From the archive

21 September 1921

One hundred years ago this week AP was extolling the virtues of a break in Brittany, which could be ‘most conveniently reached from this countrycolumn, a comedically curmudgeonly diatribe written under the name ‘The Walrus’. Discussing a friend who had been recuperating from an illness, he wrote: ‘I suddenly realised that his case was very much worse than it seemed when he said that he had lent one of his best and most expensive pocket cameras to a lady who wished to try her prentice hand at photography. That showed a very serious state of things. I tried to imagine how ill I should have to be before I lent one of my cameras to a lady, and the mere thought forced me to go and lie down till I had pulled myself together a bit.’