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The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia
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Author:  JayB [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Two things that occurred to me while in the 'Jem's Title' thread:

Does anyone think Bob and Lydia's marriage might count as a failed or unsatisfactory marriage in EBDland? They don't seem particularly well suited - Bob seems a pleasant, friendly chap, while Lydia, at least the way the CS staff tell it, is a bitch.

I imagine them going on reasonably well as long as Rolf was alive, but Rolf's death removed their main reason for staying together, and Bob's absence on active service and the deaths of the senior Maynards meant that they didn't even need to put on a show for appearances' sake.

Secondly, we're told Rolf died due to disobedience. I don't think we know whether this was because Bob was too easy going, or if he was absent too much to insist on proper discipline.

It occurs to me that Rolf's death probably accounts for Jack going to the other extreme with his children. (Does EBD ever say as much herself? If she did I've forgotten it.)

To stretch the argument a bit, Jack lost his nephew, his parents and his brother, all about the time he was learning to be a parent himself. His sister was on the far side of the world and he didn't know when, if ever, he would see her again. I think he might have become a bit obsessive about his own children.

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 5:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I would definitely think that whatever happened with Rolf would account for Jack's behaviour towards his own children. I appreciate that Mike really didn't intend to fall over a cliff :roll: , but I can quite see how it might have got Jack thinking about Rolf's fatal accident (whatever it was).

(BTW, I always find Rolf's first name very suspicious-sounding, but I think that that's just because I associate it with Liesl's Nazi boyfriend in The Sound of Music :roll: . Wasn't it originally a Norman name?)

The implication is that Lydia was blamed for Rolf's death. I feel very sorry for her in that the doctor who attended Rolf had no business telling a grieving mother that her son's death was her fault, but doesn't one of the CS mistresses say that she knew Lydia at school and that she wasn't very nice? And we're told somewhere that Lydia blamed Joey for Rolf's death. That makes no sense at all :? .

Author:  Lesley [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I think it was that she blamed Joey for having three (four, five, six...) healthy children while she (Lydia) had not only tragically lost her only adored son but then been blamed for his death by all and sundry and then, to cap it all, also lost her husband. Looked at like that I think I feel quite a lot of sympathy for Lydia here. :(

Author:  Nightwing [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I always got the impression that Lydia never liked Joey much to begin with (would she have met her before she married Jack? While she was visiting Pretty Maids as a schoolgirl, perhaps?) and that that dislike turned into a bitter resentment when she lost her son - also, doesn't it say somewhere that Lydia resented the fact that Jack would inherit from Bob? I could see how an earlier dislike for Joey became twisted in to something else, seeing this younger woman getting all the things that Lydia had thought she herself would have, and driven on by her own knowledge that she was widely blamed for her own son's death.

Are we ever told how old Rolf was when he died? I always imagined he was a teenager although I don't have any real reason for doing so.

Author:  Mia [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Nightwing wrote:
Are we ever told how old Rolf was when he died? I always imagined he was a teenager although I don't have any real reason for doing so.


I think he's quite young and runs in front of a car? Is that from the newsletters? I can't remember - I may have just made it up.

Author:  Kathy_S [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Quote:
Pretty Maids is out of the question now, I imagine.’
‘Oh, quite impossible. If the old folk had been living, it would have been the obvious solution, for you know how they adored her, and she loved them dearly. But now that they are gone, and Mrs Robert and the Major are in possession, it’s out of the question, as you say. None of the Maynards have ever liked poor Lydia, and she is a most uncomfortable person, I admit. She has always resented the fact that, since Rolf’s death. Jack is his brother’s heir; and since the coming of the Triplets, it’s been worse. Bob Maynard wrote a charming letter to Jo, but Lydia has taken no notice whatsoever.’-Goes To It


The wording sounds to me as though Bob & Lydia took over very recently. I am wondering if maybe the death(s) or last illnesses of the "old people" has something to do with why Jo and Jack were there for August in Exile.

Author:  Carys [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Do we ever know what happened to Lydia after Jack sold Pretty Maids? It was her home, did she have anywhere else to go?

Author:  Kathy_S [ Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

It sounds as though Rolf was about 12-13:
Quote:
‘Well, as things are today, Mrs Robert might have had to worry about him in one of the Services,’ observed Miss Wilson. ‘He’d have been nearly nineteen now, wouldn’t he? But Madge, it’s six years ago since it happened. Jack and Joey were both in Tirol at the time—Joey was at school! How can Mrs Robert vent it on them?’

