I remember Ernest Thesiger removing the top of his bathing trunks and being reproved by the pool attendant until he had replaced part of it. “I hereby declare it is indecent to show more than one tit”. Thesiger publicly announced.
In Bridie’s play “The Sleeping clergyman” Ernest Thesiger and Robert Donat were the chief actors. Donat I never knew but Thesiger became a friend of our family and managed to get my brother, John, a small part in a West End play just before war started and life changed for us all. I remember Thesiger reciting a monologue into a disc recorder I owned which I often played until the disc was destroyed in our house fire in 1980. I remember most if the words but am not certain about the adjectives at the end of one of the stanzas.
A Calif so the bards report
Convened the beauties of his court
To choose a bride of empire brief
By the emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Ephemeral, emerald, handkerchief
They chose the harem’s pride and pearl;
She was a Persian dancing girl
And to’rds her fluttered like a leaf
The emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Vapoury, drapery, handkerchief
She caught the ‘kerchief as it fell
And danced and sang so wildly well
She held the Calif’s heart in thief
With the emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Whimsical, flimsicle handkerchief
But all too soon, unhappy maid,
The Calif’s passion cooled and strayed
She wept her salt and scalding grief
On the emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Magical, tragical, handkerchief.
The Calif by her weeping bored
Twisted the ‘kerchief to a cord
And round her neck he took a reef
In the emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Frightening, tightening handkerchief
So dancing girls and other such
Beware of loving Kings too much
Lest you – or they – should find relief
In the emerald green silk handkerchief
Handkerchief, handkerchief, handkerchief
Quadrangular, strangular handkerchief
