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From: mholmans@dircon.co.uk (Mike Holmans)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Kneel! legend (was Re: "Sit Lady" ... a variation)
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 01:13:52 GMT

allin1@schools.minedu.govt.nz (Steve Caskey) treated us to:

>In Article <5ft74j$dvb@nntp1.ba.best.com>
>bmikkels@best.com (Barbara Mikkelson) writes:
>>Fascinating. I never cease to be amazed by which stories get told about
>>whom. A recent book (_The 176 Stupidest Things Ever Done_ by Ross &
>>Kathryn Petras) tells the "Kneel!" story as having happened in 1979 at
>>Westminster in front of Lord Hailsham when he greeted MP Neil Marten.
>>Now I'll grant you this book is about as voracious as a sack of wet
>>weasels (this was but one of the nine ULs I spotted being vectored as
>>fact), but it is another sighting to consider.

>Those are almost certainly the participants in the version I heard, but
>I have no memory at all of where I read it, and so cannot say whether
>we're talking about the same vector here.

>The person calling out was definitely supposed to be Lord Hailsham
>though; I almost posted the name when I related the story, but there was
>just the tiniest morsel of doubt in my mind so I left it. Now, however,
>the big lightbulb over my head's lit up something grand.

>But that in turn sets me wondering as to whether (as happens to all good
>ULs) my memory has combined two separate people, the guide and the
>caller, into one role. How likely would it be that Lord Hailsham was
>playing host to a bunch of iggerunt tourists, and not just passing by
>the group at the time?

OK, OK, enough's enough.

Let's start with the entry in _Brewer's Politics_, shall we?

[quote]
*Kneel!* One of the oldest jokes at Westminster, describing how in the Central Lobby one MP calls out "Neil!" to another and a visiting tourist drops to his or her knees, imagining a general command has been given. The story has been told of a fellow-member greeting Neil Kinnock, before him of the Conservative Minister Neil Marten, and before him of Niall MacDermot QC (1916--), a Labour MP 1957-59 and 1962-70 and a Minister in the first Wilson government. No doubt it goes back even further.

[end quote]

As to this guide. Ho hum.

They don't have guided tours around the Palace of Westminster while Parliament is in session. The only likelihood for this guide chappy is that he's a tour guide helping a bunch of tourists to get to the Strangers' Gallery to watch what's going on. All the variants I have ever heard involve two parliamentarians unconnected with the group of tourists calling across the Lobby. In the better ones, Black Rod, or an ermined Lord, or some other quaintly dressed figure, is processing through the Lobby, giving the hapless tourists at least the excuse of kneeling towards some manifestation of majesty.

Lee Rudolph suggested that it was more likely to have been the family name of Neil(l) being called, based on his researches in 1930s mystery novels. It may be that there was once a member with the family name Neil(l). But he would have to have sat at a time when it was possible for any old ordinary member of the general public to queue up to get in. I don't think, and I will now have to check up on this, that general public access was allowed more than about 50 years ago, if that. True, there was and is the Strangers' Gallery, but I think that it is relatively recent that people didn't have to have their admission arranged by their constituency MP, so I'm not sure that 1930s etiquette rather than post-war manners actually applies.

As Nicholas Comfort said - "one of the oldest jokes at Westminster". Those who wish to go for the Hailsham-Marten version as voracious have to contend with the earlier sighting.

To me, it sounds like a typical parliamentary insider joke, since most in "government", of whatever party persuasion, tend to develop a faint contempt for the ordinary punter who doesn't really understand How Things Work. I suspect that the earliest tellings did not involve American tourists, but some yokel up from the sticks who'd come to beg audience with the Honourable Member for Loamshire South-East. It's mutated over the years because when American Tourists shoal, the group behaviour is one of the funniest spectacles around for us natives.

Mike "aw, gee whiz, Elmer, look at this - it's *real* old! It says here it was built in 1775!" Holmans