So ingrained is it in the minds of today's indoctrinated youth that their ancestors were, without exception, unreconstructed colonialist slave owners and whalers, that it is hard for many under the age of 40 to contemplate a world in which inclusion and diversity was not just a matter of sharing your Quality Street Selection with other members of the family, but stretched as far as admitting that not everyone "different" from yourself was necessarily a thieving criminal rapist. Often this broadmindedness would stretch to people who lived as far away as an adjacent street and, even more rarely, to those who had the misfortune to marry and reside in other boroughs.*
* That said many a non-integrationist family thought sweet sharing a step too far, keeping thier sweet selections discrete and "known only unto themselves". Such an attitude - strange as it might seem to modern sensibilities - was justified under the quasi-biblical mantra that "a family that shares sweets may end up sharing more than they bargained for". Modern medicine - particularly the use of powerful antibiotics - has removed much of the attendant risk implied by this eminently sensible doctrine.
All of which brings us - in a roundabout fashion - to Ferguson Thrupiece, paternal grandfather to the missing presumed lost Culinary Bio-ethicist Professor Brian Thrupiece and his cousin Mrs Edna Whisky-McNightly. As has been well-documented in these pages, Ferguson Thrupiece was a popular dance band leader, ballroom tyro and regional representative in the All Dorset Horizontal Jogging Competition [1934-9 and 1946-58] as well as a pre-war regular at thés dansants held at The Excelsior Cafe, Lyme Regis. Unhappily his style of music fell out of favour during the rock and roll era, though a chance encounter with the Harry Styles Skifflemen briefly re-ignited his career after he mastered the washboard. He later toured the hotels of western Dorset (1958-1961) as Fernando Mediantepieza and his Latin Rhythm. Today he is best remembered via his recorded legacy, many titles having been digitally reprocessed for stereo and re-released on the Hornimint Records Nostalgia Label [HERE].
Unknown to or ill-rembered by many, in an even earlier incarnation, Ferguson was lead clarinette and [in the persona of Lotte Lanyard] lead vocalist with the all-black dance band Lotte Lanyard and the Sweethearts of Rhythm. One of his party tricks, was to front the band as Lotte, disappear behind a curtain during ocarina-player Fats Domino-Pizza's solo riff, and re-emerge ebony stick in hand as Furguson Thrupiece just in time to "finish off the number".
Though such antics speak of high level virtuosity, they surely speak also of a remarkably progressive attitude towards racial mixing and equal band-booking opportunities [EBBO]. Even the most doctrinaire critical race theorist must be forced to recognise the level of achievement represented here even while regretting the "blacking up" initially required to fully-realise the shock on/off-stage transformation from Lotte to Ferguson.
Happily, now the pendulum is once again swinging in favour of a more sympathetic and forgiving attitude towards our collective past [Dorset Acting Deputy Chief Education Officer Bridgerton Philipsonsonsonenssen's efforts notwithstanding] there is a strong rumour that Lotte Lanyard and the Sweethearts of Rhythm may be about to receive posthumous recognition in the form of a nomination for next month's Dorset Hall of Fame Lifetime Proxime Accessit Awards - an award hitherto the exclusive preserve of dead white men with fading reputations [not excluding twelve-time winners Ziggy Osmington and the Boners.]
All fair-minded citizens keen to give their great grandparents' generation a "fair rap" will doubtless be hoping that Lotte Lanyard and the Sweethearts of Rhythm emerge triumphant - striking a blow for integration, diversity and the often much-maligned soprano ocarina.
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