Dover Goes To Pott

A review of Dover Goes To Pott by Joyce Porter – 251124

Pott-Winkle’s only claim to fame is that it is the home of Wimbley Ware, a manufacturer of cheap, shoddy chamber pots and other sanitary ware which employs most of the town’s denizens. Daniel Wimbley is the company’s owner and such is his influence in the town that when he says jump, the authorities say how high. Unsurprisingly then, when his estranged daughter, Cynthia Perking, is found brutally murdered in her own home, when Wimbley demands that the local police bring in the finest brains of Scotland Yard to bring her killer to justice, they are only too happy to accede.

Sadly, though, the Yard see this as the perfect opportunity to palm off the lazy, slovenly, embarrassment to the force that is Chief Inspector Dover and his long-suffering and mildly competent sidekick, Detective Sergeant MacGregor. Wimbley has his own fixed views on the identity of the culprit, pointing the finger in the direction of Cynthia’s husband, John Perking. He challenges Dover to throw the full weight of the justice system at his son-in-law, adding as a further inducement the prospect of a well paid position as head of security if he brings home the bacon. Normally loathe to sully his hands with anything like the hard slog of detective work, Dover is, initially at least, energized to take the case seriously.

Such is the set up for Joyce Porter’s novel, Dover Goes To Pott, originally published in 1968. Despite MacGregor’s deep reservations and little evidence to confirm his guilt, Dover has Perking arrested and even uses his own particular brand of interrogatory technique, bullying combined with physical violence, which comes unstuck when the prisoner fights back and injured Dover. MacGregor is more interested in a report that an unusual car was seen in the area, the driver entering Cynthia’s house and leaving in a hurry some twenty-five minutes later.

The only car of that type owned in the town belongs to Cynthia’s cousin, Hereward Topping-Wibley, but to MacGregor’s dismay, desperate to find a culprit that will shift Dover from his idée fixe, the exotically named cousin has a watertight alibi. Curiously, the red herring that is the car and the mysterious visitor which has occupied a goodly part of the book, is curtly disposed of in an authorial aside, the identity of the owner, Porter archly observes, remaining unknown to either sleuth to this day.

The fact that Cynthia was pregnant proves to be a more promising avenue of enquiry, leading to a testing institute where reports on Cynthia’s pregnancy and John’s ability to fire bullets, sourced from different medical practitioners, land on someone’s desk who is given the perfect opportunity to spike Cynthia’s guns and claiming her share of an inheritance. The alteration of the critical part of a report provides the motive for murder most foul. However, in the denouement a confession extracted from someone threatening suicide while perched precariously on a roof is only heard by Dover and he chooses not to act on it, leaving Pott-Winkle post haste with Perking to face justice.

Thin and ultimately exasperating as the plot is, Porter has produced another genuinely humorous book, full of incidents that bring if not a chuckle at least a smile to the face. Dover is a gross, larger than life, indolent character, prone to take the least line of resistance and a course which requires last effort, leaving more time for eating and sleeping, but to the exasperation of the more diligent MacGregor, he seems to get there in the end.

As is the way with Porter’s novels, it is an easy, undemanding read, perfect entertainment for a quiet evening in front of the fire.

Early Sat Navs

These days an in-car satellite navigation system (sat nav) is viewed almost as much an essential as a steering wheel to the extent that many motorists either do not carry a conventional paper-based map or have forgotten how to read them. GPS (Global Positioning System) has been operational since 1978 but was only made available globally in 1994 but sat navs, boosted by the launch of Google Street View in 2008, have been very much a 21^st century phenomenon.

For the early motorist getting around was quite a challenge with little in the way of standardized road signage or even handy-sized maps of the locale. An early attempt to provide assistance to the pioneering motorist was a guide book entitled Photo Auto Maps, compiled by Gardner S. Chapin and Arthur Schumacher and published in 1907. It contained a series of detailed maps of the routes between the major cities in New York with mileages and extended to other states such as Michigan and Illinois.

However, its real innovation was the inclusion of photographs illustrating turn-by-turn the precise route from New York to Albany and Saratoga and back, each turn indicated by an arrow superimposed on to the photograph. It was like a sat nav representation of a route but in paper form. Obviously, its geographic appeal was limited but it paved the way for others to consider how to represent navigational information to motorists in a more convenient form.

