The Chap Issue 116

THE FOLKLORE

EDITION

THE GREEN MAN IS A REBIRTH –HERE COMES SUMMER AGAIN AND NOTHING CAN QUELL THIS ESSENTIAL, FIERCE AND BEAUTIFUL DESIRE”

“

THE BURRYMAN

JAMES COSMO

PETER OWENJONES

THE WICKER MAN

VIVIAN STANSHALL

FOLK HORROR

Proper Chaps Carry Proper Bags.

“One’s personal portmanteau should be selected, both upon purchase and for each day’s tasks, with as much care and attention as one’s suit of clothes.”

Gustav Temple, CHAP Spring 22

Editor: Gustav Temple

Picture Editor: Theo Salter

Circulation Manager: Andy Perry

Art Director: Rachel Barker

Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark

Subscriptions Manager: Jen Rainnie

The editor of The Chap for the last 24 years is also the author of The Chap Manifesto, The Chap Almanac, Around the World in 80 Martinis (Fourth Estate), Cooking For Chaps and Drinking For Chaps (Kyle Books) and How To Be Chap (Gestalten). He is currently working on a book without ‘Chap’ in the title.

Chris Sullivan is The Chap’s Contributing Editor. He founded and ran Soho’s Wag Club for two decades and is a former GQ style editor who has written for Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He is now Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art on youth style cults. @cjp_sullivan

ACTUARIUS

Actuarius is an artist, essayist, photographer and journalist. A selfconfessed petrolhead, he mainly produces works based around his twin passions of Art Deco and mechanised transport, making the shortlist for the highly prestigious Guild of Motoring Writers Feature Writer of the Year in 2021.

HENRY

Dreamer, leech and inveterate sluggard, Henry oozed from his native Durham to Cambridgeshire, where he is raising funds for a Billy Bunter theme park. He campaigns tirelessly for the divine right of kings, the return of the knickerbocker, and to rename the United Kingdom ‘Merrie England & Friends’.

Ed Needham is the editor and publisher of Strong Words magazine, launched in 2018 to give book enthusiasts a fighting chance of keeping up with the blizzard of new titles, with reviews that don’t feel like homework. He was previously editor of FHM in its million-selling nineties heyday and managing editor of Rolling Stone in New York.

David Evans is a former lawyer and teacher who founded popular sartorial blog Grey Fox Blog twelve years ago. The blog has become very widely read by chaps all over the world, who seek advice on dressing properly and retaining an eye for style when entering, whatever the age. @greyfoxstyle

OLIVIER WOODESFARQUHARSON

Olivier Woodes-Farquharson is an adventurer, diplomat, voice actor and writer, although not always in that order. When not travelling to obscure places that may or may not exist, he is most likely to be found at Cheltenham Races – the best place to blood his latest tweed – or furiously foraging in the English countryside.

TORQUIL ARBUTHNOT

Torquil Arbuthnot is a scholar, acrobat and snake charmer educated at St Swithun’s preparatory school for nudists. He went on to read Occult Sciences at Balliol, Oxford, before being sent to Uganda as a missionary. He now resides in Hersham, Surrey, where he is writing a biography of Rudolph Nureyev.

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Ed Needham Subscriptions

SAM KNOWLES

By day Sam Knowles is a data storyteller; on summer Sundays he combines his passion for narrative and numbers on the cricket pitch. He is the co-refounder, scorer and match reporter for the Gentlemen of Lewes Cricket Club, whose exploits can be followed on Twitter @GoLCC_Lewes

Stephen has been a TV channel controller, author (his first novel was published last year), media/culture commentator, occasional lecturer, movie consultant/ sales broker and amateur antiquarian. A habitué of Soho’s Colony Club scene during his younger years, Arnell now resides in bucolic Bedfordshire.

Email chap@thechap.co.uk

Website www.thechap.co.uk

contact@webscribe.co.uk

Twitter @TheChapMag

Instagram @TheChapMag

Facebook/TheChapMagazine

DAVID EVANS

COCKBURN

CHRIS SULLIVAN GUSTAV TEMPLE

ED NEEDHAM

STEPHEN ARNELL

THE CHAP MANIFESTO

1 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances.

2 THOU SHALT NEVER NOT SMOKE. Health and Safety “executives” and jobsworth medical practitioners keep trying to convince us that smoking is bad for the lungs/heart/skin/eyebrows, but we all know that smoking a bent apple billiard full of rich Cavendish tobacco raises one’s general sense of well-being to levels unimaginable by the aforementioned spoilsports.

3 THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO THE LADIES. A gentleman is never truly seated on an omnibus or railway carriage: he is merely keeping the seat warm for when a lady might need it. Those who take offence at being offered a seat are not really Ladies.

4 THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, WEAR PANTALOONS DE NIMES. When you have progressed beyond fondling girls in the back seats of cinemas, you can stop wearing jeans.

5 THOU SHALT ALWAYS DOFF ONE’S HAT. Alright, so you own a couple of trilbies. Good for you - but it’s hardly going to change the world. Once you start actually lifting them off your head when greeting passers-by, then the revolution will really begin.

6 THOU SHALT NEVER FASTEN THE LOWEST BUTTON ON THY WAISTCOAT. Look, we don’t make the rules, we simply try to keep them going. This one dates back to Edward VII, sufficient reason in itself to observe it.

7 THOU SHALT ALWAYS SPEAK PROPERLY. It’s really quite simple: instead of saying “Yo, wassup?”, say “How do you do?”

8 THOU SHALT NEVER WEAR PLIMSOLLS WHEN NOT DOING SPORT. Nor even when doing sport. Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Except cricket.

9 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WORSHIP AT THE TROUSER PRESS. At the end of each day, your trousers should be placed in one of Mr. Corby’s magical contraptions, and by the next morning your creases will be so sharp that they will start a riot on the high street.

10 THOU SHALT CULTIVATE INTERESTING FACIAL HAIR. By interesting we mean moustaches, or beards with a moustache attached.

44 60 36

CONTENTS

8 AM I BOATER?

Readers submit photographs of themselves in their Straw Boater

12 CHAP ON THE WATER

Torquil Arbuthnot on the various ways in which a Chap might get his feet wet

16 ASK THE CHAP

‘Wisbeach’ ponders queries from readers on matters sartorial

FEATURES

22 INTERVIEW: JAMES COSMO

Gustav Temple meets the Braveheart actor who has launched his own whisky

30 CRYPTOZOOLOGY

Olivier Woodes-Farquharson on the animals from folklore that many believe are actually real

36 VIVIAN STANSHALL

Andrew Roberts recalls the ‘armoured and effete bold flag-bearer nestling in green nowhere’

SARTORIAL FEATURES

44 GRAND FLANEUR WALK

The third saunter sans purpose captured in full flan by Soulstealer Photography

57 STRAW TOGS

Stephen Arnell discovers the multiple appearances by the straw boater in cinema

60 GEOFF STOCKER

Gustav Temple takes a box of Geoff Stocker’s ladies’ headscarves to Eastbourne Pier with Ruby Demure

70 GREY FOX COLUMN

David Evans discovers a treasure trove of fairy paintings by an artist who deserves more recognition

CHAP LIFE

76 PETER OWEN-JONES

Gustav Temple meets the Anglican vicar who proselytizes from a neo-pagan pulpit in Firle

90 HOW TO FORM A CULT

Henry Cockburn advises Chaps who seek absolute devotion from the general public on how to entice them

94 THE BURRYMAN

The curious spectacle bedecked in leaves, flowers and sticky burrs that walks the streets of Queensferry

FOOD & DRINK

100 DRINKING FOLKLORE

The stories, myths and legends associated with alcoholic beverages and the drinks that inspired them

106 RESTAURANT REVIEW

Alexander Larman and Gustav Temple dine at City eaterie the Don, assisted by gallons of Sandeman’s Port

MOTORING

114 ROYAL AUTOS

Actuarius gets behind the wheel of an Aston Martin to investigate the automobiles favoured by the royal family

121 WOLSELEY POLICE CARS

Owner of an original Wolseley police car Andrew Roberts looks at the iconic vehicle in British cinema

REVIEWS

130 BOOK REVIEWS

Ed Needham reviews books on Polari, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Karen Carpenter and the Wicker Man

136 CRICKET

Sam Knowles investigates humour in cricket via a new book

140 FILM: FOLK HORROR

Stephen Arnell reviews the ‘Unholy Trinity’ of The Wicker Man, The Blood on Satan’s Claw and Witchfinder General

148 MUSIC: SLIM GAILLARD

Chris Sullivan recalls the bluesman who invented a whole new language for hep cats

157 WITCHCRAFT MUSEUM

The museum in Cornwall that houses the UK’s finest collection of magical artefacts

162 LEAGUE OF THE LEXICON

A new word game for chaps

Cover photo: David Risley by Catherine Gregson-Bourke

“Here is a photograph of myself with the requested headwear, although far away from any boat,” writes Michael Schwarz, from Gruenwald-Bavaria. “Instead I was actually watching my children hunting for Easter eggs. Please keep up with your wonderful work! Your magazine lightens up my days, not only when I have the pleasure of reading in it but also even when only thinking of it.”

Herr Schwarz, at least you have a deckchair in your garden, so you can dream of being near the water if not actually with your toes in it. We can only assume that your children were also wearing straw boaters while hunting for eggs, and it is admirable that you found the most idle way of carrying out this parental duty.

“Following my submission for the last issue of my Homburg from Hamburg,” writes Andrew Parsons, “I thought I would submit an image of one of my straw boaters. When I’m not planting microfiche in toilet cisterns, I like nothing more than to spend time in my garden wearing my Boater and pointing randomly at things that really do not warrant the effort of being pointed at with a cane. An ideal complementary activity for any flaneuring and I heartily recommend it to any chap that may be wandering around Jermyn Street on a certain Sunday in May...”

Sir, members of our judging panel nodded at each other quietly when they saw the whangee brolly handle in your previous submission. This time there were biscuit crumbs all over the table when they saw the exquisite array of habiliments you had assembled around a straw boater, with the traditional black band at a rather rakish width. Well done, sir.

THIS ISSUE’S FEATURED ITEM OF HEADWEAR IS THE STRAW BOATER; READERS IN POSSESSION OF ONE WERE INVITED TO PLACE IT ON THEIR HEADS AND SEND US PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

“Am I boater? I certainly am sir,” writes Gary Horsfield, “in fact in my home town of Barnsley I am known as The Barnsley Beer Boater!” Sir, would not a more apposite epithet be ‘The man who mistook his shirt for a boating blazer’?

Soho George accompanied his submission with the pithy one-liner, “Jolly good boating weather in Cambridge with Soho George.”

The weather must indeed have been so jolly good to have necessitated the removal of one’s jacket, sir, but the op art tie and wide black boater band compensate for this sartorial anomaly.

“I read with interest your recent request for submissions of Chaps wearing Boaters,” writes Frank Annable. “Please find attached two photos, which the discerning committee at CHAP HQ will no doubt deem unworthy. One can only fantasise of being included within the pages of such a high class periodical.”

Sir, your humility is touching yet unnecessary. By going to all the trouble of acquiring a hat band that matches your club blazer, not to mention matching deckchairs, you have placed yourself more than a cut above some of the submissions on subsequent pages.

“The Three Boaters at Ramsey 1940s weekend last year,” writes Steve Jenkins, “from Wayne, Steve and Tony.” They serve Pimm’s of a rather peculiar hue in Ramsey, don’t they, and the bar is clearly low on glassware. Clearly, though, Chinos-R-Us in Ramsey did alright that weekend.

Mark Cookman’s photograph was accompanied by the brief missive, “Boaters - not sure this counts!”

Mr. Annable (previous page), please take note: this is what the so-called discerning committee at CHAP HQ has to deal with on occasion. Whether the item on Mr. Cookman’s head counts as a boater is of less concern than whether it counts as a hat at all, and was most likely fashioned in haste from the bale of straw in the background. We have also made it quite clear in the past where we stand on shirts with breast pockets, sir.

Rob Langham has either got a very peculiarly shaped head, an unfeasibly large brain, or a boater in the wrong size.

“As a recent fellow of St Anthony's College Oxford,” writes Giovanni D'Arco, “I took the opportunity of my stay in the City of Dreaming Spires to row for the college, with admittedly mixed success. I would therefore assert that this was not just a boater worn but a boater earned.” Only a gentleman of Italian origin would get everything so damn right that it is almost wrong. However, who can argue with a perfectly tied selftying bow tie?

Paul ‘Hoggers’ Hogben is another egghead who is yet to find a boater in the right size, though we do admire his determination to sit outside, even though it is cold enough for a Fair Isle sweater.

“Please find the attached old photo,” writes Nick Green, “from when I was visiting Buckingham Palace on an extremely hot Summer’s day. I happened to be working for the treasurer of the Royal Warrant holders at the time.”

Sir, I believe there are many purveyors of neckties, pocket squares and cravats, not to mention proper shirts, who hold Royal Warrants, yet you chose not to sample any of their products during your visit to the Palace?

Austin Roberts’ father, before we requested boater pictures, sent us this photo with the following missive:

“My son Austin is seven years old and is obsessed with all things 1900s to 1960s. For his birthday he asked for a 3 piece, tweed suit, brown brogues, matching tie and a flat cap. I often catch him looking through my Chap magazine, looking at all the clothes and asking if they have them in his size. He loves anything from the past (olden days, as he calls them). He listens to Swing music and has taken up tap dancing classes so he can dance like Sammy Davis Jr. I think he is an all round great little Chap and would love to see himself in the pages of your magazine.”

Sir, hopefully young Austin heralds a brighter sartorial future, which all the gentlemen pictured above have strewn with promise.

Chap on the Water

Torquil Arbuthnot looks at the various ways a chap may acquire his sea legs, from messing about in boats to sailing the ocean wide

Whether it is because we are an island nation or whether, in the words of the Water Rat in The Wind in the Willows, we just enjoy ‘messing about in boats’, the British have always been aficionados of the life aquatic. The following guide will help the discerning Chap, perhaps with a dash of Viking blood in his veins, who is considering ‘getting his feet wet’.

“Sadly, the modern pirate is not, as one might hope, eye-patched, tricorned, peg-legged and poring over parchment maps with a ‘X’ to indicate where the treasure is buried”

The Rowing Hearty

At school one is either a ‘dry bob’ or a ‘wet bob’. The former eschews any form of physical exercise by wiling away the summer chewing a grass stalk while fielding at Deep Fine Leg. This gruelling training is fuelled by a diet of shepherd’s pies, Dundee cake and copious pints of English ale. The ultimate aim of all this exertion is to cram one’s way into Oxbridge and take part in the Boat Race. Upon leaving the ’varsity, this hearty will never take up the oars again but will become a fixture at Henley Regatta, where he will consume jug upon jug of Pimm’s, while wearing a heliotropically-striped blazer and reliving every stroke of his boat’s heroic 1948 win over St Cuthbert’s.

The Jolly Jack Tar

The Royal Navy is traditionally the destination of second sons of the nobility. This entails being sent to the Naval College at Dartmouth at the age of eight as a cadet and being instructed in the intricacies of seamanship, picking weevils out of biscuits and the wielding of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Unfortunately, the Navy has shrunk to such a size that the naval officer will spend most of his time not at sea but in some underground bunker in Portsmouth fiddling with computer screens. Still, the uniform remains magnificent and the gins satisfactorily pink. The more intrepid can always volunteer for the Special Boat Service, where they spend all their time rubbing burnt cork on their faces, riding midget submarines and affixing limpet mines to Russian warships.

The Weekend Sailor

To hear the weekend sailor talk, one would imagine he spends his Saturdays lashed to the wheel while battling a fierce backing gale in the Bay of Biscay. In reality his glorified dinghy (called something like ‘Stormwarrior’ or ‘Dauntless’) rarely leaves sight of Clacton pier and he gets seasick in a light breeze. But he will dress the part, in sou’wester hat, clay pipe, sea boots and oilskins and a fake tattoo of an anchor. He is a shameless liar and is to be found propping up the bar in the local sailing club with a rum-and-coke, regaling people with tall tales of the time he sailed single-handedly to the Galapagos and back with a broken arm and a touch of scurvy. He can bore for England on the subject of spinnaker poles and belaying pins.

The Motorboatman

His idea of a fun day out is to roar up and down a quiet river in a ghastly be-chromed speedboat, preferably towing behind a dolly-bird on water-skis. He will hint that he is ex-Royal Marines or that he spent time on a whaler, but he is actually an estate agent from Cheam. If over forty he will wear a double-breasted blazer with the badge of some mythical yacht club and a fancy-dress peaked cap with an anchor on it. If under forty he will dress in wetsuit with a knife strapped to his calf, as if about to do battle with a giant squid. His only saving grace is that his motorboat irritates ‘wild swimmers’. One afternoon, after too much Waitrose cava, he will take a curve of the river too fast, be thrown from his boat and decapitated by his own propellor.

The Pirate

Sadly, the modern pirate is not, as one might hope, eye-patched, tricorned, peg-legged and poring over parchment maps with a ‘X’ to indicate where the treasure is buried. They are modern with all the horror that this entails, favouring the AK47 over the cutlass, the capturing of oil tankers over the Spanish treasure-galleon, and the chewing of khat over the bottle o’ rum. A profession usually chosen

by disgraced sons of the gentry, privateering offers agreeable working hours and good prospects of remuneration (‘bounty’). If one does it right, it can still be seen as honourable to run away to sea to become the cabin boy to Blackhearted Bartholomew, the Scourge of the English Channel. It also offers suitable excuses for facial hair: flamboyant handlebar moustaches, mighty muttonchops for particularly brutal pirates, and a beard threaded with lighted gunpowder-spills for the more energetic. Appearing clean-shaven is only acceptable if one is sporting gruesome smallpox scars.

The Angler

Although most anglers are to be found with a cheese sandwich and crate of brown ale, placidly contemplating their bobbing float from the banks of the local reservoir, the more intrepid will actually take to the waters. The vessel of choice is usually a battered rowing boat or a leaky punt with a picnic hamper amidships. Very few fish are actually caught, as the main purpose of angling is to escape the wife and her list of DIY chores that need doing. While becalmed on the Solent, the angler can doze off and dream he is Mr. Ernest Hemingway battling a marlin off the coast of Cuba. Upon his return to shore, the angler will have nothing in his creel, so will stop off at the local fish and chip emporium for a ha’pworth of cod and chips. n

the Chap...

By Wisbeach

An advice column in which readers are invited to pose pertinent questions on sartorial and etiquette matters, and even those of a romantic nature. Send your questions to wisbeach@thechap.co.uk

Oliver Kenny: I have a few decent two-piece suits but I am starting a job and my boss insists on a three-piece. Is it acceptable to add an odd blazer? I can get the jacket let out slightly to accommodate for the extra layer underneath.

Wisbeach: Sir, I presume you mean an odd waistcoat rather than a blazer, which would look very peculiar indeed underneath a two-piece suit. But yes, a waistcoat in a different colour, and even fabric, can perfectly well be worn with a two-piece suit. In fact, one would go so far as to say that it looks even better than wearing the matching waistcoat. Might I suggest that, if the suit is of tweed, then a moleskin waistcoat in a contrasting colour such as red, green or burgundy brings out the colour of the tweed nicely. However, beware, sir: if the suit is of a dark colour or black, then do not add colour to this. A dove-grey waistcoat can work wonders under a black suit, as long as you balance it out with a brightly coloured tie and pocket square, to ensure that no-one thinks you are mistakenly wearing morning dress.

Montague ‘Chaps’ Gristle: On what occasion, or occasions can a Chap wear ‘Bovver’ boots?

Wisbeach: How delightful to hear from you again, sir! The simple answer to your pertinent query is this: when there is trouble afoot. For example, if one is forced to step on the pavement in between exiting one’s cab and entering one’s club, and there is a discarded fast food wrapper into which one may accidentally lay the sole of one’s bespoke Oxfords.

Grant Jukes: While taking afternoon tea with the memsahib, in what I thought was an upmarket establishment (although having a reputation involving a government minister and a model, I should have known better), I was affronted by a fellow wearing head attire favoured by our transatlantic cousins. The sight completely upset my digestion! If finding myself in such a situation again, how should I react?

Wisbeach: I presume by ‘head attire favoured by our transatlantic cousins’ you mean what is colloquially known as a baseball cap, sir? In which case it is your duty as a chap to whip out the spare trilby in your portmanteau and offer it to the unfortunately titfered individual. When he catches sight of himself in the glass, looking a thousand

times more debonair than previously, I can virtually guarantee that he will hurl his baseball cap into the nearest dustbin and thank you. If he doesn’t react in such a favourable manner, you may need to put on your ‘bovver boots’ (see above). ...

