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Adult matters: Stephen Venables
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Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Stephen Venables, wife to Margot and father to Daisy and Primula, is only shown through the speech of other characters and never appears in the series directly. However, in his story the reader learns of alcoholism and immense loss. Do you feel that EBD intended to villanise Stephen Venables or is the reader meant to sympathise with him? Do you think that he ever abused his family, and if so in what way? Was it a happy marriage? Is this a suitable topic for a book aimed at children?

Idea by AlisonH :)

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

In the early Tyrol days, EBD introduces the occasional adult theme and Stephen Venables life of apparent disrepute is one of the prime examples. She gives just sufficient information to make it suitable for a young readership. I'd say Margot had a dreadful life with Stephen after the first rapture. She seems to have endured a great deal of hardship and heartache.

Author:  Nightwing [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

To my mind Stephen's worst crime is that he is simply not fit to have a family - and he does. He is incapable of supporting his family financially, and it does seem like Margot has to bear the brunt of their children's deaths by herself, so he can't have been very emotionally supportive either.

Margot is shown to be quite a strong woman when she becomes a matron at the school; yet when she first arrives in the Tirol she's almost a completely different person. Presumably when she started life with Stephen she was a strong, passionate woman - she must have been, to be able to defy her family! I don't think Stephen would have abused her, but I do think it's likely that as a person he didn't have a lot of substance, so that Margot may have still loved him but was very disillusioned by him. He couldn't support her, emotionally or financially; in turn, he couldn't support their children.

On a tangent, now, but I've never thought before about the fact that Joey named her first son Stephen. It's kind of odd, that having named her daughter Margot for Daisy's sake, she gives her son the same name as Daisy's rather disreputable father...

Author:  Alison H [ Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

IIRC we're told that Stephen always had big plans, and did a lot of talking but never actually achieved anything and had a lot of debts when he died, and that he'd become a heavy drinker.

It's not an unusual story, unfortunately, but it's unusual in a GO book - and would have been something not really spoken about much in real life at the time - and it's the only time in the series that we're told explicitly that a marriage was unhappy and that someone is/was a bad husband. Even the background story about Margot eloping with a man of whom her parents disapproved is an unusual sort of storyline by CS standards.

It's never really clear whether or not he was violent, but there are a lot of references to "all that she went through in Australia" and we're also told that Margot found it difficult to tell Jem everything about her life there. Maybe EBD intended us to take that to mean poor Margot losing her three sons and then her husband, but sadly it wasn't uncommon then for children to die young, and other characters are widowed young and their suffering's never described in that way.

I wonder if she made it unclear deliberately, given that it was a book aimed at children.

A bit OT, but I think it's a great shame that Margot just "faded out of life" or whatever the expression used is. I'd like to've seen her and Ted Humphries (another character bumped off so that the MBR clan could be surrogate parents to his child) get together :D . IIRC we were only told that he'd died early on in New House, the same book in which Margot arrived, so EBD could have kept him alive instead and got him and Margot together!

Author:  JB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 8:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Alison H wrote:

Quote:
IIRC we were only told that he'd died early on in New House, the same book in which Margot arrived, so EBD could have kept him alive instead and got him and Margot together!


Ted dies in the term between Jo Returns and New (not New House), so he and Margot would have known each other. What a lovely idea to pair the two of them up.

Author:  Liz K [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

JB wrote:
Alison H wrote:

Quote:
IIRC we were only told that he'd died early on in New House, the same book in which Margot arrived, so EBD could have kept him alive instead and got him and Margot together!


Ted dies in the term between Jo Returns and New (not New House), so he and Margot would have known each other. What a lovely idea to pair the two of them up.



There's a drabble waiting to be written by some clever person on this forum.

Author:  Lottie [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Liz K wrote:
JB wrote:
Ted dies in the term between Jo Returns and New (not New House), so he and Margot would have known each other. What a lovely idea to pair the two of them up.

There's a drabble waiting to be written by some clever person on this forum.

That might explain Margot's frailness and death in Exile, if she'd just lost someone else she'd grown to love. It could also explain why both Robin and Daisy lived with Jo - they would have been (or almost) another pair of sisters-by-marriage.

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

What a lovely idea! But could Ted really have ever got over the death of his beautiful wife, and would Margot trust men again after everything that she'd been through?

I always feel quite sorry for Stephen - there must have been something nice about him for Margot to run away with him, but it seems to be more just bad luck and an inclination in him to let that stop him that is his main downfall. Perhaps if he'd had the support of Jem's parents, and the encouragement that they could have given him, as well as not then having to move to Australia, his children would have survived and he might have been more successful.

I also can't always help wondering how Jem would have reacted if Stephen was still alive and Margot had just run away. Would he have been angry at his brother-in-law, or would he have told Margot it was her own fault?

Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

It never occurred to me that 'Stephen' wasn't just another name, but it does seem pointed, given the Maynard/Bettany/Russell clans' mania for naming children after family members or godparents. Or was it also the name of one of the dead boys, and so intended as a tribute to Margot's son, rather than her husband?

It's hard to know from the little we're specifically told whether Stephen is a violent monster, or primarily an 'all mouth and no trousers' weak drunk, unable to support a family, whose worst crime is to force Margot to be a single mother in awful circumstances even while he's still alive - not that I'n belittling that for a minute. In either case, he is one who doesn't 'get', as EBD's 'good' male characters do, the colonial code that One Does Not Take (Women and) Children to Bad Climates. She's definitely euphemising for a children's book, fair enough, or it's simply that Margot isn't able to bear recounting the whole story. (I always figure Stephen actually died from drink, or possibly suicide, in reality...)

I always read the whole episode as a parable (rather like various accidents or even deaths which are seen as punishments for, or the result of, disobedience - like Rolf Maynard's death, say) about how women should not marry against their family's wishes, because look what happens when you do... There's a slight undercurrent of 'women coming to grief' by not being sufficiently wary of strange men - eg. Madge with Captain Carrick, when Dick's instincts are clearly seen to be correct, leading to him digging up the dirt, unfortunately just too late to stop Juliet being abandoned.

