Tag Archives: Heffers of Cambridge

Remembering Eve who loved us all

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Evelyn Stafford, a dear family friend for all of my 61 years and more, departed this life on 5th July 2022, at the grand age of 95. The above photograph of Eve (4th from the right) with her Heffers of Cambridge colleagues on a 1962 outing to the theatre in London, reveals something of her radiant and fun-loving nature.

For me, memorable times with Eve include her 90th birthday dinner at Girton College, summer garden parties at King’s College, lunch at the Café Valerie Patisserie in Fitzroy Street, King’s Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols, precious hours together at her home in New Square, recording Eve’s memories of her years working at Heffers, and then at King’s, and fascinating conversations about her spell as a secretary for Lew Grade in London. Several stories ended up in my history of Heffers, published in 2016.

I enjoyed meeting Eve’s former King’s colleagues at the garden parties and was astonished at the end of one gathering to witness her asking the incumbent provost, Professor Michael Proctor, if he would ring for a taxi to take us home. Not only did he oblige, but he also escorted us to the gateway just outside his own residence, so that we would not have far to walk as we waited for our ride. I wondered what my college servant ancestors would have made of that.

Denis Cheason’s illustration of King’s College, from his 1983 book on ‘Cambridge Connections: an illustrated literary guide’.

Another King’s garden party ‘host’ was the college dean, the Revd Dr Stephen Cherry, who would kindly share his own stories. Eve especially enjoyed reminiscing with Dr Cherry. An entertaining yarn from the porters involves an ‘ancient man in his nineties’ who got stuck in the bath, as told in Alan James’ memoir, ‘A View from the Lodge’ (2011). The individual in question was said to have been George Humphrey Wolferstan (‘Dadie’) Rylands (1902-1999), Shakespearean scholar and fellow of King’s who, amongst other things, taught the late great Sir Peter Hall to speak in Shakespearean verse.

Eve remembered Dadie and liked to talk about the time he came to her New Square home for afternoon tea. A modest affair compared to the famous sumptuous luncheon hosted in Dadie’s rooms at King’s, portrayed in Virginia Woolf’s, ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929), although the sentiment would have been much the same,

‘No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.’

I plan to read Peter Raina’s biography of George “Dadie” Rylands, but will first need to save up. I like to own the biographies I read, especially those with Cambridge connections, and this impressive looking tome is costly.

Defending the honour of college servants

I came across Dadie more directly, when reading his war correspondence in the college archives, from the time he acted as the Domus Bursar during the Second World War, dealing with critical day-to-day matters such as the ‘military occupation’ of college rooms and the resulting tensions. For example, in October 1941, Dadie wrote to Squadron Leader G. Smart about a serious incident,

‘I understand that on Friday the RAF accused my second gardener of stealing potatoes belonging to them, forced him to make a statement and practically put him under arrest. The potatoes were of course his own and were being supplied by him to another of my College servants … It is the most disgraceful incident that has occurred since the Military or RAF took up quarters in College and I must of course report the matter to the Provost and the College Council.’

In his reply, the Squadron Leader explained that just previous to the potato incident, he had found it necessary to send two of his airmen to detention for the theft of a civilian’s child’s cycle, found in exactly the same place as the potatoes.

It will come as no surprise to Cambridge residents that in his acknowledgement Dadie declared,

‘The truth is that in the matter of bicycles Cambridge has no morals and both in war and peace we have unending trouble with undergraduates, servants and everyone else.’

Although he did take great pains to emphasise the particular sensitivities for college servants who had had their bicycle baskets searched by the RAF police, including the Head Butler who is in ‘absolute charge of all the College plate and holds a position of great trust’.

‘What I want to emphasise’ wrote Dadie, ‘is the psychological aspect which is at once dangerous and delicate … It is fatal if the College servants who, it must be remembered, hold a very special position in Colleges after long service – they are on a pension scheme; their families have served the College in the past; it is in a sense their home – I say that it is fatal if they are being to feel that they are being spied upon and suspected, that they can be asked to come to the Guard Room for examination without knowing anything about it. They feel being spoken to by “a policeman” much more than we should – they are often fearfully sensitive about their honesty being impugned and are readier to resent a wrongful charge.’

When I shared this story with Eve, she knew exactly what Dadie had been driving at. There are Cambridge families who have served with great pride for generations and who, even today, feel a strong attachment to ‘their’ college.

I’ve written blog posts on the subject of college servants and have detailed notes totalling 40,000 words from my research at the King’s College archives, plus several hours of interviews that I have yet to transcribe. My explorations were set aside in late 2017, making space for a commission to write ‘The Curious History of Mazes’ (2018) for an American publisher. Since then, my study time has been taken up with paid research contracts and two new consuming interests: firstly, uncovering the truth about my great-great-grandmother, Susan Anstee (1863-1914) whose identity had only recently been revealed, and secondly, exploring the life and times of the romantic author, Norah C. James (1896-1979), whose first novel, ‘Sleeveless Errand’ (1929), made publishing history.

Oooer

As a close friend of my great-auntie Winnie, Eve and their friends Jill and Bet would take it in turn to host a weekly coffee morning. I would occasionally accompany my mother to Winnie’s gatherings at her flat in Nicholson Way, North Arbury, and sometimes to the other ladies’ homes during the 1970s and 80s.

