THE DISTRICT MESSENGER the newsletter of the Society of London

Roger Johnson, 210 Rainsford Road, Chelmsford CM1 2PD.  no. 85 26th April 1989 A reminder of Desmond Tyler's plan to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday with a party at the Players' Theatre music hall on Wednesday 24 May. Cost will be about £££8 plus drinks. Please write to Desmond at 162 Leybridge Court, Eltham Road, London SE12 8TL or phone 01-852 0919. If anyone's interested, I have 2 spare copies of the menu from this year's ann- ual dinner, The Anthropoid Antic - free to the first enquirers. I can also offer (to UK or European enquirers only) copies on cassette of the 9 minute recording made in 1936 by of extracts from his play SHERLOCK HOLMES. Till recently it was thought that only 2 minutes existed, but the complete recording was discovered, cleaned up & transcribed by Peter Blau & Paul Singleton. A copy will cost you £££3.50 (payment in sterling if possible). From Dorothyanne Evans: a jeweller is prepared to make tie-pins, lapel-pins, cuff-links etc. with Holmesian motifs. If you're interested, please write to Aurics, 9 Crisfield Avenue, Summerseat, Bury, Lancs. (for the attention of Alan Wilson). Kathrin Jaeck asks for anyone who's seen SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE MUSICAL to write a review for THE SOFT-NOSED BULLET-IN - in English or German, typed if possible, no longer than 2 A4 pages. Please send your review to Kathrin at Berlinerstrasse 6E, 3005 Hemmingen, West Germany. Friends of John Bennett Shaw and Dorothy Rowe Shaw will be happy to know that both are in somewhat better health thanks to surgery and (in John's case) radiation treatment. Kyle Richeson's illness meant that there was no January/February issue of THE PIKESTAFF, but the March/April issue is out, available to members of the Voices of the Whispering Knights. For details, contact Frances Van Antwerp (73 East Park Street, Westerville, Ohio 43018, USA). Available in America is an audiocassette adaptation of WITHOUT A CLUE, read by Ben Kingsley (Dove, $14.95). 221"A" Baker Street Associates have now released the 3rd in their series of audio cassettes from the Rathbone/Bruce radio broadcasts scripted by Denis Green & Anthony Boucher; this one features "The April Fools' Day Adventure" & "The Uneasy Easy Chair" and costs $9.95. 26 cassettes are planned. Eternity Comics have issued part 1 of A CASE OF BLIND FEAR, a sequel to SCARLET IN GASLIGHT. After tangling with Dracula, Sherlock Holmes meets the Invisible Man. Ho hum. More interesting is that Eternity's reprints of the near-classic Edith Meiser/Frank Giacoia SHERLOCK HOLMES comic strip continues, The Mysterious Press (in America) has published or is about to publish ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE MURDERS, edited by Thomas Godfrey. Included are "The Abbey Grange" and a new Holmes story, "The Worcester Enigma", by James Miles. I hope this one makes it to Britain. Thanks to Peter Blau for help with this issue. All information is welcome. P.S. If anyone has a spare copy of the Grafton paperback CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with TV tie-in cover, Joseph J. Eckrich would like to buy it (7793 Keswick Place, St. Louis, Missouri 63119, USA).