Rohase Piercy's Blog, page 8

Marriage of convenience, anyone?

Is it too late to jump on the Weddings bandwagon? Maybe not, as everyone's still chewing over the Windsor/Markle nuptuals – which I did watch most of, whilst coughing and spluttering into a pile of tissues (virus, not emotion) and trying to avoid Mr B's overlying anti-Monarchist rant (he's an ardent republican – in the British sense of the word, I hasten to clarify). But yes, I thought it was lovely, and no, I don't believe for a moment that it's a charade – Hal & Megs are clearly in love and I'm glad they were able to have the wedding they wanted, with the guests they wanted. I'll even admit to hoping that the new Duke & Duchess of Sussex might pay a visit to Brighton …

On the following day, slightly less catarrh-ridden, I watched the first episode of 'A Very English Scandal', the BBC's new three-parter starring Hugh Grant and Ben Wishaw based on the Jeremy Thorpe/Norman Scott debacle. For those of you unfamiliar with this true story, it starts with rising MP and future Liberal Party Leader Thorpe's affair with a young male model (Scott) back in the 1960s, and ends in tears via a trail of sensational events involving blackmail, police surveillance, an alleged assassination attempt, a dead dog and eventually, in 1979, a salaciously public six-week trial in which Thorpe was acquitted of attempted murder (though his political career never recovered). One of the evasive actions he takes in the BBC series in the face of his former lover's threats of exposure is a marriage of convenience, which he claims will boost his ratings in the polls by five percent. 'You'll have to choose someone who's … led a very sheltered life …' ventures his splendidly camp crony and fellow MP Peter Bessell, splendidly played by Alex Jennnings. In the event Thorpe married twice, fathering a son with his first wife Caroline Allpass in 1969 and then, following her tragic death in a car accident, tying the knot with Marion Stein in 1973. Marion remained loyal throughout her husband's trial and downfall and supported him though old age and Alzheimer's until his death in 2014.

Of course in these days of equal marriage, gay men and lesbians no longer feel driven to take shelter from the slings and arrows of outraged public opinion beneath the marriage of convenience umbrella; but back in the day it was very much on the agenda, and the search for an understanding partner was often conducted via advertisements in the gay press, or by word of mouth within the LGBT community. I remember several such 'lavender marriages' back in the 1980s, occasions that brought gay men and lesbians together in a spirit of triumphal celebration at having successfully hoodwinked the heterosexual establishment. The success of such alliances varied, of course – at the turn of the twentieth century the American artist Romaine Brooks outraged her gay husband John Ellingham Brooks (sometime lover of E F Benson) by ordering a wardrobe of male attire for a walking holiday, thus inviting rather than deflecting speculation about the nature of their relationship. However many such partnerships worked to the couple's mutual advantage, and it is in this spirit that I've presented the alliance of Dr John H Watson and Mary Morstan as a lavender marriage in My Dearest Holmes; similarly in Before Elizabeth: The Story of Anne de Bourgh I have Anne offering herself as a beard to Colonel Fitzwilliam in the wake of the storm caused by the Darcy/Bennet fiasco.

The demise of the 'lavender marriage', along with Polari, the coded vernacular which enabled gay men to converse freely (but unintelligibly to outsiders) in public, has left a whiff of nostalgia amongst some old-timers – there was an element of fun to the game of hoodwinking the outside world that only a closeted community can appreciate. But there's no denying that things have changed for the better, and in the year in which a British Royal can finally marry a divorced American without sparking an abdication crisis we can celebrate the fact that both Royals and Queers can pursue their own happy ever after without risk of blame or shame.

Death In Venice Revisited

The other night I watched 'Death In Venice' for the first time in years. For those of you who haven't seen it, this 1971 film, directed by Luchino Visconti and based on Thomas Mann's 1912 novella, follows the last few weeks in the life of an ageing German composer, Gustav von Aschenbach, who is convalescing at the Grand Hotel Des Bains on the Lido at Venice following a heart attack. He gradually becomes obsessed with the beautiful, indulged teenage son of an aristocratic Polish family staying at the same hotel. As rumours of a cholera epidemic in the city begin to drive guests away, he takes to following the boy and his family around, increasingly infatuated, ill and desperate; he suffers a second heart attack on the beach whilst gazing at his beloved on the shoreline, and dies. The action is slow, with minimal dialogue and much reliance on non-verbal communication, and it's interspersed with unhurried observation of the hotel guests going about their leisurely lives and panoramic shots of the beautiful Lido de Venezia. The music of Gustav Mahler, supposedly one of the originals drawn on by Mann to create the composite character of von Aschenbach, tugs at the heartstrings throughout.

