You can bank on the royals
QUESTION Was the Queen the first monarch to be pictured on British banknotes?
IT’S an often repeated mistake that the Queen was the first monarch to be pictured on UK banknotes.
From 1917, her grandfather, George V, was portrayed on notes of 10 shillings, £1, £5 and £10. Go back to 1727 and you will find George II on a 20-shilling note (£1) issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
In 1777, George III was on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s one guinea note and in 1850, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were on a £20 note issued by the Commercial Bank of Scotland.
Rich Main, West Molesey, Surrey.
QUESTION Why is something tacky described as being naff?
IN 1973, Princess Anne was reported to have told photographers to ‘Naff orf!’ when they snapped her coming off her horse, Stevie B, and taking a ducking at the Badminton Horse Trials.
It subsequently emerged that she had used somewhat stronger language.
Ronnie Barker popularised the term in the BBC TV series Porridge in 1974. Dick Clement, who wrote the script with Ian La Frenais, claims they were looking for an expletive with bite that would not be offensive. They had adapted for the stage Keith Waterhouse’s novel Billy Liar, which used the phrase ‘Naff off!’
They believed Waterhouse borrowed the word from his RAF days when it was used as a substitute for an age- old obscenity. This has led to speculation that it was derived from the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes), which provides canteens and shops for the Forces. There is no evidence for this.
The adjective also featured in the 1960s BBC radio comedy Round The Horne, written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman. A regular sketch, Julian and Sandy, featured Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams as theatrical chaps who used Polari, an Italianate rhyming slang.
The language used in fairgrounds was adopted by gay people to skirt the strict antihomosexuality laws of the time.
Julian and Sandy frequently used naff (spelled naph in the script) to describe something that was dull or tacky:
‘I couldn’t be doing with a garden like this . . . I mean all them horrible little naff gnomes.’ Naff in this context may have referred to a dull heterosexual man. Jim Farrelly, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.
QUESTION Do other countries have an equivalent to the Land’s End to John o’Groats physical challenge?
FURTHeR to the earlier answer, Mizen Head to Malin Head traverses the length of the island of Ireland from the most southerly point in Co. Cork to the most northerly point in Co. Donegal.
The 400-odd mile route is a favourite for charity bike rides.
Kerry O’Driscoll, Kettering, Northants.
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