A review of the Connaught Hotel's restaurant found in Bon Viveur's London & the British Isles (Dakers, London 1955). Bon Viveur was a pseudonym for Fanny Cradock and her husband the fly-whiskered Johnny.They later became celebrity TV chefs. The style is of its time, revelling in luxury after the austerity of the decade since the war -'shriek for grilled kidneys...'

Where Maitre Chef de Cuisine Pierre Toulemont rules the kitchens the restaurant must inevitably prosper. The Connaught is severely English in the most distinguished manner. The wine butler stalks majestically across the panelled dining room bearing the silver salvo which, from time immemorial has been the proper platter from which to proffer (decanted) port. Overseas visitors will capture here some of the nostalgic atmosphere of old London where rendezvous with gastronomy is kept by the subjects of King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.

Let us not commit the solecism of discussing price, beyond stating that the best is never cheap– a repellent word in any context – but is seldom exorbitant – that is reserved for the fashionable, which is quite another thing.

Choose Oeufs Poché en  Surprise, the eggs tucked into a foaming casket of soufflé Parmesan, that superb Faisan a la Creme which is sent to table reposing on a couch of chestnut purée.  Confer with M.Charles concerning grouse, pheasants, partridges, with sliced truffles slipped beneath their breasts skins before roasting, dream of the dinner of your choice now that all is free again and ask that it is prepared to you with classic expertise. Throw back, if you must, to the Edwardian breakfast and shriek for grilled kidneys,kedgeree,York ham, grilled sole… you'll get them. Desire foie gras aux raisins... Brioche de foie gras…a mousse of caviar… a boned bird in feuilletage Lucullus… You will be served. We need scarcely add the bedrooms are irreproachable (£2-£3 per night doubles £3.10 shillings to 5 guineas) or that, as you might expect, no extra charge is made for room service.

Note: 2013 prices are almost exactly 100 times 1955 prices.

Found in a privately published book on advertising From One Person To Another. What advertising is all about and how you go about it. By John E O’Toole. (FCB, London & NY 1977 -'Intended solely for the use of FCB people in their work for FCB clients'). A good summary of basic laws from the splendidly named Fairfax Mastick Cone, an advertising wunderkind from the days of Mad Men and before…

EXECUTION: SOME FINER POINTS.

Fairfax Cone has said only one thing, to my knowledge, that is patently untrue. It is in this brief piece he wrote years ago, something many of us keep in our offices and try to keep in our minds. I include the piece here, not only to see if you can spot the untruth, but because it can serve as a summary of this entire book for those in a hurry.

"It is the primary requirement of advertising to be clear, clear to what exactly the proposition is.

If it isn’t clear, and clear at a glance or a whisper, very few people will take the time or the effort to try to figure it out.

The second essential of advertising is that what must be clear must also be important. The proposition must have value.

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Taklamakan Desert, Khotan

Joseph Offord Musical Sand in China published in
Nature, Volume 95, Issue 2368, pp. 65-66 (1915).

Among the immense mass of ancient Chinese records and manuscripts brought back from the buried cities and caves of ancient Khotan, in Central Asia, and now stored in the British Museum, is one called the Tun-Huang-Lu, a topographical description of part of Khotan itself. This little geography was written in the time of the Tang dynasty, in the seventh century, but probably contains matter from earlier authors.

Among the specially interesting natural phenomena of the country described in the Tun-Huang-Lu is a large sandhill, which at certain times gave forth strange noises, so much so that a temple in its vicinity was entitled the “Thunder Sound Temple.'

The geographer, speaking specially of the sandhill, says:-"The hill of sounding sand stretches 80 li east and west and 40 li north and south. It reaches a height of 500 ft. The whole mass is entirely constituted of pure sand. In the height of summer the sand gives out sounds of itself, and if trodden by men or horses, the noise is heard 10 li away.  at festivals people clamber up and rush down again in a body,  which causes the sand to give a loud rumbling sound like thunder.Yet when you look at it next morning the hill is just as steep as before."

 Mr Lionel Giles, from whose translations of the Tun-Huang-Lu these extracts are made,  mentions that this sounding sandhill is referred to in another old Chinese book, the Wu Tai Shih.