One memorable visit was to Bet’s home on the De Freville Estate, or ‘muesli-belt’ as some liked to call it. As we stood waiting for her to answer the front door, we chatted to her neighbour who told us how much she admired Bet’s “penises”. I couldn’t resist a wry smile when, on a recent visit to our new home in Louth, my brother-in-law Bill who knows about these things, described our gorgeous pink specimens as, “Chelsea standard”.

Eve and friends, along with my family, always enjoyed a social occasion, and her recorded memories are scattered with gently humorous tales of celebrations and outings. For example, at the Heffers staff dances, she would be astounded by her colleagues who would rush to pile up their plates as soon as the buffet was announced, as though they hadn’t eaten for weeks. At one of the dances, not wanting to appear greedy, she and her friend Gill initially took a modest amount and went back for seconds – only to be mortified when someone loudly exclaimed,

“Evelyn and Gillian, don’t be afraid of your big appetites!”

Eve , wearing a spotted frock, is standing on the stairs, looking up at Reuben Heffer who is addressing the Trinity Street staff at the new bookshop, the night before the first day of trading in September 1970.

Looking on the bright side

During the pandemic, I had telephone conversations with Eve via the direct line installed in her care home room at Brook House, Cambridge. I had last seen her in person in November 2019, when visiting with my son George, over from Florida for his MSc graduation ceremony in Manchester. George was very fond of ‘auntie’ Eve and would write to her with updates on his adventures in far-flung countries.

Eve would greet my calls with, “Ah Julie, lovely to hear from you.” We would then chew over world events and our favourite bugbears. Eve was never short of something to say and I would update her on various happenings, our move to Louth, Trevor’s retirement, my contract research, shop work and volunteering, and Heffer related news. I enjoyed telling Eve about my latest book finds and I know she would have been interested in this week’s charity shop treasure, ‘The Trials of Radclyffe Hall’ by Diana Souhami (1998), purchased for £1.00.

Our conversations were upbeat. Even confined to her care home during such precarious times, Eve would count her blessings, and it was no surprise at all to hear ‘What a Wonderful World’ and ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, being played at her funeral.

She loved us all

When it was time to say goodbye at the end of our calls, Eve would give me her sincerest love. Our contact, while sporadic, was deeply affirming and reassuring.

Eve’s unconditional love for me and my fractious family is testimony to her enduring sensitivity and compassion. She loved us all, and that meant a great deal, particularly in the light of her own personal tragedies, losing her husband Arthur, and her only son, Mervyn.

I have a rather fuzzy memory of Arthur, a jazz pianist who played nightly at The Pagoda Restaurant in Cambridge, although I do remember listening to him play. Arthur died in 1976, aged 58. I don’t remember Mervyn who died suddenly in 1991 in his 42nd year. Eve’s mother, Mrs Farey, who lived at New Square with Eve in her later years until her death in 1985, made a great impression, much like her daughter.

In remembering Eve, I think of Dr Cherry’s words on ‘Lived Bereavement’.

‘When we are recently bereaved, part of what we grieve is that someone else’s life was not always as happy as it might have been. In the period after someone’s death we have an especially acute empathy for what we know of their suffering in life. We wish that they could’ve had a better past, that they could’ve enjoyed an easier, less troubled life … and yet the person they became, the person as whom they died, was not the sum product of the good days and the happy blessings, but the sum of all that happened and all that was drawn from the depths of their character by misfortune and worse. And it is for that person, whose journey we shared, and whom we ultimately admired not for their good fortune but for their triumph over adversity, that we give thanks in death as we should have done more regularly in life.’

I don’t for one moment believe that Eve led a troubled life, but losing Arthur and then Mervyn, her only child, was devastating.

I may not be Christian, or at all religious, but I do have a strong sense of our continuing consciousness, a sense that Eve shared (she would often tell sceptics who denied its existence that they were in for a “nice surprise”), and I like to think that she’s still out there, somewhere.

Sending love your way, dear friend, wherever you may be. X

Mr Doggett, a true Heffers of Cambridge eccentric

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A year ago, in February 2020 I had a meeting with archivist Dr David Jones at The Perse Upper School in Cambridge. Dr Jones had kindly agreed to give a talk on the charities of Stephen Perse, at a forthcoming Cambridgeshire Association for Local History conference that, in the end, was cancelled because of COVID.

The theme of the conference was going to be, ‘The Charities that Began at Home: Historical Perspectives on Local Philanthropy.’ (thank you Antony Carpen for suggesting the excellent title). The other speakers we had lined up were Susan Woodall on the Cambridge Female Refuge; Tricia McBride on the Addenbrookes Charitable Trust; and Dr Evelyn Lord on Cambridge alms houses. Perhaps one day in the future we will be permitted to assemble for this fascinating programme.

Upon greeting me at The Perse, Dr Jones was most gracious about the history of Heffers that I’d written in 2016 (This Book is About Heffers). He was especially pleased to see a photograph in the book of John Doggett, a Cambridge gentleman who for decades, held court in the Trinity Street bookshop as a regular and loyal customer.

