Miss Havisham was a MAN!
QUESTION
I have a small history book called Dirty Dick’s World Famous Cellars And Vaults (est 1745). Do these bars still exist? DIRTY DICK’S is very much still there, opposite Liverpool Street Station, on Bishopsgate, London. Established in 1735, the pub was first called The old Jerusalem.
The original Dirty Dick was Nathaniel Bentley, an eccentric but prosperous City merchant who owned a hardware shop and warehouse on Leadenhall Street. He’d been quite a dandy in his youth — in 1760 he was known as the ‘Beau of Leadenhall Street’ — but, legend has it, following the death of his fiancee, he let his factory, shop and house fall into decay.
Some say he was the inspiration for Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
His warehouse became so filthy that it was dubbed the ‘dirty’ warehouse. Any letter addressed to The Dirty warehouse, London, would be delivered to him.
He stopped trading in 1804 and died in 1809. The warehouse was later demolished but the pub was renamed in his honour. It was said the landlord bought the contents of Bentley’s banquet room, including skeletons of rats, mice and cats, which were displayed about the premises.
However, the authenticity of t hese relics is s o mewhat diminished by the presence of other alleged ‘dirty dickery’, including a mummified crocodile. By the end of the 19th century, the owners, a public house company called william Barker’s (D.D) Ltd, was making commemorative booklets and promotional material advertising the pub.
Today, the relics have been tidied into a glass display case and the pub is owned by Young’s.
J. L. Kennett, edgware, Middx.
QUESTION
While I was at high school, there was a fad for inventing book titles by appropriate authors such as Cliff Tragedy by Eileen Dover. Are there any others out there? FURTHER to earlier answers, I’m now 82 and have been inventing these on and off since my boyhood. I have a collection of more than 700, and my aim is to reach 1,000 before I pass away.
My special one is United States of America by Ken Tuckey with c ontributions f r om Minnie Sowta, Ida Hoe, Harry Zoner, Della ware, Al Abammer, U. Tarr, Tex Hass, Miss Soury, Miss Sissippy, D. Troit, Flo Ridder, George Jurr, I. ower, Carol Lyner, Mick Cheegan, Lucy Arner, Indy Hannah, Mary Lande, Cally Fornia and Al Lasker.
Brian Martin, Chorleywood, herts.