Peter Bromhead: Easter effigies

"So, how do you plan to spend Easter this year?" inquired a friend over coffee. "Scoffing lots of eggs and hot-cross buns, I hope," he added, patting his stomach.

"Don't get me going over hot-cross buns," I replied. "I spotted my first bun in early January. I should have written to the London Times, asking if that was a record, like hearing the first cuckoo in spring."

As my companion is a Kiwi, references to editorial correspondence with a British newspaper announcing I'd spotted the first hot-cross bun of the year was probably a subtlety beyond his comprehension, unless you understand the ritual of the cuckoo thing.

"I seem to recall you once wrote a column about Easter eggs," my friend reflected. "Didn't you receive a chocolate egg that was an effigy of Adolf Hitler?"

"Good memory!" I responded. "Actually, it was Joseph Stalin."

"Phew!" he laughed. "I think I could handle licking a chocolate Stalin, but I'm not sure about Hitler." I didn't bother commenting that as mass murderers go, Stalin was right up there with Hitler.

"How come you were given a Stalin Easter egg as a kid? Were your parents communists or something?" my friend asked curiously.

"During World War II," I explained, "the Russians were allies of Britain. Easter eggs were made up in the effigies of the three leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. Because chocolate was scarce and rationed, suppliers had sold out of the popular choices so I ended up with Stalin."

"That must've been awful for you!" mused my companion.

"Not really," I grinned. "When you're young, chocolate is chocolate and I knew little about the Russian dictator. It's only now as an adult that one reflects on the irony of creating an effigy of one of the world's most evil mass murderers, using traditional symbols of hope and fertility."

"So, did you receive any other interesting Easter eggs during the war?" I was asked.

"Yes, in 1945 I received my best ever. A cardboard replica Lancaster bomber carrying an egg, made up as a Dambusters' bouncing bomb."

"Wow! Now that sounds better than gobbling up a murderous despot!"

"Well, I suppose so," I mused. "Those bouncing bombs only managed to breach two of the German dams, resulting in just 1600 people losing their lives, from drowning following a deluge of biblical proportions."

"I'd like to believe the Lancaster's chocolate bomb didn't taste quite as bitter as the Stalin effigy," I wistfully concluded.