The Further Letters from Britain of Paddy Panda

By Barbara Hayes

Letters explaining English as it is spoken in England, how to behave correctly in England, knowledge you will need when visiting or working in England - or even just speaking to English people. A “value-added” concept in English as a foreign language.

Paddy Panda is a cuddly toy living in England with his owner John Smith. He has never been to China, but longs to know more about that land because that is where Pandas come from. Meanwhile by listening to John Smith and his family and teenage friends, Paddy is learning all he can about England - or as he soon learns - Britain.
Paddy has written a series of letters explaining what he has learned and is learning about life in England. He hopes the letters will help students learning English or visiting England.

Paddy strives to be grammatically correct and usually is, but he also writes in colloquial English as spoken in polite society of course. Knowing some colloquial English will be very useful to students of English when they speak to actual English people.

Thus by reading Paddy Panda’s letters you will start to learn what you need to know when visiting England taking a trip to London or speaking with English people on business or on holiday.
Paddy also explains a bit about British history and British culture as it is viewed by British people.

Whether you work in a hotel used by British people, go to Britain on holiday or do business with British companies, Paddy Panda is for you.

And they are quite fun stories as well! Like English people, Paddy does like a laugh.

About the Author
Barbara Hayes worked on the editorial staff and spent many years writing stories and picture strip scripts for the Amalgamated Press, later Fleetway Publications and subsequently part of the Daily Mirror IPC publishing group.
Over the years she has had some 80 books and about 7300 scripts published by companies from England to Australia to South Africa to Florida and back to Holland.
She knows all about correct written English, colloquial English and grammar. She is also a fount of knowledge on polite behaviour and how to behave properly.

Contents
Introduction
The Ninth Letter from Paddy Panda - About the English
The Tenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Pantomimes
The Eleventh Letter from Paddy Panda - About the Silk Road
The Twelfth Letter from Paddy Panda - About London
The Thirteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Sir Francis Drake
The Fourteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About the British Empire
The Fifteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Pubs

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bretwalda Books
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781909099425

Barbara Hayes

Barbara Hayes worked on the editorial staff and spent many years writing stories and picture strip scripts for the Amalgamated Press, situated in Farringdon Street, which is round the corner from Fleet Street, London. Later Amalgamated Press became Fleetway Publications and subsequently part of the Daily Mirror IPC publishing group.Barbara was just in time to work with some of the old Fleet Street hacks in all their drunken glory before the move away from Fleet Street to modern technical respectability.She got advice straight from the lips of Hugh Cudlipp, the famous editor of the Daily Mirror, and became married to an Amalgamated Press editor, Leonard Matthews, who rose to be a managing editor and then an editorial director.Over the years she has had some 80 books and about 7300 scripts published by companies from England to Australia to South Africa to Florida and back to Holland.She likes to think of herself as an old hack writer who succeeded mainly because she always got her work in on time and the right length - but if you read on carefully you might find quite a few other hints to help you.

Book preview

The Further Letters of Paddy Panda

by

Barbara Hayes

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Published by Bretwalda Books at Smashwords

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First Published 2012

Copyright © Bretwalda Books 2012

ISBN 978-1-909099-42-5

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Contents

Introduction

The Ninth Letter from Paddy Panda - About the English

The Tenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Pantomimes

The Eleventh Letter from Paddy Panda - About the Silk Road

The Twelfth Letter from Paddy Panda - About London

The Thirteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Sir Francis Drake

The Fourteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About the British Empire

The Fifteenth Letter from Paddy Panda - About Pubs

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Introduction

Hallo everyone - Well here we are with another batch of letters from Paddy Panda. I do hope you read the first batch of letters Paddy wrote, but in case you did not, here are some words of explanation.

This book will hopefully amuse any English (British) readers who happen to pick it up, but mainly it is intended as some light, helpful reading for students who have learned to read and write English quite well, but now need to get to grips with colloquial English as spoken by real English people.

After all the hard work of basic learning, here is some fun reading as Paddy Panda sends you some letters about the doings and chatter of teenage John Smith and his English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish friends and his family.

They live in Surbiton, a well known suburb of London and they often take trips up to London itself.