Mr Doggett in the Trinity Street bookshop

Several booksellers had spoken fondly about Mr Doggett when I interviewed them for my research. Suzanne Jones recalled his love of David Lean films and books by Charles Dickens. Kate Turner (née Hastings) always heard him from across the shop floor and remembered him eating her colleagues’ sandwiches (he was also spotted eating raw sausages on the gallery). Jean Clarke (known to her bookselling colleagues as Jean the Bean) remembered Mr Doggett answering the phone at Trinity Street if no-one was at the desk on the shop floor, shouting,

“There’s no-one here at the moment!”

He regularly enquired if there were any jobs going at Heffers, would talk about the ‘Beard Law’, and would stand at the front of the shop, yelling out the cast names from the 1947 film version of Oliver Twist.

In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Heffers Manager David Robinson, named Mr Doggett as their favourite regular customer,

“He has been coming into the shop forever. It used to be Thursdays and Saturdays but is now just Saturday mornings. He has his own chair and always wants the same questions answering—have we got any books on pigs, traction engines or the First World War? He wishes everybody who comes near him a Happy New Year, regardless of the date, and then happily shuffles out of the shop for another week. He can be a distraction, but Saturdays wouldn’t be the same without him.”

Aged 90, Mr Doggett sadly passed over to the eternal bookshop in 2018.

‘Nowt so queer as folk’

Not meaning to be rude, the phrase ‘nowt so queer as folk’ seems appropriate when it comes to depicting people at Heffers. I don’t mind saying that, mainly because members of my own family served over one hundred and twenty years with the firm. The shops were a haven for many characters and eccentrics – staff and customers. According to bookseller Richard Reynolds, the Trinity Street staff were all, in their way, eccentric. Perhaps this can be said about the book trade in general.

Heffers staff badge

The bookselling side of the business at Heffers is remembered as being more ‘edgy’, although the stationery side at the shop in Sidney Street, Cambridge, had its fair share of eccentrics, as noted by retired Manager, Mr Norman Biggs who said,

“We had our moments. It makes life interesting, characters in the firm and in the customers.”

Staff shared many anecdotes about their colleagues, many long gone, such as a Sidney Street manager known as, ‘Barmy’ Clarke, who ran the Maps and Guidebooks department in the 1950s. Mr Clarke had perfected a way of avoiding having serve customers. From his counter, he could see the front door and when he saw someone approaching the shop he didn’t wish to serve, he would niftily step out the side door and re-enter from the front. Now, behind the customer, he was able to go up to them and say,

“Are you being served? Oh, I see you’re being taken care of.”

Heffers Sidney Street shop, 1953

The different Heffers shops had their own distinctive cultures, very much separate worlds. There were moments when colleagues seemed to forget that they were there to provide a service, but then you might say that this was no different to any other organisation. Perhaps at Heffers, it was question of the extent to which idiosyncrasies were accommodated, as indeed many were, over many years.

Just like their customers, some booksellers would take a dislike to a particular book or author. Duncan Littlechild, a strong pacifist, disapproved of Winston Churchill and actively discouraged customers from buying Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples in the 1950s.

“You don’t want to buy that old rogue”, he would say.

Mr Littlechild

Considered ‘old school’ by then, colleagues would often observe Mr Littlechild ‘kowtowing’ to academic customers on the telephone.

Heffers Petty Cury bookshop

Littlechild began his fifty-four-year career at the firm as an apprentice in 1903. During the First World War he had a spell as a prisoner of war. After the war ended, he returned to Heffers. Perhaps a more incongruous memory is that of Mr Littlechild in regular conversation with a favourite customer of his, English comedian and actor, Cyril Fletcher, who appeared as the Pantomime Dame in the Arts Theatre from 1949 to 1972, in shows written by his wife, Betty Astell.

Cyril Fletcher

Some booksellers took a liking not just to particular books, but to reading in general (and who can blame them?). Marion and Dudley Davenport, who both worked at the Petty Cury bookshop, remembered a colleague in the 1950s and ’60s who sat in a corner of his section reading for most of the time. Another would occasionally lose his temper at a particular book and flail around with it, knocking other books off the shelves.

Heffers Trinity Street bookshop

The author, Julian Sedgwick, who worked at the main Trinity Street bookshop from 1991 to 2003, fondly recalled the parade of “influential, cosmopolitan, charming, grumpy, famous, notorious, odd and downright weird customers”, who continually fascinated him. His most memorable included a beaten Chris Patten, fresh from losing his seat in the 1992 election, asking for advice on books about China. He was about to head to Hong Kong and left with a stack of books; and the President of Armenia with his hefty bodyguards bearing down on the Oriental Department, asking to see the Caucasus section. They dutifully examined the twenty or so titles but made no purchase. Julian also remembers surreptitiously watching Terry Waite while he quietly browsed the shelves in the basement following his release from captivity. His dignity and sense of calm fascinated him.

I can’t wait to get back into bookshops when the lockdown is over.

Lines of Life

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Our friend Gwyn recently shared his 2020 reading list on Facebook, having scored each book out of five. He mentioned having received the gift of a Heffers of Cambridge book subscription, a bespoke service whereby the bookshop sends a title to the recipient each month. Over the year, Gwyn read those and many more. Perhaps unsurprisingly, subscription services have become popular during periods of lockdown. It’s interesting to see what others read and I enjoy the various social media posts on people’s favourite books, as well as the book club exchanges. For one year only – 2019 – I compiled monthly collages of the books I read, and in August that year, I wrote a post about my book harvest.

