Nursery feud
Hugh Massingberd
Samba Sahib Elizabeth Hay (Paul Harris PP. 194, E7.50) That formidable breed of Scotch womanhood without whom the British Empire would surely have foundered even earlier seems to be receiving its just deserts at last. Following Violet Powell's celebration of the novelist Flora Annie Steel here is the story of Helen Bannerman, author of the children's classic The Story of Little Black Sambo (`that most attractive little book', Spectator 1899).
Elizabeth Hay comes from the same stock and is admirably suited to her subject. Like Helen Bannerman's husband, Miss Hay's father was a distinguished Indian Medical Servant. A vivid Picture is given of the Bannermans' dedication to the Empire whose opportunities Were such a boon to able and ambitious Scots (`But man, we miss the heather'). The bald, droll and kindly Will was a world authority on rats, who made his mark following an outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay; a common evening's entertainraent in the Bannerman household was the Skinning of these creatures on the diningroom table. Helen took all this in her stride, leading a remarkably full life despite being a Martyr to sprue; even allowing for the considerable difference servants must have made, it makes one tired just to read about the range of her activities. Shy and angular, Helen appeared nervous in society but her warmth and humour blossomed within the family circle.
The accepted wisdom of those days was that a man needed his wife more than children needed their mother, so Helen was often apart from her bairns. During these separations she wrote letters to them decorated with watercolours of comical incidents and then, on a journey from Kodai to Madras, The Story of Little Black Sambo, carefully arranged in the revolutionary new format of a volume small enough for a child's hands. Her friend Mrs Bond stupidly sold the copyright outright to Grant Richards for a mere fiver; when Helen tried to rectify matters the publisher responded with all the disingenuousness of his trade: 'Having the book my property enables me to sell comparatively large numbers at specially low terms which I could hardly do if I had to pay a royalty. . .' Quite so. This unhappy transaction was to have farreaching consequences; pirate editions were to do the book an almost irreparable disservice as the contents degenerated into crudity.
Most of the trouble has been caused by the illustrations. Helen's original drawings may have been caricatures but, as Miss Hay argues, this was simply her natural style of drawing — 'there was nothing racial about it'. The pictures in the bastardised versions, however, were frightful, some featuring an obese Plantation Mammy. Helen had set the story in an imaginary jungle-land replete with tigers; if she had specifically used India, the detail could have been authentic and the spurious connection with the Deep South would never have developed. In other words, calling him 'Little Brown Sambo' might have spared Mrs B. from some of those disobliging accusations. The use of `Sambo' as a generic epithet for people with dark skin (as, for instance, by the North Circular creeps in Goose Pimpled) has also added ammunition to the armoury of that monstrous regiment of illiberal censorettes who want to ban Bannerman.
Vignettes of the Raj aside, the most enjoyable parts of Sambo Sahib are where Miss Hay weighs in with a spirited defence on the issues of 'racism', 'sexism', etc etc. She shows that Mrs Bannerman came nearer to the Christian ideal in her behaviour than some of the banner persons. Teachers Against Racism (TAR), composed, one imagines, largely of people like that mythical Coventry female to whom Auberon Waugh used to address himself in his New Statesman days, demanded that Chatto & Windus withdraw the Sambo oeuvre sc. . .the underlying racist message is made all the more sinister by their appearance of innocence and charm'). The late Ian Parsons turned the tables on them in a masterly reply, pointing out that they were importing 'into the innocent and unsophisticated minds of little children the idea that there is something derogatory in having a coloured skin'. It is worth buying the book for this letter and for the withering irony of Michael Howard, who wondered why no one has yet sprung to arms on behalf of the unfortunate whose mutilation is so vilely exploited in the character of Long John Silver (no doubt in this Year of the Disabled such a campaign is now under way). Miss Hay lists a set of ghastly criteria published by the 'Children's Rights Workshop' but shows that Little Black Sambo does not appear to offend against any of them. For good measure there is the sexual significance of it all — tigers fighting each other apparently represent 'a child's attempt to rationalise a visual experience of intercourse'. However, Miss Hay does uphold an encouraging psychoanalytical view of Sambo's splendid self-confidence. I am not sure about the author's claim that hidden sexual interests in children 'are now understood as a matter of pride not shame'. A blemish in the otherwise well-written text is the use of 'lifestyle' — chuck it (Mrs) Smith. The book contains plenty of sound criticism of Mrs B.'s other works, right down to the posthumous Little White Squibba (an 'unsatisfactory goulash' concocted by Helen's somewhat eccentric daughter, Day), and some interesting comparisons with Beatrix Potter. Unlike her famous contemporary, Helen never anthropomorphised her animals. She also indulged the child's love of violence.
After the depressing touch of the TARbrush, it is a relief to return to the original Spectator review of 1899: 'Little Black Sambo makes his simple and direct appeal in the great realm of the make-believe without paying the slightest attention to the unities or caring in the least about anything but the amusement of the little boys and girls for whom he was so obviously created. Every parent should at once get the book and give it both to the nursery and the schoolroom.'
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