Found reprinted in Strange Planet, A Sourcebook of Unusual Geological Facts (Sourcebook Project Maryland 1975). Compiled by William Corliss, this is from Volume E-1. From the amazing library of Jeremy Beadle MBE (1948 -2008) British entertainer, television star,  hoaxer, quizmaster, book collector and philanthropist.The cave from where this mass of ancient Chinese records came is mentioned at Bookride. It was discovered in 1907 by Sir Aurel Stein -author of many valuable travel books including Sand Buried Ruins of Khotan.

Corliss cover many othe 'musical sands' including the 'Singing Beach' at Manchester, Massachusets and the 'Singing Sands' at Eigg in NW Scotland referred to in Josephine Tey's 1952 detective novel of the same name. In the Khotan caves among the books (actually a 16 foot printed scroll) was Gautama Buddha's Diamond Sutra ("The Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom of the Diamond that Cuts Through Illusion") the earliest known (868 AD) dated printed book in the world and of inestimable value.

This obituary for minor Bloomsburyite Eddie Gathorne-Hardy fell out of a book by his sister Anne Hill (of Heywood Hill) Trelawny's Strange Relations (Mill House Press, Stanford Dingley 1956) and was presented by her to Alan Ansen, the Athens based writer and member of William Burroughs literary circle.  The obituary article on EGH was written for The Times by Patrick Leigh Fermor (a xerox with inked notes by Anne Hill.) It appears not to have been published and is an excellent example of Paddy's great prose:

Saus—age—s…!

While in the Upper Sixth of the prestigious North London Collegiate School, where her schoolfellows included psychologist Susie (then called Susan) Orbach, budding writer Esther Rantzen seems to have got her head down working for her scholarship to Oxford. For in the school magazine for 1957/58 we look in vain for her name among the Orchestra, Netball, Hockey, Tennis, Rounders and Swimming teams. She wasn’t a prefect and doesn’t even appear to have bothered herself with the Drama Group, which is bizarre. But she was a member of the School Magazine Committee, which may account for her two contributions—a slightly silly piece of verse about cows and this long appreciation of food, rendered as a dream.  This gastronomic knowledge must have stood the presenter of That’s Life in good stead when it came to offering members of the public bat stew and selecting rude shaped vegetables to titter at.

Would hyberbolic Esther have made it as a novelist, like her ancestor Ada Leverson, author of The Little Ottleys (and known to Oscar Wilde as 'The Sphinx') had not the BBC come calling ? We’ll never know. [R.H.]

Love at First Bite- click to read!

Lord Baden Powell's Adventuring to Manhood (London 1936)

A book for 'boys of all ages from 10 to 90' full of useful tips and info. A scout was expected to carpenter, paint, plumb and make knives from branches of trees and cups from birch bark. He was also expected to avoid being a 'slob.'

Introduction

That is what this book is for; to show how real men can be made out of slobs and how slobs can make themselves into men if they like to try.

What on earth is a slob you may ask well – I don't know myself. The word doesn't come up in any dictionary that I know of, but I take it to mean the slot was a boy was inclined to look on the games all work rather than joining them himself, who likes to go to the "flicks"  (if other people pay for his seat) and who smokes cigarettes in the hope of looking manly when it only makes him look a young fool.

In other words, a slob is a young slacker. Yet a slacker, who leads a miserable life, no good to himself or to anyone else, can, if he likes, be turned into a hefty, happy and useful MAN.

Lord B-P may have been wrong about 'slob' not being in any dictionary. It’s been traced to Irish slab, meaning “mud,” “mud flat,” “muck” or “mess,” but it also appears to owe something to “slobber,” which once meant “mud” or “slime” as well as “drool,” and also to “slubber” (“to stain” or “to soil,” or “to do slovenly work”) and to “slop” and “sloppy.” The meaning "untidy person" is first recorded in 1861.

The book ends '...make yourself strong in Body and Mind and Spirit, and stick to your scout promise all your life, and you will be a real MAN – and not a slob!'

Typed signed letter from October 1995.The recipient is unknown as is the identity of 'Ivor'; the celebrated actress who has died is also not named. No major British female stars appear to have died in that year...

...I am not attending the Memorial Service because I am recording on that day...also I hate the things. Ivor has spoken to me, most kindly, but understood...I do hope it is tremendously well attended, it damn well should be. Every single Critic should be there, perhaps a tiny bit of her brilliance might wash over them! They need a cleansing light. Ever, Dirk.

A fax from David Hockney's LA Studio November 1995. The numbers are now defunct and the message private. It was to tell the secretary of a rich scientist wanting a portrait of her boss that 'Mr Hockney will not be able to accept the commission. It is not a normal policy for Mr Hockney to accept commissions for portraits, as he wishes to choose his own sitters. We trust you will understand...'