Twenty years later, in 1927, the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator picked up the gauntlet. It was a small watch-like device which held a paper scroll on which was printed a map with the route between two destinations highlighted. No batteries were required, the wearer simply turning the scroll as they drove along.

When the scroll finished and the driver had presumably arrived at their intended destination, it could be replaced with one of the other of the twenty pre-selected routes that came with the device. Other routes could be ordered as required. It allowed for no error or traffic obstruction and did not offer the comprehensive geographical range that a truly adventurous driver required but it was a start.

A variation on the same theme as the Iter Avto, launched in Italy in 1932, which also used a paper scrolling system but instead of the driver turning the scroll, the pages moved automatically as the vehicle travelled. Thought to be the first automated car-mounted navigation device, it was linked to the speedometer which regulated the pace at which the route map moved. However, it did not allow for any deviation in route, requiring the driver to stop and reload the map otherwise their position would be lost.

The blurb which accompanied the Iter Avto waxed lyrical as to its merits. “Motorists, the Iter Auto is your patron saint on Earth that will guide you by the hand showing you in your travels with impeccable accuracy, by means of a map-route carried on in perfect synchronization with the driving of your car, [showing] the way to go as well any data or information such as crossroads, bridges, bumps, level crossings, dangerous turns”, together with the locations of where to get supplies, garages, and hotels and the like and giving around three kilometres warning of the need to slow down in “the face of danger.”   

Both the Wristlet Route Indicator and the Iter Avto were aimed at exclusive clientele keen to get their hands on the latest piece of motoring technology, but were not really commercially successful. They did, though, presage an age when maps would be available in a moving form, capable of indicating the optimal route between two points and what was to lie in between.

Death Of A Wedding Guest

A review of Death of a Wedding Guest by Anne Morice – 251122

A wedding is often a stressful occasion with underlying family tensions surfacing which often threaten to mar the bride’s happy day. Ellen Crichton, the niece of Anne Morice’s series sleuth, Tessa Cricton and only daughter of Toby, is about to marry Jeremy Roxburgh, somewhat to the surprise of the family as the match is very much on the rebound after the failure of her romance with the mercurial but unpredictable roué and actor, Desmond Davidson. Any concerns over the suitability and potential longevity of the forthcoming marriage are overshadowed by the imminent arrival of the bride’s estranged mother and Toby’s ex-wife, Irene Lewis from Winnipeg.

And so the scene is set for the ninth opportunity for Tessa Crichton, resting between acting jobs, to test her detective mettle, in a book originally published in 1976 and reissued by Dean Street Press. On her way to Holly Lodge Irene witness a hit and run accident in which a child is fatally injured and it is clear that she has some important information about the circumstances which she has not yet had the opportunity to disclose, her appointment with the police postponed until after the wedding ceremony. During the course of the proceedings Irene, wearing dark glasses and somewhat worse for wear, she picks up one of three glasses intended for her and the happy couple, takes a sip to toast the pair, complains of its contents and collapses, dying shortly afterwards.

What was reported as a heart attack, at least for the press notices of the unfortunate aftermath of the wedding, becomes suspicious when it is determined that Irene was poisoned with paraquat and Ellen fears that the intended victim was Jeremy and that the glasses had been mixed up. This is a set of circumstance tailor made for the pertinacious Tessa to root out the truth, using her usual mix of insight and asking the right but seemingly innocent questions. The plot thickens when an incriminating letter from Desmond finds its way to the police and then Desmond is found dead in his flat.  

For Superintendent Powell it seems and open and shut case but for Tessa it is a more complex case, and she is helped on her way to unearthing the solution of what really went on at the wedding reception, who the intended victim was and, importantly who the murderer is by a pair of missing sheets and the astrological readings of Jezebel. A timely conversation with Simon, the best man, prevents Tessa from being hit over the head, rescued by her knight in shining armour, her husband and rising star of the Yard, Inspector Robin Price, who uses his more conventional detective skills to establish her whereabouts and save her from her fate.

