Anecdote: I shall write to the stationmaster about you

[Garson O'Toole]

This message was inspired by a "QUOTE…UNQUOTE" query posted January 2012.

Q4322  Who was it (a Victorian author?) who had a row with some petty
official and stormed off saying, ‘I shall write about you to the
stationmaster at Windermere’?  (He explained that he once had a row
with this Lake District dignitary and had told him that if he ever
encountered anyone more stupid, he’d write and tell him so).

http://www1c.btwebworld.com/quote-unquote/p0000112.htm

I have located two close variants of this tale. The following variant
has a Google Books date of 1942. Based on extracted text the story is
being told by a person named Lord Irwin. The protagonist plans to see
the stationmaster instead of writing to him.

Cite: Circa 1942, The Fire of Life by George de Symons Barrow, GB Page
245, Hutchinson & Co., London. (Google Books snippet view; Not
verified on paper; Data may be inaccurate)
http://books.google.com/books?id=indxAAAAIAAJ&q=%22very+glad%22#search_anchor

[Begin extracted text]
He thereupon told us the following story. He was travelling, when a
lad, with his tutor in Italy. They were leaving Rome, and as the train
was starting his tutor put his head out of the window and shouted to
the stationmaster with whom he had been having an altercation: 'I am
going to Genoa and when I see the stationmaster there I'll tell him
I've seen you and he'll be very glad to hear it.' Irwin, unable to see
any sense in this remark, asked his tutor what he meant by it. The
tutor said, 'It's because when I was at Genoa some time ago I had a
row with the stationmaster there and told him that if I ever met a
bigger fool than him I'd let him know.'
[End extracted text]


The following variant of the story is centered on Eton master Austen
Leigh. The "Lake District" mentioned in the query is also mentioned in
this instance of the tale.

Cite: Circa 1965, Twenty-one Years by Randolph Spencer Churchill, GB
Page 40, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. (Google Books snippet view; Not
verified on paper; Data may be inaccurate)
http://books.google.com/books?id=3xdKAAAAMAAJ&q=schoolmaster#search_anchor
http://books.google.com/books?id=3xdKAAAAMAAJ&q=stationmaster#search_anchor

[Begin extracted text]
Of him it was related that he went with another Eton schoolmaster on a
walking tour to the Lake District. Arriving at some wayside railway
station (probably now closed down by that admirable man Dr. Beeching),
Austen Leigh had an altercation with the stationmaster which concluded
with Leigh saying with great emphasis and anger: "I shall write to the
stationmaster in Milan about this." His friend and colleague was too
timid to ask immediately the relevance of this retort. They walked up
the mountains and eventually sat down to eat their sandwiches. When it
seemed that Austen Leigh's anger had abated his youthful colleague
made bold to ask the significance of this remark. Austen Leigh
replied, still with some asperity, "Forty years ago I had a row with
the stationmaster in Milan and I told him that if ever I met a
stupider stationmaster than him I would write and let him know. I now
propose to do so."
[End extracted text]

Garson

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