A Grand Panjandrum of Words

I have had some wonderful letters from readers recently, most of them telling me about their pets, and some of them asking me more about when I started writing and what had inspired me to start in the first place.

I was reminded yesterday of how my love of words began. I was listening to the radio, trying to make sense of who was going to be the next Prime Minister, and I heard a politican talking about a "Grand Panjandrum": he was using the phrase to describe a right old mix-up of politicians with hugely different ideas and opinions.

I love that expression, mainly because it rolls around inside my mouth like a massive juicy gobstopper, just begging to be drooled over. But, more importantly, I love it because it makes me think of my dear Dad, who is the person most guilty for instilling in me a love of words and stories.

Dad was the one who told the best bedtime stories. (Sorry, Mum, Grandma and anyone else who tucked me in at night!) He told the best stories because he told them with huge enthusiasm for the sound and shape of the words and the accent and flavour of the characters. In other words, he Did The Voices, which as everyone who loves a good story knows, is the best ingredient for a good storyteller.

As well as stories, he loved (still does, in fact) to recite poems. Amongst the favourites which still stick in my mind are the A A Milne poems - "The King asked the Queen and the Queen asked the dairymaid"; "King John was not a good man" etc., etc.

But a poem a remember with almost more fondness than all the rest, is one called "The Grand Panjandrum". I delighted in the way Dad delivered every word of it with such glee.

Here it is - read it out loud to get the most from it!

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie;
and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street,
pops its head into the shop.
"What! No soap?"
So he died,
and she very imprudently married the barber;
and there were present
the Picaninnies, and the Jobalillies, and the Garyalies,
and the Grand Panjandrum himself,
with a small round button atop,
and they all fell to playing the game
of catch-as-catch-can
till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots.

I never knew where this little bit of nonsense had come from; indeed as a child I was quite prepared to believe that Dad had made it up himself. But after a quick search on the internet, I discovered that it is believed to have been written by the playwright Samuel Foote, who lived in the 18th century.

He is supposed to have written it as a bit of a spiteful joke for a man who boasted that he could memorise any piece of writing, having only read it once through. When the man read The Grand Panjandrum, he went off in a huff and refused to repeat it!

But my dear Dad knew the whole thing off my heart and regularly entertained me and my sister with it - and still entertains my own children with it today. For me, is it a true testament to the power of words - that they can put a boastful man in his place; that they can roll around inside the mouth so deliciously; that they can "mean" nothing at all on the page, and yet spring to life so colourfully once we say them aloud.

I don't know about you, but I can see that she-bear very clearly. And as for the "small round button atop", well, that is just the best! Hearing my dad's voice in my head as I read it helps a lot, of course. I can see the look of joy on his face as he recites each line - beaming from ear to ear, his eyes sparkling. And I can hear him finish with a flourish as he cries: "till the gunpowder ran out of the heeeeeeeeels of their boots"! Can't you just see it? All those creatures running in circles, so fast that their heels were on fire!

Words - the shape of them on the page, the feel of them on my tongue, the sound of them ringing in my ears. That's what got me started, and that's what keeps me writing.

Thank you, Dad.