The signing

For Christmas 2020, we were delighted to receive a Box of Stories, from Trevor’s eldest, Ellie, who clearly understands our love of reading. It’s a subscription club and as they say on their website, every time you open a box, you will discover an author or a book you might not have otherwise come across or selected. A percentage of their profits go to charities working for literacy.

The selection contained in our Box of Stories

I had already read one of the selection, The Rapture by Claire McGlasson, rightly described by The Guardian as a clever fact-based debut about The Panacea Society in Bedford. Trevor and I attended a launch event at the St Neots Library, organised by Jacqui, the manager of Waterstones, St Neots. After Claire’s intriguing talk, I bought a copy of her novel and went over to where she was sitting, in order to get it signed. As I waited to attract her attention, another member of the audience decided to form a queue from the other side. After a minute or so, Claire looked up, saw me, and assumed I was trying to push in front of the (by now) lengthy line of eager fans. She asked if they would mind her signing my copy first, and they said it was fine, lending weight to the false impression that I had not been there first. Such incidents come back to haunt you.

Solace in books

I’ve always found great solace in books and concluded in recent years that reading, rather than counselling, may guide me out of the emotional torture chamber that my mind had become (needless to say, this had not been brought about by the book signing mishap). For many of us, reading is a form of therapy. In her novel, Possession, AS Byatt describes ‘personal’ readings that ‘snatch’ for personal meanings, and I’m drawn to those lines of life that, as she says, describe the indescribable, taking us out of time and towards not blindness but understanding.

The practice of bibliotherapy has a long history, although the term was not coined until 1916, by the North American Unitarian Minister, Samuel McChord Crothers. The author Ann Cleeves, who created the fictional Northumberland detective, Vera Stanhope, once worked for Kirklees Libraries in West Yorkshire, where the Chief Librarian established a bibliotherapy project, attaching three part-time ‘therapists’ to GP practices who prescribed books. Apparently, literature can relieve chronic pain and dementia. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, bibliotherapy is, ‘The use of reading matter for therapeutic purposes in the treatment of nervous disorders.’ I needed to open what the author, Penelope Lively, called that, ‘medicine chest of works.’ I needed to self-medicate.

Although by this time I was using a Kindle, I was not inclined towards an exclusively digital bookish experience and would put the device to one side and employ various ways and means to replenish my supply of solid, hold-in-your-hand-put-on-your-shelf books, with varying degrees of success. Initially, my strategy was aimless; going with the hype, whatever wins the prizes; making a list and playing ‘pin the book’; waiting for a sunny day and grabbing the book on the shelf with a yellow spine, or a sombre day and going for blue; searching the bookshelves of friends in the expectation of a loan that, frankly, would never be returned; picking up books left behind in cafés.

For some months in 2019, I attended a book club in a gastro pub. With each session I grew more exasperated with our club leader who juggled the scoffing and scrolling when searching for reviews on her mobile phone, but it was worth it. As I re-read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies for this club, I was struck by Ralph’s comforting daydream of his bedtime routine at home, where this seemingly civilised boy could reach up and touch his beloved dog-eared books, and for a brief moment, everything was all right.

Margaret Fuller Ossoli, North America’s first full-time book reviewer (and the first woman permitted to use Harvard’s library), saw books as, ‘a medium for viewing all humanity’.

Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810-1850) journalist, critic and women’s rights activist.

Over a century later, in 1968, when the late Lithuanian scholar and human rights activist, Irena Veisaitė, encountered an American bookstore for the first time, she realised how much the Soviet government had stolen from her, by making books so inaccessible in her home country. As she would say, “All of those books and the ideas collected in them belonged to me too!”

Irena Veisaitė (1928-2020), Lithuanian theatre and literary critic, taken by Alma Pater

Never imagining what it must have been like to have been so deprived, I have always taken my access to books for granted. Reading defined my universe and helped me to grow. The author, Virginia Woolf, who believed that we all learn with feeling, said that after the dust of reading has settled, we must open our minds to a fast flocking of innumerable impressions.

Through reading, I would gain greater insight into the human condition and find a way of unlocking my own emotional truth and through reading, I would learn to accept what I could not change.

A curious publishing cameo: Aelfrida Tillyard, Ernest Heffer & George Orwell

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In a previous post on ‘Mazes, opium and publishing deals’, I noted that anyone who wanted Heffers of Cambridge to publish their book had to be interviewed by ‘Mr Heffer’ – most likely ‘Mr Ernest’ or his son, ‘Mr Reuben’. By the early twentieth century, Heffers of Cambridge, the bookseller, stationer, printer and publisher was, ‘known all over the world’.

The author and self-proclaimed mystic, Aelfrida Tillyard, described by her biographer Sheila Mann as a ‘forgotten 20th Century writer’, appeared to have had a good working relationship with Mr Ernest (son of the firm’s founder, William Heffer). Heffers published seven of her titles between 1910 and 1926.