Dirk Bogarde's performance in the lead role is extraordinary, and has stayed with me ever since I first saw the film in my early twenties. He manages to convey intense emotion, from elation to despair, by a mere twitch of the mouth or creasing of the forehead, The scene where, having determined to nip his infatuation in the bud by returning ahead of schedule to Munich, he discovers at the station that his luggage has been mislaid is particularly poignant, as he tries to suppress smile after smile at the unexpected reprieve. His gradual degeneration from orderly, fastidious Edwardian gentleman to desperate, lovesick, cosmetically enhanced old roue is a tour de force.

But there's no denying the dark underside to this forty-seven year old film, which sits uncomfortably with a modern audience; for after all, isn't this the story of an older man's attraction to an underage boy? And didn't Bjorn Andresen, whose androgynous beauty as the fourteen-year-old Tadzio still adorns every poster and article about Visconti's production, complain of having been forced, at sixteen, to visit gay bars with the director where he was exposed to the unwelcome attentions of older men?
'Adult love for adolescents', he told the Guardian in 2003, 'is something I am against in principle … because I have some kind of insight into what this kind of love is about.'
He has, he says, worked hard to cast off the shadow of Tadzio, trying to alter 'not only my appearance, but my whole identity' – a statement that leaves no doubt as to the traumatic effect of the role and its aftermath upon a shockingly unprotected child actor.

When the film first came out in 1971 I was thirteen years old, and too young to see it at the cinema (I've tried and failed to discover whether the British Board of Censors gave it an 'A' or an 'X' certificate, but I suspect the latter). I did however find a copy of the original novella in my local library and precociously devoured it, marvelling slightly at how chaste and ponderous and philosophical it was and wondering what all the fuss was about. There is, as critic Roger Elbert pointed out in his early review of the film, no indication in the novel that Tadzio is anything more than vaguely aware of the older man's interest, and they exchange no more than the occasional surreptitious glance. The original von Aschenbach is an author rather than a composer, and there is much discussion of the philosophical ideals of Beauty and Truth, and whether they can best be appreciated by the intellect or the senses – discussions replicated in flashback in the film, with von Aschenbach confidently championing the intellectual high ground, rendering his downfall all the more karmic. However Elbert opines that 'Visconti loses the philosophical content of the Thomas Mann work, and no amount of heavy-handed flashbacks can restore it'. In the film, Tadzio is all too aware of his admirer's interest, and although they exchange not one word of dialogue he is constantly posing and lingering before him, turning back to gaze at the older man through lowered lashes with a Mona Lisa smile. 'Vicsonti', says Elbert, 'lays on the turns, looks and smiles with such a heavy hand that the boy could almost be accused of hustling.'

And this, I think, is why the novel safely passes the test of modern acceptability while the jury remains out on the film. It would, however, be a shame were it ever to be cast into outer darkness – the sublime, hesitant sweetness of the 'Adagietto' from Mahler's Symphony no.5, the strength and subtlety of Bogarde's acting, the breathtaking beauty of the scenery and also, admittedly, of poster boy 'Tadzio' still combine to make it a poignant depiction of a dying man's pursuit of unattainable youth and beauty. At the very least it's galvanised me to add a long neglected novel to my to-read list – Thomas Mann's Death in Venice!

New Holmes for Sale!

A big thankyou to everyone who entered my Giveaway for My Dearest Holmes and congratulations to the fifteen lucky winners - shiny new signed copies should be arriving on your doorstep any day now and I wish you happy reading!

