Temptation at St Anthony's by Miss Hampton
Author: Miss Hampton
Publisher: Not known
Source book: Private Enterprise by Angela Thirkell (Barsetshire #16)
Miss Hampton, a well-tailored manly sort of chap with a monocle, lives with her Friend, Miss Bent, who is more inclined to sagging homespun skirts, necklaces and bracelets of wooden beads, and baggy blouses arted up with Mixo-Lydian embroidery. Miss Hampton writes sensational novels which have been banned in Manchester and the Vatican City.
Mrs Arbuthnot, who we meet in Private Enterprise, says she read Temptation at St Anthony’s, which is set in a public school, and enjoyed it frightfully.
Several of Miss Hampton's books have been Banned Book of the Month much to the envy of other authors, but in Cheefulness Breaks In it seems likely that Esme Bellenden's Men of Harlech will be picked.
Other books by Miss Hampton include A Gentle Girl and Boy about co-educational schools (Miss Bent says it will be strong meat, but England can take it);
Chariots of Desire which is about the sex life of lorry drivers. It sold 33,000 copies and could have sold 3 times as many if not for the wartime (or was it post war?) paper shortage;
My Daughter is My Son (Miss Bent says this book will be strong stuff. Can England take it? Apparently she says this a lot);
Ways be Foul a powerful study of agricultural life under post-war conditions, embodying what Miss Hampton and Miss Bent had seen on a fortnight’s caravan tour through the Morgan ap Kerrig country;
My Lesbia has a Roving Eye, or possibly Sister Helen, but that wasn’t courageous enough, or even My Sister, My Spouse. Miss Hampton can’t quite decide on a title. It’s an unfaltering exposure of infidelity;
And Crooked Insect. Given the general tone and subject matter of Miss Hampton’s previous books, it’s a bit of a surprise the characters in Jutland Cottage take so long to work out the anagram. Miss Bent spent the whole summer typing this book and it left her “quite literally Stunned by its power”.
Miss Hampton's books feature in a number of Angela Thirkell's Barchester novels, and don’t forget that Miss Hampton was writing during and shortly after WWII.
Summer 2024: edited to add that Miss Hampton’s books would probably be banned in states like Tennessee these days. In fact, Private Enterprise and Angela Thirkell’s other books that feature Miss Hampton and Miss Bent would likely be banned too. Miss Hampton and Miss Bent’s friends and neighbours take it in their stride that they share a bedroom; many Republican politicians apparently would not.
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| With grateful thanks to Dinnington Heritage Society. I am quite sure Dinnington Secondary Modern was a very respectable school. |
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