Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [27]
Of course, this is only advice, and your decision will be entirely your own. Ada Ardour takes no responsibility for the eventual outcome.
He liked the expression ‘Confidentially yours’, and it went on to become the regular heading on his ‘agony’ advertisements. And he added that extra sentence on the bottom of all his advice letters – just in case.
‘Confidentially Yours’ was entertaining (and educational) for Johnny, but it was also tiring work, with each letter needing an individual reply. He dreamed up another scam where his customers would do most of the work. ‘The Poetry Police’ offered to send critical advice to aspiring poets at two shillings a time. Johnny read the poems, but he sent all the poets the same few words of encouragement: A good effort. Do not be afraid to experiment. And he kept the poems. One came in handy for English homework. Then he spotted a competition in the Sunday paper. Underneath ‘Maud Dawson’s Love Answers’ was a column headed ‘For the Chicks’. It was a sickly item, aimed at children, written by someone who called herself ‘Aunty Betty’. She was offering prizes for ‘Fairy Verse’. Johnny just happened to have a poem about fairies amongst his haul. He sent it in under his own name, and his mother was awash with pride when a letter arrived from the paper, enclosing a five-shilling postal order for Johnny. She was moved when he insisted on putting his winnings towards the rent money. She didn’t know that he was hiding even more cash inside the floppy body of his old toy rabbit, which sat on top of the wardrobe in his bedroom. And she had no idea that he was buying food at the shop. Whenever Johnny came home with something for the larder, he always said that Hutch had sent it, because otherwise it would just have to be thrown away.
Every morning, Johnny set off with a stash of letters in his school satchel. Most were replies to his hapless customers, but there were always at least three new adverts, destined for papers all over the country. Soon he couldn’t get to sleep at night until he had everything in order for the next day. He began to take a pride in his ‘work’. Only once did he have a real attack of conscience. It came as the result of one of his least sophisticated efforts, based on the simple formula of the Secret of Instant Height. Anyone who sent Johnny a shilling to find out how to Make Your Money Go Further was told to Roll it down a hill. Twenty people fell for it, and so Johnny would have made a pound; but there was one postal order he felt he couldn’t cash. It was from Mrs Langford. This wasn’t the first time Johnny had been given the chance to trick someone he knew – Albert Taylor’s mother had fallen for the snoring scam, and he’d been glad to take her money – but the doctor was so generous with his bike rides that Johnny felt it would be unforgivable to cheat his wife out of a shilling. He remembered Mrs Langford darning socks on the day he’d visited them, and her harsh words to her husband about how poor they were becoming. He put her postal order straight into the stamped addressed envelope and sent it back.
But the other nineteen applicants all got the silly answer. And none of them complained.
Chapter 14
REMEMBRANCE DAY
Not long after the half-term break there was another day off school. That year, 1929, 11th November fell on a Monday, and everything closed down for a big parade and religious service to honour those who had died in the Great War. But the papers still had to be delivered, so Johnny was up early as usual. When he got to the shop, Hutch was polishing his medals. He had three, hanging from multi-coloured ribbons, and a round silver badge with a crown and the King’s initials intertwined. Around the edge, it said: For King and Empire. Services Rendered.
Johnny picked it up. ‘Mr Murray’s got one of these,’ he said. ‘He wears it all the time at school.’
‘It’s what you got if you were discharged from the army because you