I do hope that readers who enjoyed MDH back in the day will buy and review this newly edited version, now available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle. It kicks off with a few samples of the reaction it inspired back in 1988 from both mainstream and Gay press - I still have all the original clippings in a very tatty old scrapbook, beginning with Page Three of the Sun (carefully cropped so as not to feature the lady with the boobs; British readers will understand how amused I was to find myself on that particular page, and what fun I had persuading friends to buy a copy), and finishing with a much more sane and balanced piece from The Guardian. Non-explicit as it was, this story exploring the possibility of John Watson's love for Sherlock Holmes, set against the ramifications of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act (Section 11 of which outlawed all acts of a sexual nature between men and brought about the downfall of Conan Doyle's fellow author Oscar Wilde) caused quite an outcry thirty years ago!

In her thoughtful and interesting Foreword, Charlie Raven looks back on the heady days when she and I, at that time a same-sex couple ourselves, first fell under the spell of the man, the myth and the magic that is Sherlock Holmes on the back of a few chance remarks made to her by a work colleague. It's shocking to remember how hostile a decade the 1980s was for gay people, with Section 28 of the Local Government Act outlawing anything that could be seen as a 'promotion' of homosexuality in Britain, the U.S. Court of Appeal ruling that no-one had a 'fundamental right' to be gay, and Pope John Paul II ordering the Catholic Church to withdraw support for gay and lesbian Christian organisations. It's a sobering fact that even today, with equal marriage available in twenty-six countries, homosexuality remains illegal, and in some cases punishable by death, in seventy two others – several of them members of the Commonwealth, as Olympian Tom Daley bravely highlighted at the recent Commonwealth Games.

So can My Dearest Holmes claim a modest place in LGBTQ history? Charlie kindly concludes that it can, pointing out that 'the prominence of its heroes in popular mythology instantly caused readers to think a little harder about the implications of being a same-sex couple living under legal and social restrictions' and asking 'how many of the spin-off novels, fanfics and homoerotically-charged movie or TV interpretations of the Holmes/Watson dynamic would now exist in their current form if it were not for the first step represented by this little book?'

Do give it a read (or a re-read) and let me know what you think - I'm very happy to answer questions, and will reply to any politely-worded comments - and please don't forget to leave a review, however brief, both here and on Amazon!

What killed Constance Wilde 120 Years Ago?

Back in 2015 The Lancet published an article investigating the cause of death of one Constance Mary Holland, nee Lloyd, briefly Wilde, at the age of thirty-nine in Genoa in 1898. It was a fascinating read for those who, like me, had often pondered the nature of the chronic and painful condition that plagued Mrs Oscar Wilde on and off for the last ten years of her life, ultimately leading her to undergo two operations at the hands of a controversial Italian doctor, Luigi Maria Bossi. In The Coward Does It With A Kiss (published in 1990) I followed the traditional theory of spinal trouble exacerbated by a fall down the stairs at her Tite Street home in 1895; in Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde (published in 2012)Franny Moyle remains vague as to the cause of the 'creeping paralysis' that dogged Constance. Other suggestions have included the possibility that she caught an STD such as syphilis from her husband; an understandable speculation, given Oscar's promiscuous lifestyle and the fact that the Dr Bossi was actually a gynaecologist. Bossi's controversial and practically medieval theories linking every female disorder with the reproductive system landed him in serious trouble with the medical authorities of his day, however, and the matter has always remained open for discussion.

But now, following the publication of some private family papers by Merlin Holland, Oscar and Constance's grandson, a modern diagnosis of 'multiple sclerosis of the relapsing-remitting type that subsequently developed into secondary progressive multiple sclerosis' has been generally accepted by the medical profession. Although MS was a recognised condition in the last decade of the 19th century, it was poorly understood; it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can uncover its progress in Constance's gradual deterioration.

It was in 1898, less than two years after the birth of her second son Vyvyan, that Constance, already sexually estranged from her celebrity husband, began to complain of lameness in her right leg; it's tempting to offer a psychological diagnosis, and indeed depression, anxiety and irritability is often part and parcel of MS, though the chicken-and-egg debate as to why this should be continues. After a period of remission, the pain returned in 1891, this time in her arms; and by 1893 it was also manifesting in her head and back. Again, a period of reasonable health followed but a relapse occurred in 1894-5; 'I am alright when I don't walk,' she complained, 'but then I can't go through life sitting in a chair, especially with two boys to amuse.'
Then came Oscar's trial, conviction and downfall, in the aftermath of which she changed her name and that of her boys to Holland (already adopted by her brother Otho in an attempt to shake off his creditors) and fled to the Continent to escape the vicarious disgrace that dogged her in England.