At some point in the 90s Hockney was doing 'fax art' and presumably the header of this fax is his work or was chosen by him. The fax has not faded and is as bright as the day it was sent.

Britain's Best. A Story of the Olympic Games (Diamond Library, London 1920)

A flimsy story pamphlet with no author noted. The plucky story of George Compton of the Littenden Harriers. 'His form was simply amazing, in the first race he defeated some 20 competitors.. his time for the (100 metre) sprint was an astonishing 10.3 seconds, 5 tenth of a second inside the Olympic record...to say that Azra Arnold was savage at losing is but feebly to express the feelings that raged inside his breast...' A mysterious conspiracy follows to stop him running in the Olympics.  The book ends "Oh yes I intend to complete again at the next Olympic meeting in 1924, when I hope to retain my place as record holder for the two short sprints; for I mean to keep up my training...I hope to see Great Britain do even better in the 1924 Olympic Games.'

John Esteven. Voodoo. A Murder Mystery. (1930)

Recording this striking jacket of the UK edition of a book just sold to a 'locked room mystery' collector in the USA. From the Donald Rudd collection of detective fiction the book also has fantasy elements ('a modern day Dracula') and listed in Bleiler's Checklist of Science Fiction and Supernatural Fiction. The Voodoo element is apparently of Cuban origin and the book is discussed by Gary Rhodes in his examination of the genre White Zombies. He quotes these lines:

 'Belonging to no race, I chose the race your white law thrust on me. I found its essence in the voodoo cult, and sought to make of this a weapon and a flame. Hatred has its gods. I serve them. For with their power, I was able to quicken and restore old practices and rites.'

The author's real name was Samuel Shellabarger (1888-1954) who also wrote as Peter Loring. A high born American he taught at Princeton, wrote novels and biographies and in the last decade of his life produced a series of historical novels which with the help of Hollywood netted him 1.5 million dollars.

An article from the long defunct Anglo - Italian Review, October 1918. Edited by Edward Hutton, an English  Italophile who wrote several Italian travel books and featuring articles by Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, Norman Douglas & Benedetto Croce. This piece is by one 'R.T.' an urbane writer, so far unrevealed**. Slancio means enthusiasm, abandon, élan...

If there are any spots on this earth which it is difficult to associate with war, surely Capri is one of them. To the imagination it must remain outside substantial horrors and continue the enchanted island which Shakespeare, as some think, chose as the scene of the Tempest; that 'island in the Bay of Naples' where Ferdinand and Miranda met and loved, and Caliban was teased by the dainty Ariel. And indeed in essentials Capri retains her enchantment. But yesterday, in the midst of an August calm, Prospero with a wave of his wand 'put the wild waters into a roar' and has now with a like magic allayed them. The news of the war seems far more like one of Ariel’s tricks than any incidents in the Tempest. The natural beauties of the island are accentuated by the diminution of artificial accessories. The moon shines with exceptional brightness in spite of regulations as to lighting. The summer flowers bloom with the usual luxuriance and the pergolas are heavy with the grapes. There is a same crush at the corner of the Caprese Fenchurch Street, namely the Piazza, where the people assemble for the arrival of the boat, now, indeed, only an evening occurrence and liable to interruption owing to the demand for tonnage.

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Stacey Bishop. Death in the Dark (Faber, London 1930)

A thriller by the New Jersey born composer George Antheil (1900-1959) under the pseudonym Stacey Bishop. Self proclaimed 'Bad Boy of Music', championed by Ezra Pound, composer of over 30 Hollywood film scores, including the much rated Dementia (1955) and practicing “endocrine criminologist” he also wrote this scarce detective novel published by Faber (under the auspices of T.S. Eliot) in 1930.

The story behind the writing of the book goes something like this: from 1927 to 1933 Antheil lived variously in Vienna, Tunis, and Cagnes-sur-Mer, writing opera and stage works for productions in Vienna and Frankfurt; in 1929 he was summering in Rapallo, Italy something of an ex-pat artists colony. That year T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats came through and also the German writers Gerhart Hauptmann and Franz Werfel. All of these writers are said to have had a hand in the work, with some final editing done by Eliot for the London Faber edition. Antheil had been surprised to see that off-duty these highbrow writers tended to read detective writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers. Antheil had an interest in criminology through theories he had developed about the thymus gland and endocrinology in crime detection. So serious was Antheil’s belief in endocrinology that it is said the Parisian police made him an honorary lifetime member.