Author:  JB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Chubby Monkey wrote:

Quote:
I also can't always help wondering how Jem would have reacted if Stephen was still alive and Margot had just run away. Would he have been angry at his brother-in-law, or would he have told Margot it was her own fault?


I'd never thought of that but it's a really interesting point. Would his affection for his sister have won over his sense of duty and what was respectable? How would he have felt at the possibility of Stephen coming to find his wife? There's another drabble idea ....

I'm not sure what I think about Margot's family and cutting her out of the family once she decides to marry Stephen. I'm too old to find the idea of her running away with an attractive rotter romantic but an ultimatum is never a good idea.

Author:  JayB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I'd never thought about Ted and Margot as a couple, but I agree they'd be well suited.

Quote:
It never occurred to me that 'Stephen' wasn't just another name, but it does seem pointed, given the Maynard/Bettany/Russell clans' mania for naming children after family members or godparents. Or was it also the name of one of the dead boys, and so intended as a tribute to Margot's son, rather than her husband?


I think I've seen it suggested that Stephen was old Mr Maynard's name, but I don't know if this is something EBD said, or if fans have extrapolated from the fact that Jo and Jack gave the name to their eldest son.

I imagine Jack would have a greater say in the naming of his sons, and especially in the naming of his eldest son, and would be more likely to pick a name that had some meaning for him. (Now wondering why none of the Maynard boys was called Robert. Wasn't Charles born the year after Bob Maynard died? Is he Charles Robert?)

Author:  Lottie [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I've just looked up the Maynard family tree in the NCC's A-Z of CS Characters.

Stephen is Mollie and Jack's father. Their brothers are Charlie, Steve and Bob, they also have a sister called Dorothy. Mollie calls her eldest son Bob, so perhaps Jack and Joey didn't want to give one of their boys the same name as his cousin.

Does anybody know what happened to Charlie, Steve and Dorothy? I don't remember them being mentioned in connection with Bob dying, and Jack inheriting Pretty Maids.

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Someone wrote a drabble once in which Stephen's behaviour was the result of being traumatised by his experiences during the First World War, which seemed very plausible to me.

I suspect that, had Margot run away, she'd've been told to go back to Stephen for appearances' sake. Not sure about Australia, but certainly here the laws about "restitution of conjugal rights" still applied then, so he might even have tried to force her to go back.

Having said which, Jem is lovely in New House: the scene in which he's so keen to see Margot that he almost runs through the streets of Innsbruck and Joey can't keep up is one of his best scenes IMHO. Maybe he'd have been sympathetic, even if other people weren't.

Author:  JayB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I doubt if Jem would have insisted on Margot going back to Queensland, when the climate was so clearly bad for her and her children. His duty as a doctor would have taken precedence over concern for Stephen's marital rights.

Even if he encouraged Margot to go back (and I don't think he would), I think he'd have insisted on keeping Daisy and Primula at the Sonnalpe - look how he persuaded Dick and Mollie to leave Jackie behind, when they'd intended to take him back to India for a few more years.

He might perhaps have set Stephen up in a job that he could cope with, in a place where Margot and the girls could live with him, and kept a close eye on them. Buying a country house and some land in England and putting his b-in-l in to manage it would have seemed a natural thing for Jem to do and wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

But I think even if Stephen had lived, by the time Margot arrived in Austria he was probably past the stage where he could usefully do anything to support his family. Possibly the most Jem could have done would be to arrange for him to go to a Sanatorium (not at the Sonnalpe!) where he could be looked after and perhaps recover some of his physical, mental and emotional health to the point where he could live independently.

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

It feels almost wrong to feel sorry for Stephen - after all, he seems to have brought a lot of himself with his rouge ways - but at the same time he lost three sons, was forced to elope to be with the woman he loved and seemed to end up being completely disrespected by everybody. I like to think that Jem would have taken pity on him, I think he deserved for someone to try and help him.

Of course, the people to feel most sorry for have to be Daisy and Primula. Margot did rather 'make her own bed' in the sense that she wasn't forced to run off with him, and he did seem to bring most of his problems on himself, but they were completely innocent in this. I would have liked to have seen EBD deal more with the consequences of their early life; I could picture Daisy maybe being a difficult child, to try and make sure that the adults don't forget her like her father seemed to. I think that the impact probably would have been less on Primula, who would largely remember Madge and Joey bringing her up.

Re the suitability of this, I think that as a child I didn't really read much into it; it seems to be one of those things that it's only as an adult - if I can be classed as such - that you go back and question it.

Author:  Tor [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
after all, he seems to have brought a lot of himself with his rouge ways


This has conjured up quite the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert image!!! :lol: :wink:

Author:  MJKB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

The story of Margot's elopement and subsequent return to the bosom of her family in the form of her brother Jem is very much a parallel to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jem is prepared to forgive and support her when she seeks his help but it is unlikely that he would have defied his parents by initiating the contact with a view to helping her family.
Margot's defiance of her parents is suitably punished by a disastrous marriage and the death of her sons and their father. There's a very strong theme of retribution in the whole sorry story.
Madge comes out of the whole mess very strongly. There aren't many women who would be prepared to take on her husband's troubled nieces and an emotional and physical wreck of a sister-in-law.

Author:  JayB [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I think Stephen's main flaw was that he had ambitions beyond his capabilities. Everything else flowed from that. It's all very well to have aspirations, but one also has to be realistic, especially when responsible for others. Maybe it all came from an 'I'll show them!' determination to convince the Russells that he was good enough for Margot.

He'd probably have been fine if he'd been content with a job as a bank clerk or schoolteacher and a house in the suburbs.

I think I've speculated before that Daisy inherited her looks (attractive without being outstandingly pretty) and fun loving nature from Stephen; perhaps in Daisy we see what Margot saw when she first met him. (Daisy's strength of character, though, presumably comes from the Russell side.)

