Mr Punch

 I've been reading Christopher Fowler's blog for a while now (at www.christopherfowler.co.uk) and enjoying it, so I thought it was about time I read one of his Bryant and May mysteries, about two elderly coppers in the Peculiar Crimes Unit.  The first one I found was Bryant & May and The Memory of Blood, which I think is quite late in the series.

It concerns Mr Punch - or at least a series of murders on a Punch and Judy theme, which leads Bryant into researching the history of the Punch and Judy show.

I was already fairly familiar with the history of Punch and Judy - Mr Punch is the villain in the first Rivers of London book by Ben Aaronovitch, and turns up here and there in the later books of the series, though in the Bryant and May book no real magic is involved.  I was surprised, though, that in all the discussions of the traditional characters and puppets used in Punch and Judy shows, the crocodile was never mentioned - I remember the crocodile very clearly from when I used to watch the Punch and Judy show on Blackpool beach.  The booth was built into the back of a van that drove up and down the sands, stopping at intervals to do the show:

This is what I remember - the picture was taken in 1963.

 There are digressions into the history of the building used by the PCU - once used by Alistair Crowley, and with a fairground booth automaton of Madame Blavatsky in the attic, and theatre history, as the suspects are all part of the cast and crew of a new play at a recently re-opened London theatre, and that was all fascinating.  I tend to be more interested in the background details of a murder plot, rather than the whodunit aspect.  There's also a B-plot which starts off as something quite commonplace (woman has troublesome neighbours) and ends up being a lot more sinister, and personal to Bryant.  There were also some very funny moments, mostly involving Bryant.

I'm going to be looking out for more Bryant and May stories now.

Who Opened Blackpool Tower?

In the Adam Adamant episode where they visit Blackpool, Georgina enthusiastically points out Blackpool Tower as they travel along the Golden Mile in an open top tram. "Oh, yes," Adam says casually. "I opened it." And then adds: "It rained all day."

I rather think John Bickerstaffe would have something to say about that, though of course Adam Adamant may have been present at the opening ceremony. John Bickerstaffe was the Chairman of the Tower Company, so on 14th May 1894 he was the obvious choice to cut the ribbon and allow all the holidaymakers who had paid their 6d into the Tower Building. It was 6d extra to get in the lift to the top of the Tower, and an extra payment for the Tower Circus, which also opened for the season that evening.

In his early days, according to his obituary in the Lancashire Post, he was a member of the local lifeboat crew "and participated in several exciting sea rescues", which makes him sound like the sort of person Adam Adamant would have got on well with.
He made his fortune as the licensee of the Wellington Hotel, got onto the local council and became an Alderman and later, the Mayor of Blackpool. As Mayor, he was responsible for the building of Victoria Hospital, and after that he was Chairman of the Fylde Water Board for 28 years. He was also involved in the local Territorial Army, and recruited men locally for the First World War.
He was knighted for his services to the development of the town of Blackpool and the Conservative Party in 1926, but he seems to have been the sort of old school Tory who believed in public service, who wanted to improve the lives of all the people of Blackpool. He wanted every child to have a decent education and a chance in life, and was also involved in the building of several local schools.
When he died in 1930, at the age of 82, the flags at all the public offices in Blackpool, and the Tower and Winter Gardens, were flown at half-mast.

Memories of Freddie Starr

I wasn't a great fan of Freddie Starr's comedy, but I was sorry to hear of his death at his home in Spain the other day.
It reminded me of an incident in my childhood....

When I was young, we had a caravan in Blackpool, and in the summer holidays we would always go to a big show at one of the Blackpool theatres. This particular year, top of the bill were the Batchelors, Con, Dec and John, and somewhere near the bottom of the bill, just starting out, was a young comic called Freddie Starr.
At the interval, mum took us round to the stage door to see if anyone would come out to give autographs. Con came out, and as he did so a woman stepped right in front of my little sister, who would have been about seven years old, to ask for his autograph. Con neatly swerved round the woman, signed my sister's autograph book, and headed straight on to the bar.
We stood around, hoping that someone else would come out, and Freddie Starr chose that moment to walk past the stage door on the inside. They were double doors with a round window near the top like a port hole. Seeing us, he stopped, and pressed his nose against the glass, and made faces at us to make us laugh.
He didn't have to do that - he could have just walked on.