The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7232 p83
18 January 2003

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Letters to the Editor

Christmas miscellany

Several versions of the Beecham’s hymn book story

From Mr A. T. Kendall, MRPharmS

Further to Stuart Anderson and Peter Homan's interesting and comprehensive article on the history of Beecham's Pills (PDF 200K) in your Christmas Miscellany (PJ, 21/28 December 2002, p921), there must be various versions of the gift of hymn books to an impoverished church.

The one I know related to an East End church where the congregation found themselves singing in "Hark the Herald Angels Sing":

They are gentle, they are mild
Two for adults and one for a child

I have also read somewhere that the incident occasioned a question in Parliament and is mentioned in Hansard. However, the Oxford 'Dictionary of humorous quotations', edited by Ned Sherrin (1999), gives the version:

Two for a woman, one for a child,
Peace on earth and mercy mild

The source is attributed to Neville Cardus in his biography of Sir Thomas Beecham (1961) in which he states that it was an advertising jingle which was never used.

Alan T. Kendall
Stockton-on-Tees

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