She first consulted Bossi at the end of 1895, and underwent an obscure operation at his hands, possibly of a gynaecological nature, which left her, by April 1896, 'lamer than ever', so that she had 'almost given up hope of ever getting well again'. She then switched doctors, consulting an unnamed 'nerve doctor' in Heidelberg, who prescribed baths and electricity (not at the same time, one hopes), to no avail. By October of the same year she had developed a tremor in her right arm which meant she could no longer write by hand, and had to conduct her correspondence by typewriter. Headaches, extreme fatigue, and palsy in the left side of her face ensued, as well as genito-urinary problems which sent her back to Bossi early in 1898. He diagnosed uterine fibroids which he said were causing pressure on the nerves of her back and leg, and when pessaries and creosote lotion failed to bring any relief he performed a second operation on 2nd April, from which Constance failed to recover; she died five days later, on April 7th 1898.
Otho Lloyd Holland tried to pursue a court case against Bossi following his sister's death; but when all was said and done she had consented to the operation, against the advice of other doctors, and there was no legal case for Bossi to answer.

It is all too easy to dismiss Constance Wilde as a wronged wife whose suffering both at her husband's hands and at the bar of public opinion caused mental and physical wounds leading to a premature death; a sad end to a sad life, leaving two sons bereft of both father and mother in their early teens. But surely now, 120 years after her death, we can recognise her as a survivor rather than a victim. She battled both her medical condition and her husband's indifference to forge a path for herself as a champion of women's rights, rational dress and political reform, and she was a both an editor and an author in her own right: in addition to her collection of well-loved fairy tales, There was once. Grandma's stories: Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, The three bears, Children in the wood, she contributed original stories to at least three children's anthologies and was Lead Editor of the Rational Dress Society's Gazette.

These are the words Lexi Wolfe puts into her mouth at the end of her excellent one-woman play 'Mrs Oscar Wilde: 'I thought the other day how nice it would be to be remembered as a woman who fought for the rights of other women. There is still much of a way to go, but we have made a definite start. Then I thought, perhaps it might be just as nice to be remembered as a women of letters – for my literary works, I mean. I hope that my works, meagre and few as they are, will be read and enjoyed for many years to come. I caught myself at the last thinking how nice it should be if I were simply remembered as the mother of two wonderful children. They are, after all, my greatest work. However, a dull fear comes upon me … that, if I am to be remembered at all, it shall probably be as nothing more than Mrs Oscar Wilde.'

We mustn't let this happen! Read Franny Moyle's book and/or Lexi Wolfe's trilogy Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories to find out more about this remarkable woman's life. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for the new edition of The Coward Does It With A Kiss a work in progress which will hopefully be published by the end of the year ...

