Dr Biggin's Town House

[steepholm]

If you have read A Stranger at Green Knowe (the fourth of the Green Knowe books, and the one that won Lucy Boston the Carnegie Medal) you will know that it ends with Mrs Oldknow suggesting she invite Ping's friend Ida for the rest of the summer. Ida had appeared in the previous book, The River at Green Knowe, in which she, Ping and Oskar stay with Ida's great-aunt, Dr Maud Biggin, and her partner, Sylvia Bun, who are renting the house.

The text of the book doesn't explicitly state that the invitation is issued, but the final illustration, by Boston's son Peter, shows Mrs Oldknow's blotter:



Mirror writing is always an invitation, but to save you having to find a mirror here is the same image horizontally inverted:



How do you read that? It's pretty clearly Queensdale Rd., London W11, but what's the number? I suggest it's more like 18 than anything else, but it looks a bit odd to me. It might possibly be a 16, or 1B. The '1' also looks rather strange.

Queensdale Rd does indeed exist. There doesn't appear to be a 1B (at least at the present date), but here are 16 and 18, either of which you are free to imagine as the address of the rather eccentric palaeologist, Dr Biggin:



The other question, of course, is why Peter Boston chose a real address for this fictional character.

Comments

[ethelmay]

He could have taken it off some product distributed by Brian D. Croft Ltd.

Smokeless Air - Issues 139-142 - Page 53
https://books.google.com/books?id=dJk4AAAAIAAJ
1966 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions
In Britain, Brian D. Croft Ltd., are distributors for Pliotron filters. Technical information in more detail may be obtained from them at 18, Queensdale Road, London, W. 1 1 . Telephone01-727-5063. The Domestic Heating Society This Society was formed in May. 1964, and up to its annual general meeting on 14 June last, had held ten meetings, the last being addressed by Lord Robens. The possibility of forming branches in Manchester and Scotland is under consideration. Readers ...

[steepholm]

Interesting... The book was published a few years earlier in 1961, but that's not to say they weren't already selling domestic heating supplies then!

[jadelennox]

Aw man now I need to go reread all the Green Knowe books. Except... is it safe to reread the one about Jacob? Will it make me sad? I want to keep remembering it as progressive and anti-racist, or at least not cringeworthy.

[ethelmay]

It's ... better than it might be. Which is not to say she got everything right, or that none of it is cringeworthy. (One wonders if Jacob ever learns standard English or goes on saying things like "No, Missy. Nose like lion" forever.)

[steepholm]

Interestingly, East European Oskar and Chinese Ping, who appear in the following book (The River at Green Knowe), speak English impeccably from the get-go, having learned it as a foreign language. Perhaps Jacob is meant to be speaking some kind of pidgin?

[steepholm]

It's certainly trying to be progressive. However, your cringing muscles won't atrophy for lack of exercise.

[jadelennox]

That is an amazingly clear and informative description of what the reading experience will be like.

(The book of my heart, JADE, by Sally Watson, is exactly like this.)

[intertext]

It looks like 18 to me. The numeral one is the same as the one in W 17. I might have said "I B" but the "B"s are different - both the Bigginses have a serif at the top of the B that is missing on this. Interesting if it's a real address - might be fun to find out who lived there when the books were written?

[steepholm]

I'm inclined to follow it up. After all, I can just ask the artist's widow...

[ethelmay]

If Dr. Biggin and Miss Bun are partners, is that a Boston marriage?

[steepholm]

That seems to me the most natural interpretation of their relationship, though as you would expect nothing is said explicitly.

[ethelmay]

Oh, of course. But I meant it as a joke. A Boston marriage as in L.M. Boston.

"It vas a leetle joke."
"It was extremely little, Ensign."

[steepholm]

Aah - I'm so slow! (My only excuse is that I've been out all evening learning Japanese.)

[kalypso]

Before seeing your comments, and without pausing to think about it, I read that as 18.