Antheil assured the assembled authors that he could write a detective story as good as anything they were reading and Death in the Dark was the result. Theoretically it should be a C item in the bibliographies of Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Hauptmann and Werfel as they are all said to have helped with its writing. The book's hero Stephen Bayard was based on Pound. The plot and style of the book is said to be derived very obviously from S.S. Van Dine who created the languid detective Philo Vance. Despite the involvement of 2 Nobel Prize winners and il miglior fabbro himself the book is generally considered almost unreadable. Rapallo will always be associated with Max Beerbohm and it would good to think he also dropped by to add a whimsical chapter.

The book was issued without a jacket (possibly a glassine wrap may have existed) with very attractive pictorial boards - one of only two books issued in this way by Faber, the other being Bruce Hamilton's To Be Hanged - A Story of Murder, a rather scarce thriller dedicated to Patrick Hamilton, the author's brother. The British Museum have Antheil's book filed under these categories 'Private investigators — New York (State) — New York — Fiction -- Murder — Investigation — Fiction.' It has not been reprinted. The fascinating story around it more than outweighs its supposed unreadability and it may be a good investment, although a deep academic analysis of its genesis could affect prices -up or down. It has to be admitted some of the information about the book comes from Antheil himself and book-dealers whose enthusiasm may outweigh their scholarship. There is an Italian edition La morte nel buio (preface by Mauro Boncompagni – translation Giancarlo Carlotti – Shake Edizioni, Nnoir Sélavy , Milan 2009. The 1930 edition is rare and quite valuable.

Licenced….to save you money.

For someone who a few years later was swanning around in a flashy sports car, Austin Powers- like, with mini-skirted 'chicks', Michael Noel Henshaw,  started modestly in 1960, as the accompanying driving licence shows,  with a 1942 black Austin saloon. Henshaw was the former tax inspector and show business wannabe who became the ‘cool accountant’ to so many media luvvies in the swinging sixties and seventies, including  the Fab Four, the Pythons, playwrights like David Mercer, David Hare and Simon Gray and writers that included  Alan Sillitoe, Ted Hughes and Basil Bunting. He even sorted out the tax problems of William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg.

Born in Derby in 1930, Henshaw attended the local Bemrose school, where his  appearance in a Shakespeare production (he is third from the left in photo ) at the age of 16, hints at an early taste for showbiz. After National Service he took the civil service exams and joined the Revenue at Shepherd’s Bush as a tax inspector, while at the same time taking a part-time course in law at London University. His big break came when his childhood friend John Dexter, who had come to London as a theatre director, introduced him to the playwright Arnold Wesker at the Partisan Coffee Bar in Soho.

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Introduction from The British at Home by Pont of Punch (London 1939) written by T.H. White (author of The Sword in the Stone.) The cartoonist Pont illustrated about 6 books, all amusing. His real name was Graham Laidler (1908-1940). He told White 'I do not try to draw funny people. I have no sense of humour. I try very hard to draw people exactly as they are.' White deconstructs one drawing, although how he knows these people are posing for The Tatler is a mystery.

Look, for example, at the family group on page 19. The 'Country Folk' are evidently posing for a photograph in The Tatler. But who are they, and what sort of person would each be to meet? My belief is that that paterfamilias is going to be a Governor General – hence the photograph for The Tatler – and that he will be a good one. He does not understand very much, dear fellow, but he has had a sound classical education at Harrow (yes Harrow: you would have thought Eton, but look at the tie) and his family mottoes show the extent of his learning. They are Mensa, Mensa, Mensam and Palam, Clam, Cum ex and E. No doubt he is interested in pigs or roses. His eldest son in the riding boots is at Oxford, and he does not understand very much about things either, for he has inherited his father's eyes. I doubt he is even good at polo.

His wife was an actress, or else a famous debutante case, for she still considers herself a reigning beauty and spends all the time making herself up.

She is not baffled, like her husband, but simply idiotic. Like all reigning beauties, she is untidy and a nuisance to the servants, it is my guess that it was she, and not her Oxford son, who threw that cigarette-end in the middle of the picture before resuming her oafish smile. Is there some lipstick on it?