Montague ‘Chaps’ Gristle: My 16-year-old nephew Pelham has chosen his A-level subjects at Cheam Academy. They are Social Engineering, Propaganda and Networking. To include these new courses, the Headmaster, Vespasian Thurrock, has excluded English, History and Economics. With these qualifications, in what sort of employment is Pelham likely to find employment?

Wisbeach: With a name like Vespasian Thurrock, sir, Pelham’s headmaster can do as he damn well pleases. However, as to your nephew’s employment potential, he should easily find gainful employment as a ‘barista’ at a chain of Americanstyle coffee shops.

Rob Case @streetlifecatwalk

Mark Young: This week, under your sartorial influence, I purchased my very first cravat. I’m led to wonder that, if the Americans call it an Ascot, what item of their clothing could we name after an event?

Wisbeach: Sir, you are quite correct in observing that the Ascot is named after the British race meeting. As to your question, what could be more American

than the button-down shirt? Despite claims that it was actually invented by British polo players in the 19th century, it was American shirtmaker John Brooks who truly refined it into a fashion item for mass consumption. So my suggestion is that we rename the button-down gentleman’s shirt the ‘Polo Shirt’. I fail to see who could possibly object, sir. n

JAMES COSMO

“Robert Burns was a wonderful raconteur; his personality just drew people to him. There are stories of when he went on a tour of the Highlands, and if he was staying at a pub or someone’s house, they’d put a sheet on the roof to let people know that Burns was there. And they would just come to listen to him talk”

Annandale Distillery dates back to 1838, when it was a Johnnie Walker distillery, dismantled in 1924 after WWI. Until 2007 it was used as storage by a local farmer. Under new ownership, it took seven years and £20m to get it back up and running to produce whisky. Now Annandale is among the few distilleries to produce both peated and unpeated whisky on site. Man O’Sword, named after Robert the Bruce, 7th Laird of Annandale, is

their peated whisky, while their unpeated Man O’Words is named after national folk hero Robert Burns.

Enter James Cosmo, star of stage and screen and the most Scottish actor you are likely to find –he was in Braveheart, Highlander and more recently The Outlaw King. Cosmo has collaborated with Annandale to produce a blended whisky called the Storyman, and he met Gustav Temple to tell us all about it.

Gustav Temple sips a dram of The Storyman with actor James Cosmo, to reflect on the Highland highlights of his film career, why he’s launched a new whisky and why England doesn’t have a national poet’s day

Tell us about The Storyman. We’ve been told that it’s a blended whisky with a bit of a story. So what’s the story?

About four years ago, I was in a film called The Outlaw King, based on Robert the Bruce’s life. Because of the Robert the Bruce connection with this area, they wanted to produce a whisky called Outlaw King, to go with Annandale’s existing Man O’Sword whisky. We had a few meetings but that didn’t work out for whatever reason. But I met Professor David Thomson and all the guys here on that day. My business partner and I, Andy, had the idea of how lovely it would be to have a bottle of whisky that was ours, which we could hand out to friends and family.

On New Year’s Day, I’d spoken to Andy in the morning to wish him a happy new year and he left a message with Annandale. David Thomson lifted the phone and they spoke for an hour, and we realised that this could be something more than just a personal giveaway. It started to really roll. David’s market research company got involved and

the wonderful Keith Law here was brought in to actually deliver the whisky itself.

Can you describe what it tastes like?

We got it down to four different blends, each very subtly different. I was given the honour of choosing the blend we actually went for. I wanted a distinguished flavour with lots of undertones, a real sipping by the fire whisky to savour. That was delivered in aces, I would say; it’s a magnificent blend!

Where do you stand on ice with single malt or premium blended whisky?

I’d never put ice in it. I put a wee touch of water, just to release some of the flavours.

[Keith Law, master blender, chips in]: We call it a blip, just a wee touch of water. Ice will close the whisky down, unless you use a fancy Japanese stone ice ball to loosen the flavours. My preferred serving is room temperature with a blip of water, but everyone needs to find their preferred serving.

James and Annandale co-owner David Thomson

If you want to enjoy this whisky, I would recommend adding just a wee bit of water.

The Annandale Distillery is on the site of a former Johnnie Walker distillery. Many distillers I’ve spoken to always cite Johnnie Walker Black Label as their favourite blended whisky.

The late Christopher Hitchens once said that Johnnie Walker Black Label is the best breakfast known to man. But he was a bit of a bad boy… Black Label is a perfectly fine blend, but Storyman is in a different league.

Why the name Storyman?

I’ve been an actor for nearly 60 years, so I’ve been telling stories all my life.

You are well known to be a big admirer of Robert Burns. Which poem by Robert Burns would best accompany a dram of Storyman? Obviously Tam O’Shanter is the one that springs to

mind. Burns was so prolific and so many of his works are so profound, like The Twa Dogs and Address to the Unco Guid; the list goes on and on. To sit with a volume of Burns’ poems and a dram of The Storyman would make a delightful evening.

Yet wasn’t Burns originally an excise man, whose job was to shut down illegal whisky stills?

Yes, that was one of his jobs. I don’t know how proficient he was at that. Considering he had worked on the land for many years, on a very stony, tough piece of ground, he was a horny-handed ploughman poet. After that he would have jumped at any job to make money that was slightly easier.

So he didn’t start out anti-whisky; it was just the only job that was available?

Oh no, anything but! He was a wonderful raconteur; his personality just drew people to him. There are stories of when he went on a tour of the Highlands, and if he was staying at a pub or

James gets ready to generate more stories

someone’s house, they’d put a sheet on the roof to let people know that Burns was there. And they would just come to listen to him talk. My father told me that he’d read in some old tome that there was an old shepherd who had gone to see Rabbie Burns, and he gave a very good description of him. He described him as a strongly built man; he wasn’t any waif-like character. He had strong hands, big shoulders; he said he was a fine looking man. But it was his eyes that most struck this shepherd. You just couldn’t take your eyes away from them. His eyes had such empathy and love in them. He was that extraordinary to meet. You would look at him and just be enthralled to be in his company.

because Burns had that extraordinary ability to speak from the heart to whoever he met. Abraham Lincoln was a huge fan of Burns and would recite him at the drop of a hat, and always kept a volume of his poetry in his pocket.

Did Lincoln like whisky as well, or would he have been more of a bourbon man? Keith would know, but presumably the whole distillation business would have come over from Scotland.

Keith Law: There would have been the local brews, but there was also lots of transport across the Atlantic. A lot of immigration would have ensured both Irish and Scotch whisky coming in, as well as the distillation processes they used. They would have applied that knowledge to processes using the local grains like rye, due to there being much less barley, so they would have developed their own styles using the same distillation process.

Have you done much Shakespeare yourself, for example the title role in the Scottish play?

I have studiously avoided Shakespeare because I know that I’d be absolutely awful at it, and I’m far too old to start now, apart from playing King Lear. As I said to my agent, I don’t do shouting at night any more. One of the few advantages of getting older is that people don’t expect you to jump around too much. So I do a lot of armchair acting, which suits me down to the ground. As long as I can do a couple of hours work in the afternoon, then they let me go, I’m very happy!

We’re quite envious down here in England, because we haven’t got a Burns Night, or a Bloomsday, or an anyone day. If we did have, who should it be? I know Shakespeare is the obvious choice, but I don’t think of him as specifically English in the way that Burns is Scottish. He’s almost an international figure. So who should be celebrated on our Poet’s Day?

That’s a really difficult one. You’re absolutely right that Burns is so profoundly Scottish, yet has utterly international appeal. Everywhere you go, everyone knows Robert Burns. I think only Queen Victoria has more statues around the world than him,

You look like you’re in good shape. Could you still take on one of the hard man roles you’re well known for?

I keep battling father time but he’s wearing me down. I find keeping as active as possible, and even a bit more active than you should be, is very helpful. So I keep shooting and fishing to keep myself busy.

How much time do you spend fishing each year?

Fly fishing is one of those things that, as an actor, you dream of getting back to when you’re away working. So I maybe fish 20 or 30 times a year, but

“It just so happened that Brendan Gleeson and I were making two different films on the same island, Achill Island in County Mayo. And so he came over to my trailer for a cup of tea and some soda bread I’d made. It was lovely, as we’d not seen each other more than a couple of times since Braveheart”

they are very special days for me. If you could do it every day it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Is it something you only do in Scotland or does it travel?

I’ve fly fished all over the world. Australia, New Zealand, America. I’m going over later this year to my friends in Washington State to fish for steelhead. There’s a great brotherhood of fly fishermen. But I do most of my fishing on the river Avon. I’m the honorary colonel of the 7 Scots (51st Highland Volunteers), so I’m allowed to fish on their beat of the River Avon, which is a beautiful chalk stream. I feel very privileged to fish there.

If you were to name your favourite place in the world for fly fishing, where would it be? It would be fly fishing for steelhead on the Rogue River, Oregon. It really is a rogue; a big, wild, running river with fabulous fishing. Steelhead are sea run trouts that come back between five and 18 pounds, big strong fish. They put up a fabulous fight. They don’t taste nice but I don’t

eat them anyway, I put them all back. These days you have to. You’ve got to put all the salmon back in Scotland. The rivers all over the world, but especially in the UK, are under huge pressure. It would be a tragedy if we lose that heritage of the great salmon rivers, if we don’t do something.

We’re going to have to mention Braveheart. You starred in it with Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox. Did it have the same effect on all your careers, as in putting you all on the map?

Braveheart made a huge difference to all our careers. It was a huge opportunity for Brendan, which he made the very best of, while Brian was already an acknowledged actor before that. But yes, it was an enormous project that I was lucky enough to be a part of, and it certainly changed my career.

I heard that quite recently you bumped into Brendan Gleeson during filming?

I was making a film called My Sailor, My Love and Brendan was making The Banshees of Inisherin. This time, instead of Brendan playing a Scotsman in

James with piper Craig Irvine at Annan Londsdale Cinema

Braveheart, I was playing an Irishman in this film. It just so happened that we were making both films on the same island, Achill Island in County Mayo. And so he came over for a cup of tea and some soda bread I’d made. It was lovely, as we’d not seen each other more than a couple of times since Braveheart.

As well as Braveheart, you’ve been in several other films with a Scottish setting, such as Highlander and the remake of Whisky Galore. Would you ever turn down a role in a film set in Scotland?

Those films were all fun to make, although I was a bit nervous about a remake of Whisky Galore. A great friend of mine, Peter McDougal, had written the script and the director was a friend of mine, so I felt obliged to be there. But the original Whisky Galore I thought was a delightful film and it’s always a big ask to remake a great movie.

Remakes are often terrible. Have you seen the remake of The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage? In a sense I suppose the original is a Scottish film?

Kind of, I suppose. I think the original Wicker Man has a special place in people’s memories.

They call it the Citizen Kane of horror films. [Laughs] That sounds about right!

So what is your ultimate ambition for the Storyman?

Ultimately I’d like us to consolidate it in the blended whisky marketplace – unusual as it is, personally I prefer a blended – and I wanted The Storyman to sit in that area where it’s not just, ‘Let’s get a bottle of whisky and, oh my God, do you see how much this costs? It’s just going to sit in that place where, if you want something special to drink, something really nice, then you know you can give a dram to everyone in the room, and they’re all going to love it.

A lot of non-whisky drinkers really struggle with the peatier single malts, don’t they? Well yes, and I am one of them. That whole peaty, smoky thing can so easily take over anything else in the flavour, but The Storyman definitely doesn’t. n

Tasting Notes

The Storyman ABV 46% 70cl £55

The Storyman blend features various vintages and spirit types from Annandale aged in a mixture of fresh and refill bourbon casks, and Burgundy STR casks. Around 75% of the whisky is made up of Annandale malts and the rest is grain from an undisclosed source.

On the nose we have strong flavours of creamy caramel and toffee, with a burst of fire, as if we are suddenly sitting around a campfire in the Scottish Highlands. Black pepper also joins the conversation.

On the palate, the first thing to notice is the lack of peat, or rather the merest hint of peat. Fruity notes enter, but nothing fancy or exotic – apples, pears and a hint of citrus.

The finish produces, along with a tangy warmth, notes of rich creamy vanilla, followed by the odour of woodsmoke as the campfire crackles. Overall it’s a fine, heartwarming blend, easily holding its own alongside single malts.

SHY BEASTS

Aquick survey question for you: which of the following animal names would you take even remotely seriously: The Mugwump; The Ozark Howler; The

Mongolian Death Worm?

The correct answer, I hope, is none of them. These are creatures of folklore which many locals want to believe exist but about which we have absolutely no scientific evidence. They are known as Cryptids, and there is a whole culture of cryptozoologists around the world who devote considerable time and money in trying to prove that these beasts are not just figments of our fertile and collective imaginations, passed down the generations via oral tradition since prehistory, but actual proper flesh and blood.

“The okapi, looking for all the world like an awkward cross between a giraffe and a zebra, was thought only to be found in the fertile imaginations of local people in central Africa ... until live specimens were found in 1901, haunting the jungles of the Congo basin. Odd looking, yes, but very real”

A surprisingly large number of people around the world devote their time, money and energies looking for animals from folklore that almost certainly don’t exist. How very odd, mulls Olivier Woodes-Farquharson

ILLUSTRATION: MARK ELLENDER

Arguably, in each of the inhabited continents, there is a flagship cryptid ‘species’ that has transcended that world and seeped into wider consciousness. In Europe, the Loch Ness Monster hogs the limelight, and more on that later. In Asia and North America, we have all heard of the Yeti and Bigfoot respectively – which folklore suggests are hairy, outsized hominids living in remote, sparsely populated regions; in Africa, it’s MokeleMbembe, who may (or may not) be a Congolese water monster like Nessie; Latin America has the fearsome and much more recent Chupacabra (‘goatsucker’) supposedly hiding in its land; and Australia has the Bunyip, wrapped into Aboriginal mythology and a pretty hideous swamp-dweller, if the imaginative artwork is anything to go by.

Cryptozoologists’ overall success in uncovering weird new creatures could only very charitably be called ‘mixed’. Conspicuously, in this era of smartphone cameras and so many of the younger generation obsessively photographing and sharing everything from their breakfast to their genitalia, not a single clear image or video has materialised revealing one of these legendary beasts. In their defence, the Cryptozoologists

would doubtless point to cases in the past where the ‘mythical’ creature was proven to exist. The classic is the okapi, looking for all the world like an awkward cross between a giraffe and a zebra, and thought to be only found in the fertile imaginations of local people in central Africa ... until live specimens were found in 1901, haunting the jungles of the Congo basin. Odd looking, yes, but very real.

All very well, but 1901 was a long time ago. Much as we would love some of these other mysterious brutes to exist and transcend their mythological roots, we surely have to accept that the vast majority (at the very least) belong uniquely to the realm of folklore. Further, I shall rather provocatively – but very confidently – say this: there is absolutely no Loch Ness Monster. With passing apologies to the Scottish Tourist Board, when you actually do some level-headed research, the answer is actually right in front of you. A local amateur journalist and water bailiff, Alex Campbell, happened to cover the first ‘sighting’ of modern times, in 1933, conveniently just when the local railway extension had reached the area and needed publicising. The witness

Watch out! It’s a Mongolian Death Worm

herself, Aldie Mackay, innocently thought she had seen a huge fish or whale in the loch, which Campbell cheekily turned into a ‘monster’ in his write-up.

And Campbell himself, having never hitherto had a personal sighting, incredibly went on to have eighteen of them in subsequent years, giving huge impetus to the myth … not to mention the local tourist trade, where he had vested interests. Yet through extraordinary coincidence, he happened to be alone every time he saw it, and never managed to have his Box Brownie camera handy. But the bird had flown and Nessie-mania was going nowhere – perhaps to Campbell’s quiet embarrassment. It’s a shame, in a way, because tourists tend not to pay much attention to the stunning and very real scenery of that part of the Highlands, focussing instead on the deep, murky lake and the very unreal beast within it.

I’ll confess that I display little patience with anyone who spends their precious free time trying to prove the existence of such creatures as Steller’s Sea Ape, The Brosno Dragon or the Honey Island Swamp Monster (yes, these are all a thing). Yet there is a particularly striking cryptid in Africa

that gives us an insight into how folklore, fashion and cryptozoology become intertwined, and that is Mokele-Mbembe. This creature, usually imagined as being a large Congo River dweller, was first described to a western audience in the early 20th century when the relatively new world of studying dinosaur fossils was all the rage. No matter how much the local people chose to describe the beast at the time, it always morphed into a Brontosaurus-lookalike in Western consciousness and representations.

There was, to be fair, no one single image that the local folk presented when asked to describe it; indeed, some of them were clear in their minds that it was more of a spirit animal that shaped local folkloric traditions. But a fascinating insight was garnered by a BBC film crew when filming the excellent natural history documentary series Congo in 2000. Having developed a relationship with some men from the much-loved Bi-Aka people – whose heritage is woven into the very fabric of the rainforest – the crew asked them, on a whim, to leaf through an illustrated wildlife reference book. The Bi-Aka men crowded round, nodding their heads in recognition as each

It’s behind you, gentlemen - The Congo River’s Mokele-Mbembe

photo passed…until suddenly they all pointed and said ‘Mokele-Mbembe!’

It was a picture of a rhinoceros, so familiar to us as a beast of the open plains, but unknown to them as forest dwellers with no televisions. It rather hammers home the fact that, in many cases, a cryptid can be anything you want it to be. Yet this doesn’t stop expeditions to this day going out to the remoter areas of the Congo basin to try to find something – anything – that can be passed off as Mokele Mbembe.

Universities researching the phenomenon explain it straightforwardly: many people quite simply just want to believe. As one psychology professor from Missouri Western State University said, “The human brain is always trying to determine why things happen, and when the reason is not clear, we tend to make up some pretty bizarre explanations.” And, perhaps surprisingly, it seems that neither religious belief nor overall education is a clear determinant of who believes and who does not. Intriguingly, those who attend church frequently are in fact shown to be less likely to believe in folkloric beasts, perhaps because they are being encouraged to put all their faith into just one supernatural deity. Equally, someone with a PhD, is no more or less likely to believe in Bigfoot than an early school leaver. That other old hoary beast – money – is also a big factor here. A highly publicized case in the US a decade ago spelt this out abundantly. Three men from the Pacific Northwest held a press conference to say, without any hint of irony, that they had the remains of a Bigfoot in a freezer. There were of course no details about how they happened across this, and heaven forbid that they

should have felt obliged to produce any photos, yet it was a story that naturally went viral across the Internet in a flash. Needless to say, all three men were involved in leading pricey Bigfoot expeditions in the region, thus keeping their business healthy for a little while longer amongst the believers. This brought into sharp focus a magic weapon behind the ongoing success of such enterprises: Their sly shifting of the burden of proof onto science. As another sage opined, “Scientists are left with an impossible task: proving something does not exist. You can prove a rock is there. You can’t prove that Bigfoot is not there. Sellers of Bigfoot paraphernalia know this only too well.”

Some sociologists have likewise pointed out that a large portion of the human population has truly believed in the reality of beasts from folklore since time immemorial. In medieval times there seem to have been two reasons for this. First was the unreliable narrator. Few people travelled far away from home, and when those that did came home, they invariably struggled to capture in words the utterly different things that they had seen, leaving their ignorant audience to join the dots as best they could in their minds. Perhaps the persistence of the unicorn as a real beast stemmed from travellers to India seeing ‘a four-legged beast with a long single horn that has healing properties’. Today we call it the Indian Rhino. Second, the rationale behind medieval descriptions of weird beasts was not scientific cataloguing – science wasn’t around yet. It was more to present moral ideas in a symbolic way.

Our friend the unicorn again took on Christ-like properties at the time, especially when resting his head on the lap of a virgin.

Bert the Bunyip finally captured in January 1972

Bigfoot - coming soon to a freezer near you

The only thing that seems to have changed since then is the actual animals we believe in. Mermaids were an absolute given from Tudor times until the Victorian era. Arriving in the New World, Christopher Columbus claimed to have seen them, although he was a little disappointed that, “they were not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits”. The fact that he was in the habitat of what we now know as the manatee (which you’d be pushed to call sexy) didn’t put others off looking for mermaids afterwards. Sailors of that time also obsessed over sea serpents, yet invariably described them as a series of arcs appearing out of the water. There is, of course, no snake on land that could ever move like this, but a school of porpoising dolphins, seals or sea lions – when seen from a distance – most certainly do.

