Breaking Chops

My father would have called her, "quite a gal."

You know you're about to read the obituary of a certified character when the headline goes: Lady Trumpington, 96; Busted Codes and Chops.

And the 2005 photo of her Ladyship in the center of four of Britain's Yeoman's Guards—the guys on the label of Beefeater Gin—gives you the further clue that she was British.

The dateline of the obit is London, and I'll assume Palko Karasz is the byline of a London based reporter for the NYT. The entire obit, headline and all, is from across the pond. As playful as obits have become, I doubt anyone in this country would refer to "busted chops" in a headline.

Jean Alys Campbell-Harris—Lady Trumpington—was Anglo-American in heritage, with an American heiress for a mother, who married a Brit who had been a Bengal Lancer. It has to be the American half of her that acted up.

It is interesting to note that an example of her wickedness is to recount the time, when at 89 and in the House of Lords, she made "a two-fingered gesture of contempt to a fellow peer, Lord King....after he referred to her age during a televised debate."

And what is a two-fingered gesture? The middle finger of each hand directed at someone? No. It is two fingers of one hand held as a V and directed at someone. And this is bad? Churchill did it all the time.

Unreported in the obit is that a V flashed at someone with the palm facing outward is the V for victory sign that Churchill gave often. Palm outward is a nice V. Palm inward, facing yourself, and flashing a V sign with a somewhat upward motion is to in effect say, "up yours." The palm inward is the V that Lady Trumpington flashed to Lord King.

I'm only aware of his because of the movie 'Darkest Hour' starring Gary Oldman as Churchill. Churchill, unaware of the distinction, is photographed flashing a V sign, palm inward, but fully meaning it to denote victory.

There is a scene in the movie that has Churchill's secretary, a young woman who is more than a little frightened of Winston, feeling compelled to pull him aside in the deep tunnels of the war room and tell him the gesture he was photographed making in certain quarters of Britain means "up your bottom."

Churchill finds this hysterically funny and breaks out in fits of laughter. He does though, in the future, flash what becomes his famous V sign with the palm outward. Whether he reserved the other greeting for Stalin is unknown.

Several examples of Lady Trumpinton's fun behavior are offered: dancing on tables, jumping into a pool fully clothed at her husband's school, and keeping up her bad girl image..."I smoked and drank, and did everything naughty."

Her code breaking came from her youth at Bletchley Park, where she was a cipher clerk, typing translated intercepted messages from the German Navy. She was fluent in French and German.

Her American heiress mother's fortune was from a Chicago paint business. After the war, Lady Trumpington had her own paint business in effect, painting Paris red with her last-night carousing. "Oh, I had so much fun in Paris after the war."

She only retired from the House of Lords last year, expressing a desire that debates should be short. This too had to be the American in her.

She had to be fun.

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