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Article for the Risdene Echo, by Pat Jenkins
Rushden Laughed
I have to thank Jim Osborne for lending us two copies of 'The Risdene Tatler", an unusual publication billed as "Rushden's First Magazine of Nonsense".
The first, called a "Coronation Edition" came out in 1937 and the second, the "Rushden Feast Number," in September 1938. The price was "not less than 3d." and all profits were to be divided amongst various local charities. The Editor tells us that the first edition made £30 and requests his readers not to lend the magazine to their neighbours; "make the blighters buy one".
Both magazines are full of truly terrible jokes. Among the "Want Ads" for example:
"Bulldog for sale. Will eat anything. Very fond of children."
"Wanted - Snake charmer to operate mechanical adder."
Among the handy hints for celebrating Coronation Day is advice on decorations:
"These will include several arches and the Health and Beauty League. Woburn Place
will decorate as usual on Monday and leave the washing out until after the 12th."
And children : "....having refused to eat slab cake and slightly spotted buns, the children will be allowed to starve at the cinema....
Rushden Feast was presenting a new thrill "The Monte Carlo Rally" and all the old favourites, the Cake-Walk, (pitched near the railway bridge, step off at the wrong moment and get the last thrill of a lifetime) the Ghost Train, the Caterpillar and the Waltzer.
There are humorous articles by Will Hay, Wee Georgie Wood and Gracie Fields, and copies of well-known cartoons from Punch. There are the usual jokes about mothers-in-law and lady drivers.
And then there was the rumour of Quads for Rushden. The Tatler followed the rumour from street to street. Fitzwilliam Hill said the humour was "rather steep," Prospect Avenue saw "no prospect of such a thing", and in St. Margaret's Avenue there was no-one at home.
The adverts for long defunct businesses are interesting to us now. Where is H.S. Hall, offering men's wear at 67, High Street; Blanchflowers, the motor people of Station Road; Phillips's, the curtain shop at 96-98 High Street; Cottingham, the optician; Fleemans, the Chemist; Smith's "a mousetrap to a mangle"; The Louvre and Bon Marche; the different Co-ops and many more. E. Abington & Sons were at 27, High Street, boasting that their trouser buttons "have the reputation for staying put."
Rushden men must have been a clothes conscious lot, as there are at least eight adverts for men's clothes. Women were apparently not so well served, though P.W. Wills, ladies fashion specialists, is at "The Corner Shop". Telephone 319.
The Tatler has a good laugh at the Town Council, the local press and the brass bands. Did Mussolini really open the new bridge at Ditchford? Is the truth coming out at last?
Jim Osborne has kindly given permission for our Society to use material from the magazines in "The Risdene Echo." Some of the articles are well worth reprinting.
Let us end, appropriately, in the graveyard:
"Here lie the remains of a radio fan,
Now mourned by his many relations;
He went to the gasworks smoking a fag,
And was picked up by twenty one stations."
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