Thereafter, as mermaids and sea serpents retreated to the depths, the gullible elements of society moved their attention back to land. There was a time not all that long ago when the focus was very much on elves and fairies. Even if we go back a mere century, it still beggars belief that Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the most famous detective stories in history, really only wrote his books to fund his research into the paranormal; and despite Sherlock Holmes’ dry methods of deduction being central to the enjoyment of his books, Conan Doyle’s obsessive belief in fairies

was absolute – the most famous incident being the 1917 photos of the Cottingley Fairies. Yet more recently, fairies have faded from fashion, as other, larger, more spectacular cryptids take their place. To that end, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and all their equally invisible relatives aren’t going anywhere from public consciousness anytime soon.

Should we, therefore, dismiss these cryptoobsessives en masse as fringe freaks, bearing in mind the creatures they seek are surely only found in myth? Maybe not. First, a recent mathematical model predicted that at least 160 land mammal species and 3,050 amphibian species remain to be discovered and described. So if some Cryptozoologists spent less time trying to uncover hairy 9ft apes and than less dramatic fauna, they could help under-funded biologists enormously.

More pertinently, there is more and more urgency to devote efforts to conservation around the world, both in regard to the dwindling stock of diverse wildlife and the habitats in which they dwell. Again, one feels that if Cryptozoologists marketed themselves differently – in other words dovetailing their aims more specifically into the world of ecology and finding something very rare specifically so that it can be protected, rather than looking for a dinosaur in a Scottish loch – it would be to everyone’s benefit. Until then, do yourself and favour and don’t share any of your hardearned cash with them. n

The Cottingley Fairies - definitely a three-pipe problem

Nestling in Green Nowhere

“Not content to adhere to a fixed image, The Bonzos became less influenced by The Temperance Seven and more, in founder member Rodney Slater’s words, by “Lord Snooty and his pals”. By the end of 1967, the band had cameoed in Magical Mystery Tour, warning of the perils of death cabs, and were the resident group of Rediffusion’s children’s show Do Not Adjust Your Set”

Andrew Roberts recalls the armoured and effete bold flag-bearer Vivian Stanshall

English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer’.

That was Vivian Stanshall’s description of Rawlinson’s End, a stately pile that belonged in a Group Three comedy directed by Ken Russell. It could have equally applied to its creator, once described by a band-mate as ‘the 14th-century fool who’d descend into your life with a lute’. In the words of his second wife Ki Longfellow, ‘he was special – and there was nothing he could do about it’.

Victor Anthony Stanshall – ‘Vivian’ came later – was born on 21st March 1943 and raised in Walthamstow and Southend-on-Sea. By 1962 he had enrolled at the Central School of Art and Design and was a founder member of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The group gained a Parlophone contract and their television debut four years later.

Miraculously, footage of a 1966 appearance on Blue Peter survives, complete with a jocular introduction from John Noakes. Their vigorous rendition of Bill Bailey reflected the recent Trad Jazz boom, echoes of which still haunted the BBC Light Programme, but that tall vocalist seems ever so faintly louche. Fortunately, order is soon

restored, with Christopher Trace giving a thrilling discourse about spoons before anything too outrageous could occur.

But, reflecting Stanshall’s later works, the band was not content to adhere to a fixed image. The Bonzos became less influenced by The Temperance Seven and more, in founder member Rodney Slater’s words, “Lord Snooty and his pals”. By the end of 1967, the band had cameoed in Magical Mystery Tour, warning of the perils of death cabs, and were the resident group of Rediffusion’s children’s show Do Not Adjust Your Set. Anyone who does not thrill to their rendition of Hello Mabel is quite possibly dead.

Possibly the most intriguing footage of the Bonzos dates from when newsreels attempted, albeit ever so cautiously, to ‘go gear’. The 1967 Pathé Pictorial footage of the band performing The Equestrian Statue features Stanshall and Neil Innes as the ‘John and Paul of the band’, but the creative talents of neither could be so glibly framed. A year later, the BBC’s Colour Me Pop has Vivian sporting long hair, but still speaking in the tones of an exceedingly charming remittance man.

Stanshall’s voice was a crucial element in his persona; soothing, melodic, reassuring and subversive, frequently within the same sentence. When he announces “with Val Doonican as

himself” on The Intro and The Outro, it is with the same insouciant grace as Wallace Greenslade addressing the ‘dear listeners’ of The Goon Show If one of The League of Gentlemen had an untrustworthy bohemian son, he would almost certainly have resembled Vivian.

As with Noel Coward, Stanshall was a prime example of the suburbanite turned aristocrat, with an accent due to his father Victor’s determined

social climbing. Stanshall senior was ‘the self-made man formula manifest’. The wartime RAF officer turned peacetime Chartered Secretary wanted his eldest son to be a barrister, thereby sealing his hard-won achievement of respectability for the next generation. Vivian depicted his father as a character whom Raymond Huntley, at his most austere, should have portrayed.

Figures such as Stanshall Snr were far from uncommon in post-war England. They often smoked pipes, regarded Edgar Lustgarten as a role model and strove ever upward while continually fearing the socio-economic abyss. A highlight of the Bonzo’s album The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse is Vivian’s composition My Pink Half of The Drainpipe The semi-detached torpor, voiced by Innes’s cheerful philistine, was one that Victor and Vivian both wanted to escape. The former’s route was via polished manners, while the latter followed the determined aesthete of the record: “If you’re normal, I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life”.

Yet Stanshall, despite his memorable appearance in Magical Mystery Tour and his columns for Beat Instrumental magazine, always seemed at odds with Youth Culture. If the 1960s was a decade when singers with National Service faces adopted ever more incongruous hairstyles, Vivian behaved

“One critic beautifully described the Bonzos as ‘The result of mating skiffle music, Tony Bennett supper club schmaltz, British Music Hall and Vaudeville, Spike Jones, The Goons, Rudy

Vallee, Bushby Berkeley, Carry On Nurse, Mickey Spillane, 50s rock and roll, British Blues, Bert Weedon, Charles Atlas, Dadaism and James Joyce”

as though he was an escapee from the Diogenes Club. The 1975 One Man’s Week documentary contains a sequence in which the 61-year-old Jack de Manio and Vivian appear as contemporaries. Indeed, the court-martialled subaltern with MC turned not wholly reliable broadcaster could easily have been a Stanshall creation.

For Vivian the past seemed ever-present, from shellac records and the Victorian arcades of Southend to the Teddy Boys of his youth, even if they did not knit. One critic beautifully described the Bonzos as ‘The result of mating skiffle music, Tony Bennett supper club schmaltz, British Music Hall and Vaudeville, Spike Jones, The Goons, Rudy Vallee, Bushby Berkeley, Carry On Nurse, Mickey Spillane, 50s rock and roll, British Blues, Bert Weedon, Charles Atlas, Dadaism and James Joyce’.

But Stanshall’s work eschewed self-conscious zaniness as the primrose path to archness and becoming a permanent fixture on Pebble Mill at One. After the demise of the Bonzos in 1970, Vivian collaborated with Steve Winwood to produce the sublime Arc of a Diver and Boy in Darkness, and released the album Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, to name but three of his accomplishments. Meanwhile, Radio One listeners satiated with Craig Torso-like DJs were diverted by the

continuing saga of Sir Henry at Rawlinson’s End

A film version of Sir Henry was released in 1980, with Trevor Howard as the eponymous aristocrat. Stanshall was not entirely happy with the result. Yet, at best, it demonstrates his talent for the delicate art of whimsy, following in the tradition of Innes, Anthony Newley as Gurney Slade, John Betjeman, Alan Klein, Delia Derbyshire and Ray Davies. The younger Stanshall would have been perfect casting for Jonathan Miller’s 1966 adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. In Sir Henry, ‘Hubert Rawlinson’ is a lost character of Lewis Carroll’s, and in 1991 the BBC’s Crank features Vivian as the White Knight manifest. ‘Well, strap me to a tree and call me Brenda!’.

It was in Crank, one of the finest examples of autobiographical television in the medium’s history, that Vivian made a speech that echoed with this writer and so many others. A Daily Mail journalist planning an article on the subject of British eccentrics asked Stanshall if he was ‘still doing it’. As Vivian explained, her question was absurd:

“I’m not different for the sake of being different, only for the desperate sake of being myself. I can’t join your gang: you’d think I was a phoney, and I’d know it.”

And Vivian’s existence often was desperate.

‘Well strap me to a tree and call me Brenda!’

By the beginning of the 1970s, his parlous mental health led to hospitalisation, with anxiety disorder, depression and alcoholism marking the next quarter century. Denise Coffey, his DNAYS co-star, was shocked at his appearance on the set of Sir Henry, “To see him in the grip of all those dreadful pills”. Innes described him as “a sinking battleship firing on his rescuers”. By the mid-1990s, Stanshall was living in a small flat in Highgate, regularly terrorised by local vagrants.

When reading accounts of Vivian’s last days, one wishes simply to close the book before the narrative reaches the 5th March 1995, and the housefire that took his life. Alas, there is a dreadful tendency for scribes to sit in quasi-Celestial judgment of deceased artists and assign them a one-dimensional vision of their lives. Such a fate befell Tony Hancock or Kenneth Williams, while the Telegraph’s review of the 2001 Stanshall biography Ginger Geezer sounds as though an irate deputy headmaster had penned it. According to the writer, “the pressures of people repeatedly telling him he was a genius when he was nothing of the kind” were partially responsible for Stanshall’s death.

All that was missing from the Telegraph’s snide article was “B minus – must try harder”, for Vivian was indeed a genius, whether he wished to be or

not. His family and friends have eloquently spoken of the formidable difficulties of being in the court of King Vivian, so let two quotes speak for many. Ki Longfellow accurately described him as a ‘national treasure’, and Stanshall himself mused, “But what is expected, I dare say, is to plunder the catalogue of roles for a mask to fit, or to jigsaw a fair composite”. The eccentricity was inherent –the ‘character’ kept the world at bay.

Eighty years after Stanstall’s birth, the curious may instantly summon archive footage thanks to modern technology. This process makes the past simultaneously accessible yet impossibly remote, but Stanshall transcends mere generations, because he belongs to his visions. Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead contains Strange Tongues, an evocation of isolation and despair, and his musical Stinkfoot has the utterly joyous celebration of ‘landing on my feet feet’. Furthermore, if Vivian does not follow his announcement of ‘Tubular Bells’ for Mike Oldfield with ‘And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes... nice!’, there is the ever-present sense that he wished to.

Above all, the work of Vivian Stanshall reflects infinite narratives and possibilities – the story so far. And do have an unusual day. n

Vivian Stanshall, 21st March 1943-5th March 1995

Vivian Stanshall as Hubert Rawlinson

44

57

GEOFF

GRAND FLANEUR WALK

STRAW BOATERS

THE THIRD GRAND FLANEUR WALK

Gustav Temple reflects on another successful saunter sans purpose through the sunny streets of Old London Town

PHOTOGRAPHY: SOULSTEALER PHOTOGRAPHY @SSTEALER

SPECIAL THANKS TO: VOUT-O-REENEES, 30 PRESCOT STREET, LONDON E1 8BB VOUT-O-REENEES.COM

On Sunday 14th May, just one week after the coronation of Charles III, a very different kind of event took place, yet one steeped in as much ritual, tradition and protocol.

The purpose of the Grand Flaneur Walk was not to place a crown of gold upon a monarch’s head; instead, earlier that morning, an assortment of titfers were being placed upon the flaneurs and flaneuses heads, to see which one was right for that day. Canes were also selected, collar studs adjusted, ties straightened and hip flasks filled. At midday, this congregation of dandies, quaintrelles and beaux assembled by a statue of the godhead of dandyism, Beau Brummell, on the junction of Jermyn Street and Piccadilly Arcade, London.

After listening to a mercifully brief tract by Charles Baudelaire on dandyism, read by the editor of this publication, the flaneurs were ready

to set off on their pavement-bound voyage into the unknown. Sticking to the rigid rules of flanerie, which dictate that no destination or schedule

“Threading our way around Threadneedle Street, the rightful company of gadabouts and boulevardiers finally made it, exhausted and over-exposed to daylight, to the welcoming cavern of Vout-o-Reenees, a private members club near Aldgate housed in the crypt of a church”

should be pursued, the merry band of some sixty chaps and chapettes threaded their way through the tourists on Horse Guards Parade towards Strand, alighting for refreshments at the Sherlock Holmes hostelry. The guards on duty had sighed with relief that, for once, others were being photographed more than they were.

The second leg of the saunter sans purpose took us all the way along Strand and into the Aldwych, pausing to admire St Paul’s Cathedral before descending into the City of London. The hostelry that beckoned here was the Old Cheddar Cheese, an ancient grotto of a pub with three levels of damp cellars, which quickly filled up with flannel, linen, barathea, sea island cotton and sixty vintage hats and canes, thoroughly confusing the tourists who thought they had entered a vision of early 20th century London.

Threading our way around Threadneedle

Street, the rightful company of gadabouts and boulevardiers finally made it, exhausted and over-exposed to daylight, to the welcoming cavern of Vout-o-Reenees, a private members club near Aldgate housed in the crypt of a church. There a seat was finally won and a martini gladly consumed, by those who had, in the line of duty, walked for nearly eight miles.

The sun had shone steadily throughout, straw boaters and pocket watches catching the light in a manner that was, to say the least, moving and poignant. Piquancy and symbolism was further added when someone observed that, during the coronation only a week earlier, it had rained consistently all day. Our own Charles, in the form of louche entertainer Champagne Charlie, was not crowned that day, but someone did have to replace the top hat which excessive champagne had caused to topple from his head. n

STRAW TOGS

Stephen Arnell unpicks the rich cultural history of the Straw Boater, and points out its many appearances on the heads of the world’s finest film actors

The humble straw boater has something of an unserious reputation. Its origins in prosaic mid-19th century Luton and association with essentially lightweight types such as Harold Lloyd, Maurice Chevalier, Arnold Bennett, Rudy Vallée, Frankie (‘Give Me the Moonlight’) Vaughan, snooty Harrow School boys, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Gondoliers and Cornetto adverts have all contributed to the chapeau’s lessthan-serious associations.

But you’d be wrong in thinking the boater an entirely frivolous sartorial creation. The straw hat in some form or another has been with us for over a thousand years – probably a lot longer. Ancient Greeks and Romans sported straw titfers to cope with the intense Mediterranean sun.

Of course, the straw boater is a relatively new addition to gentlemen’s outfitting, enjoying its

“In Luton today there are only around 15 companies still linked to the manufacture of hats: designers, material suppliers, bleaching and dyeing and block making. Although not nearly as prolific as in Luton’s hat-making ‘hay’ day, everything required to produce a hat can still be done in Luton”

highest point of popularity between 1880-1930. Also known as a ‘Skimmer,’ ‘Basher’ and ‘Sennit Hat’, the boater (naturally enough) has long been associated with boating and sailing, due to their lack of weight, shade-providing properties and ease of replacement if lost.

The boater’s origins were in the canotier straw hats of Venice’s waterborne Gondoliers and Napoleon III’s Seine-sailing ‘Canotiers’, which presumably caught on with British and American tourists on the European Grand Tours of the Nineteenth Century.

PARADISE, LUTON STYLE

“Built on a plague pit, Luton is predominantly a shithole specialising in hat-making and Satanism.”

The Archiveologists (BBC4, 2018)

The UK’s boaters were (and continue to be) manufactured in Bedfordshire’s Luton, quite a contrast to Venice’s Lido and the banks of the Seine by the Île de la Cité. According to textile enthusiasts magazine Selvedge, Luton was, “once the beating heart of the hat making industry in England; there were over 500 hat manufacturers in Luton during the 1800s, and by 1930 the town was producing as many as 70 million hats a year, many of which were made of straw. The success of Luton as the main centre for hat production in the UK

for over 200 years was due, in part, to the earlier regional industry of straw plaiting, an occupation that was well established by the late 17th century.” The article concludes on a note of some reassurance for those seeking a quality boater made in post-Brexit Britain: “In Luton today there are only around 15 companies still linked to the manufacture of hats: designers, material suppliers, bleaching and dyeing and block making. Although not nearly as prolific as in Luton’s hat-making ‘hay’ day, everything required to produce a hat can still be done in Luton.”

THE STRAW HAT RIOTS

Perhaps the strangest event associated with the boater was New York City’s ‘Straw Hat Riot’ of September 1922, which resulted in multiple arrests and injuries. The boater was generally regarded as summer wear; when Western European and American chaps switched from wearing their winter hats to lighter Spring counterparts, it became known as ‘Straw Hat Day’. The cold-weather counterpart was ‘Felt Hat Day’, usually occurring in mid-September.

However, in some US cities, the principle was violently enforced by gangs of young men, who felt honour bound to confiscate and destroy any offending millinery worn publicly after the appointed time. In 1922 in New York City, the

Straw boaters are worn by gondoliers, and sometimes their passengers Citizens of New York gear up for the Straw Hat Riots of 1922

tradition escalated into the eight-day Straw Hat Riot, where a mob of 1,000 style etiquette enforcers (some armed with heavy sticks with nails driven through the top for hooking hats), on the prowl for boater-wearing pedestrians, beating senseless those who refused to comply.

And the infamous riot wasn’t the end of the troubles caused by the innocuous apparel – the tradition of hat smashing continued after 1922. In 1924, a man was slain for wearing the offending straw headgear; the following year saw several arrests made in New York. Thankfully the craze petered out, as the youth of America found other excuses to beat up their fellow citizens. (see the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, CHAP Spring 23).

Boater destruction can be less serious – witness Chariots of Fire (1981), in which running coach Sam Mussabini (the late Ian Holm) celebrates the victory of Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) in the 1924 Olympics by punching through his hat.

The boater has featured in many movies, usually indicative of a somewhat trivial personality, but sometimes more sinister. James Fox played the sprightly boater-sporting/Tapioca-dancing Jimmy Smith in the toe-tapping musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Contrast him, though, with Sam Peckinpah favourite Warren Oates as Public Enemy number 1 in John Milius’ Dillinger (1973), where the wearing of a boater hardly denoted an effete softy.

For every Goodbye Mr Chips, Some Like It Hot, The Music Man and The Boyfriend, there is a motion picture demonstrating a darker side to the boater, movies such as Nightmare Alley, The Iceman Cometh, The Great Gatsby and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence Some may be surprised how cinematic heavies can pull off the boater look, but to be frank, one wouldn’t want to mess around with the likes of Lee Marvin in The Iceman Cometh (1973), even if he was wearing a Noddy hat with a bell tinkling on the end.

AND THE BOATER TODAY?

Eton schoolboys and other public-school detainees at institutions such as Harrow and Uppingham continue to wear boaters, but these appear as much a punishment, the stigmatising mark of the toffs essential ‘otherness’, rather than a stylistic choice made by them for themselves.

Will the boater ever make a comeback? Some predicted that, with the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Western World would enter another ‘Roaring Twenties’ – and perhaps witness the return of the happy-go-lucky boater, an iconic symbol of the 1920s. But it looks (for now) that, with the war in Ukraine and the consequent global cost of living crisis, we may have to wait a little longer to don our boaters and sing “Happy Days Are Here Again!” n

Lee Marvin, unlikely to have a hole punched in his boater in The Ice Man Cometh

THE SILK ROAD TO SHEIK’S PIER

Gustav Temple shares titillating tidings of a new collaboration between silk maestro Geoff Stocker and this very publication

Eastbourne Pier and fine silk headscarves are not bedfellows that immediately spring to mind. Yet on one damp day that purported to be during the English Springtime, this publication turned the salty slats of the wooden pier into the Silk Road, just for one day.

Eastbourne Pier is known colloquially as ‘Sheik’s Pier’ after its owner, 70-year-old hotelier Sheikh Abid Gulzar, who bought the pier after it was nearly destroyed by fire in 2014. Gulzar has restored the pier to its former glory, his personal touch being some gold paint on the lions that dot the iron pillars all the way along it.

“When the box marked mysteriously as ‘Women Square and Long’ was opened, it revealed a veritable treasure trove of headscarves, neckerchiefs and bandanas, all with the trademark intricate colourful designs, and all printed to a very high standard on a variety of fine silks”

PHOTOGRAPHY: ROSS ROBERTSON MODEL: RUBY DEMURE SILKWEAR: GEOFF STOCKER

So how did The Chap, photographer Ross Robertson, model Ruby Demure and silk accessories designer Geoff Stocker all end up admiring the golden lions on the pier one Wednesday afternoon in late April?