‘Because that’s Lydia Maynard all over,’ put in Miss Stewart. ‘She was at school with my sister Nancy, and Nance told me that if anything went wrong, Lydia always took it out on someone else.’

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I have to say I find the idea that Bob and Lydia are considered by all and sundry to be to blame for their son's accidental death particularly vicious on EBD's part. (Lydia doesn't sound at all an attractive human being, but of course we only ever hear about her at second hand from people who already dislike her, and it seems rather cruel to connect someone's traumatised behaviour after she's lost a child with the fact that she was reportedly bad at accepting blame at school, as recounted by someone who knew her back then... Perhaps she was mad with grief and blamed Joey completely irrationally, but it's hard to point the finger at someone who's trying to cope with an appalling situation in which she knows everyone is blaming her.)

I'm inclined, like Lesley, to feel sorry for her in the abstract, and can't honestly imagine blaming her for wanting no contact after Rolf's death with Joey and Jack and their flourishing family, which would be terribly hard. I mean, Bob wrote to congratulate Joey on the birth of the triplets, and was maybe trying to shield his grieving wife from having to think about other people's babies - but wouldn't a single letter of congratulations from Bob and Lydia suffice in any case? It wouldn't occur to me and my partner to send separate congratulations cards to a family member who just gave birth... It seems a bit much to blame her for not signing a letter.

Even if we discount Mike's cliff-climbing escapade, would it have been Jack and Joey's fault if normally-responsible, well-brought-up Len, rushing around on the Barenbad after Melanie Lucas in a thunderstorm, had been struck by lightning and killed? And where is the Christian forbearance towards others, and the very comforting, gentle 'falling asleep to wake with God' version of death we get elsewhere in the CS?

As regards Bob and Lydia's marriage - previously happy marriages end all the time after the loss of a child, as grief distances people from one another, especially if there are issues of blame involved. Other than the fact that we're told that 'none of the Maynards' ever liked Lydia (to which one is tempted to respond 'Well, one Maynard married her!'), we don't get much of a sense of their marriage until after Rolf's death, when it would probably have been troubled anyway.

Sorry - this became a bit of an essay. I just genuinely find it a quite troubling minor episode, especially the complete witholding of sympathy from a doubly bereaved woman, in a series that is normally so invested in generosity and understanding. I realise that in Rescue, Joey isn't yet the established champion 'butter-in' of later books (and she's probably the last person who could help Lydia anyway) but she does intervene and change Phoebe's life for the better in this book, speaks a lot about her Christianity, and is still recovering herself from having believed Jack dead, so the fact that there's no indication on EBD's part that Joey feels any sympathy towards Lydia at all is to me quite strange.

Author:  Jennie [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

What I find strange about it is not just the abysmal lack of Christian charity towards Lydia, but the offhand way that Jo mentions Bob's death. It's as if he had never shown her any kindness, nor welcomed her to Pretty Maids, yet he is said to have been very fond of her. In fact, it is presented as a minor inconvenience, and merely a minor part of where she is going to be in the future.

And, TBH, Jo never mentions it as a responsibility which she and Jack have to shoulder, which would have been very important in war-time from an agricultural point of view, almost as if it is unimportant, and not part of her life at all.

Author:  JB [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Joey doesn't come out very well in her reaction to Bob's death. There isn't a mention of how sad this is for Lydia who has lost her son and now her husband (and her home), even though it's less than a year since Joey believed Jack had been killed. She's particularly self-centred here, I feel.

Is there any other character in the series who is treated with a similar lack of charity?

Author:  Alison H [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Jack and Joey seem to have very little to do with Jack's family at all. I appreciate that Mollie and her family were in New Zealand so they could hardly be nipping to see them all the time, but there's never even a mention of sending/receiving letters between Mollie's marriage and Reunion.

I'm sure we alll know people like that in real life, i.e. people who're very involved with one partner's family but rarely see the other partner's family even though the other partner's family have done absolutely nothing "wrong" but, as you say, it doesn't sit very well with Joey's supposed charitable/kind outlook towards other people. Even Miss Bubb, whom everyone at the CS dislikes because she dared to disagree with the way they did things, is treated with kindness when she's in need.

It's a shame that we never see the triplets with Grannie Maynard, too (Stephen would probably have been too young to remember her). The relationships which Frieda, Bernhilda, Mary-Lou and Grizel have with their grandmothers show very well how important grandparents can be in our lives: it's sad that the triplets don't seem to've got to spend much time with their grandmother whilst she was alive. They must have seen her "off stage", but we never get to see that.

