Martin Fone's Blog, page 69

Lost Word Of The Day (84)

There are many ways in which the impecunious try to scrape a living together, often preying on the gullible or seeking the compassion of the sympathetic along the way. In 16th century England one itinerant group of beggars were known as Demanders for glimmer. Thomas Harman was particularly down on any form of begging and in 1566 wrote a pamphlet called A Caveat for Common Cursetors, which sought to expose criminals and to warn the public of the threats posed by itinerants.

Naturally, demanders for glimmer made an appearance, described as “for the most parte wemen; for glymmar in their language is fyre. These goe with fayned lycences and counterfayted wrytings, having the hands and seals of suche gentlemen as dwelleth nere to the place where they feyne them selves to have bene burnt, and their goods consumed with fyre”. Glimmer was a cant word for fire and references to this form of begging continued until early into the next century.

Lost Word Of The Day (83)

Gambling and gamblers have been with us for millennia. A term for a gambler with pejorative connotations was cinquanter which owed its origins to the French numeral, cinque, one of the six to appear on the face of a dice. It first made its appearance, in print at least, in 1596 in Nashe’s Saffron Walden in which he wrote of “some tall old cinquanter or stigmatical-bearded Master of Arts”. In 1617 Collins in his Defence of Bishop Ely referred to “a sawcy Sinckanter” while in about 1640 Jackson in his Creed linked the term specifically to gaming when he wrote a description of Volanerius who was “an old sinkanter, or gamester and scurrilous companion by profession”.

However, almost contemporaneously cinquanter had assumed a second and perhaps more literal meaning, that of an old man or someone aged fifty, using the French word cinquante as its point of origin. Again, there is a sense of the pejorative in its use, Cotgrave, in 1611, describing someone as “a hoarse mouldichops, an over-worne sicaunter, one that can neither whinnie nor wag the taile.” Around 1624 Bishop Smith used it in a sermon declaring that something was “a very pleasing speech to some old Cinque-Caters” while Charles Cotton in Burlesque upon Burlesque (1675) wrote “take pity, prithee, upon a poor old Cinque and Quarter, he paid for playing the Creator”.

Whether used to denote a gambler or an old man, cinquanter was soon lost in the mists of time.

Strange Ending

A review of Strange Ending by E R Punshon – 231021

Never mind a Strange Ending this is a strange book and although a fan of Punshon’s Bobby Owen series is one that I found difficult to get into. This is the thirty-first in the series, originally published in 1953 and reissued by Dean Street Press, and displays some unusual features.

The story concerns the murder of Hugh Newton, although some of his clothing was marked with the initials H A, who was found in his flat, dressed in a chef’s cap and apron and with feathers stuffed down his throat. Unusually for a Bobby Owen story, the murder has taken place before the book begins, leaving the series sleuth to investigate what in modern parlance is known as a cold case. It means, structurally, the whole of the book is taken up with the investigation and police procedures and lacks some of the vibrancy of Punshon at his best. The lack of a Punshon set piece, usually the high point of a novel in terms of drama, also adds to the low key feel of the novel.

Cooking is a leitmotif of the book and allows Punshon to have a little fun at contrasting the adventurousness of emerging chefs and cookery instructors with the stolid fare that any true Englishman,, or at least members of its police force enjoy. There is a delicious moment when Owen and his faithful colleague, DC Ford, consider the horrors of garlic, which Bobby considers to be “something in the south of France, against the general effects of which the use of a gas-mask was desirable”. In a Britain that was still emerging from rationing, the idea of cooking with butter leaves Ford incredulous.

There is also a Biblical theme running through the book with characters with names such as Abel, Adams, Caine, and Jordan. The story, though, is more mundane, a tale of partially open doors, disappearing characters, and a gang of smugglers, who cleverly adapt a wartime technique of attaching limpets to boats to run goods, including a valuable consignment of Swiss watches, into the country and the consequences of their falling out, treachery and attempts to seek revenge. As usual there are a number of plausible suspects, eight or nine, if you include Owen’s failsafe, the unknown x, and Punshon does a good job in hiding their identity until right at the end, when a death bed confession, always unsatisfactory, I feel, following a botched operation reveals all.

