Chumminess

Chumminess! Is this word not adorable? Just saying it makes me want to hug a woodland creature or play chubby bunny. My British subconscious is squealing with joy right now for "chumminess", as you may have guessed, does, in fact come from the word "chum" and is defined by answers.com as "the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability". I wonder if the British actually use this word, or some variation of it, for the noun can also be altered from "chum" to "chuminess", "chummily", "chummier" and "chummiest" (which, incidentally, if sung in the correct order sound eerily similar to "The Littlest Elf"'s theme song from "A Series of Unfortunate Events"). I can just see the little top-hatted, pot-bellied men now, holding their eyeglasses in one hand and their protruding stomachs in the other, greeting each other- "Ello thare Arther owld chum. 'Ow ahre yew this mawning?" "Quite well my friend. And yawself? Yew aulways ware the chummiest li'le mahn." "Owe yaw're tew coined Arther, yawr chumminess is fawr superior tew moine." Arther seems to be the only man's name I can imagine being said in a British accent, is that strange? That, and something that sounds like "delirious slack"...