Author Topic: A very British affair  (Read 4620 times)

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Online Maik

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A very British affair
« on: Thursday, 06 February, 2014 @ 04:34:37 »
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If you can find a story more battily British than this one, I’ll eat my hat.

In the 1930s, a small group of young aristocratic women decided to raise money to help the National Trust save historic properties that were under threat. So far, so normal.

But rather than just handing over the cash, they instead formed a secret society called Ferguson’s Gang. Then things got really strange.

Taking on code names – ‘Bill Stickers’, ‘Red Biddy’, ‘Erb the Smasher’ – they took to showing up suddenly at National Trust offices dressed in masks and elaborate cloaks.

Handing over sacks full of money (with specific instructions to save particular historic properties) they’d dash off again, leaving flummoxed Trust staff in their wake.

The gang quickly became famous for their mischievous stunts. They once delivered money sewn up in the carcass of a goose. They stuffed £50 notes into liqueur bottles. One gang member dumped a huge sackful of Victorian coins on an astonished Trust Secretary’s desk.

High-jinks abounded. They sent letters written in fractured Mockney (‘I goes up to the door and says…ear’s my card’). They gatecrashed board meetings and held clandestine summits in a derelict Surrey mill, fuelled by food and drink from Harrods.

Frankly, they sound mad as a box of frogs. But they were unquestionably doing a very good thing and just wanted to squeeze as much fun as possible out of the whole enterprise.

Incredibly, the identities of all but one of the Gang members remained a secret until recently.
http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/fundraising-and-events/2014/01/who-were-the-masked-maidens/


Sounds like a good story for a Brit movie starring Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, a bunch of PYTs and some stately old piles, might make a mint in the States.

Ferguson's Gang - The Maidens behind the Masks Kindle e-book / 'dead tree' version

Offline TonyKath

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Re: A very British affair
« Reply #1 on: Thursday, 06 February, 2014 @ 18:14:25 »
Sounds hilarious!  Bit pricey for the Kindle still. 

Tony


« Last Edit: Saturday, 08 February, 2014 @ 03:34:57 by Maik »