Hove Factually

Five more things you didn’t know about fantabulous Hove

1 The first off-Broadway try-out of the Lerner/Lowe musical, My Fair Lady, contained a second act song entitled “Let’s All Go Orf For a Holiday to Hove” but it was cut after audiences objected to the use of the word “bleeding” in the first verse and “tits” in the second.

2 Fifty-three of the 62 winners of the Miss World pageant were born in Hove.

3 The saying “when in Rome…” was originally “when in Hove…” but was changed after protests by local residents.

4 Hove had its own Trident nuclear missile, affectionately known as “Old Nobby” between 1981 and 1994.

5 The five most common surnames in Hove are Smith, Peters, Burridge, Dracula, and Chang

WHAT’S ON?
DAY OF THE LIVING DEAD

A bunch of twenty and thirty-somethings all go down to the seafront to wander up and down pretending to be mindless zombies, apparently unaware of the irony inherent
in this.

ETIQUETTE
Dear Hetty,
My son has recently celebrated his first birthday, and I received some very nice (and expensive) gifts from friends and relations. I would like to send thank you notes and I wondered if you could advise me as to the form they should take. Should I send letters or cards? Should I mention the gift? How formal should the notes be? I’d be grateful for any help.
Mrs. Cherie Mons, Hove

Dear Mrs. Mons,
I’m glad to see there is still one person left in the country who has the thoughtfulness and good breeding to think of such things. When I was a young woman, to not send a hand-written note, even for the most trifling of gifts would have been utterly unthinkable. Sadly, these days the young seem to think a phone call or “email” will suffice, and sometimes one is lucky to get that. When I sent my only cousin a silver cup for her daughter’s christening in 1982, I received no thanks of any kind. Needless to say, I never spoke to her again for the rest of her life and to this day refuse to visit her grave.

This is what Debrett’s has to say on the subject: “A thank you note should be written on a rectangular sheet of ivory paper, in black ink, addressed to the person being thanked by title and surname. While it is permissible to mention the gift, the cost should never be referred to, even obliquely.”

Of course, a properly-bred person will usually respond to a thank you note with a thank you note. This can go on for several years, and indeed I am still in correspondence with a Mr. Douglas Spence of Folkestone over a thank you note for a package of Kendal Mint Cake from the winter of 1953.
I trust this has been of some help. Hetty X