But That's A Detail: Collected stories of A J Alan

A J Alan was the pseudonym of Leslie Harrison Lambert a Foreign Office official amateur magician former Royal Navy officer and cryptographer on the Enigma team at Bletchley Park.Why did he need a pseudonym youd like to know and the answer to that is that he made occasional broadcasts on the wireless in the 20s and 30s spinning tall tales that he wrote himself and pasted onto large squares of cardboard so as not to disturb the audience with the sound of rustling pages. Lambert -- that is Alan -- always turned up at the BBC in full evening dress and with his own candle and matches as contingency in the event of a studio light failing.His stories were immensely popular with radio listeners of the time. They are shaggy dog tales for the most part often but not always steering away at the last moment from anything so vulgar as mere plot resolution. Some have a delicate touch of the supernatural about them in the way a chap might tell you about an actual spooky experience.The stories are very effective at doing precisely what the storyteller intended namely letting you pass an agreeable quarter of an hour in the company of an amusing raconteur whos spinning an elegant verbal picture of how he went gadding about on various outré and/or outrageous adventures. Charming and whimsical A J Alan deserves to find a new following among todays readers and would surely be delighted to see his work launched online just as he pioneered the exciting new communication medium of his own era.This book contains ten of A J Alans best stories: The 19 Club A Joy Ride The Dream Wottie My Adventure in Norfolk A Foggy Evening My Adventure at Chislehurst H2 etc The Diver and The Hair.