No. 555: The winners
Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to emulate Mr George MacDonald Fraser's industry in unearthing 'the Flash- man papers' by submitting the closing pas- sages from the reminiscences of any other juvenile hero for villain) from fiction past or present. In a uniformly accomplished entry the most popular heroes of the various pieces were B. Bunter (elevated, in not a few cases, to the rank of portly knight), Toad. and Winnie-the-Pooh, rambling and slightly bibulous in his old age ... In de- fiance of this trend. an extract from a bold entry by Eileen Tulloch :
... So it is not true I loved Ethel to the bitter end as I have Maisie insted. I thourght when we came home from the Honymoon with our son and hair Ignatius that Ethel might be rarther too hussy leading a merry life being so active and parshial to socierty and ruge. But she mated well with the Earl of Costarieka who as I have related she met at the Gaierty hotel and is exentrick but obliging ... Ignatius is rarther mere people say and presumshius. Maisie thinks he looks sneery at times but she is jellous of Ethel wearing costly velvit dresses I daresay she diester hair she adds kindly.
Two guineas to Miss Tulloch; three guineas to Martin Fagg:
How true it is that one's schooldays are the jolliest of one's life! Shut up in a slim- ming clinic, paying fifty guineas a week for the privilege of quaffing carrot juice and nib- bling half a lettuce leaf, I yearn for the days at Greyfriars when I could demolish a ham- per at a sitting. How my contemporaries ido- lised me!—and envied me too: Frank Nugent for my batting; Tom Merry for my speed on the wing; Vernon-Smith for my daring; Manners for my breeding; Dick Penfold for my brains. The favourite pupil of dear old Mr Quelch; always top of the class, though never a swot; invariably court- eous and resourceful, yet involved from time to time, as every true boy must be, in some innocuous prank, for which I received my chastisement manfully and without com- plaint—what a paragon of boyish excellence
I was! As the Froggies say: 'Eheu fugaces....'
On another tack altogether, here's K. F. W. Gumbley: ...Poor John died a month ago. He got awfully tiresome towards the end, always talking about sailing—you remember, that was how we met as children. All his family turned up at the nursing-home one day, and his sister, not that awful Susan, the other one (do you know, he kept calling her 'Fifty', so embarrassing in front of the nurses), she started humouring him about it.
I told her to her face that I hadn't let him near a boat for twenty years, because of the drink, you know, and she was really rude, accused me of treating John like dirt, and actually driving him to drink. Then she dragged up that business about me and Roger (his brother, you know) as if that wasn't ancient history now.
Of course, when I told Peggy, she went all weepy at the mention of Roger....
Four guineas to Mr Gumbley, and four to the industrious gentleman who started it all—George MacDonald Fraser no less:
Now, Tom, old fellow, you mustn't go prosing on so. It's getting close to the end of the Last Half, my boy, when you must go up to the Great Doctor and hear your marks read out. Some good, some bad, perhaps, but not much to be ashamed of. You've done your Christian duty, no doubt o' that— in Parliament (some fine old pi-jaws you gave 'em, to be sure, but I daresay there was some sense in them), on the boards and committees, and at home. You haven't bur- ied your talents—leastways, you invested well.
No, you can say you did your best, and if you erred, it wasn't in any mean or cow- ardly or unmanly way. And if you're tongue-tied when you meet Him, just say, 'Tom Brown's my name, Sir, and I've tried to live like an English gentleman'. That will be good enough for Him.
And three guineas for an excellent entry to Adam Khan:
God bless Nanny, she's my Delight— Wasn't she Fun in the bath tonight! The soft so soft and the firm so firm- God—don't send me to school next term! If I open my diary a little bit more I can see her undressing me by the shore; It's a beautiful view, And she hasn't a stitch—.
Oh, bless us both, and make us rich! Next, a Wedding, with Wedding Cake— (I call her Nanny for old times sake)— And a Honeymoon, and Bed for Two— So get stuffed, Tigger and Winnie the Pooh!
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