Author:  Tor [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
Margot's defiance of her parents is suitably punished by a disastrous marriage and the death of her sons and their father. There's a very strong theme of retribution in the whole sorry story


definitely a morality tale stressing the importance of obedience to ones parents.

Quote:
perhaps in Daisy we see what Margot saw when she first met him. (Daisy's strength of character, though, presumably comes from the Russell side.)


Or perhaps from her position in life - part of a well respected family, and recipient of love, support and pretty much all she could need in life to secure a place in the world once she was taken in by the Russel-Maynard-Bettany clan? Strong willed, emotional and ambitious people are often thwarted by the hand life deals them, and there must have been somethign about Stephen's background that made him unsuitable in the eyes of the Russel's... Perhaps it would have all turned out differently, as others had said, if their life hadn't been quite so hard (perhaps been cushioned by a bit of parental finance/influence?).

Not an excuse, but a possible explanation. I find it had to feel really sorry for Stephen, but I can't help it when Jem comes over a bit sneery about unsuitable husbands. I don't get the impression that he had to struggle too much for his achievements (though of course he may have just been all stiff-upper-lippy about it).

Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 6:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Are we told why Stephen was considered unsuitable, or just that he was? There seems to me a bit of a difference between him being considered too poor/not the right social class/lacking in prospects etc for a Russell daughter, therefore her parents opposed the match, or it being obvious to Margot's family that he was a thoroughgoing bastard, but that she was too naive or in love to see it, so they were trying to save her from herself...

Though I suppose if it was the first reason, they would have argued, with some reason, that his financial status contributed hugely to Margot's misery and to the deaths of the boys. Is there a suggestion that Stephen might have wanted to marry Margot for money or social advancement? Obviously, if so, it was a gamble that didn't pay off.

I do think a romance between Margot and Ted Humphries is a nice idea. One occasionally wishes EBD weren't quite so into offing parents to provide more children for Joey and Madge's nurseries.

Author:  andydaly [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

All we're told is that her family didn't want her to have him, but that they loved each other. I suppose her family may have looked upon him as a weak man with pie in the sky ideas and no substance, but to a romantic girl he may have appeared a sensitive dreamer. We are told that Jem tried to stay in touch with Margot, but his letters were returned unopened, so he is not as harsh as his comment about her having made her own bed might suggest, it seems.

It says that he was "as much a care to her as her children", which suggests to me that he was a messy drunk and needed constant watching, which would wear anybody's nerves out, not to mention living hand to mouth and dodging the bailiffs (Margot mentions that there were debts). However, EBD mentions Margot telling Jem "as much as she could tell anyone" [EBD's italics] about her life in Australia, so that sounds to me as though there were more problems with her husband than the drinking and idleness? Or am I reading too much into that?

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I would agree that the quote would suggest there was more going on behind the scenes that we aren't told about, but at the same time you could just read it as Margot being too ill to want to re-live all of her emotions at that time.

If there was more, I think it would have to be pretty shady for EBD to censor it - at least some of her marriages do have an element that, looking back from a modern perspective, seem to be a little bit wrong. I'm thinking mainly of Jack and his drugging here, but I'm sure that there are other examples.

Author:  Mia [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I thought that quote referred to Margot having to watch three of her children die.

Author:  Alison H [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Sunglass wrote:
Are we told why Stephen was considered unsuitable, or just that he was? There seems to me a bit of a difference between him being considered too poor/not the right social class/lacking in prospects etc for a Russell daughter, therefore her parents opposed the match, or it being obvious to Margot's family that he was a thoroughgoing bastard, but that she was too naive or in love to see it, so they were trying to save her from herself...


My pb just says:
Quote:
But you must have heard that when I married Stephen I quarrelled with my people. They didn't want me to have him. But we loved each other, and I ran away with him.


Then (Jem speaking)
Quote:
Margot ... made her own bed when she ran away with Venables.


BTW, much as I like Jem in New House, I do find it slightly weird when he starts talking about how the woman Joey's met might be an "impostor", as if she were claiming to be the long-lost heir to a throne or something rather than just Jem Russell's sister :roll: :lol: .

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I can kind of understand that - it must have been a shock that the sister he thought was dead had supposedly turned up, and after all he would have been quite rich and influential by this point. She'd also tempted Joey and Frieda away with her (obviously he'd heard of it at this point, so they were in no imminent danger, but all the same they seem to think something could have happened to them).

Author:  Nightwing [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 8:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

andydaly wrote:
However, EBD mentions Margot telling Jem "as much as she could tell anyone" [EBD's italics] about her life in Australia, so that sounds to me as though there were more problems with her husband than the drinking and idleness? Or am I reading too much into that?


That's the 64 million dollar question, isn't it? I think it's possible to read it either way; personally, I hate to think of Margot's life being more miserable than it already was, but I can see how other people can read more into it than I do.

I wonder what attracted Margot to Stephen in the first place? I've always assumed that he was a real charmer who Margot fell for hard, but who later turned out to not be able to live up to his promises. But thinking about it, perhaps him being a 'weak' kind of character was part of the original attraction. Given that Margot clearly had forceful parents - and Jem, too, definitely likes things to go his way - perhaps she liked being with someone who was a wishy-washy kind of person with whom she could sometimes get her own way. Which would be all very well during good times, but not during the bad times...

Author:  Tor [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
here seems to me a bit of a difference between him being considered too poor/not the right social class/lacking in prospects etc for a Russell daughter, therefore her parents opposed the match, or it being obvious to Margot's family that he was a thoroughgoing bastard, but that she was too naive or in love to see it, so they were trying to save her from herself...


Yes, I tend to yo-yo between both these extremes (though I think if you are worried about the happiness of you daughter, cutting her off is not the best route to take....). As Nightwing says, it is the 64 million dollar question.

Quote:
I wonder what attracted Margot to Stephen in the first place? I've always assumed that he was a real charmer who Margot fell for hard, but who later turned out to not be able to live up to his promises.


I often find myself thinking of The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing when I think of of Margot and Stephen, but with Margot a very different kettle of fish to the main character in that (which is why she managed her sort-of happy ending).