A collaboration between Geoff Stocker and The Chap will see the launch of a specially designed new pocket square later this year. In the meantime, we shall be releasing various items from the Geoff Stocker archive in our online store, to celebrate the breadth and scope of Mr. Stocker’s designs. He is known primarily for pocket squares and silk dressing gowns, but over the years has also manufactured ranges of exquisite neckties, bandanas and silk scarves, only some of which are currently available in his online store.

During a visit to the Geoff Stocker ‘Atelier’, while poring over the extensive product archive, Mr. Stocker dismissively waved to a large box of items he once designed for the ladies’ accessories market. “It would have involved a huge amount of extra work to create a completely new range for women” he says. “So I was persuaded to stick to men’s pocket squares and dressing gowns as my

main product line, with which I am perfectly happy, as it means I can focus on continually adding new designs to those lines and not spread myself too thinly.”

When the box marked mysteriously as ‘Women Square and Long’ was opened, it revealed a veritable treasure trove of headscarves, neckerchiefs and bandanas, all with Stocker’s trademark intricate colourful designs, and all printed to a very high standard on a variety of fine silks. The outing for the entire collection to Eastbourne Pier was the first time many of these items had seen the light of day in the 5 or 10 years since they were first created.

The women’s scarf collection pictured overleaf is now available from www.thechap.co.uk. Since each item is unique, once sold it will not be replaced. However, while working up a Chap/ Geoff Stocker pocket square design, we shall also be looking at creating a ladies’ headscarf, much like the ones you can see in these photographs. n

Geoff Stocker and Gustav Temple in the Stocker atelier

RUBY WEARS:

Blue Japanese Wave Neckscarf

Mottled Red Headscarf

RUBY WEARS: Blue Japanese Wave Headscarf Blue Mandala Neckscarf

RUBY WEARS:

Speckled Orange Neckscarf

Ginger Lillies Headscarf

RUBY WEARS: Blue Japanese Wave Headscarf Blue Mandala Neckscarf

RUBY WEARS:

Cascading Peacock Headscarf

RUBY WEARS: Futurist Green 'Skinny Dip' Scarf Ginger Lillies Headscarf

RUBY WEARS: Pink Inca Neckscarf

Mottled Red Headscarf

RUBY WEARS: Blue Japanese Wave Headscarf Blue Mandala Neckscarf

GREY FOX COLUMN

David Evans takes a break from discussing trouser lengths and tie knots to look at the cultural side of being a chap, via a new book of faery poems and illustrations

www.greyfoxblog.com @greyfoxstyle

Personal style is much more than simply what you wear: it’s also about the places you frequent, the art that inspires you, the company you keep, the food you eat and how you treat others. With that in mind, I am widening the scope of this column to include aspects of style such as art, books, history and science. After all, the true man or woman of style is a polymath; a renaissance person if you will.

I have profound admiration both for exceptionally gifted artists and also for British

humour. We often connect the two: Ronald Searle and the cheeky seaside postcards of Donald McGill are examples. The folklore theme of this issue gives me the opportunity to tell you about an artist who combines humour and art with great skill. In my last column I mentioned Catherine Daniel, from whom I’d commissioned a superbly executed image of my late labrador retriever, Harry (see CHAP Spring 23). Catherine’s artistic talents extend into the world of magic with her humorous but saucy ‘Wanton Fairies’.

“I lived with a very old grandmother, born 1884, a true Victorian who possessed a vast collection of substantial salmon pink corsets, which she swore by for maintaining an excellent figure and good posture! I would help her into these pink corsets, lacing the back and pulling into shape. As a result painting corsets on to my Wanton Fairies did not seem at all unnatural”

Illustrating the world of the fey (fae or fay) reached its peak of popularity in Victorian times, though stories of fairies and similar mythical creatures have been told for thousands of years. The word ‘faerie’ meant enchanted – as in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen – and they came to be associated with the diminutive beings that we think of today. Often described as fallen angels or demoted deities, they acquired personalities ranging from the malicious to the mischievous, leading travellers astray, stealing babies and, more recently, engaging in less harmful pranks.

From the 18th into the 19th and early 20th centuries, artists found the vast and imaginative range of myths surrounding fairies a valuable source of inspiration. Driven by romanticism and a need for escapism in a time of rapid social upheaval and urban and industrial growth, artists such as William Blake, Henri Fuseli, Theodore Von Holst,

Richard Dadd, Cicely Mary Barker and many others illustrated folklore tales, Shakespearean scenes and myths. The publication, in 1917, of photographs taken by two young sisters of ‘The Cottingley Fairies’ led to a renewal in interest; indeed the authenticity of the images was still being discussed recently on their hundredth anniversary.

Presented as beautifully executed watercolour paintings with accompanying poems, Catherine Daniel’s ‘Wanton Fairies’ are very much creatures of the modern era. They develop the idea of the diminutive, mischievous magical creature of folklore into a sexy, humorous, corset-clad, loveable being that we’d love to stumble upon in our parks and gardens. Despite their brilliance they are relatively unknown, and I was keen to extend their audience by mentioning them here.

Catherine Daniel has painted and sculpted all her life, covering a wide range of subjects, mediums and techniques. She spent some years restoring paintings in the Royal Collection. Her mastery of exquisite, meticulous detail in watercolour, acrylic and bronze (her sculptures have been sellouts at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition) combines evocatively with her powerfully rich imagination and quiet humour. She is also an excellent art

teacher, as I’ve found out from several lessons with her. I spoke to her to find out how the Wanton Fairies came about, and will let her tell her story:

“I was fortunate enough to spend my childhood more or less unfettered in the Yorkshire countryside, exploring woods and wild places on a borrowed horse. This fuelled a deep connection with nature. I lived with a very old grandmother, born in 1884, a true Victorian who had survived TB, eleven children and many hardships with humour and storytelling. She possessed a vast collection of substantial salmon pink corsets, which she swore by for maintaining an excellent figure and good posture! I would help her into these pink corsets, lacing the back and pulling into shape. As a result, painting corsets on to my Wanton Fairies did not seem at all unnatural.

“The house had a wonderful garden enclosed by a high brick wall full of wildlife: butterflies, birds, toads, a robin that fed from my hand and an owl. How I love flying creatures; to me they embody a heady, light, transient freedom. I remember aged five having a total belief I could fly! Scaling the high brick wall, I would play with the neighbour’s children in their garden with a large vegetable plot and orchard. Here I observed growth

from seed to fruit. Humming with abundant insect life, the world of the fey suffused my senses.

“Decades later, on a sunny afternoon on an allotment in Surrey, the idea for the Wanton Fairies germinated after a robust weeding session. I sat down for a breather and sent a text to a friend along the lines of, ‘I’ve just seen a Lavender fairy, wearing a black silk thong, disappear into the rhubarb patch.’ I couldn’t sketch fast enough as images flooded my head and took over my life. These sketches quickly progressed to paintings, and poems began emerging also. Over the years the poems have evolved and been rewritten, with some fairies having more than one poem to accompany them.

“Undoubtedly my greatest inspiration stems again from childhood. I was enchanted by the works of Ronald Searle and Arthur Rackham, spending hours studying their use of pen & wash, fascinated by the way that seemingly effortless, simple strokes of a pen can create such wicked delight to the viewer. Two such different artists, both with the same powerful ability to work the paper and draw you into another realm.

“My bookcase also held a set of Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies books, which had the added bonus of children’s poetry to accompany her fairies.

My Wanton Fairies are fused from an unholy mix of all the above, with Grandma’s corsets thrown in for good measure. Humour has been the driving force through much of my work over many years. The images and double entendre poems are a tad risqué, (if you read them that way), but totally innocent if you don’t. I’ve aimed at ‘saucy’, not lewd. Wanton Fairies are delightful rebels.”

I’m grateful to Catherine Daniel for telling her story. At present her Wanton Fairies exist as paintings and two draft bound books which I’ve had the privilege of reading. At one stage they were available as an e-book (not available at present) and reading through 92% of five-star reviews (the 8% of 4 stars were mainly regretting there was no hard copy book available) and wall-to-wall highly positive comments on Amazon UK, I came to realise how Wanton Fairies fill a real need for traditional British humour coupled with outstanding art and poetry. They so richly deserve a publisher, as they are both contemporary and future classics, and we must not lose our sense of humour here in the UK.

To commission work, purchase cards and prints, arrange art lessons or simply to find out more, go to www.catherinedaniel.co.uk

RAFFISH

EAU DE COLOGNE FROM THE CHAP

CHAP LIFE

INTERVIEW: PETER OWEN-JONES

THE GREEN MAN OF THE CLOTH

we face with the natural world isn’t being addressed by mainstream Christianity. So people are saying, how can I actually connect with this in a much deeper and more meaningful way?”

How long have you been vicar of this parish?

I’ve been the vicar of Firle, Beddingham and Glynde for 18 years – the longest serving priest in any parish in the county of Sussex. Most priests manage around four years before moving on to another parish. They might move out of their diocese if looking for preferement, which basically means promotion.

Are you paid a stipend by the church?

I would say around 25 to 30 per cent of parish priests are not paid at all these days, and I am one

of them. The deal is that they give you a house, which is amazing, but you pay your own way.

Who are the members of your congregation?

Local people in the three villages of the parish, as well as people from Lewes and Brighton.

And what kind of people are they? How might they differ from the congregation at a more traditional church in, say, Lewes?

They’re all lovely, and there isn’t so much grey hair in the congregation here.

Gustav Temple meets Peter Owen-Jones, vicar of Glynde, Beddingham and Firle, to discuss morality, folklore, witchcraft, paganism, druidry and environmentalism at his vicarage in Firle

“There is increasingly a very real interest in wicca and white witchcraft. The crisis

How would you describe your version of Christianity? I once heard you described as a hedge priest?

Hedge priests sit on the line between druidism, paganism and Christianity. So they’re much more focused on the natural world. I’m probably a hedge priest with a small ‘h’. Those of us who are very interested in environmental spirituality are always going to struggle within the C of E, because of the traditions of the high church and the evangelical wing. Once you step outside of that unit you’re regarded with slight suspicion. You’re called things like a ‘loose cannon’ and ‘a maverick’.

Loose canon with one ‘n’? Exactly!

So how far does your own personal interest in druidry and paganism come into your ministry?

It does, but softly. The biggest crisis that we all face is our relationship with the natural world. This has been brewing since the Second World War, as it became apparent that we were doing something terrible to the planet. But the Church of England and the Catholic Church have been very quiet about that, because they’re so invested in the system as it is. So once you step outside that milieu, they look at you as if you’ve got long hair and wear a shell around your neck.

Which you do! So does any of this come into your Sunday sermon?

Oh yes, it does. Absolutely. The understanding or acceptance of where we really are in terms of our relationship with the natural world sits deep within the services here.

Have you ever had someone come to the service and leave because it isn’t traditional enough for them?

I’ve had the odd complaint, yes. It’s called the Church of England but really it’s the churches of England. So while I’m ploughing this path in this church, other priests will be following different paths in their churches, and I’m really supportive of that.

Are you answerable to the Bishop of Chichester?

Presumably, though I’ve never met him. You’re pretty much left to your own devices, unless you’re seen at the flower show not wearing a shirt, and

someone complains. Then you get a phone call saying, ‘Were you shirtless at the flower show, sitting in a deckchair outside, smoking?’ And I’ll go, ‘Yes I was’. All organisations need rebels and mavericks, and it can be uncomfortable if you’re the one standing up and saying, this is hopeless; it isn’t working. But without that, nothing can evolve.

There is clearly a renewed interest in paganism and Druidry right now, but does this also apply to Wicca and witchcraft? Yes, there is increasingly a very real interest in Wicca and white witchcraft. The crisis we face with the natural world isn’t being addressed by mainstream Christianity. So people are saying, how can I actually connect with this, in a much deeper and more meaningful way?

As well as the environmental crisis, there is another spiritual crisis, partly stirred up by the Russian war, leading to a general emptiness at the heart of humanity, isn’t there?

There is certainly a vast emptiness at the heart of capitalism. Essentially because capitalism has no understanding of what is enough. Therefore, if we live in a system where there is no understanding of what is enough, then everyone wants their nose in the trough and everyone is taking as much as they can, without considering the consequences.

Capitalism was originally predicted to be self-destructive, that it had a built-in obsolescence.

That is what is happening. You don’t just have to drive along certain sections of the A27 to see that something isn’t working.

So as well as a general interest in Wicca, would you say there is also a growing interest in black witchcraft? Are there inevitably going to be some people drawn to that?

You mean where you come home and find a dead crow hanging on your door? I’m sure there are, but as a parish priest I don’t get told about that. It tends to happen in the shadows. Andreas Kornevall, who is a writer and expert in Norse mythology, once said to me, ‘When we were drowning witches and burning them at the stake for their supposed crimes, why did we never question that the far greater crime was what we did to them?’ With the

culture of the wise woman, if your animals were sick or all your milk had curdled, you went to a wise woman. It was that culture that the church really sought to stamp out, in what was a very brutal and violent way.

Many are of the opinion that witches and cunning folk of the middle ages were actually harking back to a much more ancient religion, and that’s why the church was so opposed to them. Oh yes, absolutely. I think that until there is a formal apology from the Christian establishment for what happened to those women, any real fusion of Christianity and paganism is made much harder without that recognition. In Sweden, the hierarchy of the Christian Church organised a meeting with

“You’re pretty much left to your own devices, unless you’re seen at the flower show, smoking and not wearing a shirt, and someone complains. All organisations need rebels and mavericks, and it can be uncomfortable if you’re the one standing up and saying, this is hopeless; it isn’t working. But without that, nothing can evolve”

The path to Firle Church from the vicarage

the pagans, where the head of the church knelt in front of a gathered group of pagans, and asked for their forgiveness. So until it is acknowledged here that what happened in the name of God was abhorrent, we’re going to be stuck at different ends of the playing field.

There seem to be a lot of books coming out recently about folklore, including some of yours. Why this renewed interest, after all it’s always been there?

I personally have a lot of interest in the natural folklore that has been handed down relating to the countryside, which contained so much wisdom of how best to engage with this reality. I think there’s a clear correlation between that and the chemicalisation and poisoning of the land that is taking place in the name of modern agriculture, which has led us to let that folklore go. It’s become almost quaint and historical; something you buy on a postcard.

Or on an invitation to the coronation of Charles III. What did you make of King Charles putting a Green Man on his invitation?

I thought that was wonderful. We are the inheritors of a land, during the short period of our lifespan, which is ripe with that legacy. The beginning of the demise of that legacy was the attack on witchcraft we mentioned earlier, but the greatest attack of our age has been the poisoning of the land.

Do you think that Charles, by using that symbol, is trying to soften the powerful image of the institution of the monarchy, by trying to suggest that he represents something grander; some ancient version of England that has maybe been forgotten by its people?

You don’t put a Green Man on the invitation to your coronation without fully knowing the implications.

Westminster Abbey has its own Green Man

You occasionally see Green Men on the outside of Christian churches – how did these overtly pagan symbols end up there? The way Christianity arrived in this island was essentially bloodless. When you look at Christmas and Easter, these celebrations are right at the heart of the times when there would have been great pagan festivals. So there was this gradual fusion and a great deal more generosity between the two faiths. If you look at Celtic Christianity and its incredible poetry in relation to the natural world, and the place of the divine within that, there was much more of a fusion, and I think the pagans were enlivened by these new ideas inherent in Christianity. But also I think Christianity was enlivened by this paganism, with its deep roots in the soil and the leaf and the river and the sky. So I think there was this marriage to begin with, and that’s why the Green Men appeared so happily adorning Christian churches.

So when paganism died out and Christianity

became the dominant religion, they just left those Green Men as a reminder of the past? Or they simply couldn’t afford to have them removed! If the roof is leaking, we’ve got to fix that first. Running a church, whether you’re paid or not, is a huge amount of work. There’s always something that needs fixing on these ancient buildings.

If people are looking back to pre-Christian times for some sort of spiritual guidance, won’t they also be looking back to a time when people believed much more strongly in good and evil? Do you believe in the traditional notion of good and evil?

I do, but I think good and evil exists within me, and it exists in you. Every day I have a constant stream of choices and I have to mediate the line between what is a healthy choice and what is an unhealthy choice. So what is the best choice for all concerned in terms of my behaviour? And that is mediated through my relationship with God.

Do you mean ‘healthy’ in a moral sense?

No, because I think that morality is a constant moveable feast. Morality changes from generation to generation, thankfully, otherwise we’d be atrophied in some jar somewhere.

But surely at the very root of morality there is a fundamental sense of right and wrong, and that never changes? Like it’s always going to be wrong to murder someone, for example. There isn’t going to a time in the future when it will be okay to murder someone.

If you spoke to a professor of ethics, they might say that’s highly plausible. Currently the Russians are murdering the Ukrainians and the Ukranians are murdering the Russians, both believing they are doing the right thing.

When you take holy orders, is performing an exorcism part of the training?

No, you have to volunteer to be an exorcist or be invited to perform an exorcism. There are exorcists within the Church of England, who are trained by other exorcists. But no, it isn’t a general part of the job. I suppose the softer side of that is when someone calls me and says, ‘Will you come and bless my house?’ or ‘Will you come and lay hands on a horse who is very unwell?’

So do you carry out these requests in the genuine belief that it will bless the house or heal the horse, or do you do it more to help the person asking?

That’s a very good question. I do it with as much humility and fragility as I can muster. Should we not be blessing every minute of every moment?

I mean, look at that view through the window, the birds on the feeder and the sun on their wings. That view is a blessing, and I think that essentially an exorcism is a blessing.

Which other requests outside of weddings and funerals do you receive, and are you always obliged to perform them, or do you have a choice?

No, you have a complete choice. When someone comes to me and says, ‘Can you hold our wedding rings because we’re having trouble in the marriage?’ I’ll say yes. My belief is that as parish priests we are the lowest of the low. The aggrandisement of the priesthood has I think been shockingly awful.

But when you’re asked to hold someone’s wedding ring, aren’t you taking part in superstition as opposed to religion? Not really, because I believe in the reality and the resonance of prayer, and I believe that that works.

I see, so when you hold the rings you’re

doing it your way and not their way? Exactly. This isn’t me giving my power to the rings, this is me offering a prayer. Or when I put my hands on a horse, it isn’t me healing, it’s prayer.

Otherwise you’d be straying into witchcraft? [Laughs] I’m sure that the druids I’m privileged to know would say that this is the inherent power of the land; the elemental power inherent in all life, and I am simply a channel for it.

Would the druids, rather than refer to God, refer to the elemental forces in nature? Well yes, that’s the Green Man. That is rebirth; here comes Spring again and nothing can quench this essential, fierce and beautiful desire. So let’s go outside and dance to help bring it back into our lives.

An atheist would say that Spring is going to come anyway, whether you dance around a maypole or not.

Of course, but why not say instead that we’ve just endured six months of a Tupperware coloured sky, so I’m going to dance around a maypole? n

FLÂNEUR

GENTLEMANLY SCENT FROM THE CHAP

COUTH CULTS

Henry Cockburn advises on the whys and wherefores of forming a cult that will not only fill the chasm in your life, but those of countless others too

So you want to be a prophet?

Take a look at your life. Your brother has just joined MENSA, your best friend is a professor emeritus at 19, your dog runs the National Trust, and your school report card reads ‘delusions of adequacy’. Not to worry. One bastion of the deficient remains to provide the gaudy veneer of respectability to any future career: the church.

Those pews, however, are ever so dusty, and your linen is ever so crisp. Self-abasement is just dandy for other people, but you want a little of that magi’s adoration for the one person that matters. You have found yourself in an insurmountable theological quandary. Traditional religion is

“If the money does not flow upwards, your cult is less of a pyramid scheme and more of a rockery. Rockery schemes, as any economist will tell you, are unviable and provide little in the way of salvation or solid gold moustache combs”

unwilling to provide its brightest and best (namely you) with renumeration, respect, and pleasures of the flesh. Friend, brother, my child, there is another way. Your only option spiritual? To go it alone. As the patriarch of Constantinople said to the pope in 1054, ‘Let’s schis’.