Author:  JayB [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

JB wrote:
Joey doesn't come out very well in her reaction to Bob's death. There isn't a mention of how sad this is for Lydia who has lost her son and now her husband (and her home), even though it's less than a year since Joey believed Jack had been killed. She's particularly self-centred here, I feel.


It's a long time since I've read Rescue, but does she even spare a thought for how Jack will feel about it? I suspect not, since I don't remember Bob's death making much impression on me when I read Rescue.

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I think Jack must have a snaeaking sympathy for Lydia because he does go and see her or at least is in touch with her to ask her what she would like to do in regards to Pretty Maids rather than just telling her she has to leave. Lydia decides to live in the local town rather than move back to London.

I never found Joey particularly sympathetic towards her but then she would never be able to understand what Lydia had gone through as her husband is alive and she has all her children and no problem with having any more. I could easily understand why Lydia would find it so difficult to be around anyone who reproduces so easily and then rubs it in to all and sundry that she has the largest family. Madge on the other hand does seem to have a kind of sympathy for her and doesn't put her down about it.

Author:  jennifer [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I wonder if there had been a clash of personalities between Joey and Lydia? Young Joey does have trouble empathizing with people who don't get along with her (Joyce, Elaine, Stacie for example). It may be that she and Lydia took a strong dislike to each other, and that is why they don't see each other much.

Author:  JS [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Quote:
I wonder if there had been a clash of personalities between Joey and Lydia? Young Joey does have trouble empathizing with people who don't get along with her (Joyce, Elaine, Stacie for example). It may be that she and Lydia took a strong dislike to each other, and that is why they don't see each other much.


Maybe she refused to kiss The Robin :D

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Just thought that I'd post this, as I'm re-reading Rescue:

Quote:
Mrs Robert Maynard could never forgive Jo for having four children, all well and healthy while her only child, Rolf, had been killed as a little chap of thirteen through the disobedience she had never tried to control when he was tiny.


Hope that helps clear up the age thing!

Author:  jennifer [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I get the feeling Lydia may have been one of those people who has a difficult personality - prickly, a bit oversensitive, not very easy with people. The kind of person people just don't warm to. She loses her only child when he is twelve, and is told that it is her own fault, because she didn't raise him properly.

I can see how she could resent Joey - three healthy children right of the bat, a huge circle of friends and admirers, one of those charming, easy people whom everyone instantly likes (including her in-laws), but at the same time someone who is used to being admired and liked, and who doesn't handle personality conflicts at all well. Plus Jack is Bob's heir, so the family property will go to him, leaving her at his mercy as far as a place to live goes.

I don't get the impression, though, that Bob and Lydia's marriage was a bad one. They might have gotten along perfectly well with each other, even though Lydia clashes with Joey. Bob comes across as an easygoing man, who probably can handle prickly people well.

But I agree that the wholesale condemnation of Lydia regarding Rolf's death is pretty brutal. It's widely acknowledged that some of Margot's problems are due to being indulged as a child - but do you think Joey would be told it's her own fault for poor parenting if she had, for example, drowned in Lake Lucerne, through deliberate disobedience.

Author:  Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Quote:
Mrs Robert Maynard could never forgive Jo for having four children, all well and healthy...


She wasn't in touch very closely, was she? Margot nearly dying of bronchitus (as mentioned in Highland Twins) and all the rest of it was clearly never communicated to her...

And yes, all that stuff about Rolf not being brought up to be obediant could just as well apply to Joey and Jack's way of bringing up Margot (she may not have a long life, but I mean to make sure it's a happy one and all that).

Author:  Alex [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Maybe no-one blamed Lydia for Rolf's death except herself. I mean, if she felt incredibly guilty (possibly because she wasn't bothered/interested enough to discipline him), even if no-one else blamed her she would probably think that they all were. Especially if someone had previously made comments about how he was badly behaved, or given well-meaning advice. OK. Having worked this out as I was writing it, I can see a plausible scenario:

Joey and Jack (pre-SLOC) visit Bob and Lydia. Rolf is very badly behaved and disobedient. Bob is not around and so Jack tells him off (not in a psychotic way, just proportionally), no doubt feeling that as the child's uncle he is the proper person to do it. Lydia feels slightly resentful, and possibly overhears young adult/schoolgirl Jo talking about how all the obedient children she knows in Austria are very much happier than poor Rolf, which makes her feel even more annoyed. Rolf then dies, as a result of direct disobedience, and Lydia feels dreadfully guilty and also sure that Joey must blame her for it (entirely based on overheard/misheard comments of a younger Joey), even though, Joey the uber-mother with her gift for empathy, could not possibly feel anything but sympathy and pity for another woman losing her child.