Author:  JB [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Alison H wrote:

Quote:
BTW, much as I like Jem in New House, I do find it slightly weird when he starts talking about how the woman Joey's met might be an "impostor", as if she were claiming to be the long-lost heir to a throne or something rather than just Jem Russell's sister.


I also find this strange. Why would anyone want to impersonate Margot? I do forgive him for this as he's so lovely once he does meet her. I like Joey in this too - she's very capable (engaging a sitting room and looking after the children so that Jem can talk to Margot) and puts Jem in his place nicely when makes the imposter remark.

I could understand him being annoyed at the breach of trust when the Joey and Frieda didn't go straight to the Mariahilfe as I don't imagine Frieda was allowed to wander around Innsbruck unchaperoned.

I'd definitely seen the Rusell's dislike of Stephen as due to his character rather than background. I'm reading Middlemarch in daily instalments via Dailylit.com and I can't help seeing parallels between Fred Vincy and Stephen Venables. Fred is currently lying sick with typhoid and his inability to pay a debt has meant that a family friend has to stump up for it. Fred doesn't see he's done anything wrong - he feels he's been unlucky (rather than living beyond his means and feeling entitled to that lifestyle).

Author:  JayB [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
I could understand him being annoyed at the breach of trust when the Joey and Frieda didn't go straight to the Mariahilfe as I don't imagine Frieda was allowed to wander around Innsbruck unchaperoned.


Plus concern about Jo and Frieda going off with a complete stranger, especially to a private room at the hotel. I imagine that's something that two seventeen year old girls wouldn't be recommended to do today, so I don't think it's just Jem being dictatorial.

I think this is one of those situations where technically Jo was in the wrong, but it's not easy to say what she should have done instead. Hailed a taxi and taken everyone to the Mariahilfe, perhaps?

Author:  andydaly [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Mia wrote:
I thought that quote referred to Margot having to watch three of her children die.


But the quote suggests that she was hiding something from Jem, or trying to make things sound better than they were. I would've thought that the deaths of her three children was so terrible a tragedy that even in the days when women were encouraged to keep stiff upper lip, not make a fuss and get on with it, surely Margot would be able to talk freely to her brother, to whom she was very close, about his nephews and their illnesses and deaths and that he would have wanted to hear about them. I suppose I can't imagine what she would have wanted to keep hidden from him about that.

Author:  MJKB [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 4:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

andydaly wrote:
Mia wrote:
I thought that quote referred to Margot having to watch three of her children die.


But the quote suggests that she was hiding something from Jem, or trying to make things sound better than they were. I


I agree. I think it's a case of what is not being said and I believe Margot may have suffered both emotional and physical abuse.

Author:  JayB [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 6:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
surely Margot would be able to talk freely to her brother, to whom she was very close, about his nephews and their illnesses and deaths and that he would have wanted to hear about them. I suppose I can't imagine what she would have wanted to keep hidden from him about that.


It might be just that she found it too painful to talk about, rather than that there was anything she wanted to hide.

Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 8:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

JayB wrote:
I think this is one of those situations where technically Jo was in the wrong, but it's not easy to say what she should have done instead. Hailed a taxi and taken everyone to the Mariahilfe, perhaps?


Yes, I'd have liked to hear Joey actually asking Jem what on earth she was supposed to have done with two small children (one of whom is the image of Jem) and a putative family member on the verge of collapse, all suddenly encountered on the street and appealing for help! Given his response to Margot's reappearance, I can't imagine him being happy if Joey had washed his family's dirty linen (which is how he'd have seen it, I bet) in public, even to the extent of taking Margot and the girls to the Mariahilfe.

I appreciate the stranger danger issue (or wooing young women in the white slave trade, or whatever was the specific bogeyman of the day), but one feels compelled to point out that even CS adults don't seem to check ID much. A strange man intervening in a situation has only to say 'Trust me, I'm a doctor' or 'the King of Belsornia sent me' and whoever's in charge is happy with that.

I quite like the ambiguity of Margot not telling Jem everything - my own feeling is that, leaving aside the pain of recalling your children's deaths etc, the last person you'd want to tell exactly how much you'd suffered in a marriage opposed by your family is a somewhat self-righteous brother who never seems to have put a foot wrong in his life.

Author:  Mia [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

MJKB wrote:
andydaly wrote:
Mia wrote:
I thought that quote referred to Margot having to watch three of her children die.


But the quote suggests that she was hiding something from Jem, or trying to make things sound better than they were. I


I agree. I think it's a case of what is not being said and I believe Margot may have suffered both emotional and physical abuse.


Quote:
Jo attended to the wants of the children, to leave their mother free, and when they had finished she bore them off to the bedroom to play, while Mrs Venables told her brother as much as she could tell anyone about her life in Australia. It was little more than she had told the two girls. Loyalty to her dead husband kept her as silent as possible about the life she had led with him. But the doctor was skilled to read between the lines, and he soon knew that Margot had bitterly repented her own wilfulness.
‘I had the children,’ she ended, ‘or I could never have lived through it. And Stephen didn’t mean to be bad, Jem; only he was so weak, and he could never say “no” if it was easier to say “yes.”’
‘And that is a bad thing for a man, especially when he has a wife and children depending on him,’ said the doctor sternly. ‘Well, Margot, it seems to me that there is only one thing to do. You must all come back with us to-morrow.


Quote:
Mrs Venables was very loyal to her dead husband; but it was pitifully obvious, even to the inexperienced girls, that he had killed her love for him years before. He had been a weak man, one of those wasters who can be the delight of company but are tyrants at home. He had never accomplished anything, though he was always going to do wonders. His poor little wife had had to bear the brunt of all the financial worries, for he seemed to have no idea of the value of money, and would order largely without considering how he was going to pay. Later, he had taken to drinking, though she only spoke of it vaguely, and he had been as great a care to her as her children. There had been three little boys, as well as Daisy and Primula Mary; but they had all pined and died in the cruel climate of North Queensland. Margot Venables said very little about them. At the time, Primula Mary had been a fragile baby of six weeks old, and the necessity for continual care of her had deadened the first pangs of loss to the poor little mother.