First and foremost, you will need to pick a deity to worship. The decision to start a cult is usually undertaken by those who feel the pull of Dionysus, and indeed regular private services in the pub, congregation of one, are as far as most of you will likely get. Those with serious ambitions are advised to pick one of the more active gods. If you have a penchant for sandals and patchouli, you are at liberty to substitute in terminology such as ‘the way is all’, ‘free your third eye’, and ‘dig that truth, daddy’ as necessary.

Where, though, are you to find followers? Well, up and down our land they drift, the pallid and the damned: office workers. These drones do little more than crunch emails, view television shows about those with lives more exciting than

theirs, and wait for little packages to arrive from large companies which exist mainly to employ more such people. You can offer them an escape from late capitalism in stylish hemp tunics at a very reasonable price.

Sometimes, potential cult members, or ‘sheep’, need mild persuasion before committing their funds/time/bodies. The occasional smart Alec will even refer to your organisational structure as resembling a pyramid. Many people consider the pyramid scheme to be ‘dubious’, ‘a scam’, or just plain, ‘evil’. This is racist against Egyptians. If the money does not flow upwards, your cult is little more than a rockery. Rockery schemes, as any economist will tell you, are unviable and provide little in the way of salvation or solid gold moustache combs.

Acquiring ecumenical proof is a necessary if tiresome part of the process. As I found out through a series of misunderstandings at the British Library, it is remarkably difficult to remove documents of historical importance from national

Unsure which deity your cult shoud worship? Choose one who already has the devotion of the masses

archives. It is, however, a relative walk dans le parc to place items of historical importance on to the shelves of such archives, as perfected by Pierre Plantard when he founded the early-mediaeval Priory of Scion in 1956. Why, only the other day, passing the bookmobile at my local community centre, I ‘found’ an ancient missive (smelling coincidentally of lapsang souchong) that linked one of my ancestors all the way back to St Swithun himself. No wonder I have the whiff of holy chrism after a vigorous game of squash. When the truth remains stubborn, you have divine mandate to coax it along by hook, repurposed vellum, or crook.

An aspect not to be overlooked is the naming of your cult. I suggest, after a quick prayer to yourself (you should by now be at least a minor deity in the pantheon), jabbing at a dictionary randomly and allowing the universe to divine a name for you. This is how such popular sects as

Cult of the Blue Öyster, Hermetic Augurs of the Untidy Horse’s Trousers and Weight Watchers were founded.

Now to find somewhere for your first meeting. There is a helpful precedent in England that new religions nab pre-existing places of worship (see Randy Reformers, Buxom Boleyns and Other Tudor Tarts by David Starkey for the full history). It would appear, after cursory research, that the most popular mainstream religion today is known as McDonalds. As you and your gang of fervent pilgrims descend on the pimply youths who inhabit such establishments to seize these sacred sites for the chosen, feel free to attempt a mass conversion. Should any trainer-wearer slip into the deep fat fryer however, well, the Lord will know his own. On matters sartorial, it hardly needs to be said that you will be wearing exclusively velvet and brocade from here on in. Hairshirts and magic

It is important to have as many mousachioed members as possible in one’s cult

underwear will of course be mandatory for your followers – inspections of which are to be taken privately in your inner sanctum.

So, there you have it – you are now in proud possession of a rapidly expanding, smart young cult. If in any doubt as to how to proceed, refer back to the three Ps: Prostration, Plunder and Polygamy.

There is one final piece of advice without which no self-respecting cult leader can do. A nugget of deep esoteric truth so powerful as to make any prayer group, picnic, or ritual flogging a success. This information, in the form of a Betamax tape, is available for the low, low price of your life savings plus VAT. Please write to Grand Vizier Cockburn, PO Box 666, Nether Wallop. In addition to THE TRUTH, you will receive a splinter of the true cross keychain; the mandatory and legally binding name Underling 1; and

opportunities to serve your new lord and saviour in roles such as, but not limited to, wife, mistress, catamite, or dogsbody. ORDER NOW. n

St Swithun: patron saint of umbrellas and galoshes

Pop culture gargoyles can be useful attention-grabbers

GARLAND ME WITH THORNS

According to A Dictionary of Folk Customs (1976), it is not known when the tradition of The Burryman’s Parade began. On the day before the Ferry Fair at South Queensferry, a small town near Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth, “The Burryman perambulates the town, visiting the houses and receiving cheerful greeting and gifts of money from the householders.” The Fair itself dates back to 1687 and takes place during the second week in August.

The Burryman is clad from head to toe in the adhesive burrs of the Burdock thistle (Arctimus bardana), giving the overall effect of a suit of chain armour. Only the eyes of the Burryman are visible, his head covered by a hat garlanded with flowers, and in each hand is a staff also bedecked with flowers. The prickly suit is so stiff and uncomfortable that he requires two staff bearers to keep his arms extended outwards.

At 9am on the morning of Ferry Fair Eve, The Burryman starts his slow walk around the town, not stopping until the evening. He goes

from house to house along the seven-mile route, accepting a tot of whisky from each household, taken through a straw, though remaining completely silent.

An ancient tradition believed to bring luck to a small town near Edinburgh continues to this day, and we meet the man inside the flowers and burrs

“The burrs will be applied to my outer layer, working up my body from my feet. I will be trying to keep calm and gearing up my mind and body for the long day ahead, then the full-face balaclava is stitched on. I then catch a glimpse of my reflection and no longer recognise myself”

ALL PHOTOS: JOHN NICOL COLLECTION

One of the various theories about the Burryman Parade’s origins is that it commemorates the landing at South Queensferry of Queen Margaret, the saintly wife of King Malcolm Canmore, from whom the town takes its name. But the peculiar nature of the event suggests that he is far older than the 11th century Queen, and probably a relic of some pre-Christian figure connected with the harvest. His visits are believed to bring luck to the town and there was once a tradition that if the custom were ever abandoned it would bring misfortune to Queensferry.

Other versions of the Burryman included one at Fraserburgh on the northeast coast, extant until the middle of the 19th century. A fisherman wearing a flannel garment covered in burrs would be chosen to ‘raise the herring’. His hat would have herrings dangling from the brim and he would ride through the town on horseback to bring better luck with the fishing.

John Nicol, born and bred in Queensferry, took on the role of Burryman from 1999 until 2012. He told us of the physical and mental challenges of this ancient tradition.

“At the start of August, I cycle up to Craigiehill Quarry in search of that distinctive clump of deep greenish stems and broad fleshy leaves topped with spiky spheres. The skin on my fingertips catches in its tiny barbs. Over the next few days, my family will carefully fill bags with 11,000 of these insect-riddled seed heads of the Burdock plant.

“On the morning of the parade, I’m standing in the centre of the dancefloor at the Staghead Hotel. The burrs have been prepared into A3 sized meshes. I will already be uncomfortable, wearing underwear, trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, heavy boots with a top layer of long johns stitched into a long-sleeved vest. The burrs will be applied to my outer layer, working up my body from my feet.

I will be trying to keep calm and gearing up my mind and body for the long day ahead, then the full-face balaclava is stitched on. I then catch a glimpse of my reflection and no longer recognise myself, the heat and the smell from the burrs filling my nostrils, and thinking, should I have gone to the toilet one last time?

“As the tradition exists without an instruction manual, I carefully tweaked things to be as authentic as the earliest photographic evidence revealed. The Union Flag added for King George’s coronation in 1934, and being replaced by a Lion Rampant in the early 1980s, was all stripped out. My own personal brief as custodian was to set out the mystery of the Burryman as respectfully as possible. So I guess I was a brand guardian, as well as the main man for what some folk regard as a Pagan god. I handed over the role to another local a few years ago. My liver thanked me.” n

ALCOHOLIC FOLKLORE

Gustav Temple on some of the myths and legends that alcohol has produced around the world

Folklore festivals and consuming alcohol would appear to go hand in hand. What procession of leaf-covered maidens would be complete without a huge man following behind, tipping a hornful of mead into his thirsty gullet?

If folklore is the legacy of the ancient past preserved in the present day, and there are folk tales

about everything from mountains being formed to kings being dethroned, then alcohol, too, must have its stories linking it back to the days before one could order a bottle of Elderflower Gin on the internet. We have selected four folk tales involving the acquisition and consumption of alcohol, and the results of its over indulgence, whether positive or negative.

MAN O’SWORD SINGLE MALT WHISKY

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SCOTLAND The Highlander and The Devil

During the days of the plague in the 14th century, a young blacksmith named Tom Campbell became one of the few men in his hometown of Wigtown not to have succumbed to the plague. Fond of a nip or two of whisky after a hard day’s work, he prepared for a long period of quarantine from the townsfolk by purchasing bottle of whisky from a tavern. He drank a toast before setting off home, saying to the landlord, “The devil’s work is right enough, but he won’t get the better of me.”

On his way home through the dark, he heard a raucous laugh behind him. The devil had heard his toast and threatened Tom with a huge roar. But Tom held his ground and pulled out the bottle of whisky. “Will you have a drink with me?”

The devil grabbed the bottle and glugged nearly half of it in one go. Tom noticed he was unused to strong spirits and began staggering around. He snatched back the bottle and listened to the devil’s challenge.

“We’ll fight for your soul by the Highlander code of combat. If I win, your soul is mine.”

“What happens if I win?” Asked Tom.

“It is unlikely, but you may name your prize,” replied the devil.

“That you release Wigtown from the plague and never bother us again.”

The devil agreed and they began to fight. But while Tom gained succour from the drams of whisky he’d taken, the devil had taken too much and it was sapping his strength. As dawn broke over the horizon, the devil slipped on the sand and Tom managed to toss him on his back and declare victory. When Tom was found asleep on the beach by his wife and a priest, hours later, the priest turned to Tom’s wife and rejoiced in the second happy event of the day.

Tom looked up at the holy man. “And what was the first happy event?”

“This morning the plague disappeared and no-one in the village is sick any more.”

“Pour me a stiff one, Rev, I think I’ve earned it.”

GERMANY

The Doppelbockbier Monks

The Neudeck ob der Au was a monastery near Munich in southern Germany, built in 1627 by Catholic monks who liked the taste of beer, but not the wrath of God when He thought they were overdoing it. Disgruntled at the thought of giving up anything at all for Lent, they came up with the idea of brewing a beer that was so malty and rich, it would keep them going throughout the whole 46 days of Lent, since any liquids were permitted during the fast.

They called this beer sankt-vater-bier (Holy Father Beer), the name eventually becoming Salvator, Latin for ‘saviour’. The monks referred to it as ‘liquid bread’. Some of them even believed that the more of this beer they drank, the more purified they would have become by Easter.

However, beer in mediaeval times was much weaker than today, since it was drunk instead of

PAULAUNER SALVATOR

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Dark beige in colour with a very light, off-white head, the smell is rich and sweet, like fruitcake, with a heavy booziness on the nose. The taste is malty, sweet and bitter, with overtones of a sweet bready flavour, thick and syrupy with hints of apple juice, plums and noble hops, leaving heat in your throat and stomach. The aftertaste is fruity and woody with hints of raisins and molasses.

www.beersofeurope.co.uk

water to avoid contamination. Doppelbock was much, much stronger, and the monks, in between getting bladdered on it, worried that the Pope would get wind of their ruse to stagger through Lent completely ‘Shawshanked’. So they dutifully sent a barrel of Doppelbock to the Pope himself, requesting his permission to imbibe it during Lent.

However, the long journey from southern Germany across the Alps to Rome, under the hot Italian sun, caused the beer to go off in the barrel, and by the time it reached the Pope it was a disgusting, undrinkable froth. He spat it out immediately, then sent word back to the monks in Germany that their beer was disgusting, and therefore ideal for them to drink and thus cleanse them of all sins. The monks chuckled to each other and lined up their enormous tankards on the bar. This version of a doppelbock beer survives to this day, being produced by the Paulaner Brewery in Munich, still boasting a hefty seven to ten per cent ABV.

UKRAINE Sirko and The Wolf

A married couple with a young baby kept a dog named Sirko to protect their sheep. One night, the wife observed to her husband that Sirko was getting old and it was time for him to be replaced. The husband tried to convince her to keep him, for he was fond of old Sirko, but to no avail.

The next morning, the farmer took Sirko to the forest, but instead of shooting him, bade him to run away and disappear into the forest. Sirko wandered the forest, sad and alone, until he met a wolf. The wolf, noting the dog’s sadness, asked him what had led him there. When Sirko had explained everything, the wolf promised to hatch a plan to get Sirko back into his owner’s house. “Wait until harvest time,” the wolf told Sirko.

A while later, when the couple were working the fields, the wolf broke into the farm and ran off with their baby. As planned, Sirko appeared and chased after him until he dropped the baby. The wife was over the moon with relief and cradled her

DIMA’S UKRAINIAN VODKA

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baby, while the husband welcomed his faithful old friend back into the family.

The family threw a party to celebrate the return of their child, and Sirko told the wolf to come to the house and hide under the table. While the guests were dancing, Sirko fed the wolf with the finest cuts of meat and shots of vodka. Soon the wolf was quite drunk and slurred to Sirko, “My friend, this food and drink was so wonderful that I feel like singing!”

“Oh, please don’t!” said Sirko. “If they find you under the table, they will kill us both. I’ll bring you more vodka if you promise to keep quiet.” But the second round of vodka only made the wolf want to sing even more, and he began to howl what he, like all drunks, considered was a tuneful ditty. The music suddenly stopped and everyone pointed under the table. “A wolf, a wolf!”

Sirko pounced on the wolf and dragged him outside, asking the wolf to pretend he was being dealt with by force. This wasn’t very difficult for the drunken wolf, and the two canines parted company in the fields, Sirko having repaid his debt.

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NORSE MYTHOLOGY Thor’s Drinking Horn

Thor and Loki, unaware that they would one day form the basis of countless Hollywood blockbusters, effectively destroying the art of cinema forever, were riding across the nine worlds in Thor’s wain, pulled by his goats Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder. As nightfall approached, they saw a farmhouse with lights glowing in the windows. They entered and found themselves in a grand hall full of giants, presided over by King Utgard-Loki, or ‘Loki from Outside the Enclosure’ to distinguish him from the non-giant Loki (rather than simply using a different name for him).

King Utgard-Loki peered down at the miniscule visitors and asked them what games they could play.

Thor drew himself up to his full height, reaching the ankle of his interlocutor. “I am the most accomplished drinking man,” quoth he, “and, I will face anyone in your company who cares to have a drinking contest against me.” One of the servants brought the King a large drinking horn. “This horn is considered well drunk if a man drains its contents in one gulp, although some men might require two. Surely there is no man who is so little of a drinking man that he would require three.”

“Hand it to me,” said Thor, snatching the drinking horn and attempting to drain it in one gulp, keen to impress upon these rude giants his

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drinking prowess. But despite tipping the horn into his mouth and swallowing until he could no longer breathe, the level of mead in the horn didn’t seem to have lowered at all. King Utgard-Loki was not impressed. “So, you’re not as much of a drinking man as they say. Would you like to try your hand at some other sport, such as cat-lifting?”

“Bring it on,” said Thor. He was presented with an ordinary grey cat and attempted to lift it, managing no more than lifting one of its paws off the floor. “This went as I expected,” said Utgard-Loki, “The cat is fairly large, and Thor is little and short.”

Thor is ready to leave the grand hall the next morning, knowing he has been humiliated and that his role in a future blockbuster will be given to a puny actor such as Tom Hiddleston. “But wait,” says King Utgard-Loki as they are preparing to leave. “I fooled you with illusions. When you drank from the horn, Thor, the other end of it, unseen by you, was in the ocean. And you drank such a huge amount that now men will call it the tides. And when you thought you were only lifting up my cat, you were, in fact, lifting the Midgard-serpent, which is so large that it encircles the entire earth in the outer ocean and bites its tail at the end.”

“Well blow me down with a feather,” says Thor, ready to swing his hammer at the cheating King. But when he turns around, the king and his fortress have entirely disappeared. n

AND QUIET FLOWS THE DON

www.sandemanquarter.com

According to folklore, whatever the weather is on St Swithin’s day (15th July) will determine the same weather for the next 40 days. While we did not visit the Don, a reopened restaurant in the Sandeman’s Quarter, on 15th July, the eaterie is situated on St Swithin’s Lane, above an ancient Sandeman’s port cellar in the heart of the City of London.

19-23 St Swithin’s Lane is also called Sandeman House, where there is a Portuguese wine bar named 192. George Sandeman relocated

from nearby Birchin Lane to St Swithin’s Lane in 1805, as the voluminous cellars in the new location were ideal for ageing and storing the wines he was importing from Portugal. An underground passage led to the cellars directly from the Thames, the barrels rolled off the ships and up the passage to the cellars. We were invited to take a tour of this historical process during lunch.

But our descent into the catacombs came later. First there were extensive victuals to order at ground level, with my dining companion

Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman lunch at a reopened City dining institution and descend into the ancient network of tunnels and cellars at its core

“Steep iron steps led down damp brick walls to the first of several private dining rooms, one of them in the original mediaeval cellar, unchanged since 1548 except for the signs showing the fire exit. The cellars all remained in use for storing wine until 1967, the last vintage of Sandeman Port being bottled here in 1955”

THE DON, 19-23 ST SWITHINS LANE, LONDON EC4N 8AD

gourmand, journalist, biographer and bon vivant Alexander Larman. St Swithin’s Lane is tucked away off Cannon Street near the railway station; in fact the former tunnels that rolled the barrels into the cellar are now partly occupied by the station. The Don resists the lack of natural light offered by its location with bright, colourful décor and a long, airy, sweeping bar. Private dining rooms with more primary colours can be glimpsed from the main dining room, where Larman and I were seated at a corner table.

The immediate appearance of head sommelier Max Cohn, a slim, dapper Brazilian fellow was reassuring. He swiftly suggested we take Portuguese red wine with our main courses: aged fillet of beef with Bordelaise Sauce for Larman, and new season lamb, sweetbreads, pommes anna, spring vegetables for me. The vinho he recommended was a 2018 Quinta do Noval Reserva, and we felt compelled to agree. For the starters it was concluded that a Gavi di Gavi ‘Montessora’ La Giustiniana from Piedmont, Italy would be just the ticket.

Once the formalities had been completed, we were offered a glimpse at the cellars. Steep iron steps led down damp brick walls to the first of several private dining rooms, one of them in the original mediaeval cellar, unchanged since 1548 except for the signs showing the fire exit. The cellars all remained in use for storing wine until 1967, the last vintage of Sandeman Port being bottled here in 1955.

The tour didn’t end there; with a distinct drop in temperature we were led through a narrow

doorway into the thirty-foot tunnel (pictured left) once used to roll barrels of wine directly from the Thames off the boats just in from Portugal and Madeira. The surface upon which they were rolled had been turned into a very long bar, which unfortunately cannot be used for service until they devise a method of escape for customers in the event of a fire. Larman and I looked at each other, shivered, and recalled that our table upstairs would soon be groaning with the weight of our own personal cellar.

New season lamb, sweetbreads, pommes anna and spring vegetables

The starters were both excellent; Larman’s Cured Norwegian salmon, pickled cucumber, horseradish cream and bronze fennel gleaming on the plate like a lost treasure; my golden beetroot and Rosary goats’ cheese, elderflower and Champagne dressing the perfect light accompaniment to a glass of Gavi di Gavi. Mr. Cohn insisted on decanting the Quinta do Noval Reserva, and who were we to argue? After its time in the cellars we had just emerged from, it fully deserved to receive a decent airing. A study of the wine list showed that, while Cohn and David Gleave, chairman and founder

of Liberty Wines, had ensured that the 600 wines filling their cellars contained plenty from Portugal, they had also been generous with those from France and Spain, as well as a modest selection of New World wines, including a couple from Uruguay. It was also nice to see that their champagne list, selected by Simon Stockton, included two English sparkling wines, a Blanc de Noir from Rathfinny and a Nyetimber, 1086 Prestige Cuvée, both from Sussex.

The main courses were well worth the wait for the Quinta do Noval Reserva to breathe, head chef

Sommelier, we’re going to need a bigger tray

Toby Lever, formerly of Lutyens, having presented both beef and lamb in uncomplicated dishes that allowed the choice cuts of meat to shine through. Our waiter had recommended a seemingly unusual side dish for red meat, Butterhead lettuce with ranch dressing, crispy shallots and soft herbs, but this proved an ideal dose of green to balance the heavy reds adorning both plate and glass.

