OF COURSE – the jumble sale post brought in wonderful
suggestions for books, and memories of people’s own experiences at jumble
sales, and comparisons with equivalent events in other countries.
There’s the original post
The
Intricate World of Literary Jumble Sales
And there’s Graham Greene
Graham
Greene: The Man for a White Elephant Stall
The people’s favourites (of those unmentioned by me) were undoubtedly
the jumble sales in Barbara Pym, Excellent
Women, and in general the author’s interest in the disposal of old
clothes. We all remember Miss Morrow turning
up in the dress belonging to Fabian’s deceased wife in order to lure him in.
‘You seem different tonight…
your dress is becoming…Constance had a dress rather like that once.’
That’s in Jane
and Prudence.
Also blogfriend (and distinguished author) Hilary McKay
identified a wonderful Just William story and told us where to find it.
William--the
Outlaw | Project Gutenberg
‘The White Elephant stall
contained the usual medley of battered household goods, unwanted Christmas
presents, old clothes and derelict sports apparatus.’
I would like to add this real-life story, a
family legend. I was once going round the houses asking for jumble in the
classic manner. A charming woman said ‘Yes! What a great opportunity to get rid
of some toys, come into the playroom.’ And in front of her son, who was maybe
7, she picked out stuff from the (millions of) toys. He meanwhile threw a
complete tantrum, which she totally ignored, yelling ‘they are my toys! I play
with them all the time! Those are my favourites! I am going to go to the jumble
sale and I am going to BUY THEM ALL BACK! I WILL BUY THEM ALL BACK!’ They were
tussling over them, he was trying to grab them out of her hands. It was
awful.
I had no children at the time, and sometimes things make
more sense when you have them, but that one makes no sense, ever. WHY didn’t
she just quietly tell me to come round after bedtime..? (That boy is
40-odd now, assuming he survived the trauma)
Anyway, I WILL BUY THEM ALL BACK is our family goto phrase
ever since for anything we are reluctant to accept.
As I said in the original post, I had by no means exhausted
my own file of mentions in books. This one was next in line
Murder Fantastical by Patricia Moyes
published 1967 (also known as Murder by Threes)
The book has series sleuth Henry Tibbett looking into a murder in a
very fancy house.
One of the visitors is the bishop of Bugolaland – a
character who (slight spoiler as he is neither victim nor probably culprit)
appears in a later Moyes books
A Six Letter Word for Death by Patricia Moyes
There is going to be the Annual church Fete in the Grounds. Will Henry’s murder investigation
hold things up? Of course not.
There are elaborate preparations as important items arrive
at the posh house, and the result reminded me of found poetry:
Dining room bottled fruit,
drawing room jams and jellies, jumble in the study.
Lucky dip in the garage.
Hoop-la in the morning room.
“But he promised to let me
have the bran for the tub. And the hoop-la rings.’
‘I’ll go and give the Bishop a
hand with the lucky dip’
Guessing the vicar’s weight,
sixpence a guess, and one of Miss Whitehead’s home-made cakes as a prize
[This obviously would have been ideal for Rowe in Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear]
Sheets for the refreshment
tables, sacks for the sack race, where to put the fortune-teller’s tent, and
the composition of the bouquet to be presented to Lady Fenshire
And an exposition of the usual thoughts:
We get the same things year after year. Mrs A buys Mrs B’s old hat, which would disgrace a scarecrow, just so as to contribute to the Church Roof Fund…Next year of course Mrs A brings the hat along again and Mrs C buys it.. It would be so much easier for everyone if eple cud just make a financial donation. But oh no. there has always been a Fete and there always will be a Fete
And – ‘ the jumble booth was
in many ways the heart of the fete’
There is a distinction between items for the Lucky Dip and
the jumble – presumably the better items are Lucky dip but also those ones have
to be wrapped in brown paper ‘because of the bran’.
So there is a splendid scene where an item is pursued from
Jumble to Lucky Dip to Jumble again,
then on to the fortune teller’s tent
The description of the fete is deeply authentic, whereas
the two major plotlines are rather nonsensical
- so read for the picture of life rather than the crime.
There is an aspect of the ending of this book that is very surprising – how one character sees their future. One of the most memorable aspects of the book.
I wondered if there were pictures of bran tubs out there –
as in the lucky dip stall at the fete – and came up with a lot of pictures of
elegant baths in shades of taupe and café au lait.
The Lucky Dip I found is from Sarah
Cee Designs, on Instagram and Pinterest, and she said she
made them for summer fairs…. so spot on, although £2 sounds reasonable to us,
but would have made the villagers faint...
Look out for more entries, and add your own in the comments.
There is a splendid village fete at which a murder takes place in Catherine's Aird's Passing Strange (1980) which I read recently. The murder weapon moves around rather a lot - can't say more. Chrissie
ReplyDeleteI am making a note - someone else mentioned this book recently....
DeleteBut the highlight of this book is the family, isn't it? Especially the bishop...