Next come the smaller children and the dogs. The eldest daughter is at the difficult age, poor child: she looks gawky in her jodhpurs and is only halfway to her mother's appreciation of the importance of photographs. To the youngest daughter, however, I am afraid The Tatler is but a closed book. Whether she has seen an earwig or some private fancy we cannot tell. The second son has been birds'-nesting. They were lucky enough to catch him for the picture, and stood him there, but there was not time to brush his hair. He waits until it is over, and will be off again as soon as it is. Meanwhile he remains quiescent and without thought, with some faint forecast of the blank paternal eye. The youngest boy is the interesting one. He has had his hair safely brushed by Nannie in the nursery, and has been delivered into his mother's theatrical embrace. Observe how his behind sticks out, and with what an internal convulsion he glares upon the photographer. He does not know what the devil they are all doing. What phobias, what indignant conclusions he will arrive at in this infant crisis we can only guess.

So far the Family, but there is still the house and the extraordinary statuary: there is still the dachshund living its own life and the gardener in the background doing heaven knows what with his straw hat. Perhaps it is not a gardener, but an uncle. If so there may be a strain of madness at the Manor House...These are a few of the delicious problems which I must now leave to the wise purchaser of this occult book. [T.H. White.]

Sold on eBay in late 2008 (price unrecorded but circa £180)

Algernon Cecil. British Foreign Secretaries, 1807 – 1916: Studies in Personality and Policy (London: G Bell & Sons, 1927)

This remarkable survival is the copy of Algernon Cecil’s 1927 book about British foreign secretaries owned by the infamous Cambridge spy Guy Burgess. The front free endpaper bears the inscription: ‘Guy Burgess / Eton 1929’. Burgess was seventeen or eighteen and preparing to take up his place at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Inconspicuous enough at first glance – a plain, dark blue hardcover without dustwrapper, a little worn about the edges – the book harbours a wealth of fascinating annotations in the hand of the young intellectual. There are many sentences in the book which Burgess has placed a pencil line under or alongside, such as the observation that Canning, foreign secretary during the Napoleonic Wars, ‘[as] he had a difficulty in understanding the value of a code amongst nations, so he had a difficulty in understanding the obligations of code amongst men’. Elsewhere, Burgess notes well the observation that the Earl of Clarendon (1850s foreign secretary) ‘betray[ed] himself by a kind of fatalism rather than a fund of resourcefulness [so that in the end] he proved somehow unable to take control of the situation, with the inevitable result that it took hold of him’. It is indeed remarkable that the vast bulk of Burgess’s annotations involve criticisms if not outright damnations of character.

There are also, at the bottom of some pages, Burgess’s own thoughts where he is moved to agree or disagree with the author. For example, in response to the claim that, in the lead-up to the First World War, ‘The Russian Government … was quite as inconsiderate of the fate of Europe as the German’, Burgess has written, ‘Not the government, only the war office, for the Tsar was entirely pacific, if weak’. And, annoyed by Lord Grey’s sentiment that ‘Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point’, Burgess writes, ‘This seems a very poor reason for going to war!’. Not just acuity of mind is evident in these notes, but so too is the hauteur of the intellectual snob: ‘Anything more absurd than this point of view can hardly be imagined,’ he writes at one point.

Four years or less after making these notes Burgess was introduced to Kim Philby and his subsequent career as a spy is well-known. The popular perception of Burgess as a bloated and aging cynic shut up in a Moscow apartment is pitiably at odds with the fresh and precocious six-former so engaged with British history in this book.'

Memories Beyond Graceland Gates by Mary Jenkins (cook and housekeeper to Elvis known at Graceland as Mary Langston, her married name) published in USA by Eastland in 1989.

In this food orientated book Mary writes that Elvis returned from a concert tour in 1972 and told her about a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich he had eaten while on the road. Mary said it took her three tries to get the sandwich to his satisfaction, and then she cooked them for him the rest of his life. By all accounts she was a very good hearted woman and 'truly loved Elvis.' This old Amazon (2008) review has good background on this rare and expensive ($200) book and sheds light on the dream of the King of Rock:

