PERSONAL COLUMN

Topping and tailing

STRIX

When the Newt-Fanciers Association was formed about ten years ago, a serious, but not uncommon, mistake was made; the annual subscription for ordinary members and (in particular) the once-for-all payment for life membership were fixed at too low a figure. It soon became apparent that the alacrity with which the nobility and gentry would join the NFA had been over-estimated; some did, but more did not, and as a result bankruptcy, if it did not actually stare us in the face, became in time a contingency which could not be disregarded. So we did what one always does in these circumtances: we put up the subscription. For ordinary mem- bers the rate was trebled; life membership became five times more expensive.

There was the usual outcry, the usual ragged volley of resignations; but the NFA gained the sort of temporary reprieve that resourceful Russian families used to win for themselves by lobbing a baby over the stern- sheets of their sleigh. Overheads, however, continued to rise. Encouraged respectively by the nurses and the teachers, the newt- maids and the eft-handlers put in for, and were awarded, an increase in their minimum rates of pay; SET reared its ugly head; and in no time at all the wolves were once more shortening our lead.

By now I had become chairman of our Association. There were, I admit, unseemly incidents, and two recounts, during my elec- tion at our last AGM (after helping an injured television cameraman to the ambulance I was able to lend a hand with the second recount); but only a month previously my bull-newt, Gowerstreet Apocryphal of Alph, had been declared Supreme Champion at the Chester-le-Street Nutarium (the coveted Silver Ant's Egg being graciously awarded to me by Miss B. Cartland), and there was never any doubt in my own mind that I had what virtually amounted to a droit de seigneur to the chairmanship.

Finding, when I assumed office, that our financial position was even graver. than I had supposed. I immediately turned my attention to our original life members (num- bering more than 400) who had got in, so to speak, on the ground floor. 'The ground floor', I pointed out to my executive com- mittee, 'is the most vulnerable part of any building; we must take it by storm'. And I caused to be produced 500 copies of a letter setting out, in forceful terms, the realities of the situation, reminding the life members of their moral obligations to our Association and suggesting as tactfully as possible that it was up to them to do something about it. I then had to lop and tail' these letters.

On the face of it my task appeared a simple one, involving nothing but drudgery.

had been provided with a membership list containing, some 3,000 names and addresses; life members had the letter 'L' against their names. All I had to do was to write 'April 1970' (the exact date of dispatch being un- certain) on the northeast corner of each letter: then, moving my right hand a little south of west, write 'Dear Mr Blank' or, if I knew him, 'Dear Horace': and finally to sign off in a suitable manner at the bottom of the page. As my name appeared in the letter-heading, those recipients (life members tend to be elderly and old-fashioned) who might be surprised, shocked or alarmed by receiving a letter from a total stranger who professed to be 'yours sincerely' would at least know who I was; they would, I hoped, assume that this rather brash approach was justified by our common interest in the lov- able little amphibians to the promotion of whose welfare our Association is dedicated.

I set to work with a will, and with no ink- ling of the delicate problems which were to confront me. 'April 1970. Dear Mr Abacus ... yours sincerely, Marmaduke Strix."April 1970. Dear Mrs Axe . . ."Dear Lord Bag- worthy . . .' One after another the first wave of life members bit the dust. I put serial numbers against their names on the member- ship list, and felt like a Red Indian collect- ing scalps.

But stay! What have we here? No less than four life members bear the name of Brown, and one of them must surely be the Brown who was elected (ill-advisedly, as things turned out) to our executive com- mittee in 1968. Although he knows a great deal about newts, he is a shy, reserved man who scarcely speaks during our meetings and remains taciturn throughout the small con- vivialities that sometimes follow or precede them. Hoping to break the ice, I started some time ago to call him by his Christian name; others followed suit. But dialogues have been so infrequent that I cannot for the life of me remember anything about his Christian name except that it was a monosyllable. John? Jim? Tom? Sam?

All I know for certain is that I must not now address him as `Mr Brown' or 'Brown'.

I have a vague idea that he lives in Basket- shire, one of the more capacious of our counties; but so do two of the four Browns (T.S.Z. and J.B.), and I dare not risk all on the spin of a coin. The only thing to do is to write 'Dear Mr Brown' three times and enclose a note to our secretary asking him to remind me how, as it were, to tutoyer our close collaborator, the Brown who is known (or jolly well ought to be) to me by his Christian name. Our secretary will do this; but the cumbrous procedure will not enhance his respect for the chairman.

After that all goes well until we come to `EFFINGTON, the Earl of, Cathouse Castle,

Forkright, Studshire'. Here several interre-

lated problems pose themselves. From his earliest days Lord Effington was notorious—

if such an epithet can be applied to a man who led a blameless life—for his love of newts; he would certainly have enrolled as a life member when our Association was formed, ten years ago. But is he still alive? I ought to know, but Time, the Great Healer, has erased from my memory the answer to this question; and when the Grim Reaper creates a vacancy in the list of life members he does not, and his victim cannot, notify the secretary.

The trouble here is that Lord Effington's heir, the Viscount Porridge, is—or once was —well-known to me, having served, years ago, as a rather contumacious subaltern in a battalion which I had the honour to com- mand. My choice therefore lies between writing 'Dear Lord Effington' or 'Dear Algie'. If the old man is still alive, the first of these alternatives is right, the second wrong. If he is no longer with us, vice versa. Were I to

address Algie as 'Dear Lord Effington' he would instantly assume that I had forgotten my promise to overlook that incident with a WRAC lance-corporal in the squash-court after (nay, during) a guest-night; and he would certainly not reach for his cheque- book. What one needs for this job is an up- to-date Who's Who, which I do not possess.

Nor is Who's Who the only work of refer- ence needed. Over the last ten years Majors and Brigadiers, Commanders and Captains must, if not on the retired list, have been promoted (or—just conceivably—cashiered); the same presumably applies to Canons. 'Vanity, vanity, saith the preacher; all is vanity.' I know; but show me a bishop who reacts favourably to a begging letter which begins 'Dear Canon'.

It is, I admit, only every so often that these small dilemmas confront a topper-and-tailer.

But he develops (or at least so I found) an unreasoning prejudice against people with long names like Prendergast-Entwhistle- Scrope; and by the time he has completed his stint, has written 'yours sincerely' for the last time and has chalked up '423' against the name of Yukesby, Major R. de S., he has, as you may have gathered, pretty well taken leave of his senses.