Friday, 27 November 2009

The Original of Jennings

There are diminishingly few reasons for reading newspapers, and I sometimes think that chief among them is the Telegraph obituaries page. There are more wonders here - deft character studies, outlines of quite extraordinary lives and careers, tragedies, comedies, tales of heroism, enterprise and folly - than in a library of novels, let alone newspapers. Here, too, is (one suspects) the chronicle of a vanishing England, and of vanishing human types... Yesterday yielded this richly comic gem, an account of a life well (if a little wildly) spent, which hardly needs further comment. Keep on scrolling down - it gets better and better.
Posted by at
Labels: ,

11 comments:

  1. Brit27 November 2009 at 11:09

    Parnsip wine! I'm not sure I can think of a more repulsive-sounding tipple. Maybe sprout stout?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brit27 November 2009 at 11:10

    Parsnip even.

    ReplyDelete
  3. worm27 November 2009 at 11:33

    great stuff. what man wouldn't like to be remembered as 'looking like a pirate'?

    ReplyDelete
  4. malty27 November 2009 at 11:47

    Buckeridge became the first president of the debating society with the motion "War is obsolete in Europe", which was lost. Jennings supported the motion "The inventions of this century (1829-1929) have not increased human happiness" and won.

    Don't let young Appleyard see that, turn it into a post he will.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gareth Williams27 November 2009 at 12:32

    Great old fella. That Crick is an excellent ferret.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mark27 November 2009 at 12:34

    I'm sure you are right. I'd always thought that the obituary pages were just a cover, behind which old gentlemen in Pall Mall clubs and a certain kind of granny could start getting quietly squiffy from about 11 am. Now I see that they were all on to something even though I'm not sure I'd fly 12,000 miles for a glass of parsnip wine. But, yes, a very cheering life and a lot more credible that the fables of advertising men who retire to Tuscany or Provence without the slightest knowledge of parsnips or of tractors.

    ReplyDelete
  7. malty27 November 2009 at 13:28

    I'm sure you are right. I'd always thought that the obituary pages were just a cover, behind which old gentlemen in Pall Mall clubs and a certain kind of granny
    Mark, you've just described my mother. You know how facebook is today's window on friends, the obituary pages were her generations, "I see Betty Brown has gone, seventy eight, she was seventy eight!, didn't look it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nige27 November 2009 at 14:31

    Yes and the beauty of that parsnip wine-making was that he was sitting there amid the Marlborough vineyards. Glad to note he was an entomologist too...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Brit27 November 2009 at 14:41

    Paaarsnip wiiiine... is sweet and heady...

    I loved the Jennings books when i was about 10 but I can't remember much about them at all. Whereas I can remember plenty of Just William stories quite vividly.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nige27 November 2009 at 17:47

    I wonder who was the original of Nigel Molesworth..,

    ReplyDelete
  11. worm27 November 2009 at 19:22

    alan clarke?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)