Garkbit - Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, Essex

Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, Essex

The original writer, according to Adams, of the worst poetry in the universe. Appeared in the original radio series and the first printings of the 1979 novelization (Pan Books, paperback, page 53) before being replaced by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex (which is just a garbled form of the same name).

Johnstone attended Brentwood School, Essex, with Adams, and the two received awards for English in the same year. Johnstone edited Broadsheet, "the Artsphere Magazine" that included mock reviews by Adams as well as Johnstone's own poetry. Johnstone later won a scholarship to study at Cambridge University (as did Adams). In 1977 he co-ordinated the Cambridge Poetry Festival. Johnstone went on to achieve moderate success in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser. He died of pancreatic failure, almost three years after Adams' death.

In the film version she has moved from Greenbridge, Essex, England to Sussex.

In the TV adaptation of the series, a portrait of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings was in fact Adams in drag.

A sample of Johnstone's poetry, taken from the animated readout in the TV series, is:

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.

They lay. They rotted. They turned

Around occasionally.

Bits of flesh dropped off them from

Time to time.

And sank into the pool's mire.

They also smelt a great deal.