Aubrey Beardsley's Spiritual Journey

Aubrey Beardsley, the 'Master of Line' whose distinctive black-and-white prints have come to personify the Decadent Movement of the 1890s, died 120 years ago on 16th March 1898. The tuberculosis which had ravaged his lungs from an early age finally caught up with him in Menton on the French Riviera, whither he'd retreated in the wake of the Oscar Wilde scandal and in search of a climate that would support his failing health. He was twenty-five years old.
He was also, by that time, a Roman Catholic convert of two years' standing. On his deathbed he sent a desperate note to his London publisher Leonard Smithers, imploring him to destroy all copies of his erotic drawings and prints – a request that Smithers, fortunately for posterity, chose to ignore. Beardsley died in the bosom of his adopted faith, and is buried in the Cimitiere du Vieux-Chateau, Menton.
A couple of week ago, I attended an interesting talk by Beardsley enthusiast Alexia Lazou at the Church Of The Annunciation, in the Hanover district of Brighton. This was basically an armchair version of the Beardsley Tour that Charlie Raven and I enjoyed last September (see my earlier blog: 'Aubrey Beardsley, Brighton Boy') with slides featuring various local landmarks associated with the artist (his birthplace, school etc) and some fascinating examples of his early work. The venue was itself a 'Beardsley Landmark', as he attended Mass at The Annunciation as an adolescent boy; the steep climb from Lower Rock Gardens where he and his sister Mabel were living with their Great Aunt Sarah would have been physically taxing for a consumptive, so the attraction of this particular Church was obviously strong. It was one of only two Anglican Churches in Brighton at the time following the Anglo-Catholic tradition associated with the so-called 'Oxford Movement', incorporating vestments, incense, candles, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (and a belief, therefore, in the Real Presence of Christ therein), and veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints. There was strong opposition from the Protestant wing of the Church of England to what they saw as a 'Romanisaton' of the Anglican faith, and priests, altar servers and worshippers were often subject to physical attacks by hostile Evangelicals. Both clergy and congregation, however, stood firm in their belief that the Catholic Tradition had a place within the Church of England, and it's a belief The Annunciation still proudly maintains today; after tea and cake following Alexia's talk, we enjoyed a brief tour of the Church courtesy of Stephen Plaice whose book 'The Real Presence' was available for us to buy.
As someone who herself converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism at the tender age of seventeen, I was fascinated by Beardsley's spiritual journey. On one level, the attraction of the Oxford Movement's ceremonial liturgy for followers of the Aesthetic and Decadent Movements – many of whom, of course, were gay - seems obvious: the smells and bells, the flowing vestments, the opportunity to dress up and swing a censer. But this is not to dismiss their devotion as shallow; my old RE teacher at school, a staunch Anglo-Catholic, used to wax lyrical over 'the Beauty of Holiness' and the spiritual uplift that ritual bestows upon the artistic soul. The young Beardsley, artistic, delicate and spiritually hungry, must surely have appreciated the combination of beauty and holiness on offer at The Annunciation.
Was his subsequent 'journey to Rome' a natural spiritual progression, or a guilt-ridden attempt to assuage an ambivalent sexuality? I've met many gay clergy in my time, both Anglo- and Roman Catholic, and witnessed the painful conflict they endured in reconciling their sexuality with their faith – a conflict not helped by the Church's emphasis on celibacy as the only and ideal alternative to heterosexual marriage, currently reaping the whirlwind with multiple uncoverings of sexual abuse.
To my mind Beardsley's later letters, his regular devotion and his obvious humility regarding his faith (as opposed to his art!) attest to the sincerity of his conversion. I do hope that wherever he is now, he has long reconciled the (often erotic) artistic genius in himself with the man of faith, and is grateful to the friends who refused to destroy the unique, exotic and slightly disturbing art that continues to fascinate and inspire us today.

Sherlock Holmes and Spiritualism - two sides of a coin?