What made the book for me were some of the characters who are entangled in the plot. Punshon is a more sympathetic portrayer of female characters than some of his characters and in this tale he cooks up three formidable women, Doreen the inflexible, the unpredictable and magnetic Imra, and the incongruous Mary Ellen. They are dramatic forces of nature and it is tempting to see them as a throw back to the Furies of Greek mythology. Add into the mix Olive, Bobby’s long suffering wife, whom he uses as a sounding board to recap what he has discovered, sift through the evidence collected to date, and to test out his theories, and you have an unusually strong female cast.    

For an experienced policeman, Bobby falls into a simple trap by Doreen and is forced to let one of his principal suspects, Kenneth Banner, go. This humiliation unleashes Owen’s vindictive streak, a characteristic which we rarely see.

On the male side the most interesting character is the soi-disant Enemy of the State, anarchist, journalist and fence, Jasper Jordan. A strong, dominant character, his appearance lights up the page, one of Punshon’s best creations. The strong characterisation and Punshon’s characteristic acerbic asides about the state of the country and his countrymen’s attitudes compensate for a plot that struck me as somewhat undercooked.

Byelaw Of The Week

The wobbly footbridge aka the Millennium  Footbridge, which links bankside with the City of London, has had a chequered history. Almost as soon as it had opened, it was closed to pedestrians almost as soon as it had opened on June 10, 2000, because of its alarming swaying motion. Over eighteen months later, after repairs to make it more stable, it was reopened to pedestrians. In mid-October this year (2023) it was closed again for three weeks to be cleaned and for the replacement of a layer of membrane on the structure.

The work triggered one of those arcane London byelaws that seem to have survived the passage of time, namely clause 36.2 of the Port of London Thames byelaws. It states “When the headroom of an arch or span of a bridge is reduced from its usual limits, but that arch or span is not closed to navigation, the person in control of the bridge must suspend from the centre of that arch or span by day a bundle of straw large enough to be conspicuous and by night a white light.”

As a result, a bale of straw was suspended from the bridge, a warning to river users and to the amusement and amazement of passers-by.

Murder Will Speak

A review of Murder Will Speak by J J Connington – 231019

Some contend that an average J J Connington murder mystery is superior to any of the output of many of his contemporaries and, by his standards, Murder Will Speak, originally published in 1938 and going by the alternative title of For Murder Will Speak, is distinctly average fare. It is the twelfth to feature his main series detective, Sir Clinton Driffield, and was written while Alfred Stewart, the distinguished Chemistry professor whose nom de plume Connington was, was dogged with ill health.

Perhaps the most interesting feature, at least for a reader who is looking at it from a distance of over eighty-five years is the medical theories surrounding the effect of malfunctioning glands on human behaviour and the cutting edge technology that was being developed to restore the balance. Doctor Malwood, whom Driffield meets at Mollie Keston’s wedding, the nexus that brings all the strands of the story together, has a machine, something akin to an X-ray machine which fires rays at the affected area, and it is clear, although he is bound by patient confidentiality, that someone at the wedding has had the cure. The identity of that person and the consequences of their aberrant behaviour becomes apparent as the story unfolds.

There are two deaths, both of which appear to be suicide. The first, of Mrs Telford, is, although I was not entirely clear how she bound her wrists, albeit loosely, before flinging herself into a lake. She is driven to this desperate act by a poison letter, one of a series of letters sent to various characters connected to the story, accusing her of immorality while temporarily deranged. While the author of the letters is not difficult to spot – there are only two suspects and one is highly implausible – the interest from this section of the tale is how the Post Office, then a highly organised and efficient organisation, set about trapping the culprit. This is Post Office territory, the investigation led by Duncannon, and Driffield can only stand by on the sidelines and offer helpful advice.

Mrs Telford’s suicide is linked to the second victim, Oswald Hyson, an embezzler and a lothario to boot, trapped in a loveless marriage to a devout Catholics who will not countenance divorce. The owner of his firm has just died and as auditors are about to descend upon the firm and discover that he has played fast and loose with its funds and their clients’ investments, he is found at home with his head in a gas oven. It looks like suicide, but Driffield is not convinced after discovering a bruise on his chin and on the back of his head.