I'm not entirely convinced by the physically abusive theory. I don't see "being weak" and "never say[ing] no if it was easier to say yes" as fitting with that very well, although the "tyrant at home" part could I suppose. Margot says he didn't mean to be bad even when she has nothing to lose by telling otherwise. I do think it's deliberately vague though so one could read whatever one wanted into the text. I just personally think losing three children and living in constant anxiety over two more would be worse than most things and not really something one could explain easily to another person who had healthy children. I think Margot probably found it too hard to talk about.

Author:  Mel [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I don't particularly like the line " Margot bitterly regretted her own wilfulness." Because she repents she is taken back into the fold? She decided to marry someone without her parents and her brothers (?) consent and look what happened to her. Is that the message that readers are supposed to read?

Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Mel wrote:
I don't particularly like the line " Margot bitterly regretted her own wilfulness." Because she repents she is taken back into the fold? She decided to marry someone without her parents and her brothers (?) consent and look what happened to her. Is that the message that readers are supposed to read?


I think it is - as others have said, it's very much a morality tale about what happens when you marry against your family's wishes, rather as Eustacia's spending months on her back is the payoff of a parable about intellectual superiority and disobedience. I find myself wondering if Margot didn't obviously 'bitterly regret her own wilfulness', whether she would be portrayed as embraced by her family? If she was defiant and said to Jem 'He was weak and unlucky, and our life was difficult, but I still love him and don't regret marrying him, and I still resent our parents' forbidding the match'...? Not that I can imagine EBD having a 'good' character abandon his sister in need, but I also imagine she wouldn't want to not underline the moral of having to repent before you're forgiven, or to show that Margot didn't think of herself as having essentially brought on her own unhappiness in her wilful marriage?

I hadn't noticed before that the three boys all seem to have died at the same time, if 'the loss' - in the singular - is deadened by Primula being a needy new baby. Which for me sits a bit oddly with the fact they're said to ahve 'pined and died' in a 'cruel climate' - wouldn't three children have been unlikely to die so close together unless they all had a serious infectious illness?

Author:  Nightwing [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Sunglass wrote:
I hadn't noticed before that the three boys all seem to have died at the same time, if 'the loss' - in the singular - is deadened by Primula being a needy new baby. Which for me sits a bit oddly with the fact they're said to ahve 'pined and died' in a 'cruel climate' - wouldn't three children have been unlikely to die so close together unless they all had a serious infectious illness?


It's a bit ambiguous, isn't it? It could be that they all had an illness which may not have been fatal if they'd been in the right climate etc.

I also just noticed that it's the boys that died while the girls survived. Perhaps EBD felt that boys needed a strong father whereas girls could survive with their mother alone...

Author:  Mia [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Nightwing wrote:
I also just noticed that it's the boys that died while the girls survived. Perhaps EBD felt that boys needed a strong father whereas girls could survive with their mother alone...


I was cynically thinking that girls could go to the CS! Jolly convenient. :wink:

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 8:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

From a practical sense, I can see a way for the girls to survive; assuming that it was an illness, which seems to be the most reasonable explanation, Margot would have attended to them, but I doubt that she would want her newborn baby in that, and Daisy would have been the logical choice to look after Primula, so she would have been kept firmly away too.

This story reminds me a lot of 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'. I'm going to put spoilers here, just in case;a man who is too weak to say 'no' to anything, particularly when his friends suggest it, and his wife always trying to make him stop. Although he isn't exactly abusive, he isn't pleasant, and while I can't see Stephen having an affair, I can imagine him stopping Margot getting to whatever money they had. I think it would be very easy when you were drunk and had lost control of yourself to lash out at someone nagging you about money; and even if he wasn't physically abusive I think the fact that Margot remains loyal to him and won't tell his secrets, even to her brother, is a sign, at least, that he was, somehow, abusive to her.

Author:  andydaly [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I hadn't thought of that - that she just found it all too upsetting to talk about - I just took from that line that there were things that happened between her and Stephen that were too private to discuss. The line does seem to have been left deliberately vague - you could take anything out of that really!

Funny how much things change. If I were to take any moral out of that story, it's that if you cut your daughter off purely because you disapprove of her husband, look what happens! I'd find it very difficult to forgive the Russells if I were Margot.

I wonder if the children died of cholera? As a tiny baby, I assume that Primula is being breastfed, so not as much at risk of infection, and Daisy may just have been lucky?

Author:  Lottie [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Somebody with medical knowledge will probably come along and correct me, but I thought girls were natuarally stronger than boys, which is why the birthrate for boys is naturally higher, to give an even chance of survival.

Author:  Nightwing [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

ChubbyMonkey wrote:
I think the fact that Margot remains loyal to him and won't tell his secrets, even to her brother, is a sign, at least, that he was, somehow, abusive to her.


I don't know - um, without making this too personal I've never liked to hear my friends say bad things about my ex's, not because I'm still in love with them but because they were people with whom I was once very close to, and that feeling of loyalty just remains; if someone criticises them its like they're criticising me for having had a relationship with them. Margot probably feels defensive, knowing that she made a bad choice and that her family warned her against it.

Author:  Sunglass [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

But Primula, we're told, is a fragile newborn when her elder brothers die...?

Though I don't have a problem with the three boys dying and Daisy and Primula surviving as such - as someone said, Daisy may just have been lucky or robust, and Primula presumably would have been kept apart as a tiny baby - it's just that we're specifically told the boys 'pined and died' because of the bad climate, which makes it seem odd that they clearly died more or less together - when cholera or something does seem more likely as an explanation for three deaths?

Not that 'pining' to death because of a bad climate is any kind of obvious recipe I can see, though - it's very much that colonial idea of some climates being bad for European children, which EBD takes for granted. When you come down to how precisely a particular climate might actually result in the more or less simultaneous deaths of three children without there being some actual disease or accident, then I really haven't much sense of what EBD clearly means us to understand... ?

