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The Prehistoric Society, Prehistory and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Robert Chapman
Robert Chapman*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
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Extract

Towards the beginning of her novel Excellent Women Barbara Pym recounts a telephone conversation of more than passing relevance to our meeting today.

I dialled the number fearfully and heard it ring. ‘Hello, hello, who is that?’ a querulous elderly woman's voice answered. I was completely taken aback, but before I could speak the voice went on, ‘If it's Miss Jessop I can only hope you are ringing up to apologize’. I stammered out an explanation. I was not Miss Jessop. Was Mr Everard Bone there? ‘My son is at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society’, said the voice. ‘Oh, I see. I'm so sorry to have bothered you’, I said. ‘People are always bothering me — I never wanted to have the telephone put in at all’.

After a further apology I hung up the receiver shaken and mystified but at the same time relieved. Everard Bone was at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society. It sounded like a joke. (1952, 29–30)

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, if this is a typical reaction to the Prehistoric Society, then on 23 February we become a fifty-year-old joke! If we allow for the history of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, then we reach well and truly back into the days of the Music Hall joke.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 15 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

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References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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