Cambridge born, Aelfrida (1883-1959) was the daughter of nonconformists, Alfred and Catharine Tillyard. Alfred was editor of the Cambridge Independent Press and Catharine, a staunch advocate for women’s higher education (Antony Carpen writes about Catharine in his ‘Lost Cambridge’ blog).


Aelfrida Tillyard in 1913

The relevant volume of the Heffer publishing diaries is unfortunately missing and I cannot ascertain the exact contractual terms between the firm and Tillyard. I can, however, piece together a cameo that reveals yet another aspect to the fascinating history of Heffers.

Seven titles

The Tillyard titles published by Heffers are:

To Malise and other poems (1910) 2s 6d
Cambridge Poets 1900-1913: An Anthology: chosen by Aelfrida Tillyard (1913) 5s
Bammie’s Book (1915)
The Garden and the Fire (1916) 2s 6d
The Making of a Mystic (1917) 2s 6d
Verses for Alethea (1920)
Agnes E. Slack: two hundred thousand miles travel for temperance in four continents (1926) 7s 6d and 3s 6d

To Malise and other poems

To Malise was published by subscription and, as Mann reports, we do not know if Tillyard covered her costs. The poems contained in the volume are intensely personal, detailing her husband Constantine’s courtship of her and the early years of their marriage. Mann describes Tillyard’s dedication, ‘À toi’, and inscription, ‘to my perfectly beloved husband’ as simultaneously fulsome, truthful and duplicitous. The poems revealed Tillyard’s misery and desperation for freedom from the marriage, in contrast to her professed happiness at the time; ‘I wonder if I shall ever be quite as happy again’. Anyone with the slightest inclination of Tillyard’s true feelings about her marriage would have understood, as Constantine must have done, the significance of this humiliating publication. Was Ernest Heffer aware of the situation? It is unlikely. Whilst we cannot know what Tillyard said in the ‘interview’ with her prospective publisher, we can surmise that her case for publication would have focussed upon the higher themes and her potential sales appeal as an author – she did once describe herself as, ‘better than Christina Rossetti’.

It is not surprising that the relationship between Tillyard and Constantine Cleanthes Graham continued to deteriorate. Later, in November 1917, she writes in her diary:

‘I tried not to be hurt that he was so completely indifferent to my interests & pursuits, and, incidentally, extremely rude to me over my opinions… but it is difficult not to feel chilled when one’s husband says “I do not think thy opinion is worth having.”’

and:

‘This morning he asked me whether I expected to make any money out of my books. I answered no, not a penny. And then he suggested my doing some war work & hinted that he thought I was wasting my time.’

They divorced in 1921.

Cambridge Poets 1900-1913

Mann describes the excitement stirred up by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s 1913 lectures, especially his call for Cambridge to ‘take the lead in English poetry once more’ (having recently edited the 1912 Oxford Book of Victorian Verse). Tillyard was prompted to call on Quiller-Couch (known as ‘Q’) by appointment at Jesus College, armed with a proposal for a ‘scheme of Cambridge poets’. He approved her proposal and even agreed to pen an introduction. Tillyard reported in her diary that upon leaving ‘Q’, she ‘raced to Heffers and told [her] victory’. She also reported that she and ‘Young Heffer’ began to make plans. Presumably, she is distinguishing between Heffer senior (Ernest’s father, William) and Heffer junior (Ernest himself), seeing that Ernest was eight years older than Tillyard.

In writing about the production of the resulting publication, Cambridge Poets 1900-1913: An Anthology: chosen by Aelfrida Tillyard, Mann acknowledges Ernest Heffer’s greater knowledge of the world of publishing. He would have been aware of a forthcoming title, Oxford Poetry 1910-13, and he suggested that Tillyard include poetry written by Cambridge poets between 1900 and 1913. I wonder what Ernest would have made of the Birmingham Daily Post review in which the paper, ‘contemplated with considerable astonishment, but little admiration’, the inclusion of twenty pages of poetry written by the occultist Aleister Crowley. Mann sees this as an early indication of Crowley’s influence on Tillyard, partly because his poems had most likely been written before 1900 (he was at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1895-1898) and therefore did not fit her stated selection criteria. Those who are intrigued by the story of Tillyard’s relationship with ‘Crowley and Crowleyism’, and his Ceremonial Magic, will find a comprehensive account in Mann’s biography.

For details about negotiations between the author and publisher for the publication of this anthology, we just have Tillyard’s personal diary to go on and she was clearly excited about the book. She must have felt it to be a positive omen when Heffers agreed to bear all the expenses and divide the profits with her. Ernest also sought an independent opinion on the book from Maynard Keynes prior to drawing up a contract, but this was not forthcoming and he settled instead for ‘Q’s blessing’.

Ernest Heffer in his office at the Petty Cury Bookshop

By 1913, Ernest Heffer (1871-1948) was a respected publisher and bookseller. The fourth son of the firm’s founder, he had been a sickly child of a studious disposition. Ernest learned his trade at the Heffers Fitzroy Street shop which had a thriving Children’s Book Department. During the 1880s, the firm’s connection with the Cambridge Sunday School Association provided a business breakthrough when they began to supply Sunday School prizes. Ernest tells a tale of the time when he recommended Marryat’s Japhet in Search of a Father, the story of a foundling in search of his father, as a Sunday School prize. Evidently, his selection was not well received, as the vicar he recommended it to threw it back at him after having read it.