A friend recently lent me a book I'd never heard of before: The Edge of the Unknown' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Published in 1930, the year of his death, it's presumably the last book Doyle ever wrote and it deals, as does much of his later work, with the subject of Spiritualism. It contains fifteen short, anecdotal essays, each dealing with a different example of psychic activity; what comes across most strongly is Doyle's passionate belief that the 'psychic science' of Spiritualism is a revelation especially suited to the 'modern age' (ie the early twentieth century – there is much comparison of table-rapping and mediumistic communication with telegraphy and radio reception), which is destined to bring increasing spiritual enlightenment to the human race. 'Fancy a new spiritual departure in a frame-house in an American Hamlet!' he says of the notorious 'Hydesville Rappings' that started the whole movement off in 1848– 'Yes, and fancy a previous one in a camel-driver's tent in Arabia, and before that the greatest of all in a carpenter's shop in Judea! Exaltavit humiles!' The comparison is bold and obvious, and the Spiritualist evangelism which characterised Doyle's later years, born of the heightened public profile which the movement enjoyed following the tragedy of the First World War, earned him much ridicule and detraction - though unlike other high-profile champions of the cause, he managed to keep both livelihood and reputation in tact.
Present day reactions to this side of Doyle's life and work could well be summed up in the words of his contemporary, the psychic investigator Harry Price: 'Poor, dear, lovable, credulous Doyle!' His championing of the bogus Cottingley Fairies photographs is always quoted, as is his defence of the disgraced 'spirit photographer' William Hope – followed, as often as not, by the interesting question, 'What would Sherlock Holmes have made of all this?'
The implication is, of course, that Doyle's most famous creation would most vehemently have disapproved. The quote from 'The Sussex Vampire' – 'This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply!' – is often referenced, as is Holmes' reliance, in the face of Watson's marriage, upon 'that true, cold reason which I place above all things'. It's certainly hard to imagine Sherlock Holmes having any sympathy with the 'psychic science' which so fascinated his creator; but why are we asking the question at all? Why does it matter so much to us what a fictional character may or may not have thought of his author's beliefs?
Doyle's interest in psychic phenomena was actually in evidence while he was writing the Canon - he was experimenting with mesmerism and telepathy during the 1880s, and became a member of the Society for Psychical Research in 1893. Sherlock Holmes and the Occult were therefore occupying his mind at the same time, and should be seen as two sides of the same coin rather than as mutually exclusive preoccupations. I would even go so far as to argue (without implying any endorsement of Spiritualism as a belief system) that Holmes himself can be seen as a powerful psychic projection. Witness how many people during the last century believed the great detective to have been a real person; witness how many actors playing the role have spoken of being 'taken over' by Holmes to a disconcerting degree, and of having to struggle to retain their personal identity; witness how much sway Holmes and Watson still hold over the hearts, minds, and literary outpourings of devoted fans, how many societies and online publications still play the game that they are real, historical figures, how many shrines associated with their legend attract hordes of pilgrims, or are erected in their honour in private houses! Sherlock Holmes is a powerful entity in his own right, independent of his creator – and for all Doyle's protestations that he personally was not psychic or clairvoyant, he was undoubtedly the medium through which this entity was made manifest to the world. As we all know, he became uncomfortable under his control, and tried unsuccessfully to kill him off; but Holmes and Watson had already entered our collective psyche, and they weren't, and aren't, going anywhere.
So maybe the answer to the question 'What would Sherlock Holmes have made of all this?' isn't quite so obvious after all ...

Giveaway!

Yay! The Valentine's Giveaway for My Dearest Holmes - Thirtieth Anniversary Edition has now started, and will continue until publication date on 14th April. There are fifteen signed copies up for grabs - though unfortunately only to readers in America due to new rules - so go for it, Friends Across The Pond!

If, like me, you don't live in America, don't be downhearted - there'll be another fifteen copies available at the Kindle Giveaway, coming up in a couple of months.

Good luck, everyone xx

The Mystery of Sherlock Holmes' Fitness Regime

Well, the Winter Olympics are in full swing and once again our TV screens are dominated by images of athletes in their prime, running, bounding, leaping and gliding with what appears to be effortless speed and grace towards Olympian glory. I admire them, of course; I take my hat off to the lot of them! As someone whose exercise routine consists of a daily walk with an elderly dog and a weekly Pilates class specially modified for ladies over fifty-five with dodgy backs, I can only shake my head in wonder at the gusto with which these muscled-up young things embrace seemingly inpossible physical challenges.

No, I'm not the sporty type; my energy supply is easily exhausted, and I'm all over the shop on anything less than nine hours' sleep. I'm with Sherlock Holmes – the original, decadent, pre-Rathbone version - who regularly spends days at a time in bed and likes to lounge on the couch in his dressing-gown in the middle of the afternoon. Mental rather than physical exercise is our forte …

… but hang on a minute; whilst proof-reading My Dearest Holmes - Thirtieth Anniversary Edition, I was struck for the first time by the discrepancy between Holmes' account – lifted straight from the Canon- of his struggle with Moriarty on the brink of the Reichenbach Falls, and his ennui-prone, cocaine-addicted lifestyle. He claims not only to have used a Japanese system of wrestling called 'baristu' (a mis-spelling of 'bartitsu'?) to defeat his opponent, but also to have run, on awaking from a spell of unconsciousness, ten miles over the mountains to safety. Did he do this under the influence of cocaine, or desperation? Was his defeat of Moriarty a stroke of luck?