In truth, the culprit is relatively easy to spot and the story revolves around a complicated plot of revenge, designed to frame some rivals in an ill-fated attempt to scoop the ultimate prize, poor Irene paying with her life for knowing too much. The pleasure to be had from the book lies more in Morice’s easy writing style, her ability to create some memorable characters, not least Jez and Irene, and to lace her narrative with witty and pithy observations. Poor Irene should have stayed in Canada, as she pithily observes at one stage.

It is not exactly cosy crime fiction but it is a book that is designed to light up a gloomy  winter’s evening and there is nothing wrong in that. Great stuff!  

The Hosepipe

As a twelve-year-old boy Jan van der Heyden witnessed the desperate struggle as citizens fought to contain the flames that were consuming the Amsterdam town hall in 1652. It was a sight that made a lasting impression on him and when he had grown up and become an accomplished painter, he set his mind to the problem of improving the process of bringing sufficient water to extinguish the seat of a fire.

Teaming up with his brother, Nicholas, who happened to be a hydraulics engineer, Jan came up with a tube made out of leather with its seams tightly stitched to try to hold it together and brass fittings to allow sections of the tube to be joined up. They had invented the first modern hosepipe.

Sadly, it did not prove to be a great success as the pipes leaked, the stitching burst asunder under pressure and the tubes were incredibly heavy and cumbersome to handle. However, Jan was not dispirited and made another attempt, this time using canvas sailcloth, which was waterproofed with a mixture of oils and other substances. Still prone to leak it was a great improvement and during the 18^th century as the use of hosepipes became established other materials such as linen and hemp were used to fashion them.

Improvements on fabric hosepipes were still being patented in the 19^th century but the game changer was the use of rubber or Gutta percha as it was known then, providing a much more watertight but perishable tube and then, in more recent times, synthetic fibres.

Jan published in 1690 an illustrated book on fire-fighting, entitled ‘Beschrijving der nieuwlijks uitgevonden en geoctrojeerde Slangbrandspuiten‘, translated as Description of the recently invented and patented hose fire engines. He also devised street lamps and the first street-lighting system for the city of Amsterdam. He died a wealthy man in 1712.

The Longest Nose

Thomas Wedders, some authorities believe his surname to have been Wadhouse, holds a curious record that has stood the test of time for some two and a half centuries. He holds the record for having the longest nose, which measured an astonishing 19 centimetres, the equivalent of the length of a standard pencil. The average European male’s nose is approximately 5.8 cm long and sticks out 2.6 cm.

Little is known of Thomas’s origins save that he was born in Yorkshire around 1730, some researchers believing that his parents were siblings, and that his enormous nose was a symptom of an unknown disease that caused his intellect to stop developing when he was five. Intellectually challenged and with a pronounced and visibly obvious physical deformity, a combination that was considered amusing by the cruel standards of the time, Thomas was an obvious candidate to be exhibited in the sideshows that were so popular during that period.

Thomas seemed to have scratched a living by touring his home county of Yorkshire, amazing audiences with the size of his nose. Little is known of his life, save that he died in the early 1780s in his fifties, but his memory lived on, earning him a mention in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, a book about rare medical conditions by George Gould and Walter Pyle.

As well as mentioning Thomas’s nose size, the authors alluded to him being intellectually disabled, declaring that he “expired as he had lived, in a condition of mind best described as the most abject idiocy.”

The Strand Magazine, also in 1896, picked up the reference and gave it some additional and far from sympathetic colour. “If noses were ever uniformly exact in representing the importance of the individual”, they wrote, “this worthy ought to have amassed all the money in Threadneedle Street and conquered all Europe, for this prodigious nose of his was a compound of the acquisitive with the martial. But either his chin was too weak or his brow too low, or Nature had so exhausted herself in the task of giving this prodigy a nose as to altogether forget to endow him with brains; or perhaps, the nose crowded out this latter commodity. At all events, we are told this Yorkshireman expired, nose and all, as he had lived, in a condition of mind best described as the most abject idiocy”.

Whether Thomas’ nose was actually as long as it was claimed to be, circuses and sideshows tended to exaggerate the degree of the physical deformity their star performer was blessed or cursed with, it has continued to fascinate. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Even went to the lengths of making a fanciful reproduction of his head and enormous nose which still attracts crowds to this day.