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ANECDOTES about ELEANOR BERRY by Rozanne Robinson, a freelance jounalist
"The Horrible 'Boy' with the Catapult."
In 1973, two of Berry's cousins promised to pay her a total of £100 if she could get accepted as a lunch guest in the exclusive all-male White's club.
This meant that she would have to be effectively disguised as an unmistakable male. Berry felt that she would not get away with dressing as a fully-grown man, as she wouldn't have the face for it, or indeed the hands for it.
She hired a schoolboy's grey flannel uniform from a theatrical shop, coiled her then waist-length hair under a short wig and covered her fingers with ink, to simulate a boy, straight from a Latin class.
Her embarrassed and reluctant escort, an eccentric grey-haired farmer, who had very kindly come to London to escort Berry (his "nephew"), met her outside the Club, of which he was a member, and took her in.
Berry went the whole way when convincing members that she was a twelve- year-old boy, and turned her wager with her two cousins, into a sport, keeping as high a profile as she could.
She forced her unhappy escort to take her up to the bar. She scrambled onto a bar stool and ordered 7-Up, an unavailable drink. She was given lemonade and introduced herself loudly to the occupants of the crowded bar, as "Alexander".
She lowered her voice by an octave.
"I say, jolly good fun, coming here during half term," she said. "It's given me a smashing break from Latin. I'm really bad at Latin. I still can't manage even the elementary stuff. I say, Uncle, will you test me on Hic Hac Hoc?"
"Not here, I won't," said the farmer. "These gentlemen here certainly won't want to hear it."
"Later, maybe?"
"Yes, once we leave Whites."
"Crikey, Uncle, that's jolly spiffing of you!"
The "Uncle" hurriedly drained the whisky and soda given to him and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"I can tell you about the last school rugger match, Wordsworth versus Shelley," shouted Berry, making the words up as she went along. The men near her looked at her inky hands with disgust.
"I had a right, mouldy lot of trouble getting out of that scrum. Then squitty little Jones minor pulled a fast one!"
The farmer tapped Berry on the shoulder and whispered in her ear.
"All the slang words you're using are twenty years out of date. I wish you'd speak more quietly. I'm getting one filthy look after another. Let's go into the dining room."
The terms of the wager were that Berry would get £100 if she avoided being thrown out, were her gender to be discovered. She played the part well and made cheeky remarks to the waitresses, some of whom said they hoped that not all 12- year-old boys were badly behaved in public.
However, Berry was thrown out, and her "Uncle" was expelled – not for bringing a woman into a men only club, but for allowing his "nephew" to flick pellets of bread across the room with a catapult.
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