Despite such early hiccups, Ernest went on to play a significant role in building up the bookselling side of the business, overseeing the Petty Cury bookshop from 1896. He seemed equally at ease in commercial and literary circles. Ernest attended the inaugural meeting of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce in January 1917 and also served as President of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association. As his son, Reuben declared, Ernest, ‘blew the stuff of books into the firm’. His obituary in The Times described Ernest as:

‘a bookseller in charge who knew something about the insides of books. If he found you dipping into a newly published book he might strongly recommend it, having read it himself the night before, or on the other hand, he might urge you not to buy such rubbish … Both Cambridge and the book trade have lost a “character”.’

The Making of a Mystic

On 22 July 1917, Tillyard took her manuscript of The Making of a Mystic to Heffers for a meeting. Ernest quoted a cost of £40 for a 120-page publication and quickly agreed to act as the publisher. Tillyard writes on 24 July, ‘Quite an exciting day. Heffer says he thinks they will “love to publish” my book’. The contract was not signed until 13 September, shortly after the final manuscript had been submitted for printing. On 11 November, Tillyard writes:

‘I went to the works to see about some labels for Constantine, & asked about my book. “Oh!” cried Mr Frank Heffer “Fate & the Gods are against us! The machine broke down and –“ a long tale of woes. I was prepared to learn that the book would not be out before Christmas, when he added “But you can have an advance copy today”. It quite took my breath away! What is more, I got five copies. I learn too, that 130 copies have already been ordered!! Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.’

Frank Heffer (1876-1933) was the second youngest son of William and Mary Heffer. He had had to have a leg amputated as a child. Ernest wrote of his brother, ‘what he lost in the leg, he made up in animal spirits’, and described him as ‘having the face of a saint; but mischief was always in his vicinity’. Frank studied Medicine at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, but was brought into the business in 1900. He became managing director of the firm’s printing works, after Heffers obtained the Black Bear Press (Dixon’s Printing Works Ltd) in 1911.

Tillyard’s literary prescience

Tillyard had a number of publishers over the years. It is interesting to note her title published in 1930, not by Heffers, but by Hutchinson. Concrete: a Story of Two Hundred Years Hence, is a novel that depicts a dystopian world following the collapse of civilization in the twentieth century via various events including a revolution of the proletariat in the Western world, a plague that wipes out three-quarters of the human race, and a repetition of the Dancing Mania of the Middle Ages. It is now 2126, the ‘Age of Reason’, an international civilization. Religion is banned and performance of any religious ceremony is punishable by death. Britain is governed locally by the Eugenist Party, with absolute power over human reproduction. The population is divided into eugenic groups, the lower of which are forbidden to propagate. Males are not allowed to marry before thirty. Biologically unfit individuals are euthanatized.

The president of the British Empire oversees a number of ministries such as the Ministry of Reason, headed by an official called ‘Big Brother’. There is also a Ministry of Aesthetics, responsible for propaganda. Described by American editor and scholar of science fiction, Everett F. Bleiler, as a ‘drab dictatorship’, the state in Tillyard’s future Britain is characterized by ubiquitous spying, ruthless thought control and a ready death penalty. The Western Morning News & Mercury declares that Concrete strikes a topical note as Tillyard pictures a world in which Sovietism is triumphant, religion abolished, and the reign of reason inaugurated. This new world is comfortable enough materially, but its inhabitants are thoroughly bored with life. The paper asks, will religion return and help them find a meaning in existence? As Concrete was published in 1930, it is difficult not to assume that her writing influenced both Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932) and George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949). Tillyard’s protagonist, Alaric, works at the Ministry of Aesthetics and Orwell’s Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. Both are subversives but only one finds redemption.

Originally submitted for a religious novel competition run by Hodder and Stoughton, Mann describes Tillyard’s novel as an attempt to bring the world to light that ended in darkness – sales did not go well. Tillyard put this down to her publisher, Hutchinson, noting they were not being taken seriously and they were ‘known to be circulating library trash’. It is interesting that Mann writes about Concrete in her chapter on ‘Rubbish that will sell’. Tillyard’s indifference to domestic affairs and her failure to economise meant she needed to make money from her writing. I wonder how the novel might have fared had it been published by Heffers.

******

I came across Tillyard’s connection with Heffers quite by chance, when reading her 1917 diary at the Girton College Archive for another project. Intrigued, I purchased a copy of Mann’s 2013 ‘novel biography’ of Tillyard, Hints of a Perfect Splendour. It is a tour de force and a joy to read.

I continue to discover more about the history of Heffers and regularly give illustrated talks on the topic to groups and societies in and around Cambridge, and beyond. If you would like to book a talk, do get in touch – [email protected]

I will soon visit Histon Road Cemetery in Cambridge, to look at the Tillyard family monuments. The cemetery is located close to where I grew up.

And finally, I have ordered a copy of Tillyard’s biography of her aunt, Agnes E. Slack (1926), as I am interested in the history of Methodism and the Temperance Movement.

It seems the older I get, the more ‘joined-up’ my research and writing becomes.