Reading about their chatter and their outings will help foreign students with colloquial English as it is actually spoken and also help them with information about travelling around and what to see and do in London. There are also snippets of British history.

Although the English is colloquial it is all correct and polite and quite safe to learn and speak on visits to England (Britain).

I feature as ‘Grandma’ in these letters, but to give you some sense of security please let me tell you that I have had published some eighty books and also written and had published some hundreds and thousands of scripts and captions for picture strips mostly in children’s comics published in England, Holland, Germany, South Africa and many English speaking countries all over the world.

I was born in Watford, a busy industrial town on the north west edge of London and now live near Surbiton, a thriving suburb of London to the south west.

I have lived near and worked in London all my long life.

So now I will hand you over to Paddy Panda.

I hope you will learn something from reading his letters and also that you will have a laugh.

How we do all need a good laugh!

With best wishes,

Barbara Hayes.

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The Ninth Letter from Paddy Panda

About the English

Hallo everyone. This is your old friend, Paddy Panda, writing to you again. At least I hope I am your old friend and that you have read my other letters and that you already know all about me.

Just in case you have not read my other letters (poor deprived, old you!) I am a cuddly toy panda owned by John Smith. I sit in John’s room (it used to be the toy room, but now John is almost grown up, the toys are packed away and this is the room where John’s friends can come in and visit) and I listen to all the chatter of the friends and also of course hear what Grandma has to say when she brings round some of her home made cakes (yum-yum) and also hear what Mr. and Mrs. Smith, John’s parents have to say when their help is needed.

Being a panda, I am supposed to be Chinese, but I have never been to China. I was made in England. However I try to learn what I can about China and hope to go there one day. i fancy going along that Silk Road that all the history books keep talking about - Grandma says she knows quite a few interesting things about the Silk Road - but all that will have to wait.

First off I am writing these letters explaining about things in England (Britain) to help any visiting foreign students or tourists with the language as it is actually spoken and also to help them understand the way people here behave.

Also when I wrote my other letters I kept promising to talk about quite a few things special to England (Britain) and then I never had room to do so.

So I am told that now I must start doing what I promised to do.

However before I start doing what I am supposed to be doing, I must just explain two things.

You - see there is always something holding me up - and something which really does need to be done. Oh well. I can only do my best can’t I!

You will have noticed (I hope you will have noticed if you are paying proper attention like a good student, which I am sure you are) that this first letter in this book is called ‘Letter 9’

This is because there were eight (8) letters in my first book and I do not want anyone who has both books to get into a muddle.

Second you will also have noticed (you have, haven’t you?) that when I say ‘England’ I put (Britain) beside it.

This is because so many people from the rest of the world think that the whole of this island tagging along off the north west coast of Europe is England. However it is not. The whole island is Britain which is divided into England, Scotland and Wales and the smaller island to the west of Britain is Ireland.

The English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish are always telling jokes about each other - see my first book of letters - and sometimes quarrelling, but they all seem quite good friends really. At least John Smith’s mixed bunch of friends tell jokes and are friends as well, which is what matters here.

Anyway apparently one of the things I kept saying I was going to explain in my first letters and never did, was how it came about England was called England because the Roman Empire used to employ mercenary soldiers.

So now I must explain it.

Fortunately one of the English boys who comes round visiting with John’s other pals (friends, mates, chums) is very clever and also interested in history. His name is Duncan and his nickname is Brainbox.

This is what Brainbox Duncan has to say about it all.

If you are diligent student I expect you already know that in the first few hundred years of the first millenium much of Europe, including England (and I do mean England, not Britain) was conquered and ruled by the Romans from Italy.

Then in the late 400s the Roman Empire broke up. The last emperor resigned in 476 and then all sorts of tribes kept invading from far away or from just next door to grab anything nice they could find for themselves.

Now in Roman times (so Brainbox Duncan says anyway) the Romans did not do all their fighting themselves they used to enlist good fighters from various other countries to do the job and after it was done, sent them home with some bags of gold or gave them certain areas of land on which they could retire.

Well after the Romans had gone away and it became clear that they were never coming back, some of the lands in the south east of England, what we now call Kent and Essex found that they were being invaded and raided by British tribes from further to the north and west and that the Picts from Scotland were invading and looting