Larman and I had entered the Don with the sense that port would be delivered to the table at some point. We were not disappointed. Having both ordered cheese for pudding, Max Cohn promised

us a fine selection of four ideal progressions through the many flavours of fortified wine. Starting with a 2018 Tokaji Edes Szamorodni from Hungary, a Madeira-like golden fortified wine, this led to a 10-year-old Sandeman Tawny to a Ruby Port made from blended 10 and 20-year-old vintages, finally a 2013 Vintage Quinta do Seixo from Sandeman. This exquisite vintage rounded off the quartet with a taste of what George Sandeman must have sampled in Portugal in 1790, inspiring him to find a way to deliver such fine fortified wines all the way from their source to a tunnel under the Thames. n

Thank you, Mr. Sandeman, but I think I’ve had enough

ROYAL MOTORS

MOTORING

Royal Motors

Actuarius delves into the royal garage, to see what motoring tastes are held by various members of ‘the Firm’ and particularly the king

With the dust now settling from the first British Coronation in 70 years, what better time to cast an eye over the motoring history of the house of Windsor? At the turn of the last century, cars were an emerging technology, a luxury item owned by the adventurous and well heeled. Edward, Prince of Wales fitted these criteria perfectly and so became the first member of royalty to join the nascent motoring scene, doing so in 1900 when he bought a Daimler. Packing a whopping 6hp from the two-cylinder engine under its ‘coal scuttle’ bonnet, the car’s meagre performance was further

eroded by bodywork that owed much to farm cart technology, and a drag coefficient not dissimilar to that of the Rock of Gibraltar’s. However, it was a success and within the year more powerful models from the Coventry based manufacturer would join it in the royal mews. As a British company using a German name under license, Daimler seems an appropriate choice for what was still the SaxeCoburg family.

The first official use of a motor car for state duties came in 1904 at Woolwich, and from here on the fleet would be split between official limousines, working cars and personal transport.

Of these, it is the official cars that are most readily associated with royalty, as they were involved with high profile, publicised events. The state carriage of preference would remain Daimler up to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Although today we tend to associate the marque with well-appointed Jaguars, provincial mayors and undertakers, pre-war they were world leaders in sophisticated luxury motoring. One of the reasons for their popularity with the upper classes and their delicate sensibilities was the use of sleeve valves. Although the system has some disadvantages, such as high oil consumption, it does eliminate the unseemly rattle of the more usual cam actuated poppet valve, leading to less commotion as one is wafted along in buttoned leather splendour. It may surprise some that Rolls Royce, founded in 1904, were not officially adopted earlier, given that they have never been shy in

Edward VII in his 1901 6hp two-cylinder Daimler

“One of the reasons for Daimler’s popularity with the upper classes and their delicate sensibilities was the use of sleeve valves. Although the system has some disadvantages, such as high oil consumption, it does eliminate the unseemly rattle of the more usual cam actuated poppet valve, leading to less commotion as one is wafted along in buttoned leather splendour”

proclaiming the quality of their cars. Perhaps it was simply that the Daimlers invariably had a Galleon-like stateliness befitting the carriage of Monarchs and consorts. Edward VIII, when he occupied the position of Prince of Wales in the 1930s, had driven a Rolls among various other cars but, unsurprisingly to anyone who’s seen his wardrobe, decided to adopt a couple of flashy American Buicks instead. This would all change in 1950 after The Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Elizabeth took a relatively sprightly experimental Rolls, powered by a Bentley straight 8 and known as the ‘Scalded Cat’, for a spin.

Despite the roots of the change in preferred manufacturer being based on performance, it’s difficult to deny that the Palladian radiator of the Rolls Royce Phantom brings a suitable level of gravitas to the business of being whisked about the United Kingdom with a minimum of fuss. The Phantom would go on to be the carriage of choice for state occasions during the majority of the new Elizabethan era. The 21st century brought with it another change in direction and, in a poetic mirror to that original Daimler, BMW-owned Bentley Motors Limited was approached to supply a brace of bespoke limousines. Despite their positively regal size, the twin turbo charged V8 up front will sling these cars along at an indecently rapid 130 mph. Although the 0-60 time seems to be a

“While King Charles has a penchant for Aston Martins, his kid sister went for the more rakish and less aristocratic Reliant Scimitar. With a fibreglass body and a Ford-sourced V6 driving the rear wheels, this is a real driver’s car that can hit 60mph in about ten seconds, leading to the Princess Royal receiving a fine for speeding, a feat she repeated in a Bentley”

state secret, one can only assume that it’s at least adequately sufficient to startle the horses. The working cars within the royal fleet are more diverse and, as one would expect, vary from executive express to pragmatically prosaic van, but it’s the personal cars that offer the most interest and insight. The late Queen Elizabeth was a keen motorist, famously training as a driver

The Queen’s 1961 PA Cresta Friary Estate was one of Her Majesty’s favourite Vauxhalls

and mechanic with the ATS during World War 2. With such a background it’s little wonder that she was a noted enthusiast of the humble Land Rover, famously taking Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for a high speed spin around the Balmoral estate in one (This regal stunt possibly having been a pointed demonstration of sexual equality, given that Saudi women weren't allowed to drive at the time). Naturally a number of the better appointed Range Rovers were also to be found scattered about the estates, and it was an accident in one of these that led to Prince Philip surrendering his license at the age of 97. Uniquely, the Queen herself never actually held a license to surrender. Incidentally, Prince Philip was no badge snob, running around in a small MG at the time of his marriage and later taking the wheel of his own London taxicab for zipping around the capital in anonymity.

While King Charles III has an undeniable penchant for Aston Martins, his kid sister went for the more rakish and less aristocratic Reliant Scimitar. With a fibreglass body and a Fordsourced V6 driving the rear wheels, this is a real driver’s car that can hit 60mph in about 10 seconds. Not too shabby at all for the 1980s. In fact the performance is so accessible that it led to the Princess Royal receiving a fine for speeding, a feat she repeated in 2001 at the wheel of her Bentley.

Of course it’s not all exotic GT high jinks, with lady Diana having a more mainstream Ford Escort RS as her runabout. The fact that it was sold for £650,000 at auction in 2022 says far more about the mystique surrounding her personality rather than the dynamics or desirability of the car.

King Charles, then Prince of Wales, and his 1969 Aston Martin DB6 MKII Volante

So what does the future hold for the contents of the King’s garage? The royal family is no strangers to adopting emerging technology, as Edward’s first foray into car ownership nearly a century and a quarter ago shows. Queen Alexandria had an electric car for use on the Sandringham estate in 1901 and, in an apparent response to modern concerns, Charles has had his DB6 Volante

converted to run on biofuel made from wine and cheese (perhaps making it a DB6 Vol-au-vent?). Could we see a return to horse drawn carriages or, alternatively, King Charles and Queen Camilla queueing in ceremonial robes at the Hyde Park Corner ticket barrier, clutching an underground map and arguing about who has the Oyster cards? Only time will tell. n

King Charles, when he was prince, was asked to give driving tips to Daniel Craig for No Time To Die

Aston Martin DB

The fact that a fictional spy’s association with Aston Martin far outweighs that of the ruling monarch’s in the public’s mind surely speaks volumes about the world we currently live in. Especially as King Charles is a regular customer, having owned a DB6, a V8 and a Virage. The company was founded in 1913 and almost immediately established the pattern it has generally followed ever since, of regularly changing hands and flirting with bankruptcy. This hasn’t stopped them from producing some magnificent cars though, and in 1947 it was David Brown’s turn to take the helm, introducing the ‘DB’ moniker to the model names. The DB4, DB5 and DB6 series arguably define an automotive high tide that has yet to be surpassed.

The first of these, the DB4, introduced in 1958, married Italian styling by Carrozzeria Touring with high-end British engineering to produce one of the most desirable grand tourers ever built. It would be gradually developed throughout its production and evolved into the DB5 in 1963, followed by the DB6 in 1965. Despite various changes in styling across the models, the most obvious came with the adoption of faired-in headlights towards the end of DB4 production. To see any of these is a treat, but what are they like to drive? Well, on one glorious day in 2017 I was fortunate enough to be handed the keys to a late spec DB4, one that was thought to have belonged to David Brown himself.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quite large for a sporty car of the era, but the exquisite proportions help to disguise this. The refined cabin is stylishly appointed and has an airiness that belies the apparently shallow glasshouse. Comfortable leather seats are supportive, while the wood rim steering wheel, painted dash and multiple instruments mix elegance with racing pedigree. On start up the engine settles into a muted, pleasing rasp but the

presence of the period Motorola radio proved questionable over 30 mph, due to the deep bellow of the exhaust coupled to various resonances. Exploring the engine’s performance further rendered it entirely pointless. Despite this, everything was palpably focused on fast touring. Heavy steering through the thin rimmed wheel immediately lightened when moving, and a slight wallowing when pulling out of junctions settled into an assured balanced poise around fast, sweeping corners at the national speed limit.

Unfortunately the DB4 was fitted with a David Brown gearbox, the single disappointing aspect, with its recalcitrant upchange from 3rd to 4th. Ironic, given the family fortune was made through the manufacture of transmissions. Despite this, the 60-year-old car was utterly intoxicating, with the torquey delivery of the twin cam straight six being perfectly matched to the tall gearing. The delivery from the engine in this example, aided by race cams that really help her to breathe from 3000 RPM onwards, was both smooth and relentless. Easy to believe the owner’s claim that “Trundling into London or heading for the South of France, you could pretty much leave it in a single gear and treat it as an automatic.”

1989 Aston Martin Lagonda Series 4 £118,000

2008 Rolls Royce Phantom 7 £79,500

1957 Austin Healey 100/6 £82,000

1951 Bentley Mark 6 H.j.mulliner 'Lightweight' Saloon £48,000

1958 Bentley S1 £35,000

Bugatti Type 54 €4,800,000 Sold From Clientʼs Belgian Garage

1951 Bentley Mkvi H.j.mulliner “Lightweight” Saloon £42,000

Use The Bell!

Abombsite car dealer somewhere in Warren Street, where Harold Lang, Harry Fowler and Sidney Tafler are taking delivery of a dubious-looking Ford V8 Pilot. Suddenly, they hear the sound of a bell:

Mr. Lang: ‘Gasp! It’s the law!’

Mr. Fowler: ‘Lawks a minton!’

Mr. Tafler: ‘Let’s scarper!’

Suddenly an immaculately polished Wolseley 6/80 screeches to a halt outside the car lot. An incredibly badly choreographed fight ensues, resulting in the

arrest of these miscreants. After all, crime and wearing black shirts with white ties do not pay. Lang, Fowler and Tafler: ‘You got us bang to rights, inspector, and no mistake’. Such scenarios dominated my formative years. As with many Chap readers of my vintage (ie born the year of Abbey Road), I developed a fascination with the day before yesterday via BBC and ITV screenings of British films of the 1950s and 1960s. The Wolseley of Justice was dominating this world of Brylcreem, Woodbines and telephone numbers

Andrew Roberts on the joys of owning a Wolseley Police Car and its innumerable appearances in British films of the 1960s

“You got us bang to rights, inspector, and no mistake!”

such as FLAxman 4930 (‘press Button A, caller’). They might attend a convention of Herbert Lomstyle gangsters in a Soho niterie, or chase wide boys with a case of stolen nylons. Such fine motorcars became indelibly associated with such dialogue as:

‘Damn it, Superintendent, I was at the manor house that night!’

‘In your own time, Sergeant!’

‘Oh no! It’s the Teddy Boys!’

‘Oh no! It’s an invasion of low budget aliens in a spacecraft that resembles a Hillman Minx Mk. VI fitted with tail fins!’

On the small screen, John Gregson’s Commander Gideon had only to pick up a Bakelite telephone for a fleet of Wolseleys to descend upon St. Katherine’s Docks. Such was my fascination with the marque that in 2021 I took the decision to buy one – more of that anon.

The first police Wolseley to catch my eye was the 6/80, one of the undoubted stars of the 1948 London Motor Show. The combination of a 2.2-litre straight six engine, vast radiator grille and elegant lines made it a patrol car of choice

of many forces, most famously the London Met. The cinema reflected this high-profile public service, from the 1957 film noir Town on Trial to the excellent 1955 Ealing drama The Long Arm. Any picture with Nicholas Parsons as a Police Constable and the priceless line that their regular Area Car was ‘chasing Teddy Boys in Notting Hill’ was essential viewing. Mention should also be made of the hilariously bad 1956 youth drama My Teenage Daughter. The gripping narrative tells of how Sylvia Syms’s Janet, the 17-year-old offspring of Anna Neagle’s single mother, descends into a depraved world of suede footwear, dancing to Humphrey Littleton’s music and even attempting to outrun a police Wolseley. The message is evident – coffee bars are the road to ruin.

But my main source of Wolseley entertainment was Anglo-Amalgamated’s Scotland Yard series of B-films shot between 1953 and 1961. Their most frequent leading man was the Australian lawyer-turned-actor Russell Napier, a man born to bark orders into an r/t set, as Superintendent Duggarn. Meanwhile, your host was the barrister and criminologist Edgar Lustgarten, aged 45 in the first The Drayton Case

Magda Miller and Alec McCowan in Town on Trial (1957)

but looking all of 96. His catchphrases were ‘it was here the villain made his fatal error’ and, before the

end credits, ‘they met with the ultimate penalty of the law’. The earlier adventures featured the 6/80, which off-screen remained in London Met service as late as 1961, seven years after its demise. The replacement 6/90 sported svelte Gerald Palmer lines, and Wolseley advertisements boasted that some 500 were enforcing law and order around the country.

The 6/90 was also the automotive star of the 1962 comedy The Wrong Arm of the Law and the early editions of Anglo-Amalgamated’s 1960-1965 Edgar Wallace B-features. On television, the mighty Wolseley appeared in the opening credits of the first episodes of No Hiding Place, and at Merton Park they dominated the later Scotland Yards. 1960’s The Dover Road Mystery is especially treasurable for the scene of a 6/90 battling with a stolen Ford Zephyr Mk. II. ‘I’m flat-out, chum!’ the driver exclaims as his squad car lurches over the highway. By then, the world of crime had evidently wearied Edgar, as he struggled to read his cue cards after what might have been a splendid luncheon.

At the end of the 1950s, the magnificent tail-finned 6/99 succeeded the 6/90, receiving an upgrade in 1961 as the 6/110. One Wolseley, 716

Police Wolseleys could even be driven while standing on the pavement

“Perhaps the most disturbing appearances of a police Wolseley in a film is in two narratives that focus on the mob, a prevalent fear of post-war British cinema. The authorities in 1963’s Heavens Above! are unable to quell the crowds attacking the wellmeaning clergyman played by Peter Sellers in a careerbest performance. The entire scene is reminiscent of a Boulting Brothers’ interpretation of Fritz Lang’s Fury”

TPD, enjoyed a more varied career than some actors, with roles in films as diverse as The Fast Lady, Carry On Cabby and Murder at the Gallop. It was the property of the stunt firm Action 99 cars, and their David Nivenmoustachioed driver Joe Wadham was a familiar screen presence. But, alas, 1969 marked the end of the cinematic and television police Wolseley, in contemporary roles, with appearances in The Strange Report, Leo the Last and the highly entertaining ‘Made for Television’ thriller Run a Crooked Mile

Outside of Pinewood and Elstree, the last 6/110 departed the Cowley factory in 1968. The final examples left the service of the Met in 1970, and the later London police Wolseleys had two-note horns augmenting the bell. However, the familiar ‘gong’ could still be heard on Triumph 2.5PIs and Rover P6B 3500s well into the 1970s.

So, the Police Wolseley passed virtually into folklore, a car that belonged to visions of an already remote recent past screened on afternoon television. They also proved seemingly irresistible props to the makers of the sort of period drama celebrating a mythical 1950s, while many British films of that decade questioned notions of stability. 1959’s Sapphire appeared to follow the standard

trope of well-spoken senior CID officers arriving in black Wolseley to restore order. But here, Nigel Patrick and Michael Craig travelling through an aspidistra-strewn Tuffnel Park cannot defeat the racism that results in murder. A year later, Noel William’s Detective-Inspector in Never Let Go is more interested in catching Peter Sellers’s terrifying racketeer than aiding Richard Todd’s victim. As the 1960s progressed, several filmmakers used the Wolseley not so much as a bastion of security, but as a symbol of Establishment values at odds with a changing world. 1965’s Bunny Lake is Missing has Laurence Oliver’s 6/99 travelling through a capital city where Carnaby Street and Edwardian self-conscious eccentrics uneasily co-exist. Long before he descended into selfparody, Michael Winner cast Harry Andrews as Superintendent Marryatt in 1967’s The Jokers – a weary figure commanding a fleet of Wolseleys to quell the self-indulgent excesses of Swinging London. By then the second feature crime drama, so long the marque’s traditional cinematic home, was on the wane. That agreeable actor Conrad Phillips was one of the genre’s last stars, and Chap readers are urged to view him in 1965’s Dateline

The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) featured Peter Sellers’ own Aston Martin, the only DB4GT ever to star in a movie

Diamonds. Not only is it a charming B-film effort to combine ‘happening sounds’ – pirate radio ships, The Small Faces, Kiki Dee, Kenny Everett – with a detective narrative, but the final reel chase is remarkable. Any producer who stages a pursuit between a bell-clanging Wolseley and a Jaguar E-Type 4.2-litre Roadster merits some form of award for sheer chutzpah.

But some other second features, with their unpolished location footage, served as an intriguing barometer of social change. In 1962, AngloAmalgamated updated Scotland Yard as Scales of Justice, which ran until 1967, allowing Edgar out of Merton Park to roam, somewhat menacingly, around the Home Counties. Their plots frequently revolved around suburban despair, which a black Wolseley’s arrival did not immediately quell.

1962’s remarkably bleak Moment of Decision starred Ray Barratt as a commercial traveller who financially exploits the kidnapping of a baby by his mentally disturbed wife. Three years later, a black 6/99 gongs Reginald Marsh’s Rover 2000 for drunk driving in The Material Witness, a narrative of middle-class unhappiness as well observed as any contemporary television play.

Two of the most disturbing appearances of a police Wolseley in film is in two narratives that focus on the mob, a prevalent fear of post-war British cinema. The authorities in 1963’s Heavens Above! are unable to quell the crowds attacking the well-meaning clergyman played by Peter Sellers in a career-best performance. The entire scene is reminiscent of a Boulting Brothers’ interpretation of Fritz Lang’s Fury. Four years later, the Wolseley symbolised fragile authority in Hammer’s adaption of the BBC’s Quatermass and the Pit. The sound of the emergency services at the conclusion will never entirely restore order, for we are the Martians. The driver frantically sounding his bell in the face of the apocalypse is a scene that remains with me still, even after forty years.

So, why did I buy a 1960 specification Wolseley 6/99 Automatic? Even after more than six decades, it remains the ideal vehicle for deterring wrongdoers by its very presence. Furthermore, the cabin allows a chap to wear his best trilby, while the gong and the loudhailer are very much operational. Even if making a jolly announcement at the Tesco car park warning against spivs and Teddy Boys is not always well received. n

Louis Jourdan in Run a Crooked Mile (1969)

BOOK REVIEWS

By Ed Needham www.strong-words.co.uk

NON-FICTION

UNBREAKABLE

By Ronnie O’Sullivan (Seven Dials, £22)

When he wins something and I post on Twitter that he’s done it with a Parris cue,” John Parris, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s cue maker, told The Guardian recently, “people say, ‘He could have won that with a broomstick or a chair leg’.” No one reading O’Sullivan on cues here will make such foolish observations again. He discusses why the “real cue” only comes out four or five days before a tournament. Why ash, never maple. Why one piece, never two. The importance of how the cue feels when you chalk it. How a cue that was heavier than usual by a quarter of an ounce (the weight of two pennies) felt as though he was struggling to carry it around the table. “Stuff that only a very few of us on the planet can understand,” he says. “It’s almost like a form of madness.”