ReplyDeleteMmmm. I am saving the family here for an idea for a post about famliies in books and whether we take to them or not. Perhaps, families that the author likes more than some readers? Are you guessing I wasn't that taken with the lovely eccentric Manciples? Lampreys, all of them.
Delete
DeleteI remember that when I read this book I thought of the Lampreys!
Oh Moira, you mustn't do that. Now I have to drag the marshes to see what you mean...
DeleteTee hee. First advice is 'don't bother'. I feel particularly bad about the Lampreys because when I first read the book I was young and impressionable and thought they were good fun. I was horrified when I read it again.
DeleteI definitely think there's mileage in the idea of families we OR the author love OR hate. I'll be looking for suggestions....
I nominate the Bodenheim family and the Cripps Clan from Martha Grimes "The Anodyne Necklace" . Both are written for laughs and are caricatures for comic effect. I haven't read the book in over thirty years so they might not be so funny anymore.
DeleteAbout time I re-read Grimes, and I don't think I've read that one before....
DeleteAt the Provincial Lady’s Garden Fête:
ReplyDelete“Diversion fortunately occasioned by unexpected arrival of solid and respectable-looking claret-coloured motor-car, from which Barbara and Crosbie Carruthers emerge … Our Vicar’s wife screams, and throws a pair of scissors wildly into the air. (They are eventually found in Bran Tub containing Twopenny Dips, and are the cause of much trouble, as small child who fishes them out maintains them to be bona fide dip and refuses to give them up.”
I’m not convinced that the better items would be in the Lucky Dip - bran-proof wrapping could disguise all manner of unattractive objects.
Sovay
Reflecting overnight on bran tubs of my youth (filled not with bran but with sawdust, usually damp and hard to dig through) there would have been no crossover between jumble and the bran tub prizes at our village gala, where the bran tub was definitely for children - prizes were sweets and little plastic toys, not second-hand oddments.
DeleteSovay
very good linkage of Provincial Lady with bran tub, Sovay.
DeleteI think you're probably right about the distinction.
When I was young you could buy a Lucky Dip for sweets at the newsagents, a bag the size of a small crisp packet, which contained maybe four brightly-coloured cheap sweets and, say, a plastic ring. It's the gambling instinct, even in children - I thnk we were convinced that there was a genuine luck aspect, with the possibility of something really special in one of them. Spoiler: there wasn't.
I think the PL also has a bran tub at the children's party she gives in the course of the book, as a way of handing out parting gifts.
DeleteThe bran tub was popular at our gala as there was a prize, however unspectacular, every go - I think now that the stallholders must have had to keep topping it up with sweets &c. The Treasure Hunt was more expensive to enter IIRC and a bigger gamble, but had money prizes - far from lavish, but nevertheless a decent win early in the day could greatly enhance one's enjoyment of the rest of the gala.
Sovay
I remember the Lucky Dip packets - we lived in hope ...
I remember treasure hunts, you wrote you name on an ice-lolly stick then chose a spot in a square patch of land. But the results didn't happen till the end of the event...
DeleteI'm just remembering also a lucky dip stall where there were two bran tubs - one for girls and one for boys.
I came across a boys and girls lucky dip that reminded me of old-fashioned double-seated out-houses.
DeleteOur treasure hunt was a large Treasure Island map on a board, overlaid by a grid with small holes where the lines crossed; the player stuck a nail into the small hole of their choice, and the stallholder consulted the secret pirate journal to see whether they'd won (which they seldom had) and handed out the prize on the spot if so.
DeleteSovay
Marty: that made me laugh!
DeleteSovay: a very good treasure hunt
In Hilda Lawrence’s Composition For Four Hands, a busybody neighbor manages to come away from a house of creepy crime with a Dresden lamp, an unrecognized clue, for the All Saints White Elephant Sale. “…do let us have it. I’m chairman this year, and it’s simply dreadful the way people won’t give us things.” A short time later she’s at home, lamp in hand and, “measuring the table tops with speculative eyes,” until her son tells her to, “… give the White Elephant Sale a buck and tell the All Saints ladies you took a piece of junk off their hands.” Margaret
ReplyDeleteExcellent conribution. I've read this within the past few years, and have zero memory of it, so thanks for pointing it out.
DeleteFound this old photo of a bran tub on Google, searched for "lucky dip bran tub" and found several pics. Also called a bran pie, apparently! https://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-past-as-lucky-dip-by-jane-borodale.html
ReplyDeletehttps://www.prints-online.com/lucky-dip-bran-tub-14291913.html is a bit older, but they probably didn't change much for a while.
ReplyDeleteThanks both - excellent pictures from different eras. I didn't find anything as good as those in my searches
DeleteThe little boy...what a strange thing.
ReplyDeleteI remember Lucky Dip bags; possibly the Kinder Egg is its successor?
I know - it really was an odd event with the little boy, I've never quite made sense of it.
DeleteYes Kinder Egg is the same kind of hopeful chance, I guess