Again there are only two plausible suspects. The title comes from Hamlet, Act scene 2. The full quotation is “for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ”, which in a mystery where an alibi is established through the 1930s craze of radio hams rather gives the game away. It is a murder driven by revenge and the culprit, who seems one of the more likeable characters in the book, evades the hangman’s noose thanks to a conveniently fatal motor accident.

Wendover, the “Squire”, and Driffield’s usual Dr Watson, acts as a bookend to Driffield’s investigation, appearing at Mollie Keston’s wedding and then at the end when Driffield regales him with the tale of the events that led to the deaths of Mrs Telford and Oswald Hyson. This means that the usual repartee between the two is missing and Driffield cuts a drier, less interesting persona which affects the tone of the book and strains the reader’s powers of endurance as they work their way through the longueurs of the investigations. Connington is nothing if not fair with his readers which means that the identities of the culprits are obvious even before the investigations are completed. Sometimes it is nice to have a rabbit pulled out of the hat.

Perhaps I am being over sensitive but there is more than a little misogyny in the portrayal of the women. They are either bad, deranged, or susceptible to the slightest of male blandishments. A sign of the times. Interesting enough but not Connington at his best.

Death Walks In Eastrepps

A review of Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding – 231016

Another new author of crime fiction although to use the term author is misleading as Francis Beeding is a nom de plume used by two writers, John Palmer and Hilary Saunders. Apparently, Palmer had always wanted to be called Francis and Saunders had once owned a house in the Sussex village of Beeding, hence the name. Under this guise they wrote thirty-two novels and one collection of short stories. Originally published in 1931, Death Walks in Eastrepps is an impressive and enthralling story, one fully deserving of the title of a true crime classic which for too long has fallen into obscurity.

There is something for everyone – six murder victims, a wrongful arrest, an egregious miscarriage of justice which is compounded by the rejection of an appeal leading to a hanging, and an enterprising local police sergeant by the name of Ruddock, who through a combination of initiative and being in the right place at the right time seems to solve a case which has left his superiors, including Inspector Wilkins of the Yard, baffled. So impressed are his superiors by his feat of bringing the Eastrepps Evil, as the papers had dubbed the serial killer, to justice that he is promoted to Superintendent and transferred to the Yard.

The opening chapter is a magnificent example of how to set up a murder mystery and the court scene, usually something that can be as dull as ditchwater, is masterful, impressing upon the reader the inescapable conclusion that the accused, Robert Eldridge, is the victim of circumstances over which he has little control.

It is difficult to have too much sympathy for Eldridge as he had committed under his real name, James Selby, a major fraud years before which had ruined many of his investors, some of whom lived in and were killed in Eastrepps. Fleeing the country before he could be apprehended, he rebuilt his life, assumed a new identity, and settled in Eastrepps where as Eldridge he is conducting a secret affair with a married woman, Margaret Withers. He goes to enormous lengths to cover his tracks, allowing himself time to see Margaret, but this proves his undoing as a Fleet Street reporter, Ferris, the sixth murder victim, spots him not only in Eastrepps but near the scene of a murder on the night of the murder. Further inquiries establish that Eldridge was not in London as his alibi suggested on the nights of the murders.        

The case for the defence rightly raises the point that for someone as clever as Eldridge was, both in carrying off a major fraud and constructing an elaborate alibi so that he could conduct his affair, should have made such elementary blunders as leaving a list of investors in his failed firm at the back of his desk and using a weapon that was part of his display of souvenirs from the First World War. These arguments do not find favour with the judge or jury, but leave the reader thinking that there is at least another rabbit lurking in Beeding’s enormous hat.

And there is. Diligent readers might have seen it coming but purists might argue that Bedding does not play entirely fairly with their readers and that the crucial clue is a visual one which a reader had no hope of spotting. Nevertheless, it makes for a dramatic ending that rounds a truly impressive novel.

Inspector Wilkins is a bit of a curiosity. He has little in the way of personality nor the sleuthing acumen that makes him stand out from the rest and falls too easily into the trap of arresting a convenient scapegoat who has mental issues. Bedding leaves us with the impression that he was a little uncomfortable with the arrest of Eldridge, but strangely was loathe to do anything about it. Perhaps he was a victim of the hysteria that enveloped the seaside town of Eastrepps and Bedding does a fine job in portraying a town so gripped by fears of a serial killer on the loose and so impatient with the police’s bumbling efforts that they organise their own vigilantes.