In A Study in Scarlet, Watson famously makes a list entitled 'Sherlock Holmes – His Limits', in which he describes his new flatmate as being 'an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman'. (Singlestick, also known as cudgels, was yet another martial art). However as the stories develop, quite when he gets to practise and maintain these demanding skills remains something of a mystery. When does Sherlock Holmes ever visit a gymnasium? Could it be during the long walks which, according to Watson, take him into the 'lowest portions of the city'? Both Watson's description and Sydney Paget's original drawings show Holmes as tall, thin, pale and gaunt – hardly a muscle to be seen. Yes, he has a fierce energy when engaged upon a case – Watson does, on occasion, remind us that he alone knows the full extent of the energy which slumbers beneath his companion's listless facade – but by the time they re-encounter one another in The Adventure of the Empty House, Holmes has 'a dead-white tinge to his aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a healthy one' – a reference to the continuing hold of his cocaine habit. If Holmes did once possess the pugilistic skills of which his Boswell boasts in the first flush of admiration, they must surely have been in pretty poor shape by that time.

As I've mentioned before, twentieth-century depictions of Holmes on film (pre Jeremy Brett) did like to present him as fit, healthy, rugged and generally rather more masculine than he is in the original stories; no doubt Watson's list was instrumental in giving them licence to do so. But for myself, I'll always regard the more athletic side of Sherlock Holmes as an example of the 'romanticism' which he accuses his Boswell of indulging in his accounts of their adventures; a romanticism from which he himself was far from immune, if his description of what happened at the Reichenbach Falls is anything to go by ...

John Watson At My Shoulder

Well he's here again, just as I remember him thirty-odd years ago; above and behind my left shoulder, murmuring in my ear, quite intrusively at times … when I wrote on the title page 'A Memoir of John H. Watson M.D., edited by Rohase Piercy', I wasn't entirely kidding! This time he's overseeing the revision of My Dearest Holmes for the upcoming Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (coming this April – keep your eyes peeled for the Giveaway!) He makes an approving comment here, a suggested improvement there: 'Yes, that's exactly what I said; exactly how I felt!' 'You know, my dear, in those days that word was hardly common parlance.' 'Actually, when talking between ourselves my wife and I would refer to our maid by her Christian name …'

Yes, I am editing as I go along, always careful to leave the storyline completely intact, and hopefully continuing to stay true to Conan Doyle's writing style. Some little bumps in need of ironing out were obvious immediately: Would Holmes (in disguise as Melmond) really run the risk of betraying his identity to Maurice Kirkpatrick by accusing him so blatantly of 'climbing a wall'? Surely his observations would have been more subtle? Would Watson, arriving at the Hotel des Deux Mondes in Paris, really have had 'a light supper' brought up to his room without having ordered one? etc …
Others were brought to my attention not by Watson but by Charlie Raven, always a stickler for accuracy. I now know the difference between a daguerreotype (the most common commercial photographic process up until the late 1850s) and an albumen print (popular in mainstream photography from 1855 to the turn of the century); that 19th century telegrams were handwritten, not printed out, and therefore did not contain 'stops'; and that 'Regent Circus', though planned, was never actually built.

Charlie also pointed out that Watson drinks much more than is good for him even by nineteenth century standards (kindly adding that this is his way of coping with his unrequited love for Holmes and the self-loathing engendered by his various 'indiscretions'); and that Holmes pinches the good Doctor's arm so often that he must surely have ended up black and blue! Holmes does pinch Watson quite frequently in the original stories, but obviously these cover a number of years rather than the forty-eight hours during which the events of 'A Discreet Investigation' take place; Charlie's suggestion that I vary the parts of Watson's anatomy that get singled out for such attention was reluctantly rejected, but I have kept in the pinching because it does, as a reviewer once gleefully pointed out, 'drive him wild' – a fact that Watson himself confirms, let me tell you.

Anyway, we're making good progress. Charlie has written a Foreword that's both entertaining and informative, and I have included, at the back, the full version of my essay 'Sherlock Holmes – a Decadent Detective?' published in the Baker Street Journal a couple of years ago. There'll be a brand new cover, of course – at the moment a copy of The Strand, a Persian slipper, a fob watch and a sheet of Victorian notepaper are all involved … we'll keep experimenting until we get Watson's unreserved approval.