A tribute to Mr Criddle 1929-2019

Cambridge, Heffers, social history, Uncategorized, , , , ,

Cambridge journalist Chris Elliott included my plea in his regular Memories feature and I keenly awaited the calls. I distinctly remember picking up the phone just a day or so later and hearing a gentle and cultured voice saying,

“Good afternoon, my name is Criddle. I understand you are seeking memories of Heffers.”

Subsequently, I spent many happy hours in the convivial company of Mr Criddle – Gerald – as he looked back upon his fifteen years at the firm. Before establishing his own Cambridge gallery in 1970, Gerald worked as an artist based at the Heffers Sidney Street stationery shop from 1955; a shop once aptly described by another former employee, Sarah Burton, as a “tower of treasures” (now a librarian, Sarah writes an interesting blog). Gerald’s office at Sidney Street was on the top floor, alongside the art gallery and boardroom, and he himself recalls the building as having, “a quality about it, you nestled into it.”

Award winning window displays

At Heffers, Gerald focussed on promotions, displays and greetings cards. His artistic talents were employed in putting together many inventive and award-winning window displays. Over the years he earned a total of £998 in prize money for the firm. Often, he would go up to London for the presentations. On one occasion he was presented with a cheque by the publisher Sir George Harrap, made out to him personally and not to Heffers. Sir George insisted that Gerald should have the money as he had done the work. However, the Heffers directors did not view it that way and insisted the money be set aside for purchasing window display materials.

Here is Gerald receiving one of his prizes.
Here is Gerald receiving one of his prizes.


This is my favourite example of Gerald’s craftwork.

This is Heffers, not WH Smith!

Gerald was also involved with greetings cards and calendars. For many years, Heffers had stocked a wide range of cards from suppliers such as J. Arthur Dixon and Valentines. In the 1950s and ’60s the industry was beginning to change with greetings cards imported from US companies such as Hallmark and Hanson White.

Gerald recalls answering his phone one day to John Heffer, who wanted to see him immediately in the boardroom (known among the staff as ‘Mr John’ to distinguish him from other members of the family working in the firm, John was a grandson of the firm’s founder and in charge of the stationery side of the business).

Whenever Mr John wanted to show someone something, he would slip it into a large notepad and fling it across the table. If the person on the receiving end side-stepped in order to avoid a collision, Mr John would exclaim, “butter fingers! On this occasion, Gerald caught the pad and inside were two Hanson White greetings cards, known as ‘slim-jims’, with black and white illustrations. One depicted a vicar at a sale saying,

‘Oh Miss Smith, what a lovely pear you’ve got!’,

to a very glamorous female holding up some fruit. The other also featured a vicar, this time standing behind a stall which held a large vegetable marrow and a lady saying,

‘My goodness, vicar, you have got a big one!’

Gerald thought they were funny. However, Mr John did not and exclaimed, “they are disgusting. This is Heffers, not W.H. Smith!” He asked Gerald to speak to Mrs Webb, the buyer responsible for cards. On doing so, Gerald discovered that whilst being pleased with the new stock of up-to-date designs, poor Mrs Webb had no clue about the innuendos.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Different Heffers shops approached sales of the new unexpurgated edition of Lawrence’s controversial novel in very different ways. Gerald recalls that at Sidney Street, it was deemed that each sale would be individually handled by Mr Hobson, the store’s book buyer. Customers were to be shown the cover and then the book placed in a plain bag. After it had been on sale for a few weeks, Miss Dudley-Hay, in the Church Supplies department, had a customer enquire after the book. Her most emphatic response, heard by everyone right across the floor, was a loud cry to Mr Hobson,

“this gentleman wishes to purchase a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, will you attend to it?!”

Lunch at the Dorothy, visits to the theatre and a flight to Boulogne

While Sidney Street was undergoing another refurbishment, staff were given a voucher to buy their lunch at the Civic. Mr Court, manager at Sidney Street, one day asked Gerald for assistance during the lunch hour, and offered to pay for his lunch by way of compensation. Seeing this as an opportunity to dine somewhere nice, Gerald popped to the Dorothy Ballroom next door and had a three-course lunch for 6s 6d. Unsurprisingly, the firm refused to meet more than half the bill. (Gerald would often attend trade fairs at Earls Court in London or Birmingham, with Mr Court or Mr Biggs. These also involved dining out but, as Gerald recalls, he would be the only one drinking as both his managers were teetotal.)

Although shop-floor staff frequently worked on Saturdays, the Thursday half-day early closing had its benefits. Together with colleagues, Gerald would attend theatrical performances in London on these afternoons. These were paid for by a subscription of one shilling a week and organised by Miss Star on the Pen Counter and Mrs Snell. In the 1950s and ’60s it was possible to travel to London, go to the theatre and have dinner, all for twenty-five shillings (£26 at today’s value). I was not surprised to learn recently that Gerald was a member of the St John’s Players in Cambridge for many years.

In 1961 Heffers was feeling adventurous and scheduled an outing by air to Boulogne, France, with a charge to employees of £10 (£208 at today’s value) per head. Many had never flown before. Gerald (who went on fifteen staff outings in all), recalls the firm were so anxious about safety, that husbands and wives were asked to travel on separate planes. Some of the older ladies were full of trepidation but in the end thoroughly enjoyed it. At Boulogne they lunched in a casino and took a walk along the sea front. Dinner on the way home was at Stowmarket in Suffolk. As everyone disembarked the coach at the end of a long day they were reminded not to be late for work in the morning.

