charlie_cochrane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charlie_cochrane) wrote2013-10-19 12:38 pm
charlie_cochrane) wrote2013-10-19 12:38 pm
A real life Jonty or two!
I ran across the most wonderful book a few months back. "Your Case is Hopeless" has been a real laugh out loud book, as well as a great research tool for getting into the minds of people either side of the turn of the century. It's the answers, published in the Boys Own Paper, to questions readers sent in. The questions themselves aren't given, which makes the contextless answers even more amusing. They prove that in many ways the past is a foreign country in that they do things differently there and in other ways the past is a foreign country in that they do things exactly the same there.
I'm sure Jonty wrote some of those letters to the editor, seeking advice or offering...something or other. "Correspondents are not expected to forward locks of their hair, even when of such a lovely golden brown as yours," surely has to be a response to Jonty getting over-enthusiastic? And, "You have no right to use a catapult in a road and the policeman was doing you a service in taking it from you" has House of Stewart written all over it. Although "We have no views on Danish butter. Is it a mystery?" just boggles the mind.
The best bits, of course, are about vaguely-alluded-to smutty thoughts/actions, including the delightful response to a question about smoking. "The worst thing a boy can do, bar one." *snigger*
I'm sure Jonty wrote some of those letters to the editor, seeking advice or offering...something or other. "Correspondents are not expected to forward locks of their hair, even when of such a lovely golden brown as yours," surely has to be a response to Jonty getting over-enthusiastic? And, "You have no right to use a catapult in a road and the policeman was doing you a service in taking it from you" has House of Stewart written all over it. Although "We have no views on Danish butter. Is it a mystery?" just boggles the mind.
The best bits, of course, are about vaguely-alluded-to smutty thoughts/actions, including the delightful response to a question about smoking. "The worst thing a boy can do, bar one." *snigger*
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I have a book of yours to return too.
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