Oh, and you'll be pleased to know that in this edition he actually gets to address his beloved, just once, with the title phrase. Watch this space!

Which 'Little Woman' do we really love?

So, now that 2018 is underway and we're all back to knowing which day of the week it is and what we're supposed to be doing – what did you think of the TV on offer over Christmas and New Year? Here in the UK it was okay, I thought – although 'Call The Midwife' was rather disappointing, we had a lovely lavish Christmas episode of 'Victoria', a brilliant two-part adaptation of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist, and a brand new three-part BBC production of that perennial favourite, Little Women.
I love Little Women. My mother read it to me when I was seven or eight, and I in turn read it to my daughters. My eldest was entranced at an early age by a tape of the old 1949 screen version starring June Allyson as Jo and Liz Taylor as Amy, and for her no other adaptation will ever compare – though she concedes that the 1994 offering starring Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon gives it a run for its money. She therefore wasn't overly impressed by the BBC's effort, but I was drawn in hook, line and sinker as I am every time. Emily Watson was a dignified and vulnerable Marmee, and Maya Thurman-Hawke was a splendidly rumbunctious Jo. It was nice, also, to see old stalwarts Michael Gambon and Angela Lansbury curmudgeoning it up at Mr Laurence and Aunt March respectively. It brought the same bright tear to my eye that 'Little Women' always does.

But what is it about this dated, sentimental story of four sisters growing up in genteel poverty in 1860s Massachusetts?
'It's very twee, isn't it?' grumbled Mr B (who, like most men, has never read the book). 'Might as well be Little House on the Prairie!' (Apologies, Yanks. We Brits are just as ignorant of your geography as you are of ours …)
Over and over again I had to explain to him that 'The War' was the American Civil War, and that yes, these girls were on the opposing side to Scarlett O'Hara. Let's face it, 'Little Women' is never going to appeal to blokes. The clue is in the title.
But why do we girls agonise and root for the March sisters every time, even when we know full well that Meg's going to accept John Brooke, that Laurie's actually going to marry Amy in the end, that Jo's going to meet Professor Bhaer, and that Beth … It's not even particularly believable. Would Laurie really switch his affections from one sister to the other so swiftly, when he's been in love with Jo for years? Why does independent Jo suddenly go all gooey over a middle-aged man with a beard and a German accent? Why does Meg, who's worked as a governess and supported her family as a single girl, become such a wet rag as a married woman?
Yet still we love them … or rather, we love Jo; spirited, impetuous, ambitious tomboy Jo. Obviously based on Louisa May Alcott herself, she dreams of achieving independence through her writing whilst lamenting the fact that she wasn't born a boy. Even when required to write 'romantic, sentimental nonsense' she has no time for it in real life, preferring to make her own way in the world rather than become dependent on a man. There are so many possibilities for that character .. but then she falls for Professor Bhaer. I remember how outraged I was as a little girl, both by her marriage after all her protestations, and by the fact that she then admits to preferring boy children over girls! What a let-down! I wanted her to run off and join the army like Polly Oliver, dressed in Laurie's clothes, and come back a hero(ine) … I don't think I've ever got over that early disappointment in a potential role-model. But even so, it's Jo's spirit and determination that inspires the female reader/viewer, and any adaptation sinks or swims by the casting of that character.

Which brings me back to our Christmas offering. Although the third episode seemed rather frantic and hurried and could usefully have been stretched to include a fourth (we saw hardly anything of Meg's married life, and Amy's European tour seemed to consist mainly of sitting prettily against various Mediterranean backgrounds), I did think, as I said, that Maya Thurman Hawke was splendidly rambunctious as Jo, and by the end I actually didn't begrudge her Mark Stanley's Professor Bhaer. Obviously the fires of youth have finally been quenched by the resignation of middle age ...

Here's a final thought: could Little Women ever work in a modern-day setting? You'd think if Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew can be updated (Ten Things I Hate about You was another of my daughters' favourites, I practically know it by heart), then anything can. What would a present-day Jo March be like? Where could one go with that character? I leave that hanging in the air for you all to ponder ...