And if his relationship with a wooden pole can push him to the brink, just imagine what a lifetime shackled to a snooker table can do to the mind. Exceptionally for a sports biography, Unbreakable breaks down the

O’Sullivan-snooker marriage by taking you right inside O’Sullivan’s turbulent head. This is no chronology of ups and downs, no plod through the seven Worlds in 31 years of trying. Rather, were his co-writer Tom Fordyce not so diligent with the punctuation, this could easily read as stream of consciousness. Snooker’s first Howl “I want my cue to bite into the white,” he says. “I want that leather tip hanging on to the polished resin as long as possible. This is what I mean when I talk about compression. I want the white to hit the red heavy.” He practices with a cue ball covered in red dots to observe its behaviour. Although naturally more akin to the great flair players such as Jimmy White and Hurricane Higgins, O’Sullivan taught himself to approximate the austere practitioners such as Steve Davis and Steven Hendry. Because he noticed they were the ones who won things. He studied how Davis would “punch the cue ball. How he would stun it.” No slapping it. “His cue and hand and wrist and forearm all one piece, all moving in unison. Head still.” This was when he was still thirteen. He’s now 47, the oldest player to have won a World title. More than any other sport, snooker is a mental game played against oneself, and those pressures have led him through addiction, despair, exhaustion, obsession, panic that his talent had abandoned him and as many dark places as there are on the mental health map. In response, his battery of remedies is as refined as his playing technique. Ancient snooker coaches. Mental health coaches. Old lag dad not allowed in the venue. The importance of the daily M&S scone with cream and jam. Going to the pictures between tournament sessions. Not overpracticing. And most especially running. Now wherever he plays, he has a local runner to run with. “The best nights of my life,” he says, were not hoisting yet another world trophy aloft. They “were down at the track in Woodford Green on a Tuesday and Thursday evening.”

LEAD SISTER: THE STORY OF KAREN CARPENTER

By Lucy O’Brien (Nine Eight Books, £22)

Fr ee of the musical snobberies that for decades made listeners unsure about whether they were even allowed to like the suburban stylings of the Carpenters, Karen Carpenter is now rightly seen as one of pop’s greatest ever voices. Lead Sister comes from a mistranslation that once appeared on a Japanese t-shirt, to Karen’s delight, as she had always played second fiddle to brother Richard growing up in California: in the family, in the band, and as a woman, with dour mother Agnes making sure Richard always got the “special one” treatment. Even after their second album Close to You (1970) moved into the charts for 87 weeks, Karen was deterred from moving out of the Carpenter family home and subtly reminded she was the lesser partner. When the hits flowed, the schedule was punishing; then, when they dried up, efforts to reconnect with success sent the pressure gauge higher still. Whether as a result of family hectoring, record exec advice or her own complex impulses, Karen blamed her weight for her problems, and tipped from attempting to lose a few pounds into a fanatical starvation schedule. In her focus (she swallowed up to 90 laxatives a day) and her capacity to delude herself and others, her

behaviour mirrored that of some of her industry’s more infamous addicts, and she died in 1983 at 32, from an anorexia-assisted heart attack.

THE SING-ALONG-A-WICKERMAN SCRAPBOOK

By David Bramwell (Nightfinch Books, £10)

Dr. David Bramwell, as well as being host to regular esoteric talks and events in Brighton for several decades, regularly stages a Wicker Man singalong at venues around the country. This book charts some of those performances and leads to the author reflecting on the cultish popularity of The Wicker Man, gradually beginning to trouble him when it dawns on him that his audience is essentially celebrating the murder of a policeman in the film. He meets druids, pagans and Julian Cope in his quest to find out why this initially poorly received 1973 British movie continues to fascinate so many viewers. As well as plenty of fun facts and trivia about the film itself, Bramwell offers, in one chapter, his rewriting of the so-called ‘Unholy Trinity’ (see film reviews, page 140), with an alternative triumverate of folk horror classics with The Wicker Man at the top. The book is funny and insightful, and broadens its theme widely to become an investigation into Pagan Britain and the place of Christianity among more ancient belief systems.

MAN-EATING TYPEWRITER

By Richard Milward (White Rabbit, £25)

Anyone familiar with central London’s Newman Street will likely also have taken advantage at some point of Newman Passage as a short cut. This alleyway inspires thrilling suspicions that it is a place where people are up to no good. At the corner of street and passage is number 28, the fictional home of the Glass Eye Press in ManEating Typewriter , where roguery and transgression also converge. Glass Eye is a 1960s publisher of literary “grubby books”, marketing titles such as The Bearded Chambermaid and Percy’s Powdered Wig to customers in discreet packaging. As the decade draws to a close, the company balance sheet is looking terminally ill, but a potential saviour arrives. An unknown author going by Raymond Novak sends word that, in 276 days’ time he intends to commit a “fantabulosa crime”. He wishes to bestow the rights to his memoirs on Glass Eye, and if they would just place a symbol of acceptance in the paper, he will send it chapter by chapter as it flows from his typewriter. With the Manson murders pushing tabloid fonts to their limits and

society in a state of great froth at the avantgarde outrages of the day, the market for such a document may be life saving, depending on what manner of atrocity this maniac has in mind. Should they publish or alert the police?

As the chapters pile up, so do Novak’s credentials as an odd one – the son of a possessive French mother, raised in a collapsing East End slum, dressed as a girl and forbidden to go out, until one day the building collapsed on top of them both and Raymond joined the merchant navy. Even more noteworthy than his baroque adolescence is his voice – he writes in Polari, the “secret homosexual lingo” derived from bits of Italian, Yiddish, rhyming slang, seafaring jargon, and any other colourful gibberish ( gibberish : Polari for the hybrid patter spoken in naval hotspot Gibraltar) that can be pressed into service to keep squares and police officers from cottoning on. There is no glossary, yet it comes as a revelation that one can sail through a novel on less than 75% comprehension. As Novak completes the grotesque education of his seafaring, he fetches up in London just as it begins to swing. This environment suits his debauched opportunism perfectly, and he surrounds himself with outré lady disciples in an anarcho-surrealist fashion design business. The sun then rises on his mad project, inducting the reader into the fiendish nature of the plot, both terroristic and literary. If you have the stomach for a little gore and the patience to let the gabble flow over you, you’ll find this a most rewarding experience, executed by a magician of the typewriter.

THE BIRDCAGE LIBRARY

By Freya Berry (Headline Review, £16.99)

Like Man-Eating Typewriter , The BCL is another intriguing book within a book, this one in the hands of a botanist and zoologist called Emily Blackwood. In the darkest Depression year of 1932, the

Blackwood family investments have turned to ashes, making Emily unable to turn down a request to catalogue an extensive collection of taxidermy. The location is a remote and creaking Scottish castle, and she soon discovers her true task is not to count the dead stoats, but to find a precious heirloom on behalf of the castle’s inscrutable Mr Vogel – her talent for penetrating nature’s secrets precedes her. It’s not enough to just look behind the curtains, this trail is a tantalising thread that leads deep into the Vogel family history in Gilded Age New York, with clues provided by an obscure treatise on birdcages. For extra intrigue, Miss Blackwood is concealing a few unknowns of her own among her luggage, which includes insulin, a bird of paradise and plenty of gin. All this makes for a most intriguing detective story within the most gothic of atmospheres – a double shiver of pleasure.

WHITE FOX

By Owen Matthews (Bantam, £18.99)

For breaches of political etiquette, KGB

Lt. Col. Alexander Vasin has been punished with a posting to VorkutLag 51 as commandant. Beating most competition for grimmest spot in the Soviet Gulag system, this colony for incorrigibles boasts all the delights you’d expect from an Arctic Circle work camp. As news of the Kennedy assassination crackles over the radio, a train struggles in through the snow, carrying a special prisoner among the criminal rabble and ideological offenders. He has a false name, is to be stored in deepest secrecy, and Vasin is ordered on pain of even greater misery not to permit any misfortune to befall him. No surprise then that this enigmatic inmate is a master of the sort of slipperiness the kontura, or inner KGB, excels at. Vasin learns that his charge has intel on elite Soviet involvement in the recent sudden switch of US presidents, a piece of information with devastating potential. Somewhere he’s hidden the proof, and Vasin’s career now depends on the subtle handling of this mysterious prisoner. First though, he needs to find him, as this Soviet Houdini has absconded from the inescapable prison and is somewhere in the great emptiness of deepest Russia at its most wintry and inhospitable. n

FUNNY HOWZAT?

“Despite the onrush of global warming – with the Sussex terroir and modern climate making it more suitable for growing and making champagne than Champagne itself, several hundred miles to the South – rain and thunderstorms reduce the amount of time available for action still further”

Sam Knowles reviews a new collection of so-called cricket witticisms and finds genuine wit a little thin on the ground

Cricket, by its very nature, provides a lot of time for both contemplation and conversation. As George Bernard Shaw observed: “The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.” So, cricket affords the opportunity to think and to talk. About cricket itself, of course. About facts and figures, statistics and averages, and milestones related to the game taking place in front of our eyes. This is the case whether we are spectators in the grandstand, drifting in and out of sleep in deck chairs by the boundary rope, or commentators on radio and TV.

Yet cricket also creates time and space for rumination about almost anything other than cricket, too, and often in terms that are wry, witty or droll. This is particularly true of BBC Radio’s Test Match Special team who – in a typical five-day test – spend three times as much time shooting the breeze about cake as they do about the game unfolding before them. A comprehensive analysis conducted by your correspondent exclusively for

The Chap suggests there are three good reasons why cricket engenders such volumes of witty badinage.

THERE’S VERY LITTLE TO SEE HERE

First, the actual amount of gameplay in a cricket fixture. In the purest form of the game, the five-day test match, a dry day should feature 90 six-ball overs. That sounds like a huge amount of action, until one reflects that these 540 balls are stretched out over seven-and-a-half hours, from the first ball being sent down at 11am until stumps are drawn at 6.30pm. Not to mention lengthy absences for lunch and tea. Typically, there are five seconds of action per ball, meaning a total of 45 minutes of action in a full day’s play. With so little action unfolding over so much time, quintessential English embarrassment requires regular interjections of nervous aperçus to keep things light.

Even the more modern, pyjama-clad versions of the game – done and dusted in just one day or even just a few hours – aren’t much more diverting. Yes, there might be highlighter-pen-coloured kits,

Brian ‘Johnners’ Johnson, king of the TMS bloopers

literal and metaphorical fireworks, and thumping music blaring from speakers all around the ground. And yet the 50-overs-a-side, one-day international format features just 50 minutes of action, and the increasingly popular T-20 format but 20 minutes in three hours of sporting entertainment.

RAIN STOPPED PLAY

It is one of the delicious ironies of cricket that it was invented in a country with 249 different words for rain. And despite the onrush of global warming – with the Sussex terroir and modern climate making it more suitable for growing and making champagne than Champagne itself, several hundred miles to the South – rain and thunderstorms reduce the amount of time available for action still further. In any given day between April and October in Britain, it’ll be raining for between five and 30% of the time, cutting the average amount of action in a seven-and-a-halfhour day of test cricket action to between just 32

and 43 minutes. More space and the second reason why there’s so much time available at cricket for amusing anecdotes.

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

The third motive for why cricket is a fulcrum of funny is the language that’s grown up over the centuries to describe what’s happening during the game. For one, we have fielding positions, many of which are categorised as ‘silly’. This is in no small part because no-one sane would stand so close to a blacksmith wielding a solidly-built wooden cudgel, aiming to connect with a rock-hard ball made of leather being bowled much quicker than the speed limit. Silly mid-on, silly mid-off, silly point.

Other positions sound like spies (cover, extra cover, and deep cover; third man, and his vertically-challenged brother, short third-man); underwear for different days of the week (first to fifth slip), or the positions that contortionists bend themselves into (any kind of square leg, from short-

Australian fans showing that sometimes there is little to laugh about in cricket

forward to deep-backward). There are also endless opportunities – particularly for live summarisers –for puns, jeux de mots and malapropisms surrounding the constant reference to ‘balls’. Not to mention the (apparently apocryphal) blooper from legendary TMS commentator Brian ‘Johnners’ Johnson,

during an early 80s England vs WIndies test match: “The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey”.

THE WICKED WIT OF CRICKET

With so much potential, it should come as no surprise that an inventive writer-publisher partnership should seek to capture the witticisms of the national Summer game in book format. Out just in time for this year’s England vs Australia

Ashes clash is Mike Haskins’ The Wicked Wit of Cricket. Haskins has written for radio and TV and – according to his bio – over fifty books. A fine half-century, there.

This is a Schott’s Miscellany of cricket witticisms (shall we portmanteau them as crickittisms?), the perfect downstairs loo fodder for the cricket fan, though it’s fair to say that most of them don’t raise that much of a belly laugh. The sheer weight of them, all recorded in the same place, somehow makes them individually less funny. The very act of cataloguing what is (and isn’t) funny tends to

Umpire Dickie Bird was not nearly as funny as he thought he was

“This is a Schott’s Miscellany of cricket witticisms (shall we portmanteau them as crickittisms?), the perfect downstairs loo fodder for the cricket fan, though it’s fair to say that most of them don’t raise that much of a belly laugh.”

remove the humour, in the same way as a sex manual isn’t sexy. Here, the humour tends to be cauterized by categorisation into a mega-mix of cricket-related Colemanballs. What we do learn clearly is that, with so little action and so many hours of time available for commentary, it is incredibly straightforward to make bloopers and mistakes. As well as oceans of rather lame jokes. And while the story of England player Fred Titmus losing his toes to a Spinal Tap-esque lawnmower accident was undoubtedly tragic, we probably didn’t need Haskins to tell it to us three times.

SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION STOPS PLAY

Rather than wit per se, what Haskins has done is collect and collate a loosely-themed set of noncricket-related anecdotes of what happens around the great game. Rain and bad light are well-known stoppers of play, but the book records endless stories of other things that have had the same impact: burnt toast, fire alarms, barbecues, a man dressed as a giant cigarette, streakers, greenhouses, bees, dogs, bees, a mouse, more bees, a hedgehog, but – as yet – no cat.

Cricketing bible Wisden’s annual Index of Unusual Occurrences has been well-plundered here. That said, the single finest example of [odd thing] stopped play that I’d never heard before concerns Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “During the course of his innings, Conan Doyle suddenly burst into flames at the crease. Following a Holmesian investigation into the event, it was concluded that the ball had hit Conan Doyle on the thigh. The impact had been sufficient to ignite a small tin of matches that he was carrying in his pocket, and this in turn had set his trousers on fire.”

The themed chapters rather run out of steam once you’re about half-way through, but there are some important lessons from this breezy read. First, cricket really can be dangerous, as the litany of cricket-related deaths – a kind of leather and willow Darwin Awards – attests. Second, umpire Dickie Bird was not nearly as funny as he thought he was. Third, W.G. Grace – though supremely talented – was also a cheat, a cad and a liar, who’d do anything to stay at the crease. And fourth, sledging is much more about sportsmanship than true wit. Aussie all-rounder Merv Hughes (left) is singled out as the ‘sledgend’, but his reported witty

aphorisms make him sound much more like a bully than one of Reverend Spooner’s shining wits.

ARLOTT OF CUNIS

My two favourite quotes in Haskins’ miscellany are both attributed to the claret-loving wordsmith and commentator, John Arlott. First: “And when South African bowler ‘Tufty’ Mann was causing problems for the English batsman George Mann, Arlott’s assessment was: ‘What we have here is a clear case of Mann’s inhumanity to Mann.’” And second – which may actually be the work of Alan Ross, writing in The Observer, but let’s give it to Arlott –is his observation that “the New Zealander Bob Cunis’ bowling was a bit like his name – ‘neither one thing, nor the other’.” n

The Wicket Wit of Cricket by Mike Haskins is published by Michael O’Mara Books

John Arlott: barbed wit fuelled by pipe smoke

FILM REVIEW A TRIPTYCH OF TERROR

Stephen Arnell reviews the three classic horror films known as the ‘Unholy Trinity’, and casts the net over more recent additions to the folk horror genre

“The relationship between Reeves and his imported star Vincent Price was fraught throughout the production; Price found fault with the director’s guidance, saying, ‘I’ve made 87 films. What have you done?’ Reeves responded, ‘I’ve made three good ones.’”

The Folk Horror genre of films, where supernatural and other creepy events occur in often rural locations (primarily British) has been enjoying a cyclical return to popularity across recent years. The Kill List (2011), The Witch (2015), The Ritual (2017), Apostle (2018), Midsommar and Hereditary (2018, 2019), The Lighthouse (2019), Alex Garland’s recent disturbing Green Man chiller Men (2022) and Cornish seaside reverie Enys Men from the same year all signal a resurgence of interest in rustic shockers.

To celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the release of Robin Hardy’s classic The Wicker Man, we’ll concentrate on three seminal motion pictures released during the first wave of Folk Horror: Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and the aforementioned The Wicker Man (1973).

WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968)

The third and final film by horror writer/director Michael Reeves (1943-1969) is regarded as one of the finest in the Folk Horror genre. Price’s Hopkins stalks the highways and byways of Civil War East Anglia ‘pricking’ suspected witches, abusing the inhabitants and other mischief, turning a profit by bilking the local authorities for his dubious services. When the Witchfinder General makes an enemy of a young Roundhead officer (Ian Ogilvy), his luck begins to turn.

Personally, while I can appreciate the quality of the production, I find a palpable vein of sadism running through the picture, which at the same time seems to revel in the tortures committed by the real-life Witchfinder-General Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) and his enthusiastic assistants. The relationship between Reeves and his imported star was fraught throughout the production; Price found fault with the director’s guidance, saying, “I’ve made 87 films. What have you done?”

Reeves responded: “I’ve made three good ones.”

Price later acknowledged the worth of Witchfinder General in a letter to Reeves before his death months later, from what was assumed to be an accidental alcohol/barbiturate overdose. Rather churlishly the director responded, “I knew you would think so.” Price also played a witchfinder in Gordon Hessler’s lesser Cry of the Banshee (1970), notable only for Terry Gilliam’s Python-esque opening credits.

Vincent Price in Witchfinder General (1968)

Gerry Cowper in The Wicker Man (1973)

FOLK HORROR AND WEIRD BRITISH CLASSICS

THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1971)

Like Witchfinder General, there are certainly elements to admire in the late Piers Haggard’s (1939-2023) The Blood on Satan’s Claw, though the movie is permeated with an unsavoury (but effective) atmosphere of decay and corruption, with few (if any) characters to empathise with. The discovery of a grotesque furry skull with one intact eye leads to demonic, highly sexualised frenzies among the local youth in a backward (even for the time) 18thcentury English village. Can district judge Patrick Wymark put a stop to the cult’s activities and prevent the resurrection of a chaos-monster called ‘Behemoth’?

The picture builds to a grim climax, as Behemoth is finally reconstituted from patches of matted hair flayed from the living hides of youngsters infected by the evil presence. According to Jacques Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, the creature is Satan’s chief watchman, who also supervises feasts in Hell and possesses a strong singing voice.

Wymark also cameoed as a warty Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder General and played for the other side in the English Civil War, essaying the unfortunate Earl of Strafford in the shouty Richard Harris 1970 Cromwell biopic. Harris claimed to

the resurrection of chaosmonster ‘Behemoth’?”

“The discovery of a grotesque furry skull with one intact eye leads to demonic, highly sexualised frenzies amongst the local youth in a backward (even for the time) 18thcentury English village. Can district judge Patrick Wymark put a stop to the cult’s activities and prevent

Linda Hayden (left) and Michelle Dotrice, who went on to play Frank Spencer’s wife, in The Blood on Satan’s Claw

Yvonne Paul in The Blood on Satan’s Claw

have suffered a nervous breakdown during filming, waking up on the day of the execution scene believing they were really going to behead King Charles I. The hysterical actor tried to stop the death sentence being carried out before being forcibly sedated.

Piers Haggard was the great-great-nephew of writer Sir Henry Rider Haggard of King Solomon’s Mines fame. The director never again approached the distinction of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, with the exception of dystopian ITV mini-series The Quatermass Conclusion (1979), which saw the now aged Professor (John Mills) take on an extra-terrestrial menace using ancient stone circles (including one supposedly under Wembley Stadium) to harvest humanity’s young. Rather depressing, but still worth a watch, especially if you enjoyed 1977 children’s folk horror series Children of The Stones

THE WICKER MAN (1973)

“Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man.” Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee)

By far the best motion picture of the three is

Robin Hardy’s superb The Wicker Man, deemed ‘The Citizen Kane of horror movies’ by Cinefantastique magazine. A literate and witty script by Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth), career-best performances by Edward Woodward as Sgt. Neil Howie and Christopher Lee as the charming but sinister Lord Summerisle combine with a lyrical score by Paul Giovanni and Hardy’s atmospheric direction to provide an undisputed Folk Horror classic.

Pious virginal Christian Police Sergeant Neil

Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man (1973)

Howie finds more than he bargained for in his search for missing child Rowan Morrison on the far-flung Hebridean island of Summerisle. One may wonder why the remote pagan island is home to a Swede (Britt Eckland), a German (Ingrid Pitt) and an Italian (Diane Cilento), all attempting (or having dubbed) Scotch accents, but that is a minor quibble.

