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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

inter alia that George could not, and seldom failed, to extemporise upon fluently for an
hour and more at a stretch. George enjoyed the gift of being able to read a book or
document at speed, absorb the information sponge-like and thereafter be able to quote
from that book or document, at will, during ensuing decades.
When we met, George was still giving lectures to regional literary societies,
which he prepared in manuscript, his ancient portable typewriter having failed him. My
offer to word process his manuscripts opened the possibilities of a new technological
age to George, a world that he was exceedingly careful not to explore himself despite
frequent prompting, urging and demonstrations. Through this process I was privileged
considerably to extend my knowledge and understanding of Rudyard Kipling, H.G.
Wells, George Orwell, Robbie Burns - not least Burns’startling canon of pornography
from which George would sometimes quote liberally from his doorstep as I returned to
my car in his driveway - Herman Melville, J.B. Priestley, Hugh MacDiarmid and John
Buchan to name but some. He also retained an intimate knowledge of the lives of a
remarkable list of people as diverse as the formidable African American singer, actor
and political activist Paul Robeson and the homely, Wigan-born, comedic banjolele-
plucking entertainer, George Formby.
George attributed his early love of books to the year he missed in his early
schooling due to contracting poliomyelitis, then called infantile paralysis, some of
which period he spent encased in an ‘iron lung’, as a mechanical respirator was then
known. Books were his only solace and his parents ensured he was well supplied with
reading material.
Early acquaintanceship with George disabused me of the erroneous perception
that he would most likely, given his academic background, subscribe to The Guardian
newspaper. In fact, he was an enthusiastic subscriber to the Daily Telegraph, suddenly
switching in the last few years of his life to the Daily Mail; the only likely explanation,
to my mind, being that he found the Daily Mail’s tabloid format easier to manage than
the broadsheet Telegraph. He opined that the Daily Mail was ‘good on health matters’.
George was also an accomplished ‘versifier’, to use his description, ranging
from swiftly composed limericks to poems that he might ruminate, if not agonise, upon
over many months or longer. One Friday morning, à propos absolutely nothing,
George suddenly observed that my wife’s name, Patricia, rhymed with ‘militia’. After
a few minutes musing he offered:

There was a young lass called Patricia A history professor called Sam
Who decided to join the militia To which Would often enjoy a wee dram
To watch her at drill I Later The love of good whisky
Gave the troops such a thrill responded: Could make him quite frisky
They queued in battalions to kiss her. So they’d wheel him home in a pram.

Thus began many years of shared limerick composition, often as a joint enterprise over
a coffee.
I am indebted to David Bone for sharing with me the following verse by
George Shepperson, titled Hot Doggerel, which David found enclosed within an old
copy of The Society of Malawi Journal. The following lines were composed during a
social anthropological seminar at Edinburgh University in the early 1950s and are
dedicated: “To John McCracken. Merry Christmas, 2006”.

The social anthropologist’s
A species of misanthropist,
And though he does his best to please
Ungrateful aborigines
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