Monday 23rd December marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of Britain’s great comic writers, Harry Graham (1874-1936). A household name for the first third of the 20th century, he’s a poet I suspect only Oldie-readers will have heard of today and, even then, too few of us.
The collection of verse that rocketed him to fame was Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes.
It was published in 1899 when Graham was not quite 25, and still a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards.
The book struck a chord and was rapidly reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic. Graham was fascinated by late-Victorian technology, and the dangers resulting from new and faster modes of transport:
‘I collided with some “trippers” In my swift De Dion Bouton; Squashed them out as flat as kippers, Left them aussi mort que mouton. What a nuisance “trippers” are! I must now repaint the car.’
‘Uncle, whose inventive brains Kept evolving aeroplanes Fell from an enormous height On my garden lawn, last night. Flying is a fatal sport;
Uncle wrecked the tennis court.’ The poems were brief and perfect:
‘Baby in the cauldron fell, See the grief on Mother’s brow. Mother loved her darling well. Darling’s quite hard boiled by now.’
I adore Tender-heartedness:
‘Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was
burnt to ashes; Now, although
the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.’
‘O’er the rugged mountain’s brow Clara threw the twins she nursed, And remarked, “I wonder now Which will reach the bottom first?”’
By the time Ruthless Rhymes was published, Graham was already cutting a dash around town.
As a young Old Etonian Guards officer he had caught the eye of Ethel Barrymore, the American actress, who in 1897 was playing the ingénue in the latest revival of Irving’s famous production of The Bells in London.
The 18-year-old Ethel took society’s cohort of eligible bachelors by storm – most notably Winston Churchill, whose proposal she declined. But she did accept the advances of the young, still unpublished Harry Graham.
Sadly, the engagement didn’t last; Ethel returned to Broadway and Harry, heartbroken, continued scribbling his dark verses.
Almost all describe horrible fates of children, relatives, servants, golfing companions and pedestrians. Only one speaks of a wife, and it is perhaps the darkest of them all:
‘Late last night I slew my wife Stretched her on the parquet
flooring; I was loath to take her life, But I had to stop her snoring.’
The success of Ruthless Rhymes took time. Graham became ADC to Lord Minto, the recently appointed Governor General of Canada.
His service there was interrupted by a year in South Africa at the end of the Second Boer War. Minto was made Viceroy of India, and Graham was not inclined to travel with him. He wrote:
‘A relative of mine, Aunt Maud, For years had longed to go abroad; She pined to breathe the ampler air Of Schnitzelbad or Plage-sur-Mer; She often felt that she would choke If she remained at Basingstoke.’
Graham re-enlisted at the outbreak of war in 1914 and saw active service in France; this coincided with his theatrical career, when he wrote lyrics for operettas including The Cinema Star.
At the same time, Ethel Barrymore was making the transition from the stage to the silent screen.
How poignant it must have been to write ‘The Picture Palace Queen’:
‘In many a garb I masquerade As Smart Princess or Beggar Maid... With burglars on the roof, I struggle; I haunt the caves where smugglers smuggle!
‘For sad or merry, well or ill, The camera pursues me still, Till ev’ry single thing I do Is thus exposed to public view! For I appear on ev’ry screen The famous Picture Palace Queen.’
The poems grew longer. The casual violence of Ruthless Rhymes gave way to more subtle social observation, sometimes expressed through gritted teeth:
‘My wife has brothers, charming men,
Who never seem to need inviting;
They know they’re welcome in my den,
And when I’m busy writing
They very often condescend
To sit with me for hours on end,
Explaining how I’d make it pay
By doing what I do today In some completely different way.’
There are plenty of gems to be found. Take ‘Breakfast’ – a warning against ‘being bright at breakfast time’. Two churchmen come to blows:
‘Dean Cope, the eminent divine Was breakfasting at half past nine, Perusing (as he munched his toast) “The Anglican or Churchman’s Post”, When in there blew, to his distress, The Bishop of the Diocese ...Who shouted “Cheerio, old chap” And gave the Dean a playful slap.’
The dean inhales his kedgeree; tempers are lost. A fight ensues – which ends with a couplet that could reduce my father to tears of laughter and may well be the first lines of poetry I ever learnt:
‘The Bishop took a careful shot And brained him with the mustard pot!’
We also find the warning we should all follow when in ‘The Bath’:
‘Remember, wheresoe’er you be, To shut the door and turn the key!’
But still nothing quite matched the success of Ruthless Rhymes. It continued to sell (and was even one of the volumes chosen for the library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House in 1924).
Thirty years after its publication, Graham wrote his masterpiece, More Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes.
‘When Grandmama fell off the boat And couldn’t swim (and wouldn’t float)...’
is perhaps his most famous poem. Sometimes, if only for light relief,
nobody dies at all:
‘Weep not for little Léonie, Abducted by a French Marquis! Though loss of honour was a wrench, Justthinkhowit’simprovedherFrench!’
In Grandpapa, a child commentates:
‘Grandpapa fell down a drain;
Couldn’t scramble out again.
Now he’s floating down the sewer.
That’s one grandpapa the fewer.’
...or the perpetrators, as in Quite Fun:
‘My son Augustus, in the street one day,
Was feeling quite exceptionally merry.
A stranger asked him: “Can you show
me, pray,
The quickest way to Brompton
Cemetery?”
“The quickest way? You bet I can!”
said Gus,
And pushed the fellow underneath a
bus.’
How I adore Presence of Mind:
‘When, with my little daughter Blanche,
I climbed the Alps, last summer,
I saw a dreadful avalanche
About to overcome her;
And, as it swept her down the slope,
I vaguely wondered whether
I should be wise to cut the rope
That held us twain together.
I must confess I’m glad I did,
But still I miss the child – poor kid
‘When Baby’s cries grew hard to bear
I popped him in the Frigidaire.
I never would have done so if I’d known that he’d be frozen stiff.
My wife said, “George, I’m so unhappé! Our darling’s now completely frappé!”’
Happy 150th birthday, Harry Graham!
Simon Berry was Chairman of Berry Bros & Rudd, the family wine company
