Ab fab Lumley doggerel in honour of Quentin Blake

 
p16 LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 14: Actress Joanna Lumley attends The Prince's Trust & L'Oreal Paris Celebrate Success Award- recognising young people who have overcome challenges such as depression, addiction and homelessness with support from The Prince's Trust at Odeon Leicester Square on March 14, 2012 in London, England.
Ian Gavan/Getty
14 December 2012

To celebrate the 80th birthday of Quentin Blake, Chris Beetles lined up at his eponymous gallery last night noted devotees of the much-loved illustrator always known as Q. Times cartoonist Peter Brookes, RCA rector Sir Christopher Frayling, publisher Tom Maschler, who had introduced Blake to Roald Dahl, and Dahl’s widow Liccy all delivered two-minute eulogies in verse.

Joanna Lumley, in colourful Indian smock, delivered an adoring Tribute in Doggerel, in seven quatrains. “When the world is dark and lonely/ And the paint begins to flake/ When the dustbin’s overflowing/ Then I think of Quentin Blake,” she began, ending with an apology for “this shabby poem/ Which I wrote, for heaven’s sake,/ Just so I could lay it humbly/ At the feet of Quentin Blake.” Her hero, a bashful fellow, was duly charmed.

Perhaps Ms Lumley’s verses were an unwitting tribute too to the late poet Adrian Mitchell, sometime reporter on the Londoner’s Diary, whose famous four-line tribute to his wife Celia ran: “When I am sad and weary/ When I think all hope has gone / When I walk along High Holborn/ I think of you with nothing on.”

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