CULT OF THE OYSTER

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 11

CULT OF THE OYSTER

COLCHESTER FEAST

A SEARCHING FOR JOKES

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, Ist November.

A special train travelled from London to Colchester to convey tho guests who had been bidden to the annual oyster feast. Sir James and Lady Parr were among the. guests. Others were: Lord Thomson (Minister of Air), the Lord Mayor of London, Lord Cowdray, Lord Atkin, Sir John Lavery, Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, K.C. (Recorder of Colchester), Lord Darling, the Duke of Montrose, and Sir Hugh Trenchard.

There were 400 guests, who consumed from 8000 to 12,000 oysters and 2000 slices of brown bread and butter. It took 17 men all the morning to open the oysters. There were as many oysters as one could eat, with sandwiches, cheese, and celery to follow. Chablis and stout were the drinks.

Every speaker sought to be brief. Professor A. H. Burgess, president of the British Medical Association, who proposed "The Defensive Forces of the Empire," said every good English boy defined an island as a piece of land entirely surrounded by the British Navy. Admiral Tyrwhitt told of Mr. J. E. Thomas at a garden party. He was asked by the host: "Shall we let these people go on enjoying themselves a little longer, or will you make your speoch now?"

Lord Thomson, the Air Secretary, confessed that he had consulted with learned friends at tho Athenaeum Club in quest for a new joke. They had concluded that in 2000 years there had been only seven jokes about the oyster, of which none was new. He chose for the encouragement of his audience the ancient remark of Lucullus, that a nobleman only looked a nobleman when he was eating an oyster. Sir James Parr took his joke with him along with documentary evidence in the shape of Laing and Blackwell's "Piauts of New Zealand." He dared to tell his audience that in New Zealand oysters grow on trees.

"Liar!" came from one of the feasters. "A fish yarn," said another. "This is not a fish story," said the High Commissioner. "It is a shellfish story, and perfectly true. No one could tell a, deliberate lie about an oyster, one of the greatest friends of mankind."

Here he produced his evidence, and from Laing and Blaekwell's volume he Tead of the oysters which attached themselves to the roots of the trees in the tidal rivers of the Auckland province.

Colchester was gay with flags for the occasion, for the Oyster Feast is of great antiquity. An organ and a military band provided the musical honours for the departing oysters.