COMMENTARY FROM City and County .sx by THE GOSSIPER .sx LOCAL booksellers are anticipating a heavy demand for copies of the new version of the Holy Bible .sx Published today , this mid-20th century edition of the World's Best Seller is already certain of living up to its long reputation .sx A representative of one of Lincoln's leading firms of booksellers told me yesterday :sx " We have had such a demand for the new Bible that we have today put in an order for additional supplies .sx Many of the advance orders , of course , have come from clergymen , but we have had more from lay " .sx But he added this warning " We , in the trade , feel that many people think that this is a new version of the whole Bible .sx It is , of course , only the New Testament :sx it will be many years before the Old Testament , and the Apocrypha are available .sx " HIS BRIEF APPEARANCE .sx THE man who holds the record for length of service as Lincoln's Member of Parliament- since the city's representation was reduced from two to one 80 years ago- made his briefest ever public appearance , on B.B.C. television .sx Sir Walter Liddall , elected M P for Lincoln in 1931 , became a member of the Palace of Westminster Home Guard when it was formed in 1940 .sx And we saw him , for a fleeting two or three seconds , on parade , in the latest episode in the film series " The Valiant " , based on Sir Winston Churchill's war memoirs .sx It was a hot summer's day when the film was shot , in the palace yard , and Sir Walter , nearest the camera , was on parade in shirt sleeves .sx Many Lincoln people recognised him .sx And many also noticed the awful bloomer the producers of the film made in showing a 1914-18 war poster to aid recruiting in 1940 !sx NEW RECORD COMING ?sx .sx Sir Walter Liddall was elected Member of Parliament for Lincoln on October 27 , 1931 and served continuously until July 26 , 1945- although some might argue that he ceased to be M.P. three weeks earlier !sx The General Election of 1945 took place on July 5 but , because of the large number of Services votes from distant lands that had to come in , the count was delayed until the 26th of the month .sx Sir Walter- he had been knighted in the dissolution honours- lost his seat , after a period of service of 13 years and eight months .sx The present Member , Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas will pass that record if this parliament runs its normal course .sx The last General Election was in October 1959 and it is likely that the next will be in the early part of 1964 .sx Mr. de Freitas became M.P. for Lincoln in February 1950 and his term will have extended to 13 years and eight months by October 1963 .sx " HONEST- BUT UNREASONING " .sx To return to Sir Walter Liddall :sx it was in July 1944 that he set up his Parliamentary record by beating the term of office of Mr. Charles Roberts , who was Liberal M.P. for Lincoln from 1906 to 1918 .sx But the all-time record is one of 20 years , held by Colonel Charles Sibthorp , an early Victorian Member , and one of a number of gentlemen of that family who at one time or another represented Lincoln in the Commons .sx Charles was first elected in 1826 but was unseated in 1832 .sx However , he was re-elected in January 1835 and retained the seat- it was one of two , in those days of course- until his death in December 1855 .sx That was the Colonel Sibthorp who achieved notoriety for his outspokenness in debate , and of whom " The Times " said " His name has long been a household word , as the very embodiment of honest , but unreasoning Tory prejudice .sx " Frequently , Colonel Sibthorp had to be called to order by The Speaker for his unparliamentary language , but he did on one occasion save the country +20,000 a year- which was a lot of money in those days !sx When it was announced that Queen Victoria was to marry Prince Albert , Lord Melbourne , the Prime Minister , proposed that the nation should settle on His Royal Highness an allowance of +50,000 a year .sx Colonel Sibthorp's violent opposition won the day and the allocation was reduced to +30,000 .sx W.E.A'S JUBILEE .sx THE " golden jubilee " meeting of Lincoln W.E.A. branch forged a new and interesting link in its history .sx The branch has survived two world wars , and battled its way successfully through the Great Depression .sx Now it has gone full circle for , after the austerities of the first war , the grim despondency of the Depression , and the rationed utilities of the second war it has met to consider " The Affluent Society .sx " But , possibly even more interesting than this , was the fact that the speaker was Mrs. Mary Stocks , well-known as a member of the B.B.C. Brains Trust and radio programme " Any Questions ?sx " Though she had paid only brief " passing through " visits to the city in the past , Lincoln is not entirely unknown to Mrs. Stocks , for she is the sister-in-law of Miss Helen Stocks who was the first resident tutor of the branch .sx Miss Stocks , who took a history tripos at Lady Margaret College , Oxford , ( she did not obtain a degree , because at that time women could not take degrees ) was also a member of the Oxford Tutorial Classes Committee .sx Her appointment as resident tutor for the Lincoln branch followed a visit to the city in connection with the branch's formation , by Mr. E. S. Cartwright , secretary of the committee .sx She remained in Lincoln from 1911 until 1919 when she moved owing to the illness of her father , one time Archdeacon of Leicester , and later Canon of Peterborough , and settled in Kettering .sx During the meeting Mrs. Stocks told me " I always used to hear a lot about Lincoln .sx My sister-in-law grew very fond of the city , and never lost her affection for it .sx " COMMENTARY FROM City and County .sx by THE GOSSIPER .sx MY story of the man who had been