I Challenge Thee to Mortal Combat... with Scorpers by Griselda Heppel
Many years ago, at the height of Britain’s football hooliganism problems, I came across a delicious comedy sketch on BBC Radio 4 which went something like this:
Anyway, this popped into my mind because recently I had the temerity to issue a challenge on social media.
Opening the book, I caught my breath.
Policeman: I'm arresting you for affray leading to grievous bodily harm, with intention to commit. Do you have anything to say?
Lout: Yeah, well, it were like this. Me and my mates was just leavin’ Waiting for Godot at the Prince Edward theatre, like, when these guys come up to us and start rantin’ and swearin’ that Beckett’s rubbish, everyone knows that, not a patch on Chekhov whose Three Sisters could wipe the floor wiv us, yeah, and our muvvers too. Well, that crossed a line that did, I’m not takin’ that lyin’ down. So yes, officer, I did clock ‘im one but there’s provocation, see.
Laugh-out loud comedy, ah those were the days.
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| Having the temerity to issue a challenge. Photo by Daisa TJ: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-holding-sword-3408420/ |
About book illustration.
I know.
It wasn’t really a challenge, I mean, I didn’t expect anyone to take it up, I just got over-excited. About a wood engraving.
Yes, I know (twice).
I blame my husband (who doesn’t?), a collector of wood engravings and fine press books. He had just taken delivery of an exquisite hand printed edition of Pastoral Elegies, including Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, by the Barbarian Press.
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| Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray. Wood engraving by Christopher Wormell for the Barbarian Press. |
Could there be a more beautiful or apter illustration of the first verse than this wood engraving by Christopher Wormell? You stand where the poet stands, gazing out into the parting day, your eye following the lowing herd as it winds slowly away from you, drawing you into the soft darkness and stillness that Gray evokes. I felt, not that I was reading the poem, but that I was in it, such was the effect of the combination of Gray’s luminous poetry with Wormell’s acutely sensitive interpretation.
In rapture I posted the picture on Instagram, with exactly this rhetorical (as I thought) question…. Only for the challenge to be taken up, perfectly reasonably, by another distinguished wood engraver and fine press printer, Miles Wigfield of The Reading Room Press. What about Agnes Miller Parker? He countered.
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| Wood engraving illustration to Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Agnes Miller Parker, 1938. |
Oops.
Agnes Miller Parker (1895 – 1980), one of the greatest wood engravers, did a famous edition of Gray’s Elegy back in 1938. I looked it up and yes, her illustrations are stunning.
Luckily wood engravers and finepress printers are generally a gentle sort, unlikely to force me to defend my challenge with scorpers* at dawn. Otherwise who knows what kind of brawls might take place between those championing Eric Ravilious, say, against Monica Poole.
Well now, there’s another potential BBC Radio 4 comedy sketch in the offing.
I’m sure someone will do it.
*wood engraving tool
OUT NOW
The Fall of a Sparrow by Griselda Heppel
BRONZE WINNER in the Wishing Shelf Awards 2021
By the author of Ante's Inferno
WINNER of the People's Book Prize
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