This is a very positive book about Elvis ... it was wrote by Mary Jenkins ...Mary cooked for Elvis for years ... She loved Elvis dearly and his fans... Mary never said one negative thing about Elvis in her life... In the house Elvis purchased for her Mary would invite the fans in for a visit if she felt good she enjoyed cooking meals like she did for Elvis for the fans I was honored to be among one of the fans she cooked for along with Sharon and Sue...I will always remember the days I spent with her listening to Elvis stories ... the book is a must to any Elvis Fan collections... Mary passed a couple of years back she is missed by all for the love she had for everyone the beautiful smiles she gave everyone she met, the funny stories she would tell about Elvis such a pleasure to be around ... oh yes, she is the one that made the banana sandwiches for Elvis... The first one she made was a flop the next one Vernon stood beside her telling her just how to make it the way Elvis like it ... this book is one every fan should have in their collection...Shirley

More info at Bookride + this is the recipe for Elvis's

Grilled Banana and Peanut Butter Sandwiches.
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 very ripe bananas
10 slices buttered bread
Butter
Blend the peanut butter with bananas till creamy.
Spread the mixture over 5 slices of bread. In a skillet melt enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan.

Place sandwiches in pan and grill till the bread is lightly toasted.

Flip to grill the other side. Drain on paper towels -makes 5 sandwiches.

It is said Elvis enjoyed eating 'picnic style' (al fresco?) but he fastidiously used a knife and fork to eat his peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Apparently a 'good call' because it can get messy...

From the papers of the Cambridge don Dadie Rylands - a courteous letter thanking him for the gift of his latest slim anthology Croaked the Raven. Written by the Queen Mother's private secretary Sir Martin Gilliat.

Clarence House 10 April 1989

Dear Mr Rylands
I write to thank you for your letter of 7 April with the copy of your most recent anthology 'Croaked the Raven.'  When some five years ago you sent her 'Quoth the Raven'- so superbly presented by James Stourton - Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was entranced by it and I have frequently seen Her Majesty dipping into it in the intervening years.

Your latest creation has been received with much pleasure and I am to offer you her Majesty's very sincere thanks.

As time allowed both Ruth Fermoy, who is here at present, and I skimmed through it before I laid it before the Queen Mother and were absolutely charmed.

I am sad James was too heavily committed this time – we are dining together next week and I will rebuke him! Yours sincerely Martin Gilliat.

Two footnotes from web:

Publicity booklet from the tobacconist Bewlay's issued in 1967. Mostly drawings of historical types smoking pipes and taking snuff. They claim that Britain's first smoker was seen in Bristol in 1556 'he did walk in the streets emitting smoke from his nostrils…' He was chased through the town by an angry populace. This spirit is now returning. The 1967 image shows every single person smoking - even the women ('the fair sex have shown they are no longer willing to be excluded from one of the most exquisite pleasures of life.')

Conservative Political Centre pamphlet from 1968. A cultured speech quoting from Shakespeare and Sheridan and even the now slightly forgotten French writer Anatole France (who is quoted as saying 'I am not so devoid of all talents as to occupy myself with politics.')

Among the wrongs Margaret Thatcher identifies are too much government; government and its agencies had become too big and the mere man no longer counted. People had lost interest in politics, there was too much reliance on statistics and 'too little judgement…'

One significant line in her speech is 'Bribery and corruption, which have now gone, used to be rampant.' She mentions the case of a Lord Ashley who spent £12000 on 'refreshments' in order to win Dorset in 1831. Probably more than a million…

Based on a speech given 10/10/68 at the party conference in Blackpool. From the collection of Ian Gilmour (Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar 1926 – 2007) with his marginal linings. The owner of The Spectator in the late 1950s and a distinguished historian. Later he was an anti-Thatcherite Tory Cabinet minister (i.e. what Maggie called a 'wet.') Margaret Thatcher became P.M. 11 years later in 1979.

A 1938 Christmas article for W.H. Smith's own magazine The Book Window by Collie Knox. Knox was a much published journalist who also wrote lyrics. He was a friend of Chips Channon from whose collection this came. A potboiler of an article of the kind that could no longer be written. Some of the sentiment about books has recently been revived in the face of Kindle and the decline of  book reading among coming generations. The idea of coming back to a room full of books (even a study) is still attractive and trumps coming home to a thin grey slab...

Dreams for Sale

  CALL no man friendless while he owns one book.

  After your day’s work do you go to your home–large or small–where, ranged round your own particular room, are rows of books? It is to be hoped that you do so, for, once there are books within reach, you need never feel lonely.

  Most of us lead painfully hectic lives in this age of pace. So little time there is for peaceful–unhurried things. We dash home only to dash out again–to mingle with large numbers of strangers who have been bidden to meet at this or that social activity. Further and further away from us rolls that heaven-given blessing–“A quiet evening at home.”

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