It will be recalled that I offered odds of 100-1
against anybody answering all four questions correctly; the stake was one shilling, and for every correct entry I undertook to send £5 to Oxfam.
I reckoned that if anything could save Strix Hall from coming under the hammer it would be No. 2. Only one of my challengers, Mr Val Gielgud, fell into the common error of con- necting Chamberlain's all-too-memorable words with the German invasion of Norway—an error which is perpetuated in a particularly gross form, in The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations; but only one got the context and the date right. Mr George Chowdharay-Best, who went into the -matter most diligently, discovered that the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives the source as a speech in the House of Commons and that Winston Churchill, in Tire Gathering Storm, has two different dates for the pronouncement, which to the best of my belief is not mentioned at all by Sir Keith Feiling or Mr lain Macleod in their biographies of Chamberlain.
Only one competitor, Squadron-Leader D. L. Bird, of RAF Dishforth, was gravelled by No 3, but he had a very sporting shot at it—`Bernard Shaw on the departure of Frank Harris,' though I doubt if Harris's name quite qualifies as a household word. Four got No. 4 right.
Mr B. M. Davies, of Leamington Spa, and Mr W. R. Throssell, of Hitchin, came within an ace of earning £5 for Oxfam. Mr Davies (did he ignore my warning that 'works of reference are unlikely to be of much assistance' and consult the ODQ?) gave the House of Com- mons as the venue for Chamberlain's speech, and Mr Throssell, whose answer was 'Chamber. lain in 1940, shortly before the invasion of Norway,' did not in my view supply the context, which was what I asked for. Also he spelt Rassendyll wrong.
Am I then, Hentzau-like, vile and uncon- quered? No, only vile; I lost my wager to Mr Michael Deattry, of Andreas-Heusler-Strasse 8, Basle, who was bang on the target with all his four shots. To him go my congratulations, to Oxfam a cheque for £5. Readers who were too modest or too proud, too idle or too busy, too handsome or too debonair, to have a go at the questions might care to send something to Oxfam too.
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