Where the L is that room?
QUESTION In the 1962 film The L-Shaped Room, Leslie Caron and Anthony Booth stand near a sign for Rockash Road, London W2, which is not in the A-Z. What happened to this street?
The L-Shaped Room was a 1962 British kitchen sink drama directed by Bryan Forbes. It tells the story of Jane, a young French woman (Leslie Caron), unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a London boarding house and begins a relationship with another lodger, Toby (Tom Bell).
Anthony Booth had only a small role in the film.
At the time of filming, I was a young police officer assigned to the project. Rockash Road in the Marylebone postal area did not exist. The film was made in Tavistock Crescent in Notting hill, West London, at the junction with St Luke’s Road, which backs onto the railway. At this junction there is a footbridge over the railway to Acklam Road.
As you go over the footbridge, on the left-hand corner was Tavistock Pub and on the right was a small dairy, above which was the L-shaped room. The buildings are all flats now.
Mike Robotham, Cheam, Surrey.
QUESTION Is posthumous marriage legal in France?
The French civil code does allow posthumous marriage for a poignant reason.
Malpasset irrigation dam on the Reyran River, five miles north of Frejus on the French Riviera, collapsed on December 2, 1959, killing 423 people in a flood.
After the disaster, President de Gaulle visited the town, and a grieving woman asked him if she could marry her fiancé, who was among the dead.
On December 31, 1959, Article 171 was written into the civil code allowing for posthumous marriage or necrogamy: ‘The President of the Republic may, for serious reasons, authorise the solemnisation of marriage if one of the spouses died after completion of official formalities marking unequivocal consent.
‘In this case, the effects of marriage dated back to the day preceding the death of the husband. however, this marriage does not entail any right of intestate succession for the benefit of the surviving spouse and no matrimonial property is deemed to have existed between the spouses.’
There have since been many cases of posthumous marriage in France. A notable recent example was the first same-sex case.
Xavier Jugele was a French policeman killed by a terrorist on the Champselysees on April 20, 2017.
he was well known as an LGBT campaigner and as one of the first responders to the attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in November 2015, where gunmen killed 90 concert-goers.
Jugele’s partner etienne Cardiles was married to his deceased partner in the presence of Paris Mayor Anne hidalgo and former French President Francois hollande on May 31, 2017.
Jeanne Taylor, Canterbury.
QUESTION I’ve come across the lost English word betrump, meaning deceive or cheat, and intend to use it. What other words deserve a comeback?
MAy I nominate a contender found amid the lexicon of alternative grammar and sometimes invented or misheard words of President Donald Trump.
Before his election in 2016, he appeared to say ‘bigly’, which is a 15th- century Middle english word, meaning with great force and in a blustering or pompous manner, which seems ideal.
Sadly, a spokesman explained Trump had, in fact, said Big League, which would be more consistent with his New york accent and colloquial slang. I have made an effort to use ‘ bigly’ since and will adopt more Trumpisms sikerly (an old word meaning certainly, surely, truly).
In an eloquent exchange before they moved onto their bromance, the word dotard was used by Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, to suggest Trump was an elderly imbecile.
It is reassuring that old words surface via sources other than Boris Johnson and compete against contemporary slang that almost exclusively relates to sex, stabbing and online gaming culture.
Don Trower, Braintree, Essex. IT IS estimated that there are a quarter of a million english words, but a fifth are no longer in use.
The Lost Words campaign was begun by york University to revive some of these words, many of which have a newfound relevance.
Betrump, meaning to deceive, elude, slip away from, appears to be a word of Scottish origin.
Gavin Douglas, in his 1513 translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, The eneados, uses it on several occasions, for instance: ‘Scho was away, and betrumpit suythly hyr spows, hir son’, and ‘All the cumpany; and Sal [it be] leful tyll a . . . stranger Me and my realm betrump on this maner?’
The campaign has come up with gems including: Ambodexter — a man who takes bribes from both sides; huggermugger — hoard money, conceal; Losenger — false flatterer, lying rascal; Manmillinery — male vanity or pomposity.
Parget — to daub or plaster (the face or body) with powder or paint; Peacockize — to behave like a peacock, to strut ostentatiously; Percher — a social climber; Quacksalver — one falsely claiming to possess medical or other skills; a pedlar of false medicine; Rouker — a person who spreads rumours.
Sillytonian — a silly or gullible person, or a group of such people. Slug-a-bed — one who lies long in bed through laziness; Snout-fair — having a fair countenance, handsome; Swerk — to be or become dark, gloomy, troubled, or sad; Teen — to vex, irritate, annoy, anger, enrage; and Wlonk — proud, haughty, rich, splendid, fine, magnificent.
Oliver Petit, Malvern, Worcs.
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