“MEIN GAMP”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23796, 1 May 1939, Page 7

“ MEIN GAMP”

MR CHAMBERLAIN’S UMBHIELLA Mr Neville Chamberlain’s black silk umbrella, which has a personality all its own as one of the mo?t famqus bits of stage property in diplomatic history, has never been unfurled to shield its owner from the elements. 3ln own affectionately as “Mein Gamp.” a Cockney pun at Hitler’s expense. tJne umbrella cost Mr Chamberlain 57a: 6d. a high price as far as most umbrellas go. He has had his money’s wortjh; the umbrella’s publicity value lias been incalculable. adding as it did a taomely, British touch to the Prime Minister's peripatetic search for appeasement, first at Berchtesgaden, next at Codesberg. then at Munich and laflely at Rome, On all sides Mr Chamberlain ha? been pictured as a modern St. George setting out to conquer Fascist dragons with a homely implement of stenl silk and wood clutched in his han<l Mr Chamberlain’s umbrella has become a symbol of safety to anxious Ijiritons. comparable with the magic, sedative effect which pictures of Stanley Baldwin puffing contentedly at a qherrywood pipe used to have in moments of crisis. For a time Mr Chamberlain was known as a bird-watcher. That hobby proved too effete to catch on wlith the public. Next he tried fishing id' Scotland’s rushing streams, but: foun d that the late Calvin Coolidge arid Franklin D. Roosevelt had beaten him to it. There were no Indian tribes in the British Isles to elect Mr Chamlwrlain an honorary chieftain and dedk him with the colourful feathers and robes of office. Finally he fell back upon the commonplace, an umbrellh. that painfully dull article of everyday use in Britain, without which even on the sunniest of days no Englishman can appear and claim to be well asr completely dressed. ACCIDENT OR GENIUS “ Quite accidental.” chirped the> Prime Minister’s friends. "Stroke of sheer genius,” rasped the cynics Wll atever it was. Mr Chamberlain has hjs umbrella and never deserts it. It is the favourite one of three, all of wb ich he purchased many years ago at tfcue shop of Thomas Briggs and Sons, near St James’s Palace. i The most expensive umbrella; in the shop costs £2l. Mr Chamiberlain fondled one of those when he ipime in just before Munich to have his famous one recovered, Briggs’s men wonder iust why Mr Chamberlain ever wants his pet umbrella recovered. Every time they get to work on it thjiy find it so tightly wrapped that thejv consider it proof positive it has nev< r been opened since the last time of r< covering. Some Englishmen have thair umbrellas ironed after furling; Mi;, Chamberlain has not gone this far yet. Inside the black front door cdt “ No. 10” is an umbrella rack, but this Is for the plebeian umbrellas of visitors and Government officials. (j abinet Ministers are allowed to 'park th< hm on labelled pegs outside the Cabinet! room, which is straight along the hal) from the street. Mr Chamberlain's umbrella goes right upstairs to the safety of his private quarter* '