Penda Press Two: Sidcup's Revenge

The second book to be published by Penda Press was "Sidcup's Revenge" a rather heavy handed attempt to write a piece of Evelyn Waugh inspired satire. No one is entirely certain who "A Friend of Eleven" was, but theories seem to point towards him being a friend of regular Penda contributor, and close friend of the publishers, Vincent Tether. Not much is known about this chief suspect, Dr Martin Pennifer, other than a few bits published in books around the Mass Observation movement and a couple of contributions to Punch (one of which shares a very similar setting and tone to the most memorable sequence in the novel, Lady Glenister's disastrous midnight picnic at the bird sanctuary, hence the possible link to Pennifer*) - he certainly wrote no novels under that name. Future books under the nom de plume would be much more focussed in terms of the satirical content, but there is a certain charm to the sprawl of this first novel to be published by the Dunstables.

*As ever, sterling research work done by Penda expert Patrick Hopwood-Hall