stopped on Burton-road by an elderly woman who asked him for her bus fare to enable her to collect her pension has revealed that this was far from being a solitary experience .sx Telephone calls from a man at Sobraon Barracks and from a woman living in Broadway , and a letter from a resident of Yarborough-crescent , indicate that this begging has been going on on what seems to be quite a large scale .sx The caller from the barracks said the woman asked him the time and when he replied , she said :sx " You don't happen to have a few coppers for a bus fare , do you ?sx " He added that he had known her stop at least seven people in one day , and collect a few coppers from each .sx The woman who telephoned from Broadway told me she was " touched " as she was leaving the Cathedral .sx They happened to be passing through the doorway at the same moment and the woman told my correspondent she was very tired , her feet hurt , she had no money and could not go to the Post Office to collect her pension .sx " I asked her where she lived and she countered by asking me where I lived .sx It was obvious to me , then , that she was simply begging .sx " There is a slight variation in the tale as told by a reader living on Yarborough-crescent .sx The woman asked for her bus fare to St. John's Hospital .sx " I gave her sixpence , she told me it was not enough , so I gave her another sixpence .sx " " GOOD LUCK " LETTERS .sx ACCORDING to a letter I have received , I have been due for a stroke of good luck today , but so far- and the day is far advanced , as I write- Dame Fortune has failed to smile on me to any unusual extent .sx The letter , I was told , was " a prayer " which originated in The Netherlands .sx " You are to have good luck four days after receiving this ; it is not a joke , " it said , and went on , " It must leave your hands before 97 hours after receiving it .sx Just send this letter and 20 others to some people you wish to have some good luck .sx Write it all out 20 times !sx " It would take me nearly 97 hours to do it , unless I did carbon copies , and they might not " work .sx " This letter is about as nonsensical as other chain letters which appear periodically ; the only difference is that there is no money involved here .sx Just the arduous labour of writing out a ridiculous letter 20 times .sx I am afraid it left my hands before the 97 hours were up- cast into the waste paper basket .sx BUS TICKET " SEVENS " .sx EQUALLY silly is a story I have just heard about a craze for collecting bus tickets , the serial number of which ends with the figure " 7 .sx " A colleague who travels regularly on Lincoln Corporation buses tells me he has been asked by someone , acting as spokesman for a third party , to save any tickets he receives from the conductor , the number of which ends in " 7 .sx " When , naturally , he asked why , he was told that they were saved and then handed in at the Corporation Transport Department when , in some way which was not specified by his informant , some worthy cause benefited .sx Mention of this to the Corporation Transport General Manager , Mr. Herbert Jones , produced the expected comment , " Never heard of such nonsense .sx " So please don't start unloading bundles of old bus tickets at his office !sx NOT VENUS , HE SAYS !sx .sx MY reference to the fire which , in February , 1922 , destroyed some business premises in Silver-street , Lincoln , has reminded one reader of something- and provided me with an illustration of what long memories some people have for trivialities !sx I had had occasion , some considerable time ago , to mention that fire , in connection with something else , and having turned up the files in the office library , I had quoted a quite picturesque description which had been given to the Echo at the time by a lady living in James-street , near the Cathedral .sx In the course of this , she had said the planet Venus could be seen shining through the glow in the sky from the flames .sx Now an anonymous reader writes to tell me she couldn't have seen Venus that night because it wasn't shining !sx He has , it seems , looked through some astronomical records and informs me that the sun set at about 5.34 on the day of the fire and Venus very shortly afterwards , at about 5.50! The fire was discovered at about half past seven- by someone rejoicing in the name of " Cocky Yates " according to my anonymous correspondent- so it could not have been Venus that Miss Bicknell saw from her house in James-street .sx Any other astronomically minded reader who would like to venture what bright star it could have been that , for almost 40 years now , we've been thinking was Venus ?sx We really ought to get this thing straight !sx COMMENTARY FROM City and County .sx by THE GOSSIPER .sx WHAT is the objection to utilising the old burial ground in Beaumont-fee , Lincoln , as a car park ?sx It is untidy and , apart from what grass there is being trimmed now and then , it is not particularly well looked after .sx Gravestones are broken and almost wholly indecipherable .sx Only a few years ago , the old burial ground in Saltergate was turned into a " garden of " - for the living , not the dead- and the gravestones were taken up , some of them being used for the footpaths .sx And going further back , the south side of St. Benedict-square was widened by taking a slice from the old burial ground .sx The plot in Beaumont-fee , only a few yards from the city centre , would provide an ideal parking place for quite a number of cars which today are partly blocking the roads by being parked at the kerbside .sx A WOMAN'S MEMORIES .sx A LETTER from an 83-years-old lady living near Sleaford indicates that Lincoln Corporation had been more reticent than I thought in releasing news about the typhoid epidemic which killed more than 120 people in 1905 .sx