Come to think of it, what is the climate of north Queensland like, anyway?

ETA: have just looked this up, and the North Queensland tourist site describes it as having two seasons, the green and the dry, with monsoon-type rains in Jan and Feb, an average annual temperature between 24 and 33 in the green (wet) season, and 14-26 degrees in the dry, and humidity between the mid 60s and the high 70s. The highlands are a lot cooler. Now this wouldn't be my idea of a fun climate, particularly, as I like cool, damp weather, but it doesn't seem particularly pernicious compared to bits of India or the Gulf (where it's currently 47 degrees or so). The climate of both seasons is being marketed as one of the area's biggest appeals to tourists now - would this have baffled EBD?

Author:  JB [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Sunglass wrote:

Quote:
Come to think of it, what is the climate of north Queensland like, anyway?


Perhaps we should all refer to EBD's "A Quintette in Queensland" .... :lol:

Author:  Mel [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Re climate. Isn't EBD always terrified of weather/climate unless of an Alpine nature? Even in Tyrol, the delicate children are pushed higher and higher up the mountain. Howells is OK because it is 'breezy', The New Forest is too 'relaxing', Melanie Lucas has to be removed from a Swiss Lake to an Austrian one and the girls generally are told to distrust, sun, wet, fog et al.

Author:  Emma A [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Might it have been the humidity rather than the heat, and possibly the very primitive conditions existing there even in the early 20th century? Nevil Shute's In The Wet is partly set in this area, and his descriptions of the conditions there are such that, if the children took ill during the heavy rains, it might have been days before a doctor could reach them, even if there was one nearby.

I see Stephen as a weak man, the kind who rather expects good things to happen, who counts more on luck than planning, and who sulks if things don't go right for him. I can imagine that being very wearing to deal with: in effect, Margot was having to act as mother to her children and head of the household - rather an unfair division of labour. I never got the impression that he would have been physically abusive, but there might have been some unpleasant whining comments from Stephen to Margot, and bitter arguments.

Author:  Tor [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Perhaps Stephen thought he was heading out for The Best Job in the World (actually, I can just see a CS girl applying for that job!).

His character is interesting, despite being mentioned so briefly, in that he does seem to embody the other CS male-archetype, the male spineless jellyfish, if you like, who is always a failure and usually portrayed as just as bad as 'real' villains. His weakness, rather than his badness, is definitely stressed.

Perhaps it's a double morality tale: disobedience to ones family only ends in tears, and only fall for a 'strong' man. (But, as said above by someone, I also think it takes on added level in the modern world, in that when I read it, I certainly frowned upon the Russel family behaviour, and this might have the first book where I started to dislike Jem, for all his caring behaviour after the first reaction).

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Sunglass wrote:
Mel wrote:
I don't particularly like the line " Margot bitterly regretted her own wilfulness." Because she repents she is taken back into the fold? She decided to marry someone without her parents and her brothers (?) consent and look what happened to her. Is that the message that readers are supposed to read?


I think it is - as others have said, it's very much a morality tale about what happens when you marry against your family's wishes, rather as Eustacia's spending months on her back is the payoff of a parable about intellectual superiority and disobedience. I find myself wondering if Margot didn't obviously 'bitterly regret her own wilfulness', whether she would be portrayed as embraced by her family? If she was defiant and said to Jem 'He was weak and unlucky, and our life was difficult, but I still love him and don't regret marrying him, and I still resent our parents' forbidding the match'...? Not that I can imagine EBD having a 'good' character abandon his sister in need, but I also imagine she wouldn't want to not underline the moral of having to repent before you're forgiven, or to show that Margot didn't think of herself as having essentially brought on her own unhappiness in her wilful marriage?


In the GGBP edition it does say something about Jem and Margot's mother regretting cutting Margot off.

Quote:
"Father was killed in a motoring accident seven years ago," he said reluctantly. "Mother only survived him three months. She spoke of you towards the end," he added. "You were a great deal on her mind, I fancy, and she often wished she could hear from you.".....[Margot saysd] "But I am glad Mother forgave me before she died. I-I would have liked to see them again." "They would have liked to see you, once the first bitterness was over," he said getting up.


Margot also says Stephen was jealous of Margot having a relationship with her family and didn't like her to write or have anyone else but him. Margot must have been so lonely. I could imagine it would be so exhausting as Stephen doesn't sound emotionally strong and fell in a heap when the boys died, Primula was born and Daisy looked like she was going to fail to. It would mean everything falls on her and it's a lot for her to cope with on her own with financial worries on top to cope with. Stephen started drinking then because that was Margot first thought when she was told there was something wrong with Stephen.

Quote:
"Jimmy went first," she said telling her story. "Then Frankie and Steve followed him. I-I didn't seem to feel it at the time. I was numb, I think. And then Baby needed all my time and care. And Daisy was beginning to fail. I began to think they would follow the boys. And then one day, Ah Sing, our house-boy, came to tell me that the master was sick.
"I thought at first that he meant-meant- well, Stephen didn't often take too much. I think he tried to forget about the boys-he was so proud of them; and Jimmy and Frankie used to follow him about so."


In regards to Nth Queensland heat, depending on how far north would depend on how bad the weather was. It does have the wet and dry weather and is very hot and humid. The further north you are means the more it remains hot but is either dry or wet. I could see the boys with diarrhoea or vomiting and then becoming dehydrated and dying from that and Primula being kept away from the boys and Daisy sleeping in a different room from the boys could be why she didn't catch whatever they had until after they had died from it or just before they died from it.

Author:  AngelaG [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I always saw Stephen Venables as a stock charmer, a bit along the lines of Wickham or Willoughby. Fun to be with but weak and always looking for an easy life on not quite enough money.

The tragic deaths of the little boys I put down to EDB using that handy plot standby that Europeans wilt outside their own climate and can't thrive in India/Australia/Africa. As she hadn't visited North Queensland, could she have read something about the unhealthiness of the climate, or was it something generally accepted, like sending children home from India?