My takeaway from this fine book is that a typewriter will give you away as easily as your handwriting. Thank goodness for PCs! My only cavil is that the Kindle edition of this book is riddled with typos, so much so that it took me a while to realise that Dr was really er. Still, don’t let this put you off.

Gentleman’s Relish

Sometimes simplicity is best. Take hot, buttered toast. The joy that it can bring was wonderfully encapsulated in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), where a plate “piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb” sent Toad into ecstasy, evoking images “of warm kitchens, of breakfast on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings…”

For some of us buttered toast does not cut the mustard, lacking that oh so essential hit of umami bringing every taste bud and salivary gland to life that only an additional coating of the Gentleman’s Relish can provide. At first glance, it is not overly appealing, a sludgy brownish-grey paste with a pungent, overpowering fishy smell. Anchovies make up around 60% of its content, putting it firmly in the tradition of fermented fish sauces like garum, the ketchup of the Roman world.

Always judge a foodstuff by its taste, though, and once spread lightly over toast its surprisingly delicate, delicious, saline taste screams of sophistication. It was eaten by James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981), named as one of the ten foods that Nigella Lawson could not live without, and chosen as her one luxury item by the writer, Jessica Mitford, on Desert Island Discs in 1977.

The sight and smell of it, though, are too overwhelming for some while the anchovies and high sodium content puts it out of bounds for those following plant-based diets or with health conditions such as high blood pressure. To protect the unwary, the Gentleman’s Relish is kept under wraps, sealed under foil in a low, opaque, white, plastic, capstan-like container, adding to its mystique.

Opinion is divided as to when is the best time to eat it. Admiral Sir Sydney Smith, an early advocate of the Gentleman’s Relish, described it in a note as “the most delicious breakfast-table accompaniment” he had yet tasted. For Freya, in Poppy Alexander’s The 12 Days of Christmas (2021), the sight of pots of it in a delicatessen reminded her of afternoons sitting in the cosy cottage kitchen in front of the Aga with her mother, “having round after round of hot buttered toast with the salty, anchovy paste scraped sparingly on top of the pools of melted butter”.

However, the Gentleman’s Relish came into its own as an essential component of a 19th century dinner party. Consisting of course after course of rich foods, washed down with copious amounts of alcohol, so over-facing were they that by the time the sweet course had been cleared away, the palate of even the most experienced trencherman had been beaten into submission.

Served after the dessert and before coffee, the savoury course, usually a small, incredibly salty dish, was designed to shock the gastric juices into action and, because of its salinity, encourage the diners to slake their thirst once more. The Gentleman’s Relish was the ideal savoury dish being, as Mrs Beeton rather elegantly put it in her Book of Household Management (1861), “an excellent bonne bouche which enables gentlemen at wine-parties to enjoy their port with redoubled gusto”.

The Gentleman’s Relish was also a cooking ingredient, adding a hit of umami when mixed into the mince for a Shepherd’s Pie, used as a seasoning for stews, especially lamb, melted in with soft scrambled eggs or served with baked potatoes, potato cake, or croquettes. However, for sheer indulgence Scotch Woodcock takes some beating, toasted bread buttered with a layer of the Gentleman’s Relish, topped with buttery scrambled eggs and two anchovy fillets.

Lost Word Of The Day (82)

It is a long time since I have read any of the works of Sir Walter Scott but I would always have considered him an unlikely source of a Romany word but in Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Fortunes of Nigel (1826) we find one. Chury and its variant cheery was a Welsh Romany word for a knife, probably derived from the Hindi word chhuri.  

In the earlier novel he wrote “I have not forgot that you planked a chury, which helped me through the bars of the Castle of York”, while in Fortunes of Nigel we find “chalk him across the peepers with your cheery”. Scott’s use of a word of Romany origin astounded early critics, A McCormick noting in Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway (1906) that one leading critic, a Mr Groome, was moved to remark “where, by the bye, did Scott get chury, the only true Romany word in all his works?”

We will never know the answer but we can savour its presence.

