THE news has leaked out. The dreadful truth is known. The boys of Battersea Grammar School in South London have at last learned that their 29-year-old schoolmaster, A.B.C. TV announcer John Edmunds, wears a GREEN suit during his evening transmissions.

The boys show do mercy on him. They call him “Le Beau” – and who wouldn’t after seeing his magnificent suit.

It is of Lovat green [a yellowish-green or bluish-green mixture named after Lovat in Inverness-shire, according to the Collins English Dictionary – Ed] with dark bottle green lapels. His bow-tie is also bottle green and his shirt is stone coloured.

This oddly-coloured get-up was specially made for John because the small, fixed-position TV camera in front of his announcer’s desk makes a better picture from greens and off-white mon from the violently contrasting black and white of conventional evening dress.

John was hoping that the boys of Battersea Grammar School, where he teaches from Monday to Friday, would never get to hear about his suit. And there was a sporting chance that they wouldn’t have done so, for his TV appearances are seen only in the Midlands and the North.

But — poor fellow – the secret is out.

While correcting an English composition the other day. he opened a youngster’s exercise book and there, slipped between the pages, found these verses, headed “The Beau”:

Lovat green, it is his shade;
Lovat green, with shoes of suede.
His fans are numbered by the score
Waiting patiently at the door
His fame is spreading far and wide
This fact I won’t attempt to hide,
But!
If your fans knew what he’s like at school
Lashing about with his cane and rule,
You wouldn’t cry “Oh Hero Mine”
Or fill your hearts with love divine.
You’d stop and think of the Battersea Band
Who suffer and squirm ‘neath his iron hand.

Poor John! They’re much kinder to him at the TV studio at Birmingham where he’s known as “Smiler” and at Leicester where he’s the favourite of many a housewife.

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