribed as long leg. (To be quite accurate, it reappeared, having featured, together with a sort of galleon, on the Bun Penny, which was superseded in about 1895.)
I cannot think why they put this lighthouse in. Since it would automatically be switched off in the event of war, I don't see how it helps you to rule the waves; moreover, either it is an anachronism or your helmet is. What is the point of keeping your vigil on that rock when you could do the job far more efficiently up there in the lighthouse- keeper's snuggery, over a nice cup of cocoa?
I am afraid I don't think much of your tri- dent, Mark H. In 1936-37 the manufacture of lethal weapons was neither a major preoccupa- tion of British science and British industry nor a cause to which the British taxpayer was re- quired to make massive contributions. As for the idea that a nation could strengthen its eco- nomy by exporting arms to another nation, this was extremely mal vu; individuals—virtu- ally all of them, I am happy to say, foreigners —who soiled their hands in this sort of traffic were called Merchants of Death.
With this climate of opinion prevailing, it was almost inevitable that there would be some modification in the design of your trident; but it was surely going a bit far to remove the barbs? There is, I admit, a slight, match-head- type thickening at the tips of your present prongs. But your weapon, which for the last thirty years you have held in a more upright position than formerly—as though, in the lan- guage of the barrack square, you were sitting to attention rather than sitting at ease—appears to me apter for an obsolete method of making hay than for deterring tyrants bent upon en- slaving the islanders.
And now what about that helmet? You wear it, I notice, slightly less off-the-forehead than you used to. Tension seems to be mounting; we shall have you in a sou'wester before we know where we are. Recalling, as it simultaneously does, the prowess, of Greek militarism and the panache of France's cuirassiers, is your head- gear entirely appropriate to the times?
The Reverend Dr Brewer says that you were invented by the Romans, who !represented the island of Great Britain by the figure of a woman seated on a rock, from a fanciful resemblance thereto in the general outline of the island'; and we all know that Charles II brought you into the coinage, though nobody seems to be quite sure whether you are—or were until 1936— Frances Theresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond, or Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland.
Your long career, begun in the bed of one Sovereign and continued on the backs of the heads of his fourteen successors, has been by any standards a remarkable one. The penny on which you preside has fallen steadily in value, the Empire which once you symbolised no lon- ger exists, and, as for ruling the waves, your claim to do so is scarcely stronger than the President of Switzerland's. But the thing about you is that, after nearly 300 years, you are still there, and I for one should hate to see you go. If and when you are deposed—by decimalisa- tion, by further devaluations or by the Council of Industrial Design—I shall continue, when some newfangled coin is tossed, loyally and in- variably to call Tails.
Your well-wisher
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