Lost Word Of The Day (81)

‘Tis the season of coughs and sneezes and other dread diseases. Whilst inoculation can (perhaps) ward off the worst that viruses can throw at us, in times gone by the elderly and infirm were particularly concerned about contracting a churchyarder or a graveyarder, a contraction of a churchyard cough, so named because the persistent and awful cough was likely to lead to the sufferer’s death.

A description of the cough first appeared in print in Motteux’s 1696 translation of Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel; “both my gentleman had…a churchyard cough in the lungs, a catarrh in the throat”. Steel in The Funeral five years later observed, “I always said by his Church-yard-cough, you’d Bury him”.

The Chester Chronicle of May 9, 1800 reported the epitaph on a victim’s grave who had had a good innings before she succumbed. “To the memory of Kate Jones” it ran “a wealthy spinster, ag’d four-score, who’d many achs…knelling her friends to the grave with a churchyard cough. Long hung she on Death’s nose, till one March morn, there came a cold north east and blew her off”. Epitaphs aren’t what they used to be.

There are printed references to the persistent hacking cough in the records until just before the First World War.

I shall be on my guard for a graveyarder this winter.

Unnatural Death

A review of Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers – 231013

Ah, Lord Peter Wimsey! You either love him or hate him with his eccentric mannerisms. This is his third outing, originally published in 1927 and going by the alternative title of The Dawson Pedigree in the United States. Although a bit of a mixed bag, it is an enjoyable enough read.

At the crux of the case is something straight out of a Victorian melodrama, a change of legislation that imperils someone’s anticipated fortune and encourages them to embark upon a dangerous course of action. Two pieces of legislation, the Law of Property Act and the Administration of Estates Act, came into force on January 1, 1926, changing the rules relating to intestacy and introducing stricter criteria as to who would inherit in the event of a person dying without a rule. If there was no surviving relative who met the criteria, the estate would go to the Crown.

Mary Whittaker is the grand niece of the wealthy Miss Dawson and is her closest surviving relative, although under the new laws she would not meet the criteria for inheritance. Despite Mary’s best efforts, Miss Dawson steadfastly refuses to make a will and in late 1925 she dies. Although in poor health with terminal cancer, her physician, Dr Carr, is surprised how quickly she died and has ruined his reputation by zealously trying to prove that Miss Dawson’s death was unnatural. His lamentations over his lot are overheard by Wimsey and Inspector Parker who are intrigued enough to investigate further.

The book could be classified as a sort of inverted murder mystery as there is no doubt as to who it was who accelerated Miss Dawson’s appointment to meet her maker, but what takes up the majority of the story is the how and why. It takes a long time for the penny to drop as to the importance of the change in legislation and even longer to work how Miss Dawson was killed without leaving any trace that would be picked up by even the most exhaustive of post mortems. Nevertheless, after much deliberation and several wrong turnings, we finally get to the answer and while convincing, its simplicity leaves a bit of an anti-climax.

Two other people with too much knowledge are killed, Bertha Gotobed, a maid who was abruptly dismissed after a minor mishap, and Mary’s devoted companion, Vera Findlater, while Wimsey’s sleuth on the ground, Miss Climpson, almost suffers the same fate when she rumbles the secret of the mysterious Mrs Forrest.  

Miss Climpson is a fascinating character and she lights up the book. There is more than a little of Miss Silver and Miss Marples about her, an inoffensive woman who is able to ingratiate herself into a circle and through acute observation pick up many a valuable clue. Her handicap, along with her delightfully long-winded epistolary style, is her religious scruples and her torment over discovering a list prepared for a confessional which contains incriminating evidence almost leads to her undoing.

Mary Whittaker and Vera Findlater are clearly in a lesbian relationship, a daring enough theme to explore in a nascent genre. However, Sayers leaves the reader in no doubt that this aspect of her character is just another manifestation of Mary Whittaker’s evil character. There is no wokery to be found here. Having stoked up the anti-gay prejudice it is but a minor step to sprinkle more than a little dash of racism in with the treatment of the Rev Hallelujah Dawson, an impoverished remote relation of Miss Dawson from the wrong side of the bed, naturally.

A reflection of the times in which the book was written, for sure, but modern readers of a sensitive disposition should be aware. While there are some glorious moments in the book, it just seemed a little overlong to me and the central premise was a little too dry to get overly excited about.