Heyho for Smugglers’ Rest

 

I started thinking about smuggling after the recent re-read of 

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer

Smuggling is one of those crimes that sounds more romantic and dashing than it probably is, and some of us can’t get over a childhood spent reading Enid Blyton and similar, where the incidence of smugglers, and places called perhaps Smugglers’ Cove, or the Smugglers’ Inn, or Smugglers’ Rest, seemed to exceed their numbers in real life.

Most of the smuggling on the blog in the past has been drug smuggling, which nobody sees as sophisticated and glamorous – though we managed two full entries on the way ridiculous plotlines are brought into play. Here and here. So now we’ll look at some other goings-on…

The Heyer book takes quite a surprising line on the crime. Smuggling is seen as a harmless pastime, everyone turns a blind eye – they drink smuggled brandy in the big house. High-jinks and fun for the lads, and why should we all pay taxes? But the undoubted hero of the book, the man with principles and a solid centre, argues strongly against that – Hugo has been a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars (the date is 1817) and he says:

“There were two things smuggled out of the country, and into France, while we were at war with Boney… guineas, and information… It was English gold that kept the First Empire above hatches. Boney used to encourage smugglers. He came by a deal of information…’

Which was interesting.

However in the final (wonderful) dramatic scenes his qualms disappear in order to save his cousin: the whole book is aimed at diddling the Revenue and making one poor officer’s life a misery – even though he is wholly in the right. I would expect nothing else of the deeply class-conscious (and tax-resisting) Heyer. But it’s a shame when she has done such a good job of explaining the economics and pros and cons of smuggling, and – at the risk of sounding priggish - it very slightly spoils the otherwise superb final drama. See my post.

Next, Rudyard Kipling (blog favourite) has an excellent poem called The Smugglers’ Song, which you can find here in full:

A Smuggler’s Song – The Kipling Society

Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.

Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

     Five and twenty ponies,

     Trotting through the dark–

     Brandy for the Parson,

    'Baccy for the Clerk.

Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,

And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

The Gentlemen being the smugglers. And, note, as Heyer’s hero says, there is information going back and forth in the ‘letters for a spy’.

A great favourite book of mine as a child, and still now, was always Moonfleet by J Meade Falkner, and smuggling is a key element of the plot. The hiding of the smuggled liquor and the banging of the coffins under the church still bring a thrill to my heart. A wonderful book.

On the practice of letting donkeys at Brighton to the ladies by day & to the smugglers at night...

Daphne Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn is really the smugglers’ handbook – I mean, the title tells you that – and also the handbook for young women who like a bad boy. Just thinking about it brings a smile to the face.

Smuggling plays a big role in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo – a book I am coming to soon…  ‘Smuggling is a profitable trade, when a certain degree of vigour and intelligence is employed.’

I’ve already had a few suggestions from readers - some already mentioned and others completely new to me. Constance/CLM says:

There are some classic smuggler stories - [du Maurier's] Frenchman's Creek, Jamaica Inn (which I prefer), Watch the Wall, My Darling (Jane Aiken Hodge), and one I just read and liked called The Sea Child (Linda Wilgus). The Maplin Bird [KM Peyton] features another willful young man like Richmond with a ship and no father to keep him in line. I recommend it if you haven't read it (you know how much I love Peyton, Moira!).

For legal reasons I feel I must say that these are boys at summer camp, not actual smugglers

More modern smuggling can take a different look.

In Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate, 1949 but set in the 1930s, we have this about a young woman’s very upmarket debutante ball:

Polly wore a white satin dress with pink roses at the bosom and a pink lining to the sash (touches of pink as the Tatler said), chosen in Paris for her by Mrs Chaddesley Corbett and brought over in the [diplomatic] bag by some South American diplomat, a friend of Lady Montdore’s, to save duty, a proceeding of which Lord Montdore knew nothing and which would have perfectly horrified him had he known.

 

And the same issue (well, not exactly) comes up in Paul Gallico’s Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, 1958 so nearly ten years later, about a charwoman who saves up for a Pairs couture dress. When she is coming back through customs, she is in danger of being charged a huge amount of duty, which she cannot afford. The solution to this actually very clever, and kind of fair enough.

 

 

So - load up your ponies and flash the lantern three times to attract my attention as you bring out your smuggling scenes in books. Which ones have I missed? Please put them in the comments to add to the list.

 Pub sign in Pevensey in Sussex

File:The Smugglers sign - geograph.org.uk - 2104941.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

On the practice of letting donkeys at Brighton to the ladies by day & to the smugglers at night - NYPL Digital Collections

Marine view back of the Isle of Wight. Revenue cutter in chase of a smuggler - NYPL Digital Collections

The smugglers' den. - NYPL Digital Collections