Samphire Word Salad
Her Ladyship again. As ever, she shares her pearls of wisdom in the 1912 literary curio Samphire. “For we say in the Cinque Ports, ‘I am going to Clapham,’ just as you might announce that you are going to Paris. Also Clapham, being a junction, serves to cloak our ultimate destination from the curiosity of our fellow townsmen.” The Cinque Ports, sometimes referred to as the “Cradle of the Royal Navy”, were a medieval confederation of English Channel ports formed to furnish ships and sailors for the King’s service. The original five included Dover, Hythe, New Romney, Sandwich and Hastings. Lady Sybil Grant demands, “Of course you know the Cinque Ports by now? In any case it is not for want of telling over and over again, in good sound style properly punctuated, and in an English above reproach. However, I am never tired of talking about them.”