In memoriam

Gerald sadly passed away in January 2019.

These are a few of his Heffers stories and I’ve enjoyed revisiting them as I fondly recall our conversations. Gerald’s son, Tim, kindly told me that his father had been most impressed with ‘This Book is about Heffers’. My hope is that the book and my illustrated talks which include some of Gerald’s stories, will in a small way contribute to his legacy.

It was my privilege to meet such an interesting, talented and convivial gentleman.

Who cares about the college servant?

Academic community, Cambridge, college servants, Heffers, social history, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

A previous post on ‘Looking for the tradesman’s entrance’ briefly dwells on the notion of ‘service’ in the context of college, university and town communities. In asking what we mean by ‘being in’ and ‘being of’ service, I draw upon the Oxford English Dictionary which understandably focuses on the utilitarian nature of the act. Whilst there is reference to ‘helping or benefiting’ and to ‘friendly action’, there is scant consideration of whether or not a service is provided with care. One can of course be ‘in’ or ‘of’ service without caring.

My early conversations with retired college staff however, reveal just how much they do care. I spoke recently to a retired college bedder who sounded remarkably like a parent as she vehemently declared her loyalty to her charges, saying she would, “defend them to the hilt!” There were times when this bedder performed the role of surrogate mother, as no doubt many did. I certainly remember my Nanna, Ethel Driver, talking fondly of her ‘boys’ at Jesus College in the 1970s.

Just this week, a Queen’s College alumnus described the vital role his bedder played when he came up to Cambridge as an undergraduate in 1959. Without her prompting he would never have got up in the morning.

Sound familiar?

Enid Porter, Curator of the Cambridge and County Folk Museum from 1947 to 1976, states in her book on Cambridgeshire Customs & Folklore that the bedders of today (1969) are devoted to the undergraduates in their care and take a keen interest in their well-being. She says there are known instances of women turning up for work even though their husbands had died during the preceding night. One such woman, on being told she should not have come replied, ‘I had to; the exams are on and I had to be here to see after my gentlemen.’

In loco parentis

It’s perhaps not surprising that retired tutor Ken Riley entitled his Clare College memoire, In Loco Parentis: a light-hearted look at the role of a Cambridge tutor (2016). Riley acknowledges that the expression ‘in loco parentis’, in referring to the responsibilities normally associated with parenthood, may not be totally appropriate in the light of the age of majority being reduced in 1970 to eighteen years. Technically, all university students are adults. He does, however, still see the tutor role as guide, mentor and even ‘friend at court’ if the worst comes to the worst.

There were occasions when Riley, in his role as Rooms Tutor, had to discipline students (do parents not discipline their children?). He describes in some detail one such time when he received a report from the Domestic Bursar on the state of a flat occupied by three students,

‘in many ways, worst of all, [was] their lack of concern for the feelings of the bedmaker (bedder) who looks after and cleans the flat… the Domestic Bursar would not have visited the flat at all if their behaviour had not brought the bedder near to tears; it was his duty to investigate anything that upset any member of the College Staff.’

Riley demanded written assurance that the students had apologised to the bedmaker but some three weeks later just one had done so and two had never tried to find her to apologise, even though she came into the flat every weekday morning. Their ‘insulting’ excuse was that they were never up until nearly eleven o’clock at the earliest. A written apology was then sent to the bedder but they had made it impossible for her to resume her normal cleaning duties. After further developments, the College Master became involved and the three were exiled. That is, required to move out of Clare housing to non-college property.

For many of course it’s a different story and there are Cambridge alumni who keep in touch with their fondly remembered bedder or landlady, long after moving on. Billie Allinson’s mother, Mrs Bass, was a Hostelkeeper at Clare College’s Braeside for thirty-one years and is pictured in Clare Through the Twentieth Century (2001) with some of her students at the time of their matriculation in 1959 and then at a 1989 reunion in Mrs Bass’ eightieth year. Billie, who also worked at Clare College, still receives Christmas cards from her mother’s former charges.

In this post I reflect on who cares about the bedder. There are of course different perspectives to explore on the topic of college servants and a number of themes are already emerging from my early conversations.

Collecting your memories and stories

I plan to write a book that focuses on the period from 1900 to the present day. By ‘servants’, I don’t just mean bedders but also other staff such as butlers, porters, handymen, gardeners, buttery and pantry staff, and landladies.

As with This book is about Heffers (2016), my aim is to blend living memory with the desk research in order to create what I hope will be an informative and interesting portrait.

I’d be delighted to hear if you worked at a college and would be willing to tell me about your experience. Also, if you have a memory of college servants to share, no matter how fleeting.

Or maybe you have thoughts on the topic of college servants generally?

In researching the history of Heffers of Cambridge I had face-to-face and telephone conversations with former and current staff, customers and authors. People also kindly shared their stories via letters and emails. And contributions can be anonymised.

My email address is [email protected]

And do say hello to Ethel and Ivy

My Nanna worked at Jesus as a bedder for many years. And yet the college has no trace of her existence. This is not uncommon. Here she is with her sister, Ivy, who also worked as a bedder.

Ethel & Ivy