The picture is full of stunning imagery, droll humour and a genuine feeling of impending dread. And as with Witchfinder General and The Blood on Satan’s Claw, there is ‘something for Daddy’ in the shape of Britt Eckland’s bare buttocks (in fact a backside double) when she is gyrating naked in the bedroom adjacent to the increasingly uptight policeman. Eckland complained that her place was taken by “a model with a big ass.” There’s no pleasing some people.

Avoid at all costs Nic Cage’s (“Not the bees!”)

histrionic 2006 remake and, unfortunately, Hardy’s belated semi-sequel The Wicker Tree (2011), the director’s own screenplay not a patch on Shaffer’s.

If you enjoyed The Wicker Man, check out J. Lee Thompson’s Eye of the Devil (1966) which has a similar theme but lacks the fun of the later picture. For completists, you may also want to give Roddy McDowell’s sole directorial effort Tam Lin (1970) a watch. Ava Gardner bewitches a young Ian McShane and chums in her quest to remain eternally youthful.

Both films are available free to watch on YouTube, as is the excellent BBC1 3-part adaptation of Kingsley Amis’ The Green Man, where Albert Finney’s inebriated innkeeper is plagued by the malevolent spectre of a sorcerous seventeenth century academic and his catspaw, the monstrous supernatural entity of the show’s title. n

The candlestick reveals that The Green Man is no ordinary inn

Contemporary Folk Horror

The Kill List (2011)

Ben Wheatley’s horror provides a fair few hair-raising moments in his tale of hitmen, cultists and human sacrifice starring Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley.

The Witch (2015)

A Puritan family in a remote New England farmstead go ‘mano o mano’ with Satan in the form of shifty goat ‘Black Phillip’.

The Ritual (2017)

A group of British college chums, led by Rafe Spall, go on a hiking holiday in the lonely forests of Sweden, where they are distracted from missing their absent friend by an ancient Norse evil.

Apostle (2018)

A remote Welsh island is home to deranged sect leader Michael Sheen, his fanatical followers, and an imprisoned Celtic Goddess.

Hereditary (2018)/Midsommar (2019)

Two creepy cults from Ari Aster, director of newly released unhinged horror Beau Is Afraid, both produced by A24. Hereditary delves into demonic possession, while Midsommar presents Wicker Man-

style hijinks among innocent guests at a ritualistic festival in bucolic Sweden.

The Lighthouse (2019)

Seafood-related shenanigans (“Yer fond of me lobster ain’t ye?”) with Willem Dafoe’s Protean ‘wickie’ (lighthouse keeper). Director Robert Eggers mixes it up with fugitive assistant Thomas Howard (Robert Pattinson). Add in a randy mermaid (Valeriia Karamän) and simmer nicely.

Men (2022)

Alex Garland explores the myth of The Green Man as recently widowed Harper (Jessie Buckley) holidays alone in a Herefordshire village, where all the males resemble Rory Kinnear.

Enys Men (2022)

Brush up on your Cornish with this psychedelic trip set in 1973 Kernow. John Woodvine, the kindly Dr Hirsch from An American Werewolf in London (1981), cameos as ‘The Preacher’.

SLIM GAILLARD

Chris Sullivan recalls his time working with the legendary surrealist bluesman after nearly knocking him over outside Bond Street tube station

“Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two Cs, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing C-Jam blues and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages”

On The Road, Jack Kerouac

Dean stands in the back, saying, ‘God! Yes!’ and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. ‘Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time. “Finally the set is over… Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over everybody’s head as people come to talk to him. Bourbon is slipped into his hand. ‘Bourbon-orooni—thank-you-ovauti.’”

Musician Slim Gaillard was adored by the poetry loving Beat Generation, for he had created his own language and dictionary. A mixture of Yiddish, English, Armenian, Arabic and hep cat argot, he called it Vout – a moniker that originates from the jazz slang word ‘voot’, meaning ‘money’. The purpose of Vout was to transcribe lyrics into a free form, free-flowing melody that could forever

“In 1946, just as the then unnamed Beat Generation were finding their feet, Slim published Slim Gaillard’s Vouto-Reenee Dictionary – a one-man idiolect whereby one might get a sense of what he was saying only via the context it’s used in. Thus Slim became God to the Beat Movement, who themselves used onomatopoeic sounds in their poetry, as well as idolising black jazz” 150

be improvised. For means of rhythm, some words ended with o-roony, o-reen-nee, or vout – as in mug-ovooty (face), burn-o-vooty (kitchen), blink-o-roony (sleepy) while other, more complex words were a collage of sounds combined into a random word: hurma (year) and capa (swallow).

“Slim Gaillard was a surrealist,” Bruce Crowther wrote in The Jazz Singers. “He created a new language which only the hip could understand (and even they were not always too sure). This language, known as Vout, allowed him to compose, often instantaneously, weird yet curiously logical fantasy tales which were superbly rhythmic.”

Vout saturated Gaillard’s singing and everyday speech. In 1946, just as the then unnamed Beat Generation were finding their feet, Slim published Slim Gaillard’s Vout-o-Reenee Dictionary – a one-man idiolect whereby one might get a sense of what he was saying only via the context it’s used in. Thus Slim became God to the Beat Movement, who themselves used onomatopoeic sounds in their poetry, as well as idolising black jazz.

I met Slim in 1983 when I’d just launched my Soho nightclub The Wag, whose ‘Beat Palace’ interior had murals of African drums, kidney shaped tables and rectangular couches. We met totally by chance. I was exiting Bond Street underground station and quite literally bumped into this very tall black man with a fulsome grey beard underneath a grey beret, atop a seventies suit and carrying his trademark brown vinyl briefcase, just like the type you’d see on Mission Impossible.

“Excuse me,” I said, after almost knocking him into the road, and then I recognised him. “But you’re Slim Gaillard.” The look of astonishment in his eyes was priceless, though I never discovered if he was surprised by being recognised or flabbergasted at seeing a 23-year-old in a beret with goatee, original 1940s double breasted suit, co-respondents and a hand painted tie. I soon discovered that he was on his way to play the North Sea Jazz Festival and would be back gracing the shores of Blighty in a couple of weeks.

I asked him to play at my club and gave him my phone number, and he waltzed off looking as lost as

most Americans do in London. Two weeks later, at midnight on a Sunday, my phone rang.

“Hello, is this Chris?” said a deep and uniquely accented voice. “Do you remember me? This is Slim Gaillard and you gave me your number.”

I booked him on the spot an arranged to meet him the next day.

Fortunately I was well versed in the arcane world of Slim by that time. I’d cottoned on to him in 1979 after borrowing a platter from the local library, and went onto play his tunes at my DJ gigs, research his Vout and rather pretentiously inject his patois to my vernacular, much to the bewilderment of my chums. It is therefore not hard to imagine the joy that was running through my veins at having this man on the stage at my club – especially as his last big hit had been Flat Foot Floogie, which reached number two in the US billboard charts in 1938.

By his second performance, groovy London was buzzing with Slim’s Voutness. So I gave him a monthly residency and the Jazz Room Xmas parties, for which he insisted on dressing like Santa (which was ideal as he was everyone’s pitch perfect Father Christmas – always laughing, always jovial and always full of love), and he was a sensation, with queues 100 long. One day his piano failed to appear, so he borrowed my bongos and delivered an exceptional set backed by bass and drumkit. On another occasion he had peaked too early and was well sozzled, so after only two songs he announced that he had to “Adjourn to the bar for some McVootie O’reenee lager saaaand witcheszzzz.” Where he promptly fell asleep, waking up 3 1/2 hours later to an empty club, saying, “Chris, shall I go back on now?” But no-one could resist his

“Aged 12, while on an around the world cruise with his ship steward German-Jewish father, Theophilus Rothschild, Slim slipped off to buy vegetables on Crete and the ship departed without him. Stranded, he made the most of it and learned shoe and hat making and became fluent in the Greek language. He got a job on a ship working the eastern Mediterranean ports and picked up Arabic, Bulgarian, Turkish, Armenian and Portuguese. He then boarded a boat hoping to get back to Cuba to see his family, but it ended up in Detroit”

charms and no-one complained.

As time went on, everyone wanted to sit in with him on our Slim’s Mondays, including, among many others, Art Blakey, Tito Puente and Van Morrison. They all wanted to play with Slim, not only because it was always fun (even for Van) but also because of Slim’s incredible jazz pedigree.

Long, languid and lanky, he was like some happy bearded stick insect with hands the size of a basketball that could stretch to 14 keys on the piano. His age and place of birth have forever been subject to discussion. Some say he was born on 4th January 1916 in Detroit, Michigan and others that he was born in 1911. I believe the latter, as he always lied about his age and knocked five years off, but when I orchestrated his funeral in 1991, his family claimed he was 80. As for his birthplace, he always claimed it was Santa Clara, Cuba, which I believed as he spoke Spanish fluently and his accent had this slight Cuban lilt.

We do know for certain, however, that he was Christened Bulee Gaillard. We also know that aged

12, while on an around the world cruise with his ship steward German-Jewish father Theophilus Rothschild, Slim slipped off to buy vegetables on Crete and the ship departed without him. Stranded, he made the most of it and learned shoe and hat making and became fluent in the Greek language. He got a job on a ship working the eastern Mediterranean ports and picked up Arabic, Bulgarian, Turkish, Armenian and Portuguese. He then boarded a boat hoping to get back to Cuba to see his family, but it ended up in Detroit. “I never saw my lovely mother Maria ever again,” he told me, “But I will never forget her.”

In Detroit he worked in an Armenian deli, boxed for a while and in 1931 worked with renowned Jewish Mobsters The Purple Gang. He attended night school and learnt to play vibraphone, piano and guitar, subsequently adding congas, bongos and saxophone to his repertoire. When his hero Duke Ellington played Detroit, the youthful Slim went backstage and met his hero. “Duke was so nice to me. He helped me with my piano playing and showed me that sometimes less is more and that everything has to swing to be voutie.”

In 1937 at Jocks, an infamous Harlem after-hours jam session, Gaillard met Leroy Stewart, a bassist who’d just finished a course of studies at the Boston Conservatory of Music. A match made in jazz –Slim was 6'7" and as thin as a straw while Leroy was about 5'6" and built like a brick – both were natural humourists and so they joined up as Slim and Slam, and in 1938 hit paydirt with their own composition Flat Foot Floogie, later covered by Louis Armstrong, The Mills Brothers, Louis Prima, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington, Fast Waller, Django Rheinhardt and Benny Goodman. Unfortunately Slim sold the publishing rights for just $250.

Other hits followed such as Cement Mixer (Puti Puti) and the irresistible The Groove Juice Special (Opera in Vout). By now, Slim’s romantic dalliances included Betty Grable, Rita Heyworth and Dorothy Lamour. The duo appeared in the truly incredible dance scene in the hit movie Hellzapoppin’ alongside Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. But Slim and Slam was to be the pinnacle of Gaillard’s career, as just after the movie in 1943 he was drafted into the US Army Airforce, where he qualified as a pilot, flying B-26 bombers in the Pacific. “It interrupted my career,” he said, “But I have no regrets. My only problem was that they didn’t have a plane big enough to fit me.”

Slim returned Stateside in 1945, at the height

of bebop. By then he represented an older form of jive jazz that some fans and musicians already found a little old-fashioned. But while playing a Los Angeles club called Billy Berg’s, Gaillard found himself sharing the bill with the Dizzy Gillespie Sextet, a group that included saxophonist Charlie Parker. West Coast audiences didn’t care for the music Parker and Gillespie were making, but when Gaillard organized a recording session in December 1945, he invited them to take part. The result was Slim’s Jam, which he later claimed was the first recording on which Parker ever spoke.

In March 1946, Gaillard was involved in the kind of controversy that would repeat itself often over the coming decades. He and Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson had a hit record with their song Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine. A Los Angeles radio station objected to what it saw as the glorification of drugs, and banned all of Gaillard and Gibson’s music from its airwaves. The ban resulted in packed houses for the duo and an invitation to appear on Bing Crosby’s radio show.

However, even though he produced a few great albums such as Smorgasbord...Help Your Self in the fifties for Verve, the new rock ‘n’ roll was taking over. “It just wasn’t my bag at all,” he mused, stroking his beard, “So I thought I would go into another field of entertainment and moved into film and TV.” Slim did voiceovers for commercials and cartoons such as Loony Tunes, and appeared in the movie Go Man Go with Sidney Poitier, and TV shows such as Marcus Welby MD, Charlie’s Angels, Then Came Bronson and Roots, and in 1968 he was in Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston.

Now ensconced in California, during the seventies Slim took to growing cherries, apples and pears and virtually retired from showbiz. In 1977 his daughter Jan married Marvin Gaye and gave him two grandchildren, and contentment. But by the early eighties the itch had resurfaced and he took to playing European jazz festivals. This is where I came in.

After Slim Gaillard at the Wag became a must-see for every hipster in town, his career

skyrocketed. I took him to model in Japan for the label Men’s Tenoras, where he was welcomed like royalty, and secured him a role playing himself in the film Absolute Beginners directed by Julien Temple. He was constantly booked all over the UK and Europe, was made the brand ambassador for the Marriot Hotel Group and given a suite at the Chelsea Arts Club for next to nothing. In 1988 I introduced Slim to Anthony Wall, who directed a four-part documentary on BBC2’s prestigious Arena show entitled Slim Gaillard’s Civilisation. One of my proudest achievements is that I precipitated Slim’s renaissance and took this wonderful human being, this naughty unpredictable genius who loved to make people happy, from relative obscurity to the fame he so rightly deserved.

Slim’s last appearance in the recording studio was in 1990, when he performed on the Dream Warriors’ single Easy to Put Together, But Hard To Take Apart. Slim died on 26th February 1991 in London, from a cancer that he’d had for a good few years but never mentioned. Until the end he was still the same upbeat, offbeat Slim, loved by all and still cherished by countless.

I’ll leave the last word to the effervescent Slim Gaillard: “By the way, don’t forget when you look at your clocks it don’t matter if they’re wrong, as it’s the right time somewhere.” n

MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC

THE HARBOUR, BOSCASTLE, CORNWALL PL35 0HD www.museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk

Established in 1960 by Cecil Williamson, The Museum of Witchcraft was originally based in Stratford-upon-Avon, but local opposition forced him to relocate to the Isle of Man, where the resident witch was Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern Wicca. Due to ‘artistic differences’, the two men parted company and Cecil moved the entire museum to Boscastle. The village itself, nestled in a craggy inlet on

Cornwall’s north coast a mere witchball’s throw from Tintagel, has the aura of a fairy grotto even before setting foot in the museum. The museum was taken over by Graham King in 1996, who subsequently donated it to Simon Costin in 2013, still the man at the helm today. He renamed it ‘The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic’ better to reflect the museum’s collection, which today has grown to over 3000

objects and over 7000 books.

The museum is a cramped warren of rooms in an ancient Cornish cottage, the fascinating displays crammed into cabinets and shelves or hanging from the walls. One of the largest items is a ‘Witch Weighing Chair’, dating from the period after the witch craze of the 17th century, as a device for preventing witches from being condemned by the authorities. The suspected witch was weighed against their local church bible and, if they weighed more (which of course they always did), they were considered innocent. The chair immediately highlights that the museum’s stance towards witches is decidedly in their favour.

Some of the items on display are deeply disturbing, not least when one sees how recently they were being used. Witchcraft, especially of the black variety, is usually viewed as something from the distant past, but there are plenty of poppets (a kind of voodoo doll for witches), spell aids and magical objects dating from as recently as the mid-twentieth century. A ladies’ red slingback shoe, for example, had been filled with wax with a dead sparrow submerged inside it. The original

caption by Cecil Williamson reads: ‘Jealousy – oh what things are done in thy name. Sexy red shoe, a poor wee sparrow done to death and frozen into a wax tomb of foot shoe space. Hate and jealousy are both bad things. This is a Plymouth-based fabrication worked by the Union Street charmer, Black Doris.’ We are not informed who Black Doris was, but she handed the terrifying shoe back to its owner, thereby casting an auto-suggestion spell. We are also told, however, by the current doyens of the museum, that the owner of the shoe did not come to any harm.

The main upstairs room in the museum displays a giant hare, a common witchcraft familiar, surrounded by various other larger items, none of them giving you the urge to offend any witches. Oddly, standing in a room filled with human skulls, creepy amulets and some objects that were clearly designed to cause harm to someone, has the precise opposite effect than one would expect. Instead of giving one the heebie jeebies, it all seems rather welcoming and friendly. There is a placard beside the grisly remnant of a human skull, bearing Williamson’s original caption: ‘Please do

Witch weighing chair

Sexy red shoe and sparrow

not dislike this skull. Like you it once could laugh and maybe cry, but those in authority decided in their self-assumed wisdom to chop his head off and dump it into a cauldron of hot tar, and the head was exposed as a public warning.’ The current owners did some research with slightly more scientific insight, having it examined by Dr Martin Smith of Bournemouth University. His X-ray and CT scan revealed first that it was a woman’s, not a man’s skull, and secondly that there was a substance pooled at the back of the skull in a way identical to some Egyptian mummies, which had resins poured into the skull after the brain was removed, suggesting that the skull is from a mummy dating from Ancient Egypt.

One emerges from all this into the sunlight glittering on the river running through Boscastle, with the conclusion that witchcraft and witches are only as frightening or as silly as you allow them to be without any accurate information. The museum, by making itself into a repository for all things associated with ‘the Craft’, acts as a kind of safe house for them and all the fear they may inspire. The world outside seems a much safer place when

you know that all the spooky ju-ju is safely locked up in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. n

Cloth doll in nurse’s uniform

Here hare, hare here

THE CHAP IS NOT JUST A MAGAZINE

We also have an extensive online emporium boasting a range of products aimed at enhancing the lives of our readers, from lapel badges to hip flasks.

Recent additions include the range of silk pocket squares and ladies’ headscarves from the Geoff Stocker archive mentioned on pages 60-69. These will soon be joined by a brand-new Chap pocket square designed by Geoff Stocker.

Our grooming range includes, along with shaving soaps, after-shave balms and moustache wax, our popular fragrances Flaneur and Raffish. Now you can purchase a sample pack of both Flaneur and Raffish, allowing you to use them both liberally and then acquire one of them as a full bottle, with the cost of the samples discounted.

Put it this way – by using The Chap Shop, you will be the most louchely scented, dapperly accessorised gentleman in town.

All the above products are available from WWW.THECHAP.CO.UK

HALF PRICE SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

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Instead of the usual price of £28.00 for four issues per year, by taking up this offer the recipient will become an annual Chap subscriber for just £14.00, precisely half the usual cost, which still includes free postage. The offer is available in the EU for £19 and elsewhere in the world for £24. The subscription can be cancelled after one year if no longer required.

LEAGUE OF THE LEXICON

In the temporary absence of Xeno (who is unwell), we offer, instead of our Crossword, news of a superb new word game for chaps

www.leagueofthelexicon.com

Anew word game, you say? But surely there is only one word game worth playing and that is Scrabble? This may have been true until League of the Lexicon came along. The format is not unlike Trivial Pursuit, although much more beautifully presented, coming in a sturdy box with an old-fashioned wooden die and stylishly designed question cards. The questions all relate, of course, to words; their origin, meaning, etymology and spelling, with two levels of difficulty. Linguists and lexicographers from Lynne Truss (no, not the former PM) to Ben Schott (yes, that chap) have contributed questions to the game, while endorsements have flooded in from linguistic luminaries such as Susie Dent (Countdown) and Stephen Fry (all other television programmes).

The League Cards feature invented historical characters, from which each player chooses one. Then there are the artefacts cards, which you win if you get the answer to your question right. These range from Thomas de Quincey’s Opium Pipe to Arcaces I’s Parthian Cuniform Tablet; once you’ve collected the full set displayed on your character

card, you’ve won the whole game. But don’t be fooled: the game can go on for ages, raising as it does along the way all sorts of digressive discussions on the words questioned. In two separate trials by members of the Chap’s editorial team, both games went on for several hours, one unfinished due to the pub calling last orders. The compact packaging of League of the Lexicon means it can be easily transported to a hostelry, unlike, say, Scalextric or Mousetrap.

And also unlike the above-mentioned games, League of the Lexicon can be played while supping ales or other alcoholic refreshments. We heartily recommend a round of ‘League’ among friends, acquaintances or even strangers. By the end of the game you will either be united as one, or storming out of the pub insisting that the word ‘loquacious’ is of Greek origin. n

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