Author:  Alison H [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 4:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I'm afraid that my idea of the Queensland climate is based on The Thorn Birds, but even had that been written when EBD was alive I don't suppose she'd have read it!

I've always wondered what happened to Jem's parents, and there it was in New House, all along, and I've had to wonder all these years because of Armada and their stupid cuts!! Thank you so much for posting that, Fiona!

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Jul 04, 2009 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

There is also an article about the Queensland climate in the GGBP version which, IIRC, pretty strongly disagrees with EBD's 'unhealthy climate' idea.

I think that it was nice of EBD to give Jem some backstory, and a family, but what a sad story! Whatever Stephen was like he seems to have crushed Margot completely, and as a morality tale it seems quite harsh!

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I actually wonder if all Jem's worries about Margot being an imposter was perhaps due to Jem searching for Margot after his parents died and ending up in Sth Africa due to an imposter (I'm assuming he offered a reward) and that's why he learnt Africans (Have I spelt that right). He could explain why he was so annoyed and also almost not daring to believe his dearest wish was about to come true, can make people sound annoyed to cover their emotions.

Quote:
There is also an article about the Queensland climate in the GGBP version which, IIRC, pretty strongly disagrees with EBD's 'unhealthy climate' idea.


That's why I'm thinking diarrhoea leading to dehydration as they would become more and more lethargic and appear to pine and die.

Another thing from the GGBP version of New House that I found interesting is Jimmy was 12 when he died. I had always thought Daisy was the eldest but it sound like Jimmy and Frankie were older, as Daisy would have been 8 when Jimmy died

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Fiona Mc wrote:
I actually wonder if all Jem's worries about Margot being an imposter was perhaps due to Jem searching for Margot after his parents died and ending up in Sth Africa due to an imposter (I'm assuming he offered a reward) and that's why he learnt Africans (Have I spelt that right).


I love the idea of an Afrikaans-speaking Margot impostor! Someone should write a Bad Soap Opera-style drabble where she convinces Jem - or half-convinces him anyway - that her changed appearance is down to suffering, but for some niggling reason, he holds off on restoring her inheritance to her, and so Impostor Margot has to go along with the suggestion that she take the CS matron job, so she looks all repentant and sisterly. But by this point Joey is starting to get suspicious... Why does 'Margot', supposedly alone in the world, get letters in Akrifaans that she hides? Why does she never want to talk about her and Jem's childhood? Why doesn't she speak the 'pretty French' Jem's sister learned from her governess???

It would be called An Impostor at the CS.

Author:  andydaly [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Oh, please someone write that! :D

I was in Northern Australia for a few weeks, and I found the climate in Northern Queensland really pleasant, but I was staying on the coast (Cairns, Airlie Beach), where I think you get less humidity.

I stayed in Darwin in Northern Territory as well, I found the climate there very hard to take, very sticky and hot - the humidity made it hard to sleep and and my friend and I both had really odd nightmares and were very snappy and uncomfortable and lethargic during the day - we really did wilt! I just put that down to not having stayed long enough to adjust to the climate, we were only there for two or three days, right in the middle of the wet.

And thanks from me too for posting that Fiona - I've only got the Armada paperback too!

Author:  Tor [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

seconding plea for the Imposter drabble. What a great idea Fiona Mc! It could be a real weepy too, if you set it around the time Jem's mother was dying, and asking for her daughter. Jem's race against time to find Margot.... a mad goose-chase across the Veld.

And of course it would be here that he meets Mr Flower, his Afrikaans speaking chum. It might even be the start of the idea to set up the San. I was always sure that Mr Flower must have been a financial partner in that.

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I think Sunglass should, as she developed the idea far more than I did and I would only be able to write it from a semi serious point of view. Leaves out lots of plot bunny treats for someone else to write it soap opera style :lol: :P

Author:  JB [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

I'm seeing the imposter Margot sweeping into the room wearing huge shoulder pads a la Joan Collins in Dynasty.

Author:  Tor [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

and of course she'd be the evil-twin of Margot, stolen at birth by a maid who didn't worship at the feet of Mrs Russel senior, refused to copy her mistress' pretty manners, and thus was about to be given the sack.

Evil Margot got to Steven and tricked him into being hypnotized, thus changing him from the man Margot fell in love with to the weak-minded drunk he became, trapping real-Margot into a life of drudgery in Queensland whilst evil-Margot executed the plan she had been borught up for by her adopted mother - ruin the Russels for ever (Mwa ha ha haaaaahh!)

(Fiona Mc I think it would work well as serious drabble too! Go on.... I think I remember Sunglass saying somewhere that she was more of a discussions rather than drabbling type of CBB-er. Though there is always a first time...!)

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

You lot are evil! Trying to finish a book here, which is why I'm sitting at my desk staring at my footnotes and distracting myself with Impostor Margot, rather than skipping about London on a sunny Sunday.
I am definitely never writing a drabble, or my editor will show up at the door with a hammer. :hammer:

But I think Impostor Margot should definitely have Jackie Collins shoulder pads and be the real Margot's Evil Twin, stolen by a dastardly maid. And when she's being a CS matron, you could have the SSM be revived by some Middles who discover her doing something suspicious. And maybe after someone rumbles her she could hold Joey hostage in the salt mines or something, to try to force Jem into parting with some money..? :shock:

Now imagining her played by Charlize Theron, who's played a few crazies and is a native Afrikaans speaker, I think...?

Author:  Tor [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 2:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
which is why I'm sitting at my desk staring at my footnotes and distracting myself with Impostor Margot, rather than skipping about London on a sunny Sunday


:lol: :lol: I am sitting at my desk trying to write a chapter about the relationship between leg shape and body size. Lots of maths (which I don't like), so I'm joining you in procrastination Sunglass! I have little drabble waiting forlornly in the archives that I have forbidden myself from returning to until I'm done with the thesis...

Charlize Theron would be ideal. My image of Jem always rather looked a bit like a male version of her (if that makes sense!)

