I remember once the Manchester bookmaker, George Gunnup, coming to London to look after the box office for the late Dick Burge at The Ring, Blackfriars. He always used to rave about London cured fish, and told me one day in great confidence that he had found a shop down the New Cut where a pal of his smoked haddocks in real oak sawdust. They were marvellous, he said, and he promised me a bag of his pal’s fish to try. At this time he and his wife were staying with Marie Lloyd on her house-boat at Thames Ditton. One day he ’phoned up to my house at New Malden. I was away working four shows a night at the time at Poplar and Ilford. My wife’s mother—a dear old lady over eighty years of age—answered the telephone. He said he had a lovely bag of fish for me, and would she mind being on the platform at Malden station at twelve o’clock at night when he passed through in the train on his way to Thames Ditton? She of course was there—though she generally goes to bed at seven o’clock—waiting for the lovely bag of wonderful smoked haddocks. As the electric train drew in George Gunnup handed her the bag of fish with his compliments. Dick Burge, Sam Mayo, and a lot of the lads were in the same compartment. When she got home and opened the bag it contained a rabbit skin, a pair of old boots, and a couple of bananas. Of course George Gunnup did not know anything about it. He had bought the fish, and told them at The Ring that it was for Carlton. Dick Burge and Sam Mayo, I believe, rang the changes on me, but I, of course, was not there, so the joke fell flat. The old lady took it in good part, but George Gunnup never forgave Sam Mayo and Dick Burge.

I have now come to the end of my story. I hope you have been amused by these rambling recollections of a strolling player and trust that we shall meet again. You as my audience, and myself, as always, yours to entertain.

“Carlton”

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