And no, I will not be writing this drabble.

Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Alex wrote:
Maybe no-one blamed Lydia for Rolf's death except herself. I mean, if she felt incredibly guilty (possibly because she wasn't bothered/interested enough to discipline him), even if no-one else blamed her she would probably think that they all were.


That could make sense, only EBD keeps telling us that everyone does blame Lydia for lax parenting allowing the disobedience that causes Rolf's death - in fact, at different points, EBD herself presents her responsibility for his death as actual verified fact, rather just being the opinion of a character, like this bit in Rescue:

Quote:
Mrs Robert Maynard could never forgive Jo for having four children, all well and healthy while her only child, Rolf, had been killed as a little chap of thirteen through the disobedience she had never tried to control when he was tiny.


I don't recall the details of his death being recounted in the novels (I think someone suggested he was killed by a car?), but I do find myself wondering how it's actually possible to allocate blame so neatly for a death that sounds like an accident. If he was killed crossing the road (which I might be remembering wrong from someone's comment), then don't we have to potentially figure in a driver and a thirteen-year-old being careless/impulsive/in a hurry, rather than some kind of habit of 'disobedience' formed by poor childhood parenting?

Author:  Cat C [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Quote:
but I do find myself wondering how it's actually possible to allocate blame so neatly for a death that sounds like an accident


That's because you're thinking in real-world causality terms, rather than EBD terms! Remember Sybil and the kettle? How that accident was caused by Sybil's disobedience?

Or how Margot falling into the lake was caused by her disobedience?

If Rolf had been told to stand still, and had instead dashed into the path of an oncoming car (say), I'm sure it would have been his disobedience that was held to have caused his death.

Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Cat C wrote:
Remember Sybil and the kettle? How that accident was caused by Sybil's disobedience?


Hang on, though, I thought that was caused by Sybil's vanity, which in turn makes Josette's scalding the direct fault of every passing stranger and common acquaintance who passed an admiring comment on Sybil's looks!

Maybe Rolf was an unusually exquisite child also, and had his head turned so thoroughly by admiration of his apple-blossom complexion, sapphire eyes (or maybe he had 'wood-violet' eyes, and they ran in the Maynard bloodline?) and chestnut Little Lord Fauntleroy curls that, aged thirteen and possibly dealing with the onset of growth spurts and acne. he lost his head and rushed into the path of a car?...? Clearly Lydia didn't squash him, Joey-style, by telling him that he had God to thank for his looks.

Author:  Tan [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I think that Rolf drowned in a boating accident. Not sure where I read/heard this though.

I think it is very harsh to blame Lydia for his death, particularly given how many accidents/incidents a certain Margot Maynard was involved in. And some of those were caused by her direct disobedience. Again, I never quite got the linkage between Sybil's vanity and her disobedience either.

I also find it interesting that Rolf is described as 'a little chap of thirteen' ... then again, the Robin slept in a 'cot' at the age of 6 or so!

Author:  JS [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Quote:
Cat C wrote:Remember Sybil and the kettle? How that accident was caused by Sybil's disobedience?


Hang on, though, I thought that was caused by Sybil's vanity, which in turn makes Josette's scalding the direct fault of every passing stranger and common acquaintance who passed an admiring comment on Sybil's looks!


Wasn't it that she had been told not to touch the kettle, but she did - with dire consequences? The incident meant that everything about her upbringing was then questioned, including the vanity, so her looks were all tied up in her head with why she'd been naughty and disobedient and therefore with Josette's illness.

Author:  Mia [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Tan wrote:
I think that Rolf drowned in a boating accident. Not sure where I read/heard this though.


I think you might be thinking of the Bettanys' Irish boy cousins. Is there a proper word for cousinicide? EBD seems fond of it!

Tan wrote:
I also find it interesting that Rolf is described as 'a little chap of thirteen' ... then again, the Robin slept in a 'cot' at the age of 6 or so!


I wonder if this was meant in the ?American sense though, ie a small bed?

Re Rolf's death I seem to remember he was actually playing around in the car and set off the handbrake, despite being warned not to play there, but I'm so annoyed I can't remember if this is in the newsletters (canon!) or imagined by a FOCS contributor or a drabble somewhere or just the insane ramblings of my own tiny brain.

Author:  Carys [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

I think it's in a drabble Mia, as I remember something similar...

Author:  Mia [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Maynard family; Bob and Lydia

Hurrah, thanks Carys. I found it in the archives. It's not canon but exactly as I imagine it happening (and a really excellent drabble too).

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