Author:  Lesley [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 3:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

People - we're doing it - we're converting another one!
:devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil:

(Go one Sunglass - you know you want to! :wink: )

Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

You know, in the Sweet Valley High Series there was an evil character named Margot, who looked exactly like twins Jessica and Elizabeth (although not related) who tried to kill Elizabeth in order to steal her life. (Not for money or anything. She just wanted to be Elizabeth). I think Margot died at the end of it, but then it turned out that she had her own twin sister who decided to have revenge... Crossover, anyone?

[/wild tangent]

Author:  Tor [ Mon Jul 06, 2009 5:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
You know, in the Sweet Valley High Series there was an evil character named Margot, who looked exactly like twins Jessica and Elizabeth


:lol: blast from the past there! Those Sweet Valley specials were the last of the series that I read. I can remember waiting for the next one to be published, and even had my dad bring me some back went he wet to the US on business. I'd forgotten all about them - but I must have been channeling SVH when making the evil twin suggestion above

Author:  flovie [ Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Fiona Mc wrote:
Another thing from the GGBP version of New House that I found interesting is Jimmy was 12 when he died. I had always thought Daisy was the eldest but it sound like Jimmy and Frankie were older, as Daisy would have been 8 when Jimmy died


Really? Wow. Do you have a quote for that? Like you, I'd always assumed the boys came between Daisy and Primula. It would make much more sense, really, for them to have been, say, between 2 and 6 - Daisy might have been old enough to resist the disease, and Primula would have been kept away from them, but the boys would have been at an age to easily succumb to whatever was going around. If they were older, it does seem strange that Daisy managed to escape.

*Suspects they in fact suffered from EBD-itis, a highly deadly disease that strikes all extraneous characters, particularly those with convenient daughters*

Or perhaps - apologies in advance for the terrible pun - Brent-Dyerrhia?... :oops:

Author:  Tor [ Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Quote:
Or perhaps - apologies in advance for the terrible pun - Brent-Dyerrhia?... :oops:


:lol: :lol: :lol: Brilliant!

Author:  Liz K [ Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Tor wrote:
Quote:
Or perhaps - apologies in advance for the terrible pun - Brent-Dyerrhia?... :oops:


:lol: :lol: :lol: Brilliant!


:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

flovie wrote:
Fiona Mc wrote:
Another thing from the GGBP version of New House that I found interesting is Jimmy was 12 when he died. I had always thought Daisy was the eldest but it sound like Jimmy and Frankie were older, as Daisy would have been 8 when Jimmy died


Really? Wow. Do you have a quote for that? Like you, I'd always assumed the boys came between Daisy and Primula. It would make much more sense, really, for them to have been, say, between 2 and 6 - Daisy might have been old enough to resist the disease, and Primula would have been kept away from them, but the boys would have been at an age to easily succumb to whatever was going around. If they were older, it does seem strange that Daisy managed to escape.

*Suspects they in fact suffered from EBD-itis, a highly deadly disease that strikes all extraneous characters, particularly those with convenient daughters*

Or perhaps - apologies in advance for the terrible pun - Brent-Dyerrhia?... :oops:


Here's the quote regarding Jimmy's age.
Quote:
"When will she [Daisy] be ten?" he asked.
"Not till next March. She is just nine now. Jimmy was the eldest. He would have been nearly twelve. But the climate was too much for the boys. They just faded away in that awful heat."


I misread that myself and thought he died at nearly 12 and so Daisy would have been 8 and I assumed Frankie would have been in between Jimmy and Frankie but it sounds like there were 2 years between Daisy and Jimmy and so Frankie would have likely to be younger than Daisy. I'm guessing if they were all alive the ages would have been Jimmy 11, Daisy 9, Frankie 7, Stevie 4-5 and Primula 2. which to me makes sense, unless Frankie was 10. I know Margot does say Jimmy and Frankie followed there father everywhere, when she's talking about how Stephen reacted to their deaths. I guess to me he can't have been too bad a father at least in some ways or been abusive while the kids were alive or they would have likely to been scared of him instead of trailing around after him like they did. And Margot does say Stephen was very proud of him

Author:  tiffinata [ Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

EBD really had no idea about Australia or it's climate in any part.
I suspect she thought it was a combination of the wild west and deepest darkest Africa!

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Some of EBD's ideas about climate were weird full stop. I love Canada, (and if I ever emigrated it'd be Canada I'd go to,) but I really don't understand why she thought Toronto and Montréal were so much drier than Britain.

Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

Alison H wrote:
Some of EBD's ideas about climate were weird full stop.


I'm pretty sure she'd consider London the way it's been recently in the heat desperately unhealthy, and want to whisk off her Londoner characters to soft or bracing rural Welsh/Swiss air. She doesn't have many London characters I can think of offhand, though..?

And I remain fascinated by what now seem like rather 19thc ideas about places having air that is 'too relaxing' - not that places don't still have reputations for having certain kinds of air, but I doubt many people would now factor it in to whether they chose to live there or not, whereas it is discussed quite seriously several times in various EBD books.

Back OT - slightly - I was looking up an old thread for some reason and came across a wild hypothesis of mine that Stephen Venables had not actually died at all, but was in fact Gaudenz, possibly with memory loss... :shock:

Author:  Katherine [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

The thing about the air I can sort of understand. I grew up in Bristol and it was always rather damp and my mum reckoned it contributed to my endless colds. And my boyfriend found that his asthma was better when he moved from there to London!

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

In parts of Ireland the damp is a contributary cause of arthritis. I spent many holidays in County Cavan and I never remember feeling warm, even in the middle of summer. The damp was absolutely penetrating and I'm convinced that every house there is built on top of a bog. Even with central heating blazing the feet would fall off you with the cold!

Author:  JayB [ Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Adult matters: Stephen Venables

EJO had the same idea about places being too relaxing, didn't she? Wycombe didn't suit Rosamund, that was why she went to live with Joy. And when they were planning to go to the folk dance school in Cheltenham, there was talk of it being relaxing.

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