MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
ISEE that Mr. Thorneycroft has stated in reply to a Parliamentary Question that the Government have, decided to place a ban upon the import from abroad of objects regarded as suitable for Coronation souvenirs. I also observe that the National Union of Small Shopkeepers have already advised their members not to purchase " cheap and tawdry ' souvenirs now, it seems, being manufactured in Japan. The National Jewellers' Association have also asked their members not to acquire souvenirs of German or Japanese origin. I presume that all these measures are in strict accordance with such Commercial Treaties as may be in force. Since we shall thereby ourselves become the most favoured nation, since the manufacture of these objects will henceforward be determined by British taste alone, I sincerely hope that our designers will consider the matter care- fully and not rush, or be rushed, into the mass-production of horrible little nuisances such as nobody really desires to possess. The Council for Industrial design will, I am glad to believe, immediately apply their best brains to the early study of this problem. They will examine the objects sold at Addis Ababa on the occasion of the consecration of Sahala Mariem as Menelek II in 1889. They will enquire what souvenirs proved the most popular in 1869 when the Empress Eugdnie, in the sunset of her beauty, opened the Suez Canal. They will examine with care the mugs presented to the people on the occasion of the coronation of Nicolas II in 1895, cross- ing their-fingers in avQdance of all inauspicious associations. They may even persuade the rulers of Television to allow some of these predecessors to be exhibited to viewers and, explained, as similar objects were explained before the Festival burst upon us, by one of their most persuasive experts. But what can the Council accomplish ? They possess no powers. Their only function is that of a constitutional monarch in a parliamentary State; they are there but to " advise, to encourage and to warn." However charming may be their cajolery, the manufacturers will be at liberty to follow their own design; we shall be left at the mercy of British taste.
* *' * * It is sad to reflect on what pretty little boxes Battersea or Chelsea would have produced for such purposes in the eighteenth century. We may be comforted by the thought that nothing that will be manufactured for this Coronation will be as cumbrous, weighty, useless or even ugly as the truly horrible barometers and inkstands created for the Hyde Park Exhibition in 1851 or, we must add in all sincerity, the Paris Exhibitions of 1855, 1867, 1878 and 1900. In fact a great many of the objects still sold in bronze and onyx as articles de Paris derive their origin, their shape and their appeal from these 'distant exhibition days. I do hope, and even pray, that in this year 1952 the manufacturers and designers of these impending objects will pay at least some attention to the gentle hints that will be given them by the Council and its experts. There is no reason at all why souvenirs should be Irgly or expensive or why they should not have simple form. 1 am aware that for the last century the British public in the mass' have developed a preference for the ornate. Even as our grandfatheis might ruin a George III milk-jug, by having it " embossed " in the Victorian mode, so also do the-purchas- ing public prefer the elaborate to the plain. It is almost impossible, as I have complained before, to find a lamp-shade in London unsullied by Spanish galleons or little Dutch boys and girls pattering their patterns in a row. Such unnecessary decoration draws from purists like myself a deep dark sigh.
* * * * The urge to collect souvenirs is not perhaps the most admir- able of human desires. If exaggerated, it may lead tourists to snip pieces from the gown of the Chancellor of Oxford Univer- sity or to slide into their pockets cards bearing the words " No Smoking." But we must accept the fact that most visitors to 4 foreign country are assailed by the Wish to render their preschce less transitory, or to identify their passing selves with sites or objects of eternal beauty or historic significance. It is surely preferable that this zeal for identification should be assuaged by the purchase of some portable object than that the visitor should in his despair be forced to scribble or incise his name on columns or chairs. Today no man or woman of taste or good conduct would dream of coMmitting such an enormity; our ,ancestors however suffered from no such inhibitions. Lord Byron was not ashamed to write his illustrious name on the wall of Chillon's dungeon; and when at Sunium he cut so deep into the column of Poseidon's temple that his incisions can be seen to this day. I have often won- dered whether Byron did in fact carve that name upon the temple at Sunium. He was an impatient man, and his natural style was cursive rather than lapidary. I do not' believe that he would have had either the patience or the skill or indeed the necessary tools, wherewith to commit such an outrage. The dreadful idea has occurred to me that some touting stone- mason would lurk around the promontory and sidle up to tourists suggesting that, if they would but write their names in charcoal, he, with his chisel and mallet, would immortalise that name in stone. Lord Byron would climb down through the thyme and arbutus and swim in the Aegean; when he returned, there would be the mason grinning garlic at him and his name cut deeply into the marble.
Let us therefore have our souvenirs in order to mitigate this ugly and destructive lust. But let them be composed of objects that are portable and useful. And let the Council of Industrial Design, bland and insinuating as an air-liner hostess, do their very best to advise, to encourage and to warn. It will not be easy for them. The people who create such things and all too often obsessed by the fallacy that " cheap and nasty " means something devoid of decoration. I hope at least that they will avoid all reproduction's of the British crown. Unlike the crown of Ethiopia or Lichtenstein, unlike the tiaras of Persia and Afghanistan, it is an ungainly object; unsuited for souvenirs. a small bit of pumice-stone, with which, without either shame or success, they will to this day strive to remove from their fingers the vestiges of Biro. By far the best and most reward- ing of all souvenirs are seeds or plants. It is perfectly legitimate to pinch a few seeds of asphodel or even to bring home with one an olive-stone from the sacred orchard of Itea. To this day I cherish with delight a large mimosa nurtured from seed picked on the Elburz mountains as well as two poplars grown from tiny cuttings taken at Fez. I am not sug- gesting that those who visit England for the Coronation should be encouraged to snip cuttings from our shrubs. But I do think that firms might at least consider this the best of all 1 lines in souvenirs, 'and prepare little pots containing seedlings and special packages containing seed. It might be possible even, with the permission of the Board of Agriculture and. Fisheries, to give these foreign visitors acorns from historic' oaks, preserved at the proper state of maturity by freezing processes, and encased in pretty little thimble boxes suitably inscribed. Surely the visitor from Kansas City would prefer to have three acorns than an inkstand or a barometer ! Ash- trays, paper-cutters and pens are all valuable lines for experi- ment. The Italians make a speciality in souvenir ash-trays, inscribing them with little mottoes, such as l'imbecillita umana no ha limiti and others no less rude.
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